Communities like Dancing Rabbit value practices, such as Natural Building, that are based largely on minimizing negative ecological impact and using locally available, renewable resources. Cob, a material commonly used for house frames in Natural Building, is a mixture of straw, clay, and sand similar to adobe. Lumps of cob are applied wet to build up a wall, bench, or as thermal mass around stoves. The soil and plants can help a building cool in summer and warm in winter by evapo-transpiration, thermal mass, and insulation. Other resources around the image:EXPLORE: Dancing RabbitLEARN: Building a Hand-Made Cob HouseREAD: Year of MudStep Three: What next?