– I Thessalonians 5:16-18 As we continue to explore Cozahome Road this week, we go further down the road to visit the only official earth ship in Arkansas. I’m not talking about an alien spaceship. It is actually a home built on 80 acres in Marion County (Cozahome Road crosses the county line, so Searcy and Marion Counties work together to maintain roads.) This unique home is found on Schnauzer Lane that turns off Cozahome Road. It is a beautiful drive, but the road is narrow, gravel, and cleverly concealed in the thick trees. An earth ship is defined as a sustainable house made of recycled objects such as tires and colored glass bottles, as well as natural items like clay, rocks, and dirt. Your vision of this home using these construction products probably isn’t beautiful. I assure you that it is a true work of art. Decorated in the southwest style with lots of native Indian input, it is vibrant and very welcoming. Accomplishing this build is not for the faint of heart. It took fourteen years to fully complete their labor of love. One process called ‘pounding’ makes the tires into insulated building blocks when cardboard, clay, rocks, and dirt are hammered tightly into them with hammers. There are thousands of them in this 4,400 square foot home so this job was quite a feat! The walls are three feet thick. There is no air conditioner in the home and no conventional electricity. They use propane generators and solar energy to run fans and lighting. It was amazingly cool with just a small fan. Once the tires are pounded, they are completely encased with a plaster concrete called EAFS (from Germany and is fireproof) so they are totally resistant to fire, bugs, and any rot or decay. In fact, the residents told me that one of their favorite things about their home is that it is impervious to almost anything nature throws at them.
