The UK’s first eco community has been granted permission to start building a mini eco village. The community will consist of nine families who are going to build their houses from straw bale, mud and timber in the Welsh village of Glandwr.

The community is called the Lammas and the members will build four detached dwellings and a row of five attached houses on a plot of 76 acres. They’re going to live off-grid and collect their water from a spring that’s existing on site as well as from rain water captured on the turf-made roofs of their houses.

The Lammas will live a low impact lifestyle and intend to be 75% self sustainable. A major factor in this is their use of renewable energy from a water turbine system. The families are also going to depend on bio gas captured from organic waste and compost toilets and wormeries. Their low-impact life style is furthermore supported by the way they use transport; the Lammas will create fuel from coppiced willow and elephant grass grown in their mini village.

“We plan to be largely self-sufficient, growing most of our food. We will keep cows, geese, chickens, ducks and bees,” the village’s co-founder Paul Wimbush was quoted as saying in a Welsh newspaper. He added that the community members intend to supplement their income by working one day a week. The community’s plans are outlined on their website, ’so that people can see what we are talking about,’ Wimbush told NewBuilder.co.uk.

The community will largely be dependent on income from the production of flax-made linen shawls, the sale of compost worms, fruits and vegetables marketed in the community itself and in local shops.

The Lammas are the first community that has obtained official approval from UK local authorities. So far, only two local authorities have legislation in place that allows for similar projects. The Lammas did not achieve their goal without a struggle because their first plans were rejected due to lack of detail. The local authorities involved were skeptical about some of the building materials the Lammas were planning to use. It took the families five months to draw up the plans that received approval.

The locations of four new “eco-towns” have been announced as part of scaled-down government plans. They are Rackheath, Norfolk; north-west Bicester, Oxfordshire; Whitehill Bordon, East Hants; and the China Clay Community near St Austell, Cornwall. Gordon Brown had announced plans to create hundreds of thousands of homes in 10 “carbon neutral” communities.

Certainly a step in the right direction, again follow the link for the full article, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8152985.stm

When we planted trees (100,000) in Inner Mongolia (China) earlier this with the Japanese organisation, Make The Heaven, we decided to increase everyone’s tree planting activities. So along with Make The Heaven, and the other organisations who participated in Inner Mongolia, we’ve created a new super organisation: The Wonderful World Tree Planting Festival (WWTPF).

for the rest of the article which i encourage you to read follow the link http://network.earthday.net/profiles/blogs/1734264:BlogPost:36473

Poetri

Poetri, Shihan & BlackIce

J.Ivy

Javon Johnston

One of my personal favorites who got me into lam poetry, BIG POPPA E

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Just wanted to highlight the cool washed out look of this photo, ive noticed this quite allot across skate photography and think it looks rather cool. if by any chance you know how to get this effect (my effort although not poor weren’t successful) please drop me a tutorial link or something.

If you want to see how he puts some of his images together follow some of the links bellow. In particular i advise that you watch the breakdown of his coca cola image and the dog digging up the bone. These breakdown video’s although not tutorials are helpful as they show the raw methods and style of putting multiple images together.

Navigation for the site is abit awkward but thats probably down to my idiocy- to get to the broken down images go to the R logo on the left hand side of the screen and click on case studies, then just select and play.

here are also some photshop tennis examples i found on the internet, having tried these myself im loving them, encompassing for people with minimal photoshop ability it provides a fun game you can develope to practice skills.