BOISE, Idaho -- After a year in his straw-bale house on Boise Avenue, Mark Lung says the house has saved him money, conserved resources, provided a comfortable environment through four seasons and convinced its owners, and maybe a few visitors, that straw has life far beyond the fields.
"I can't imagine living in anything else. Straw is amazing," said Lung, a former professor of natural sciences who grew up in Boise.
Built with 240 bales of straw harvested from Meridian, Idaho, fields, plus a stucco made of dirt, sand and pigment to color the walls blue, gold and moss green, Lung's home looks like a traditional home, albeit one with an American Southwest sensibility.
