I've been an onsite contractor for fifteen years now. Love my job. Every day a new adventure in logistics: how ya gonna frame up a house that's hanging off a cliffside, for example. Or burrow one into the ground. I love this stuff. But this one... Started out simple enough: lady wanted a country house. I can do those with my eyes shut: I know how to move the trees so you can save them for landscaping, how to run in plumbing and electrical — I've gotten real handy with the solar stuff. So I figured, hey, piece of cake, right? 'Cept in this case, it seemed to be literally that. Like, my list of materials come from the architect. God knows where she found the guy, but this stuff was freaking ridiculous. He didint want traditional wood framing, nossir. It was all supposed to be made out of cinnamon sticks. I laughed, "Hey, you think this stuff comes in 2 x 4s?" He didnt care where or how I sourced it, just that it was gonna be that. I tried to explain to him that cinnamon isnt good at load-bearing. Didnt matter. So Eddie and I did some engineering, figured out a way to make it work, and started off. Then the walls. Now look, I can mix stuff with concrete to make it all hard and strong, but sugar? Sugar?? "Whadya want to do, eat this thing or live in it?" Client gave me a look that could kill, so I shrugged my shoulders, called Home Depot, and started experimenting. Aint easy to make concrete palatable, but I did it. But the final straw was the roof. "Lady," I told her, "I dont care what kind of weird thing you got going on, but there's now way gingerbread shingles are ever gonna pass code!" She didnt care. I figured, okay, as long as the county knows I only did what the customer asked... so I got her to sign off on the request. Me and Eddie did some mashups with wood ships that could be just enough to keep her clean, and before long, we got us a house. Stupidest thing I've ever built, I swear. But gotta tell ya, I found suppliers for everything, even those oversized gumdrops decorative bricks. Amazing what you can get from China these days. And she paid well for it, so I guess it was good all around. And word kinda got out, 'cause over in another section of the forest, I got a commission for three more houses. Two of them are pretty traditional: brick and wood work. Never worked with straw though. But hey, I love a good challenge.