Two Days of Rock Work...

I've been working on this wall for the last two days. It takes time to gather the rock from our property. The mortar needs to set, and we will then clean it up with a wire brush:

Inch by Inch...

For those who are into slinging Mud:


From the outside corner of the house. The wood post will remain visible:

And the same corner from inside the house:

Ditto:

The Next Wall To Be Built...

We are taking this one wall at a time. While we wait for the Cob to dry on the other wall we built, we have decided to do this Southern wall next:

We need to complete the Stone Stem wall to start it. So that is what we did today.

We finished digging out the foundation and put some gravel in it (for drainage). This is on top of the Rubble Trench we dug last summer.

So we put up some forms the whole length of the wall and started building Stem Wall.

Joni placing some rock into the forms:

A good days work!

Joni Cobs the Windows!!

Joni got right to work this morning. She has been working on "cobbing" in the two picture windows.

Cobbing in the corner. I was amazed at how applying just a couple of layers of mud to the wall, anchors the Strawbales and the Window into place. Makes it solid:

It only took her three hours to mix a batch of cob and build up the walls another six inches. Joni works hard. Doesn't complain. And didn't even ask me to help--as she knows I like to do nothing the first day after my week of work in the Napa Valley. That's one way she lets me know she loves me: she lets me be a sloth...

Home Tomorrow...

One more day of work and its back to the Solar Compound.

I go to work twice a month---the hard part is I stay there for five days.

The first day is always kind of fun. I have running hot water in my room (something we don't have at our homestead)! That first shower is luxurious--and it feels like I'm staying at a bed and breakfast.

Day two--the novelty of a real bed and hot water hasn't worn off yet. I enjoy my little monastic room after work. Get things read (this time a book on Hunter Thompson, A book on Gnosticism and Aldo Leopold's classic: Sand County Almanac).

Day three, and I start feeling a little homesick. The novelty starts to wear out.

Day four (today) and I wash all my clothes in the evening, anticipating my trip home.

Day five and I'm wiped out from work. Wiped out from getting up really early in the morning and the nutsiness of working on a psychiatric unit. I'm ready to go home and see my loved ones: Joni, the girls, our pup and cat (heck, even the mice!). I look forward to the next nine days off...with grand plans to work on the Addition...get some much needed R and R. Rejuvenate and re-establish my connection with nature.

I can't wait to go home!!

House Wrapped for the Rain...

You can't let your Strawbales get wet until after you have them mudded and plastered. Joni (ever the industrious one--working away while I plucked on this computer) put plastic on the house yesterday. Good thing. It is raining now and will continue to do so for the next week (month? months? it is that time of the year).
A fellah needs to make some money now and then too. So I'm off to the Napa Valley to be gainfully employed for the next week. Off to my Monastic little room, where I usually get a couple of books read. And some walks in (for my other blog).

Peace!

Welcome!! Our First Strawbale Wall!!

Lots of traffic to the Solar Compound today! To all who pass through here--I welcome you! Thanks for the visit! Drop by again sometime and watch our progress with this "Primitive Green" experiment. Joni and I have absolutely no home building skills. Totally naive. Clumsy. Inept. More comfortable with a book than with a hammer. If we can do it, anybody can!

We finished our first wall today. We started by lifting this monstrous Header above the window.

Hello!!

We had to build the Strawbales up to the header (this should have been the first photo...but this is an amateur site!).

The Header attached to the Strawbales.

And then we just stacked and pinned the Strawbales to the wall. It went up amazingly easy. We used other Strawbales as our scaffolding...

Pounding the Strawbales into place. Persuasion..it is called.

Joni waving from the outside of our new wall!

Above the bales we will put in some plexi-glass as a sky light. That will provide ambient light into the room and also will allow us to see the beauty of the Post and Beam and Barnwood Ceiling. Although by doing that, we do feel like we are selling out a bit on our Primitive Green theme.

Never trust someone who is totally consistent!

What do you think?

We Finally Figure Out How To Do This!!

We weren't happy with the Strawbale wall that we built the other day. It seemed too unsteady. So we tore it down. We finished building the window buck (and put in the window--I wanted to make sure the sucker fit). This way the Strawbales can be pinned to the Window--making everything more stable.

Today we figured out how to do this!!

Pictures of me putting in the window!

A boy and his power tool...

Better than a Step Ladder...

Our new windows:

Soon we might have a room!

And rebuilding the Strawbale Wall. This worked much better!

Attaching the bales to the Window Buck:

Check back for more tomorrow!!

The Next Window Buck...and Cob!

We worked on putting in a new window frame today. We also Cobbed in the bottom of the window. These photos are in no apparent order....

Building this Addition has been a family affair. All watch over the work, even the dog:

And we all get to stomp in the mud:

Here Kylie holds the bottom of the frame for the new window in place...while we gather mud:

And Kylie hammering in nails into the new window frame (the nails are to hold the Cob in place):

Jazmine gets to hammer too:

And we get to stomp in the mud as a family...

Sometimes enthusiasm wanes...Jazmine likes to dream she is a Hollywood Actress. "Me?" She says, "Get my hands dirty? Are you kidding? That is a little beneath my exalted status"!

The First Wall; We Only Had To Rebuild It Twice!

Learning curves.

Here we are building our first Strawbale wall. We ended up taking it apart and rebuilding it. The top of the wall started looking like the Arrowhead part of the State of Minnesota. This made the wall pretty unstable.


We had this Baling Needle made for us today. It allows us to take bales apart and thread the string to make custom, smaller bales. We made several half bales in this portion of the wall.

Joni is stapling a wire mesh from the top of the Strawbale to the wooden post. This helps secure the wall.

The finished product. A window will go in the area to the left. We will work on this tomorrow.

From the deck....Joni pushes on the Strawbale to make it snug:

More fun and games tomorrow. Not bad for a first effort...