Solar Compound

Fresh and Free Range...

2011-12-26T22:28:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas Turkey. Free range, fresh, organic, no anti-biotics---a happy Turkey that cost an arm and a leg. But oh so worth it! Yes it is about four times the price of a Butterball---but Christmas only comes once a year. And once you've strayed away from the Factory Farmed Meats, well, you just don't want to go back to them. Either ethically or gastronomically.

If you are going to eat meat, you might as well have the best tasting meat available and imbibe in such with a cleaner conscience. I haven't asked the Pope (or my brother the Lutheran Pastor), but more and more I think eating a Factory Farmed Animal is a mortal sin up there with those seven other deadly ones. Eating animals from concentration camps must be the eighth deadliest sin. For details, see Food Inc. or read Michael Pollan.

A Snowboard!

2011-12-25T12:10:00.000-08:00

Obligatory photo of a child figuring out that the package contains a Snowboard.

Happy Christmas!

Comfortable...

2011-12-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

This will be Christmas Number Four up here. And every year, ever so very slowly, things get more and more comfortable. In reading Bill Bryson's "At Home" last night, the word "comfortable" wasn't even a part of the vocabulary of the home until the 1700's. Before that, at least in English, there was no concept of being "comfortable". And I guess there was good reason for that: homes didn't really have a concept of comfort to them. It was just a place to try and stay warm, eat and sleep. And a place to keep "stuff". Drawers weren't invented until the mid-1600's; before that, people just kept their possessions in boxes.

1700's be damned, we are comfortable. The wood stove is working wonderfully. We have hot water on demand. The new pump isn't leaking too badly. We have separate rooms. The girls even have beds thanks to my dad. Our tree is up. Presents are wrapped. We have it good.

Yes, things have gotten pretty soft up here. Happy Christmas to all!

Adding Flour...

2011-12-14T15:23:00.000-08:00

We are putting on the second coat of mud plaster on an interior wall. With this coat, we add a bit of flour to it in order to make it bind better. This should hold everything together and make it less dusty.

Coyotes

2011-12-09T16:21:00.001-08:00

I'm home after being away at work for most of the last month. The past couple of days I've been chasing the coyotes away. They are interested in our chickens. One coyote, a big blackish one, has had a couple of unsuccessful attempts at our chickens before I chased him away. Another smaller grayish one has been hanging around. I chased him/her halfways down the ridge. The smaller coyote would just turn around to see if I was still following him/her. I was. Seemed like a game to this coyote.

And so Kylie has permission to use her BB gun on the coyotes. The BB's won't hurt and will certainly get their attention. Man versus Coyote. In the end, I'm quite certain the coyote will win. As they should.

Eating Sand...

2011-12-01T10:29:00.001-08:00

This is a review from Amazon:

And things have only gotten worse. When this book came out, you might have found a fast food restaurant or two that actually used a grill and had a knife in the kitchen. Never trust a food establishment that doesn't own a knife. Or uses a microwave to create their dishes.

This is an excellent book. As can be told by the number of reviews, a real tour-de-force: this is the book that made Michael Pollan possible. This is the book that confirmed that the hippies were right.

But has it had the proper impact? Reading the last chapter, I wonder. First off, Herman Cain (who is currently running for President) is in trouble for his relationships with women. He should be in more trouble for his relationship with the National Restaurant Association. The NRA (must those initials always epitomize evil?) has been lobbying on behalf of the beheamoth Fast Food Industry for eighty years. Their membership includes every Fast Food/Moderately Priced Corporate Food Chain that has created an American restaurant culture that has all the taste and satisfaction of eating sand. Herman Cain is, essentially, a lobbyist for Fast Food. Can you imagine a lobbyist for the Sierra Club being taken seriously as a Presidential candidate?

Again, this book is excellent. The right book at the right time. I do wish the author would have included a critique of the loss of local, food culture that has been destroyed by these peddlers of corporate cuisine. I've had better food on the backroads of Central America, inexpensive, nutritious, than I have had at the local mall. For a rich country we have very poor food. We need an alternative to the Fast Food culture. I wish the author did more to explore the alternatives.

Other than that, a most wonderful read---even after ten years of being on the shelf.

Walls and Taxes

2011-11-26T14:08:00.001-08:00

I've been gone most of the past couple of weeks: working extra---trying to keep our always imperiled financial necks above water. We have a big tax bill due this month. Paying property taxes is hard enough, but who is the genius that decided that these things should be paid during the month that household budgets compete with Christmas? I'm not a Tea Party member, nor do I think we are particularly over taxed, but I do think that Government should figure out a way to be more user friendly. Having taxes be due in December is a public relations nightmare for County government. A stupid idea.

Joni has been doing her part by finishing up an interior wall. The photos don't show much, but she has done quite a bit of work getting rid of the blue jean insulation we had temporarily stuffed up there and replacing it with "clay slip". An arduous task.

Getting this wall tightened up had an immediate impact: the house is much warmer using less wood in the wood stove.

Hug

2011-11-18T17:15:00.001-08:00

Jazmine giving Angel a hug....

Baby red racer...

2011-11-17T17:29:00.001-08:00

Kylie brought home a snake from school today. A baby red racer. We will let her keep it in her room over night and then free the poor guy tomorrow.

So far...

2011-11-12T14:44:00.001-08:00

I haven't really published any photos of how this thing turned out.

This is our hallway. Pardon our mess...

Our bedroom...

One corner of our bedroom...

Looking from the Living Room into our bedroom...

Getting Control of Chaos

2011-11-12T12:41:00.001-08:00

Sooner or later, every family gets one of these: the message board. Generally, these things are put up out of frustration. Exasperation. I bought the thing in an effort to get some certain young ones who inhabit our house to do their chores. And also to remind the youngsters what is expected out of their behavior.

Our little Honda generator died. Good thing we have a back up. The old generator toiled along through much abuse and some neglect. It was a cheery valiant little generator. We shall take much better care of the next one.

And this month we hope to (finally) plant some fruit trees. This is something we should have done when we first bought the place back in 2007. Hopefully, by having the goal posted where we see it everyday, we will make it a priority to get the trees in. We hope.

Butte County Climate Change...

2011-11-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

Note from Allan: The two previous essays (or some form of them) will be sent off to the editor of a daily newspaper that is seeking a columnist for their opinion page. This piece and the previous entry, after some clean up, will be my submissions. Feedback is welcome. Wish me luck.
__________________________________________________

June 21, 2008. Moving Day for our family. At last we haddecided to move into our solar “off grid” cabin full-time; leaving theexcessive opulence of the Napa Valley for the nowhere-to- be-seen opulence of the small hamlet ofConcow, in the foothills of Butte County.

Perhaps you remember that day? The importance of that dayhas been missed by most Butte County residents. I remember June 21, 2008 like Iremember where I was when the Twin Towers fell or when the first space shuttleexploded. The day of the Lightning Complex fires should be etched in yourmemory too. That was the day Climate Change became very difficult to deny inButte County.

Set the scene: Northern California had experienced a few yearsof extreme drought. Summer had arrived early. Temperatures had been downright hotfor a couple of months previous to that June day. Everything was already bonedry. Then, a “freak” lightning storm blew in, dazzling the night skies withthousands of lightning strikes. You remember the result: For a month it wasdifficult to go outside because of the smoke; half of Paradise was evacuated;33,000 acres of Lassen National Forest burned. Residents of the space stationcould watch the smoke plume from low Earth orbit.

We had turned off all media in our home in the Napa Valleygetting ready for the move into our new solartopian cabin. The Internet wasoff. Television off. Everything was packed up the night before—U-Haul waiting.We didn’t listen to the radio. We wereignorant of events in the Foothills as we left the Napa Valley that morning.But when we got to the Foothills, we could see dozens of plumes of fire risinginto the air. Looked like a war zone. One particularly nasty plume, the biggestugliest mushroom cloud, was quite close to where our 350 square foot dream homeresides. Too close.

And it was close; the road to our house was closed due tofire. We had to park the U-Haul for a couple of weeks and sleep in a shelter inOroville. From the shelter, we watchedthe fire reports as the “burned” area crept closer to our new home. Fear. Anxiety. Such rotten luck--we muttered as wewatched the forest service ranger post the map that said that the fire hadconsumed the area that contained our home. Now that is a helpless feeling. Burned over? We didn’t even get to spendone full night in this new home.

In the end, the house was saved. We were one of the luckyones---the fire went around our property and some brave fire fighters savedmany of the houses on our ridge. They have our deepest thanks.

Meanwhile, that summer of 2008, Dan Logue worked to securethe Republican nomination to be our Assemblyman. He eked out a win for the nominationand won the general election easily. Logue then, in a spasm of first termarrogance, went on to write Proposition 23 (some say with the help of an oilthink tank in Texas) which attempted to undue California’s nation leadingeffort at lowering carbon emissions. Even Butte County voted Prop 23 down in 2010.

Dan Logue is on the record as a Climate Change Denier. Andproud of it! He is a follower of the 2 percent of climatologists who state thatclimate change is not a problem. Although the Deniers position keeps changing. Sometimes they citestudies that cherry pick data and proport to show that climate hasn’t warmedover a recent eleven year period; sometimes they state that warming is anatural phenomenon and is not caused by human activity; sometimes they statethat warming exists, but the scientists are too “alarmist” about theconsequences (they like to say CO2 is good for plants). One thing all theseClimate Change Deniers do believe is that the carbon economy (which they equivocatewith economic growth) should continue regardless of the price; we should pumpevery drop of oil, raze the boreal forests of Canada for the tar sands, frackevery wild land in Utah--- even if that means the end of the Holocene.

For those of us who lived in the Foothills in the summer of2008 (or tried to move there)---all we needed to do was breathe the smoky air toknow that climate change was very real. That huge, spectacular fire was exactlywhat we can continue to expect in the next 100 years as CO2 keeps climbing,world temps keep rising, ice keeps melting.

The evidence will continue to mount: such as this year’scontinuing Texas drought and fires that destroyed the Texas winter wheat crop; thedrought in Georgia this summer which devastated the peanut harvest and will raise theprice of Jiff; the decline in the corn and soybean harvest in the Midwest thisyear because of late spring rains, extreme heat and a late summer drought---until,one day, probably not in the too distant future, even Dan Logue will have toadmit that he should have looked out the window at the Lightning Complex firesof 2008 and not bother with writing Prop 23.

Cell Phones and Thoreau...

2011-11-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

“A man is rich inproportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” So wrotethe rebellious wunderkind, Henri David Thoreau while he occupied his elder mentorRalph Waldo Emerson’s property; building his much vaunted cabin there back inthe 1840’s.

Or to paraphrase Thoreau—we are only as rich as the thingswe can live without.

Perhaps you remember reading Thoreau’s Walden back in college-- before acquiring that mortgage, car,second car, second mortgage and that LED television that takes up a wall ofyour two-thousand square foot house that sucks enough energy to power a smallvillage in Latin America? Thoreau lived at the dawn of the industrial age; some150 years before the Information age. I’ve often wondered what would good HenriDavid have to say about this Information age---specifically cell phones? What would he think about 3G, 4G, texting,sexting, internet capable, photo and video publishing-to-Facebook, cell phones?Would Henri own one in order to inform Ralph Waldo that he’d be over for dinnerafter he was done hoeing his beans and writing that last chapter on Economy?

For myself, I don’t own one (a cell phone). Don’t need one. Don’twant one. I don’t need that extra bill. Nor do I want the capability to spend ten minutes looking at a tinyscreen, eyes straining, non-agile fingers inevitably fumbling the wrongminiscule button while trying to type out some meaningless text message aboutthe status of my desires. Am I oldfashioned to think that a text message should have some text to it? More than140 characters? Vowels intact?

I don’t use text speak; I see it as a fart upon the Englishlanguage. I prefer my sentences to be mostly complete. And I don’t mind if I get a message fromsomeone that actually uses a noun, verb, direct object and some of the otherfiner implements of language. Hell, I even like complete words. Dnt U?

We get along just fine without the little Star Trekiancommunication devices. (Beam me up, Scotty!) But then again, we aren’t yournormal family. We live “off the grid” dependent upon a generator and a fewsolar panels for electricity. We recently went three years without a hot watersystem, and probably would still be using a water bag lying in the sun forshowers to this day, if it wasn’t for the complaints of some soon-to-be teen-agedgirls who inhabit our home. One winter we had to haul water thirty yards fromthe well to the house when the water line froze. It took us two years to get the moneytogether to get a proper wood stove (our only source of heat). Not that wedon’t have our luxuries: we had satellite TV and Internet years before we gotour shower to work. Priorities.

Which brings me back to Henri Thoreau. “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify”—he wrote. Thoreau claimed he could live on six weeks ofincome for an entire year. Easy to dowhen you squat on your friend’s property and show up for dinner at Mom’s every day.Yet, he was right about the simplify statement. And he was correct to say thatwe are as rich as we are capable of living without things and implements ofluxuriant modernity.

The current recession/depression has forced many of us tosimplify. Tighten our belts and do without. Poverty sucks when it isn’tvoluntary. I wonder how bad things need to get before we part with our cellphones? Have they become one of Mazlow’s needs yet? Are Cell phones asimportant as food, water, shelter, sex? Have they become such a necessity thatwe will do anything--live on beans, hawk the wedding ring, sell plasma, give upa meal a day---in order to have one? I wonder…

A Loft Bed For Kylie

2011-10-27T13:18:00.001-07:00

Kylie and her friend are trying to figure out how to put together a Loft Bed in her room. You see, after three years and four months of sleeping on a mattress on the floor, my Dad bought Loft Beds for the girls.

Things are cushy up here: We have hot water; we have seperate rooms; we have a new washer; we have a functioning shower; We have a wood stove. We've stepped into modernity. Climbed into the lifestyle of the Lower Middle Class. Gone are the days of two children and two adults sleeping on the floor of the cabin while the rains poured outside.

Kylie and her friend failed in their endeavor to put the Loft Beds together. That's just as well, as we had a 4.8 earthquake last night. The quake rocked the house pretty good; I was happy the Addition stood up to the test: No Damage.

And so this morning, Joni and I completed the task of putting the bed together. This is how Kylie's room looks now. We had originally planned to have the girls share one room, but, well, I guess it is totally uncool to share a room with a sister nowadays. Therefore, we divided up their room into two very small cubes. Or cells. Reminiscent of a jail cell or a monastic dorm.

When my Dad was here, he said: "All you have is finishing work now". Yup. And I'm sure we will be spending the next umpteen years trying to finish this thing.

Now it is on to putting Jazzy's bed together.

Kylie's Wall

2011-10-21T17:21:00.000-07:00

A visit from my Dad and I'm now armed with a new Laptop. Got the thing fired up and now I can publish photos again. Thanks Dad for the new Laptop!

Four months since I've last published anything on this blog. So what is new? Lots. First off, everyone has their own bedroom now. Kylie was given permission to "tag" her wall. Here she sits on her bed with an old Laptop of Joni's (One of the neighbor kids was visiting this afternoon). I like the tagged wall appearance.

Posts will be more frequent now. I see there are some new folks who have "followed" recently; Welcome!

Hot Water...

2011-06-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

Four months without a post on this blog. But now the weather has warmed up and we now are in the building season. Yesterday, we had the house re-plumbed. Copper clogs too quickly with this very hard water we have. We also put in a propane hot water heater. We put it outside (which bewilders my Minnesota brain).

And so after 1,080 days without water to the kitchen, without hot water, without having a shower--we now live in the splendorous world of modern plumbing!

Yet, I felt guilty about having this fossil fuel contraption sitting outside with its only function being to keep 40 gallons of water hot 24 hours a day. This just seems silly. Wasteful. We couldn't get an "on demand" hot water heater because the pump doesn't push the water at a steady state. The prior owners had one---and that nearly burned the house down.

So I called and asked my plumber for a bid to add a Solar Hot Water Heater to this mix. He said they could quite easily set a system up; that it is quite easy to do (he's done it before).

So what is it like for us to have hot water again? Frankly, it is heavenly. Now I know why those Romans built cities next to geo-thermal areas. There is nothing like just turning the knob and having hot water flow out of the spiget. We've jumped from the Third World to the First World. And boy do we appreciate it.

New Stove Pipe...

2011-02-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

Our house made of mud with the new stove pipe from the roof...

Another view...

We are warm. And the large windows on the south side of the house make good use of passive solar. We are happy with the performance of the house this winter---even though we haven't completed all the walls yet. It's put together with duct tape and chewing gum...

The Wood Stove!!

2011-02-01T16:25:00.001-08:00

Okay, the computer is fixed, so I can catch you up a bit. Please excuse the clutter in the following photos---but hey, its real life.

On Dec. 29, Joni and I made the base that will hold the Wood Stove. Start with concrete blocks and some gravel...

Then we put the slate that Joni picked up along the Ridge. We mortared that into place..

And here is the new Wood Stove. A bit dusty from a month's worth of use..

Another photo of it. This is a Lennox. Super efficient, it has only 25 percent of the emissions of a normal wood stove.

It only took us 2 1/2 years to put this thing in. Many, many nights of sleeping in sleeping bags as the temps dropped below freezing. That which doesn't kill us....

Making Earthcrete...

2010-11-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

I've been working on putting the second coat of mud on the house. With winter rains bearing down on us, it is important to get a water impermeable layer on the house. The mud held up well during its first winter---but I think it would be pushing it to not get something more water resistant up.

So I take two parts clay, one part sand, two parts straw and 1 part cement mix and add water. The result is a nice plaster that is resistant to rain. It works great...

Our lone chicken watches over the work...

The problem has been the clay. It is impossible to dig up in the summer without a pick axe. Now it is diggable, but needs to dry in order to sift it to make plaster. My solution? Let it dry in the sun...

We shall continue with this work for the next few days....

After Two Years and Four Months...

2010-10-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

We have a usable Family Room for the winter! And the whole Addition is tightened up with makeshift insulation. It ain't done; it's usable though!

Here Joni enjoys NCIS while lounging in her favorite chair...

Another view...

I can't tell you how many times I've moved these books through the years...

Doo, Doo, Doo Looking out my front door...

The Tin Wall...

Our new dog, Abbey--enjoying the Futon...

And so now the Cabin part becomes a kitchen/dining room/computer nook...

For two winters we (four humans and one really big dog) lived in this 350 square foot Cabin during the everlasting rains. I don't recommend doing that. Thank heavens that is behind us now...

Progress!! The Addition itself does tend to hold the heat in very well. We don't have a woodstove in there yet (maybe in December?). But all in all, the warm days and cooking in the oven seems to warm everything up to a tolerable level.

The Inside Tin Wall..

2010-10-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

My friend Mark flew out from Minnesota to spend a week with us. We had originally planned on taking a couple days to do some backpacking. However, when Mark saw the vast amount of work to be done around here, he graciously decided that the time would be better spent helping us out.

Mark's exact words were: "wow, this is really rustic". He had a puzzled and somewhat perplexed look on his face. I'm thinking he was a tad overwhelmed. And maybe a little bit disoriented as to why a family would choose to live this way.

We decided to finish an interior wall. This meant putting up blue jean insulation and then covering it with 95 year old tin.

It took us a couple of days to complete this project...

Here you can see the blue jean insulation prior to putting up some tin.

The finished project...

Another view...
Of course, it isn't really done. We plan on opening up the doorway into the original cabin. The tin needs to be washed, buffed up with steel wool and then treated with linseed oil to make it shine.

Our intention is to make it look like a combination gas station/barn/brewery. The old look. Yeah, I know---it is weird. But I kind of like it...

Dirt Cottage Living

2010-10-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for winter. Although this time we will have a family room. Here it is--not all the way decorated but you get the idea...

Dogs wrestle...

And our bedroom...

Modern Dirt Living...

Joni Keeps Working...

2010-09-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

I've been sick. Joni gets working away. Everyday making Cob and Clay Slip..

Our Antler Hangers...

And the front entryway...

Joni making Clay Slip...

Where she has been tightening up the top of the North Wall...

Sleep-Over Kids Make Cob and Clay Slip...

2010-09-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

Have Joy while making mud!

And remember to smile..

Get your hands dirty...

Get your feet dirty....

And aim high in life...

The Lessons of working with Mud...

Antler Hangers...

2010-09-16T14:44:00.000-07:00

While I've been hiking the Appalachian Trail, Joni has been working on the house. She put these Antlers into the Cob today. A place to hang scarves and mittens...

And the other side of the entry door. It has cool glass jugs in the Cob...

And she did some more Clay Slip work on the outside of the house.

Okay. Play time is over for me. Time to get back to work....

Joni's Work

2010-09-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Joni's been working on the house, while I've been away working. More Cob work done on the front entryway...

And she has almost finished Clay Slipping an exterior corner..

Slow Progress...

No Fear...

2010-08-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

More Clay Slip Work

2010-08-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

Little by little, this summer is getting away from us. Going too fast! I fear we will run out of summer before the house is done. We continue the work of extending the Clay Slip to the top of the structure.

And I've started digging the clay next to the house. Two birds with one stone: dig the clay for the French Drain (or is it Trench Drain?) and also get clay for the house. I have to use a pick to loosen up the dirt. Hard, honorable work.

Jazzy's Birthday (a little early)

2010-08-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

Floors! Mud Plaster! Tightening Up!

2010-08-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

A productive day. It is tough to get a photo of the floor...so this will have to do. We have about 30% of the first, insulative layer of straw and clay down on the inside floor. We plan on finishing this section first, and then moving on to the other sections.

Joni and my daughter working on making clay slip for the floor...

Then we moved outside, where we finished putting the first layer of mud on the tall part of the Addition.

Another view...

Joni putting the last bits on another side of the house (the north side):

Previously, Joni has been working on finishing the cob work around our front door. Notice the old license plate which is embedded in the mud above the door. On the side we have old pickle jars set into the cob. We also put in a cat door so Rocky can come and go as he pleases. He likes that!

And the job of tightening up all the gaps has started. This afternoon we made clay slip to start tightening up the Addition. All those gaps where the bales don't meet the roof will be filled in by clay slip...

A good productive day. I like working on different projects at once. Helps with the monotony...

Clay Slip...

2010-08-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

While I've been a slug, Joni has been working on the house. She has done some cobbing. She has been putting clay slip as the insulation level of the floor. And here she is, putting clay slip on the corner of the house.

We will fill in lots of gaps on the exterior of the house with this material. Clay slip is nothing more than sifted clay mixed with water and straw. It dries hard as nails. After the slip is done, we shall cover the works with mud.

Who Dat?

2010-07-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to have my 22 year old daughter visiting with us for the next few weeks. She is here vacationing before she starts her foray into adult life (complete with a job as a "Functional Analyst"). Here she works on some Cob around the front door.

Starting the Floor

2010-07-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

So we started the floor. We already have six inches of gravel down on the floor. The next layer is what you see above: a couple inches of straw/clay insulation. We shall put this down, let it dry, and then put two more layers of clay/sand/straw on top. The last layer will be the "finishing layer". Over that we shall (hopefully) seal the whole floor with bees wax.

Will it work? Will it look good? I haven't a clue...

Kylie Wants a Floor!

2010-07-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

Summer in Concow. For the girls under 12 years of age, it has meant a steady stream of sleepovers. A couple nights here. A couple nights there. Good country kids who aren't scared to catch a lizard or pick up a chicken. Grounded. Definitely not squeamish. Not scared to snooze in a sleeping bag, on the deck, under the stars. The sort of kids that should inherit the Earth.

Today, Kylie and a friend wanted to start on the floor for her room. Here's Kylie and her friend sifting clay for the mud:

And here they are making sure the floor is level in order to start the Adobe floor:

The first section to be done:

Random Dancing! (From ICarly--a TV show popular amongst "tweens").

Putting Treesitting Skills to Work...

2010-07-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

Joni has no fear of heights. Perhaps that is how she was able to avoid the Forest Service Cops for five days while hanging from a zip line between a couple four hundred year old Englemann spruce? Now she puts those skills to work on her very own mud house...

The C. Everett Koop Chicken Coop...

2010-07-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

While I was away, Joni made the chicken coop somewhat functional...

She put the coop under our deck. The reason? It'd have to be one brave bear, coyote or mountain lion to break into it under our deck. Plus the dogs can bark their warnings from on top of the deck. Will it work?

They have become free range chickens...

Guard Dog Number One!

Guard Dog Number Two!

By the way, we can close up the coop at night. If it works, we shall paint it and make it sort of like the Partridge Family Chicken Coop...

Two Years...

2010-06-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

We've been living here for two years now. A little bit shy of the amount of time Thoreau lived in his cabin. We intend to stay in ours for quite a bit longer than Thoreau stayed in his cabin. Until death do us part...

I've had a productive nine days. I've weed whacked the perimeter of our structures. It is now the "fire season" and the best protection a person can give your property is to take out the weeds.

And Joni and I made progress this morning on building our "chicken coop". Soon they will have a new home..

And I put in our very last window. Since I mudded all around the thing, I was a bit worried that the window wouldn't fit. No worries! The window fit nicely into the window buck...

And with Kathy and Tom's help, we completed a the tallest wall. And now I'm in the process of mud plastering the thing...

As always, I didn't get everything done that I wanted to. We shall start again next week, when I return from the Napa Valley.

The Tallest Part is Done!

2010-06-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Saved! Tom and Kathy came to visit, and like so many visitors who breeze through, they helped us out. Tom is a fire fighter. He is used to climbing a ladder with heavy objects. So, he hoisted up the last bales on a wall that I was trying to figure out how to complete.

I watched in awe as he easily carried the bales up. He also shored up a wall for us (the header wasn't good enough; my mistake). In addition, he fixed a leak in our water to the cabin.

Yes, we have running water now!

Tom and Kathy gave us a great gift!

So the wall is tallest wall is nearing completion.

Oh I get by with a little help from our friends...

Live Electricity!

2010-06-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

The Addition now has electricity. And it works!

Nine outlets added. 36 places to plug things in. I buried the wires in pipe, in the floor. Now it is time to finish the mud walls and create an adobe floor....

Mudding the Family Room Wall...

2010-06-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

Buddha watching over the process...

The before photo...

Using a ladder...

Me..up on the ladder...

Joni finishes a corner...

Up higher with the mud....

I'll take a stab at finishing it tomorrow...

Slow, Slow Progress...

2010-06-03T16:13:00.000-07:00

Back to the dirty work.

I understand that looking at mud drying on straw is not exactly an exciting thing. I understand that no one will get pleasure out of these photos but me.

It isn't like mud is conducive to action shots. Especially when nobody else is helping you. Bear with me. We have only three or four months more of this mud thing...

How we started the day:

I've been doing the finish work of getting the edges around the windows. This takes time...

I did the edges of three windows today...

Up we go...

I know that these shots make no sense....

Added some muddy height to the North Wall. I still have to put the window in (I hope I built the window buck correctly!).

The Northeast pole...

Slow progress...

I will be clearing all the insulation, straw bales, accumulated junk and make-shift bedroom out of this part of the Addition soon. But first it has to stop raining (it is raining as I type this--unheard of for this time of year in California!).

We will be putting the electrical in to the Addition in the next week or so. Buried in the floor. And then I will be making wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of Adobe for the Mud Floor.

View from the Monastic Dorm...

2010-06-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

The view from the dorm, where I stay when I am working. These two Redwoods tower above the hospital...

More Rain...

2010-05-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

This has been the coldest May on record. The weather is not cooperating with getting this Addition done...
It is pouring rain as I write this. The temperature is 54 degrees Fahrenheit.

Silly that you can't make mud when it is raining...so this is as far as I've gotten for now...

Off to work. Be back next week. Hopefully, the weather will be a bit more cooperative...

Kylie and Joni Help...

2010-05-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Joni and Kylie pitched in to help today. But first, a cute photo of a girl with her dog...

Kylie helped me mix up some mud...

A beautiful day...

Kylie finishing up the bottom of a wall:

She doesn't really like it when I take her photo...

Working on our bedroom wall...

While Joni finishes up an edge of, what will be, our family room...

We used a stepladder today...

Joni is good at fine tuning the part where the straw bales meet the stem wall...

Okay. So mud isn't exciting. This is the corner post in our bedroom...

The Southeast wall of our bedroom....

Angel relaxing in the bedroom....

And the mud wall in our Family room...

A good day.

As Far As I Can Reach On My Tippy Toes...

2010-05-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to move along now.

I met this morning with our solar electrician (whose name is--I kid you not---"Oak Leaf"!). We discussed the best way to wire the Addition. Oak is a likable Fella, semi-retired after being an electrician for thirty years. Once he gives me the bid (which is usually quite reasonable) we shall clear out the Addition and put in nine electrical outlets. If all goes well we shall start this process in a couple of weeks.

We will be burying the electrical wires in the floor inside conduit. Hence I will be able to bury most of it.

While here Oak fiddled with our solar system and fixed a fuse problem we've been having. He also checked our batteries. The solar system is working just fine now.

And I finished up the first layer of Mud Plaster on what I can reach by standing on my tippy toes. This is the hole where I dig out the clay and sift it into a bucket:

And a corner beam I finished today:

Looking at one corner of the Addition:

And our bedroom:

And the north wall:

With the temperature only fifty degrees or so, I'm done for the day. Using your fingers with cold water on a cold day makes them achingly frigid. These nearly fifty year old hands take a while to warm up after doing a wheelbarrow full of mud.

Unusual weather for this time of the year; it is supposed to be cold and rainy for the next week. And from now on the mudding will be trickier: up and down the ladder in order to grab a handful of mud. This will slow me down, so not much may get done.

That's All For This Week...

2010-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a simple mathematical principle for predicting how much work I will get done:

1. Make a goal for the week.

2. Immediately subtract 50 percent of that goal (takes care of the grandiosity factor).

3. Subtract another 10 percent for bad weather (too hot, too cold, raining, etc. etc)...

4. Subtract another 10 percent for the Sloth factor....

5. Subtract another 10 percent for other distractions: e-mail; beer; wine; doggy walks.

Which means that I will get around 20 percent done of my original goal. That's pretty accurate...

Master Bedroom Continued...

2010-05-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

I didn't get much done today...

Might get a little bit more done tomorrow. Then I leave for Napa..

Jazmine Makes Mud...

2010-05-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

I had a helper today....

Mudding the Master Bedroom...

2010-05-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

I started mudding our bedroom today...

Before..

Before...

During...
During...
After...
After...
After..

Mud Plaster for Another Wall...

2010-05-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

Another day, another wall...

How it looked before I started...

After a couple of wheelbarrows full of mud plaster...

Beats drywall...and is a whole lot cheaper...

Mud for everyone!

Enough for today!

Mud Plastering the Inside of the House...

2010-05-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

Finally, a nice day to get some work done. My project this week is to get the inside of the house mudded.

Jazzy, looking unhappy...

I found a seam of clay on the property which is just perfect for making the plaster. It makes quite a bit of difference as to how the plaster hangs on to the straw. This clay I found is perfect. Makes it easy...

This plaster is made of clay, sand and a bit of straw. Why use drywall?

Frog and Cat...

2010-05-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

While starting to set up our "outdoor kitchen" (which we will use for the summer to avoid heating up the Cabin), Joni ran across this frog? Or is it a toad? We don't know our amphibians very well.

Frog or toad, the colors are right for the old cabinet he/she was sitting on. Good camouflage!

And Rocky (our cat) had to climb a tree to avoid some visiting, marauding dogs...

Way up there...

Can you spot him?

Rainbow Over the Solar Panels...

2010-04-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

Solar Hot Water!!

2010-04-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, we start our third soon-to-be-Summer with our Solar Hot Water System pictured above. It isn't quite what Joni wants...but tonight I'm gonna take a nice hot shower, outside, under the stars! Does it get any better than that?

Chop Wood, Carry Water...

2010-03-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

As the old Buddhist saying goes----"Before Enlightenment: Chop wood; Carry water. After Enlightenment: Chop wood; Carry water".

We are getting the carrying water part down. For the past couple of months (ever since I clumsily broke the water inlet into the house), we have been filling the water at the well house, and then yokenly carrying the agua to the house. One of us usually fills the water buckets first thing in the morning. It takes around twenty minutes or so--since the water only fills the buckets at around 1/2 gallon a minute.

We fill four five gallon buckets. Since we don't fill' em to the top (don't want the water to slosh around) I imagine we put about four gallons into each bucket. Most days, that is all we need for the day.

Cooking and drinking water we fill in a spiffy five gallon thermos. We fill that about every other day.

All told, that makes our household water use at around 18 to 20 gallons a day. That is the water we use to bathe, flush, cook, clean and drink. Laundry we do once a week in town--so I guess that would up our water usage a bit. We are stingy on the clothes thing, since we have to haul the laundry so far to wash the clothes. We have learned that it is quite alright to wear the same pants and shirt for a couple of days.

Call it 25 gallons of water a day for a family of four, an 80 pound dog, a finicky cat and two rabbits.

The US Environmental Protection Agency states that the average family of four uses 400 gallons of water for indoor use a day (on average). That is just indoor use--not including outdoor gardening and lawn purposes.

So, since I busted the water pipe, we have been using around 7 percent of the US average for a family our size. And we aren't suffering any.

Frankly, after looking at these statistics, I'm tempted to never fix the inlet to the house! (But don't tell Joni that--and may she never read this post!) Carrying water to flush is one really good reminder to only flush when it is brown.

Same goes for washing dishes--using a rinse bucket works well. No need to rinse the dishes under a gushing tap.

Bucket baths work just fine in the winter; I love my outdoor shower (hung from a five gallon solar heated bag) during the warmer months!

And what if we extrapolated our water conservation out to every household in California? What if Consumers used 7 percent of their current water use? Hell, we could tear out half of those ugly dams that have decimated our salmon population. We could restore Hetch Hetchy! We could have half our rivers run free to the ocean!

When it comes to our water crises (and for that matter, the energy crises) CONSERVATION is the key. We need to live more like our third world brothers and sisters. It ain't creature comforts which improve life--it is creaturely companionship that does that.

Chop wood; Carry water...

Spring Break Colds....

2010-03-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

We thought we would take advantage of Spring Break in order to get some mud work done. The problem? We are both fighting off colds, which we seem to be passing back and forth like chess players taking turns.

I made one batch of mud yesterday before calling it quits and crawling into bed for the rest of the day.
First we dig and sift the clay...

Add sand and straw....

Mix it all together in the wheelbarrow...

And apply the mud plaster to the bales...

Joni made two more wheelbarrows full after I wandered off to bed. She started to put the second layer of mud on part of the new wall.

Today she is bedridden; we both are. This miserable cold seems to roar back with any exertion.

Eight Days A Week...

2010-03-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

The implements of mud making...

And buckets, buckets, buckets...

A few more wheelbarrows full of mud to the new wall this morning. Once again, I didn't complete everything I wanted to do the last eight days. But I'm happy with it. Neither Rome, nor a house, were built in a day.

Off to Napa to earn some cash. The building shall resume next week. And I got a note from a friend that he might come and join me for the next session of mudding. A mystery guest!

Will he show up? We shall see.

However, if anybody out there would like to take advantage of mudding (and the evening barbecues and campfires that finish off the day)...just send me a note. Consider yourself invited.

Thanks to B. for helping me out for a couple of days...

Let There Be Mud!

2010-03-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

A special visit from Joni's daughter to help me make mud. This is a labor intensive job that any fool can do. Dig the clay; sift the clay; add sand; add straw; add water; mix with hoe; apply to house. Simple.

We started early, after the girls went to school and Joni to work.

A new experience for B!

We are putting on the "scratch coat". The first of three layers of mud plaster...

Once again, we used the bale scaffolding method...(standing on bales).

Looks good!

Okay, that's enough for today. This is hard work...

It is now officially "Mud Season". This website is destined to become full of photos of mud being applied. Mud being made for the floor. Mud for the inside of the walls. Mud. Mud. Mud.

Thanks to B. for the help...

Still Building the Last Wall....

2010-03-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

How we started this morning. I pulled out the remaining bales...

Joni, stuffing some straw into a gap....

Trying to lift a bale...

Gasping from lifting a bale...

Joni applying "scrim" to a bale...eighteen feet off the ground...

Just that little gap left to do...

The view from inside the house. Eighteen feet from the floor to the ceiling...

Another view...

Joni can't help me tomorrow. Since she is the star "bale tier", I will start applying some mud to this wall. Then, when she comes home, we hope to finish off this last wall...

But nothing ever goes according to plan. In short, we must be the slowest natural builders on the planet!

The Last Wall...

2010-03-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

Finally, some warm weather. There is no rain in the forecast for at least five days. So I decided to take a stab at finishing the last strawbale wall.

We got the window buck in.

The view from inside the house...

Quitting time. I shall make an attempt at finishing the wall tomorrow. And then get the thing plastered with mud before the next rain comes....more photos tomorrow. Hopefully, with a finished wall.

The Tax Man Giveth (I hope)...

2010-03-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

We filed our taxes: we are looking at a decent sized refund this year.

So when I broached the issue of "what to do with the money" to Joni, I had visions of taking a trip. Lots of vistas to view that I haven't been able to see in my lifetime. Lots of beaches to lie on, museums to peruse, mountains to marvel at. Since we have been living oh so frugally for many, many years--my thoughts were to blow half of the loot on a trip. Wanderlust.

Joni had other ideas.

Seems she is getting sick of living without hot water. I live part of the time in a Monastic Dorm at the hospital. The accommodations are plush by my standards; subpar by others who stay there. When I stay at the Dorm, I always marvel at this nifty invention of hot water on demand. Seems wasteful to have all that hot water sitting around in a tank, just waiting for me to want to take a shower or wash my face.

Joni sees things differently. In June it will be two years since she has had hot water on demand. She has been living, full time, by leaving a few water filled shower bags or a garden hose in the sun for part of the year and heating the water on the stove during the cloudy months.

We have satellite internet; we have satellite TV---but no hot running water. A person needs to have some priorities in life.

When Joni told her sister (who lives in a vaulted ceilinged McMansion) what she does to provide hot water for her family, well, the sister did not think that was acceptable. The sister looked at Joni like she is a member of the Ted Koczinski fan club.

Joni would like to take the money and put in a hot water system. Solar, of course. We have decided to skip putting in a propane back up; we hope to coil the water through the wood stove somehow. Or we will just boil the water on the cooking stove in the winter.

Both of us have gotten to the space that using fossil fuels to keep a perpetual pot of hot water available is just too darned wasteful. Decadent really.

Fixed the Leaks...

2010-02-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it happened. Our roof leaked.

Not surprising given the ferocity of nearly twenty inches of rain combined with 60 mph winds that we had over the last couple of weeks. Tar seems to have fixed the problem.

I am anxious to get working on this house. Anxious for the temperature to climb into the fifties; for the rain to quit--so that we can complete this project.

With warmer weather, look for much work to be done. We are ready to get this thing done...

Dark Side of the Moon

2010-01-07T10:28:00.001-08:00

Allan is on the dark side of the Moon. He shall return (hopefully) January 18th. Cheers!

Rollerskating on New Year's Eve...

2009-12-31T19:26:00.000-08:00

I took the girls off the mountain today to go rollerskating...

OK. So Jazmine needed an ice bag for her hip.

Roller rinks are a rite of passage. Only the music has changed since I was a kid. I half ways expected the Rolling Stones or Elton John to be played. Instead, the music was of an ilk that I have never heard before. But the ambiance is the same...

Happy Solstice! Merry Christmas!

2009-12-21T09:13:00.000-08:00

Our stockings are hung...

And the Reindeer are out...

And the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree is decorated...

We haven't done much work on this project lately. Early nights, cold temperatures and rain make for some cozy "off grid" living.

We took down a little scraggly tree. It was growing in a small cluster of white pines on our property (and needed to be thinned). Joni asked the tree if it would like to be our Christmas tree; we cut it, and then Joni gave back a strand of hair in order to give something back to the land. A family ritual. It is a small tree. Beautiful, none-the-less.

After tonight the days start to get longer. And more hopeful.

From all of us here at the Solar Compound, Joni, Jazmine, Kylie, Angel the dog, Rocky the cat and me (Allan), we wish you a blessed Holiday season! May this be the year that all good things happen. And may this be the year we finally finish this darned house!

Frozen Pipes and Copenhagen

2009-12-08T14:24:00.001-08:00

On the first day of the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, we experienced record low temperatures. The result: all our pipes froze! Yes, they were wrapped in insulation.

The pipes froze from the cistern to the pumphouse. From the pumphouse to the Cabin. I had previously broken the inlet to the Cabin--but now we also busted the one water pipe outside the Cabin.

All of this is fixable. But for now, it is back to filling buckets and hauling the water for use in the Cabin.

This is the path from where we fill the buckets to the Cabin. Just like Jack and Jill--up the hill...

Luckily, the well didn't freeze--and we are still able to pump water from there. I have a hose attached to the water inlet from the well pump which provides us with natural spring water...

But Is It Fun?

2009-11-23T19:21:00.000-08:00

Our uncompleted house...made of logs we cut, strawbales and mud from our land...

Playing fetch with Angel the dog, in our front yard. Note the fire pit...which we can use now that it is the rainy season. Smores anyone?

.....................................................................................................

With Joni away in San Diego (taking care of her Mom), I sit down to a dinner of Bacon, Baked Beans and Beer! Breakfast was Baked Beans and Coffee. This is living!

We have been living up here for 1 1/2 years now. Our Addition still isn't done. I've been sleeping under the exposed elements of our new Addition for 1 1/2 years now. Some nights have been spent outside, sleeping under the stars. The temperature has been in the 30's during the night. I sleep with a stocking cap and thermal underwear. And two sleeping bags. Most nights I fall asleep listening to blessed Coyote songs.

We don't have hot water. In the summer, some shower bags left in the sun meets those needs. In the summer, we shower butt naked outside. Now that it is colder, we heat water on the stove. When Joni mentioned this to her sister (who lives in a McMansion in a cookie cutter suburb of San Diego), she couldn't fathom it. That was just not okay: "You have to have hot running water!" she said. "How can you live that way?"

Right now I don't have running water into the Cabin because I broke the water inlet pipe. Haven't gotten around to fixing that yet.

And we have one wall left to build. And only one layer of mud on the house...although that is holding up well in the rain due to building eaves that extend quite a ways away from the building.

So, is this fun?

Yes! I am having the time of my life!! All those accoutrement's of modern living will show up eventually. But in the mean time, I have beauty all around me. Space to play with the dog. A campfire pit! Skunks! Deer! Mountain Lion! Bear! Fresh air! A hiking trail that leads to the bottom of the canyon--with no one on it!

I have a funny looking house, incomplete, that Joni and I designed. We helped cut the logs and stripped them of bark. We have made all the mud for the house. Collected all the rock for the foundation and mortared them into place. We have made very few trips to Home Depot.

This isn't industrial living...this is living close to the Earth. With Earth for walls! This is how 50 percent of the world lives!

We have an anemic garden and chickens that we can't tell if they are boys or girls. We have Rednecks and Apocalyptic Christians for neighbors.

So never mind that we stink a little. Or that we have to haul water. Or that we have to ration our television and computer time. This is how I want to live! And we are thriving!

Hanging Out With Amy Goodman...

2009-11-22T00:50:00.001-08:00

With Joni out of town for the week, I snuck off to Chico to meet Amy Goodman. I described meeting her on my other blog.

Amy Goodman is one of my heroes. Frankly, the left side of the ledger has some pretty good talent: Amy being one of them; Thom Hartmann is another. The work they do on Free Speech TV and their radio shows certainly bests the hefty, barbed wire loving, talking heads of the Right.

Amy Goodman had a booksigning and then a speech. I've heard Amy before, but this time she was much more comfortable at the mike. And also much more real as she talked about her experiences over the past couple of months watching her Mother die in a hospital.

Amy said they had to "stand guard" over the ineptitude of the doctors and nurses who took care of her Mother. The problem to me (since I am an RN) is that her Mother was in a hospital that doesn't value the skills and talents of the nurses.

Doctors need to have a good relationship with their nurses. After all, it is the nurses who actually are with the patient. I am blessed with having a good relationship with the doctors I work with. I can suggest treatment modalities; bring up things the doctor has overlooked; I can have knock down drag out fights with the good Docs I work with. All of this means that there is less of a chance for mistakes. And things do not get overlooked.

The more empowered the nurse, the better the care provided. When doctors and nurses work together in an atmosphere of respect and collaboration, better care is given to the patient.

Back to Amy. She gave a hell of a speech. Witty. Graceful. Informative. Filled with snippets of wisdom--I'm glad she is on our side. If you haven't watched/heard Democracy Now!--I heartily implore you to give the alternative media a chance!

A Frustrating Day...

2009-11-19T14:48:00.001-08:00

I got some tin up on the back wall today...

I like how it looks. Now we can complete the last straw bale wall...

The backdoor. Even has a workable doorknob now...

And the front door is fully operational. A doorknob and additional lock adds non-security..

And we have our wood stove. The only problem is my piping is the wrong size (used)...got to get a few more parts before that will go in. Don't worry...I have a Fellah helping me with this. Don't want to build the place--just to have it burn down!

Now the frustrating part. I dropped a bit of tin which severed the water line into the house. Off to the hardware store...only to find this is PVC c pipe. My fittings were the wrong size! So we will haul water for the evening. Or maybe a tad longer...

You gotta expect a few challenges now and then...

Tin from the Year 1915!

2009-11-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

I bought 35 sheets of recycled tin and had it delivered this morning (I need a pick up truck--anybody have one they want to sell me? Or better yet: donate?).

This tin is from a barn that was deconstructed (for you post-modernist fans!) down on the valley floor. Royce, who sold me the tin, told me the barn was built in 1915.

This is from the same barn that graces our roof. By the way, we haven't had any leaks...

The tin is also on the side of the building...

I plan on attaching this tin to part of our newest framed in wall...

We also will use it inside the family room--along the wall that houses our bookshelf in this photo.

I wrote about tin yesterday on my other blog. Today, I ran across this excellent indictment of our economy. The video is long--but nicely done. Reusing tin (that is almost 100 years old) is, hopefully, a way to help build a new economy. I hope you will peruse the highlighted video. It is quite excellent!

Front and Back Doors!!

2009-11-17T11:47:00.000-08:00

The outside view of our new Front Door!!

I have to quit making predictions about when we will have "this and that" done. The more you predict--the more wrong you become. Or as a friend of mine has told me: "If you want to make God laugh--tell Her your plans".

We have a new Family Room! These photos are sunny; but they do indicate just how much light (and warmth) we will get in the Addition--having built the place for the natural passive solar heating with a southern exposure. It is winter now--and it warms up just fine. Even without the walls totally built.

The inside view of our Front Door! Pretty plush living...

An outside view of our Back Door! Yahoo!!

An inside view of our new Back Door!

Our new Family Room...with the door open (and Angel observing me) to our old Cabin.

I'm not going to talk about our plans...but, I do have a load of recycled tin coming tomorrow morning. With this I hope to finish up the exterior. This will lead to building the last straw bale wall. Then we can mud the last exterior wall. Now, will I get it done this week (after all, I am nursing an injury)? Your guess is as good as mine...

I also have a new "used" wood stove. This will go into the Family Room. With any luck, this might get installed this week. I have a carpenter friend coming over to help me with this...

All in all, we just might have a usable, cozy Family Room this winter!

Front Door and Back Door Framing...

2009-11-04T11:18:00.000-08:00

The Front Door is framed in!

And the Back Door is Framed in. There is a window above the door! Now we can build the last Straw bale wall. All walls will be in some sort of semblance of semi-completion...

Halloween 2009

2009-11-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

I was gone. At work. But we were happy to have a nice visit from the girls' Mom. Jazzy was a Faerie for Halloween. Kylie chose to be a rather whimsical "dead Hannah Montana".

When I got home, the girls' already had my yearly "Halloween Allan Tax" of Halloween candy put aside for me. I feel it is good that they learn to share... and I was pleased that they even included candy that I like in the "Allan Tax".

Getting Ready to Frame in Doors...

2009-10-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

We did some mortar work today, getting ready to frame in the Front Door! Snail's pace.

And the Back Door--mortared and ready to go:

Tomorrow, we just might have some doors all framed in. Maybe. With luck. And if all goes well.

Survived the Storm...

2009-10-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

The worst is over.

We endured the worst October storm since 1962. Came out better than I expected. The mud on the house stayed put. No damage to the walls. Everything is intact.

School is out today. Electrical service is out in Concow. But we remain happilly connected to the outside world because of our "off grid" system.

It is still raining off and on. The winds have died down. All is well...

Riders In The Storm...

2009-10-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

This is exciting!

I'm sitting here, typing, in my warm snug little cabin. Outside the wind is howling. We have had almost two inches of rain in the last twelve hours. It feels like I am in a little toy boat, being batted about by an angry sea.

So far (keep your fingers crossed)...the mud is holding fine. Just a few problems from design mistakes we made (and have yet to correct--gotta get around to that before the daily rains come).

But the "scratch coat", thus far, is not getting wet.

I should have built the foundation up another six inches. The rain is getting the scratch coat a little wet where the foundation meets the bales. Hopefully, a water impermeable layer will correct this problem. It should be okay...

And with major gusts happening, I was a little worried that the roof would blow off! Seems to be holding fine (again, keep your fingers crossed)...

This storm is a major test for this oddly designed (and built) strawbale addition. The roof isn't leaking! It is still attached to the cabin (even with some major gusts). Everything seems solid.

Thrilling! Adrenaline flows!

A feeling of accomplishment rushes over me--not taking my warmth and security for granted. Is this what the Native Folk felt when they rode out a storm? Or other pre-industrial people who survived the elements? Does a person living in Suburban Drab Housing feel the same way I do right now?

This experience (a ferocious storm) connects me with Mother Nature. I feel a part of Her, like listening to Her heart beating as the wind blows and the rain falls.

A Storm Approaches...

2009-10-12T16:51:00.001-07:00

A phone call this morning alerted us to the danger: A storm is coming!

This storm out of the Southeast is supposed to bring 3 to 7 inches of rain. Wind gusts up to 55 mph! The storm should roll in this evening. It will be gone on Wednesday.

We quickly tarped the most vulnerable wall.

The house only has the "scratch coat" on the straw bales. It won't be impermeable to water until we do the third coat. So what to do? Let it be, we decided. If too much of the mud is washed off, we will quickly attempt to wrap the house in plastic.

A cloudy sky. We haven't seen that in months...

We moved the chickens inside the addition. An old kennel will do for now...

So we wait. Anxiously. This will be a real test for this homemade addition. Will it be able to handle the 50 plus mile an hour wind gusts? Will it topple over? Will all the mud wash off? Will all our work be ruined? A cliff hanger, for sure....

Mudding From On High...

2009-10-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

Little by little we are making progress on putting the "scratch" coat of mud on:

We take turns putting the mud on. I mix the mud...

Just a wee bit of straw bale left to cover..

Done! On to another side...

A Girl and Her Chicken

2009-10-09T09:30:00.001-07:00

Goes Slower Without a Work Crew

2009-09-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

It finally has cooled off enough to get a bit of work done.

Tomorrow, I hope to finish this wall... anybody want to bet as to whether this actually happens?

Hobbits Would Be Proud...

2009-09-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

Joni cobbed above the picture window, in, what will be (someday...maybe in 2014) our bedroom.

And she added some mud to complete one wall. It rained while I was gone, and the mud held up well for a first coat...

A Mud Plaster Party!!

2009-09-13T08:38:00.001-07:00

As I wrote on the other blog, we were blessed by 10 adults, 12 children (aged 9 months to 11 years of age) and 5 dogs who came over to help us get started with plastering the outside of the house with mud. Thanks to all who participated!

You gotta have some "before" pictures...

Before...

Kylie with her bunny, Dutch...before the mud...

Digging for clay. We just dug the clay up right behind the house. Here J. and J2. work hard to dig and sift the clay....J2 worked for six hours digging clay...making sure that we always had enough...

Women with Machetes. A frightening sight! They were happy to get off "machete" duty (cutting up the straw to mix with the mud) and actually put mud on the house. Everyone was so kind; they worked hard!!

Joni demonstrates how to mix the mud in a wheelbarrow. We had two wheelbarrows making mud for many hours of the day. Henry Ford never had an assembly line so efficient!

P. putting mud on the house. My thanks to P. for gathering our Saturday Morning Discussion Group to hep work on the house!

Joni, P and J3 putting mud on the house...

More mud work. It took us a couple of wheelbarrows full to get the right mixture of clay to sand. Turns out the right mixture was 1 bucket of clay to 1/2 bucket of sand. That made the mixture sticky enough to adhere to the straw bales.

J3 putting mud on the wall...."take some down and pass it around"...

Mudding a corner...

P, Joni. S and R applying more mud...

Joni sticking mud on the difficult to manage lip under the bales... Joni had the most talent at doing this difficult work. She earned the nickname: "Mud Whisperer"....

And what it looked like when finished...

Enough for today...time for a barbecue!

More...

How it looked this morning....

Thanks to all who came and helped out!! Joni and I are humbled by the generosity of the folks who worked so very hard on this "Mud Day". Thanks!!

The Chicks Are Alright...

2009-09-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know nothing about chickens. The chicks have survived in our care for a few days now (amazing?). Fun little creatures; much more sociable than I would have expected.

While working the other day, they kept up quite a squawk. Cheep! Cheep! I figured out that if I turned the cage so that they could see where I was working, they stopped chirping. They like to watch.

Of course, we got the chickens to, hopefully, no longer participate in a food system that does this to chickens. Be warned, the link above is very graphic...

The Southern Wall....

2009-08-31T14:54:00.000-07:00

We had plans to build a large window across this wall. We changed our minds; decided that it would be cooler in the summer to just finish it off with bales. Here Joni persuades a bale to go in:

This is the gap before we finished it off with bales...

Another view...

We are attempting to get all the bale work done, as we are having a few friends over on Saturday, September 12, 2009 to do some mud work. On that day, we hope to get the first layer of mud on three of the four walls.

If you would like to participate...feel free to drop me a line. Hopefully, we will have a barbecue. A few brave souls might want to camp out and howl at the moon. We would love to have you here...

Manzanita Leaves and Chicks!!

2009-08-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

Kylie managed to get into some poison oak. A Native American woman told me that "if you make a tea out of the manzanita leaf---and then wash the outbreak: it will help". So here, Kylie harvests some manzanita leaves:

We shall see if it works:

And we got a couple of chicks today. Chickens. They will go back to our neighbor's if they are Roosters. Here Jazmine shows off her chick, whose name is "Rivermoss". (!?)

And Kylie with her more conventionally named chick: "pepe' "

We've never had chickens before...so this should be interesting. We do have a book on keeping chickens. Getting chicks was on our "to do" list. I just didn't think that we would get them today.

I hope the chicks turn out better than our Lilliputian corn...

Mud and More...

2009-08-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Joni making Cob... And building another layer of mud...

Despite the heat, we managed to get some work done today...

Yipi-Ai-Oh Mini Tiny Corn Cobs...

2009-08-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

I promised, when I started this blog, that I would show everything, warts and all. Our failures and mistakes. This has got to be one of our more embarrassing moments. The corn harvest!

Two foot tall stalks.

Joni approaches the corn cautiously.

Yes, there are ears in there...

Kylie harvests an ear...

Yes, we shall have some of the corn for dinner tonight. The rest Joni plans to make into some creamed corn. We are on a mission to prove eco-poet Gary Snyder wrong...but not this year.

Tomorrow we shall start some real work on the house.

Built by Hobbits on Mushrooms?

2009-08-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

We have done almost no work on this house for six weeks. Yes, we were a bit preoccupied with other matters. We also spent every last dime on this court case ($25,000). That leads to having to work for pay more, which leads to exhaustion, which leads to no work being done on the house. A downward spiral.

We are stymied.

We haven't figured out a way to frame out one of the sixteen foot walls. We have to figure out how to put in two doors (and frame them). We need to put in a wood stove, or a Cob stove (Joni wants to build one, but we have so much cobbing to do that I think this is nearly an impossibility). How do I put that thing in without burning down the house or fumigating us with carbon monoxide? Now is the time for "Norm" the master carpenter to appear on the scene. We also could use "Oak" the electrician and "Smokey" the wood burner expert.

How does one finish a project with no money? How does one finish a project with no expertise? How does one finish a job without a twenty foot extension ladder? How does one finish a project with a fear of heights?

Then there is all the mud work left to do. Cob walls to finish. Mud for the entire exterior walls. Mud for the interior walls. The half million kids at Woodstock didn't make as much mud as we have left to make.

And did I mention the wiring we need to do? And about 1,000 watts of solar panels to add (which we cannot afford right now). And what about the hot water tower I want to build?

Then there is the problem of the Adobe floor. Mixing that by the wheelbarrow full. Hundreds and hundreds of them. With a month to dry. When is that gonna happen?

We are two to three months away from the rainy season. Will we have more livable space available to us before we are marooned by four to five months of torrential rains? Will we have the walls done and plastered so that the bales don't get wet?

And when we are done, will it look like a bunch of Hobbits on Mushrooms built this place? (Most assuredly the answer is "yes".)

Stay tuned. We have lots of problems to solve. Right now, it looks like we will be roughing it for a bit longer. Maybe another season. Or year. Or decade.

As the AA folks say: "One day at a time"... Time for a beer.

Raising the Next Generation of Monkey Wrenchers!

2009-08-15T15:53:00.001-07:00

When I was in Moab, Utah last week, I picked up some "monkey wrenching" t-shirts for the girls. I bought them at the best bookstore in Moab, Utah: "Back of Beyond Bookstore". Here I hob nobbed with the owner. Saw a first edition Jonathon Troy. Saw multiple signed copies of other Ed Abbey first editions. I was in heaven.

I am pleased to announce that Jazmine and Kylie will continue their political/enviro indoctrination with us for many years to come!

Maybe Gary Snyder Was Right?

2009-08-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

I got the idea to live this life from the great Enviro Poet: Gary Snyder. Gary (whose property he shared with Allen Ginsburg is some forty miles south of here) said that no one can garden in the Foothills. Undaunted, we set out to prove him wrong.

Our first garden has been mostly a failure. We didn't fence it much to our neighbor's dismay. They said the deer would eat the garden. In standard New Age Yuppie "WE LOVE THE WORLD" fashion, we Shamanistically held hands and asked the deer not to eat the garden. I reminded the deer not to eat the garden by peeing around the perimeter. Thus far the deer have left it alone.

But the garden didn't really grow. We got a few zucchinis and some tomatoes. We also got some Yukon Gold potatoes. The lettuce didn't ever grow. The carrots grew to be about an inch long. Bizarre!

Jazmine standing in front of our Lilliputian Sweet Corn.

And the weirdest thing is our sweet corn. These plants should be seven feet tall. Instead, they are two feet tall. And they have tasseled! Yes, ears are developing.

The ears will probably be like those ears of corn you see in Chinese cuisine.

We have been adding Alpaca poop to the garden (courtesy of some neighbors). We also will order better compost (besides making our own), worm tailings, chicken poop, Alpaca poop and topsoil for next year's garden.

Hopefully over the next few years we shall solve this problem. Add more beds. And be able to eat more out of our garden. For now, we just laugh at our efforts!!

It can be done, as our neighbors (an RN couple) have a beautiful garden. They said it took years to figure out how to do it.

Joni, the Master Cobber...

2009-07-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

The North Wall...

2009-07-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had problems with our water pump, so no work was done. I had to order a more powerful pump, as the old one is having problems pushing the water so far for the garden.

This morning we built the North Side higher, and put in another window. Yahoo!!

Forgot to hold in the belly while lifting this bale!

Inexpensive scaffolding

The North Face (err, wall)

Inside the house.

Another view inside the house...

Yet another view...

Wooden Rounds and Higher We Go!

2009-07-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

I used the chainsaw to cut up a couple of rounds to put into the Cob:

And Higher we go!

I'm driving to the Napa Valley to pick up a couple extra days of work. We shall re-commence on Monday...

Speeding Along At Glacial Pace...

2009-07-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

While I was working, Joni kept Cobbing the wall.

From outsie the house

L
Looking out, from inside the house

My New Car: 2009 Yaris

2009-06-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

I bought a new car this morning. This will be my new commuter car. Tis simple, with no frills (except a CD player). No power windows. A simple car for a simple man.

Inside the Addition (without clutter)

2009-06-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

Putting In More Windows...

2009-06-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

Taking a Chainsaw to the Straw...

2009-06-18T17:21:00.000-07:00

Okay. This was fun.

I'm trying to notch a strawbale to make it fit above a window. Thought I'd take the chainsaw to it.

A very hot day here. Mid-90's. More typical of the season here in the lower Foothills. We encountered all sorts of problems, and didn't get as much done as I'd hoped.

The Slow Building Movement continues...

Learning to Tie a Bale...

2009-06-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

So easy, a kid can do it...

A work day today. We take our time at this project. We have no foreman, union, construction company, boss, contractor nor accountants to please. We try and make it fun. Go slow. Enjoy the process.

The Slow Building Movement...

Salvage Logging Trucks On Our Road...

2009-06-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Dozens of these trucks share our road. The Salvage logging (rape) continues, despite a wood glut that has reduced prices to a mere pittance. Wildfires are a boon to the logging companies--as they mine the forests with nearly no restrictions. All rules go out the window.

They take all the best trees; many of which would have lived and (having survived the fire) would have passed on their superior genetic stock to the next generation of forests. The clear cuts above our household turn the mountains into a denuded, empty, lifeless place. The runoff will clog the trout streams, now that the biomass is gone.

Studies indicate that letting the burned areas recover (without being logged) is the best thing. Best for the forests that is (and not for the logging companies wallets). We have enough wood right now. No need to mine more trees!

By the way, I called our County Supervisor to complain about the hazards of meeting such large trucks on single lane roads. His reply was: "The loggers have more of a right to be there than you do!".

So why did the county decide to divide up the parcels that our house sits on some twenty years ago? If they didn't want us to be here, they certainly could have not permitted the lots to be divided.