On a different site for the first time.

Today, Phil and Jessa and I went out to Michelle's to mark where her strawbale/cob studio is going to be. The site was gorgeous and entirely different from John's wooded site. Michelle had her two sons with her (Eli and Ian- Ian was strapped to Michelle's back the entire time. Eli is my new boyfriend. Both boys are adorable.)

Michelle, Phil and Jessa, on site.

We staked out the perimeter of the building, having slight difficulties with the arch that will be the curved cob wall. Apparently, natural builders cannot be good at math.

Phil staking. This is one option to send to Richard for an "action pose."

The house, marked.

We marked the foundation for the person who is going to come dig it out for us. I think this will happen Wednesday. We marked two foot in from the wall and one foot out. We also marked where the posts are going to be for the timber frame. We are going to look/cut down trees tomorrow.

Phil, marking where to dig for the foundation.

Michelle wanted to know how much clay she was going to need to order. When possible, we will be using clay that comes from the site, so we needed to dig to see if we were going to find any. Once we started digging, we realized that we were planning to build on top of a solid rock that was covered by 6 inches or so of soil. This is a very good thing- strong foundation.

Phil and Jessa, digging to see what we were dealing with.

And, of course, there was some goofing off. ^_^

Perhaps an alternative action shot? I'm sure Richard would love it.

On the way back to campus, we stopped beside the road to look at some bamboo that might be used in the earthbag walls for some extra sturdiness. I think Phil took some back with him to see how it dries.

I did have a weird issue today. After coming in from marking the building, Jessa, Phil and Michelle were discussing some technical aspects of the house (the part that I don't have much to contribute to yet) such as the size and placement of windows. We were standing in the kitchen around the floor plans that were layed out on the island. And then my stomach started feeling pretty strange- in a familiar, dull, terrible way. I got my bottle of water and drank a little, but didn't feel much better. After standing there for another minute or so, I recognized what the feeling was- it was the pre-fainting feeling that I get whenever I'm around needles. Not wanting to be the weirdo who passes out on the first day on site, I took another drink and hoped the feeling would go away. But it didn't and I got dizzy, so I told Jessa I was going to sit down. The others told me I looked pale and offered me food and such, but I said I was fine- I know that just sitting can help quite a bit. So I sat on the floor and made goo-goo eyes at baby Eli and soon felt better. To be super safe, I ate a granola bar and felt completely up to par after a nice lunch of quinoa (this is how wikipedia says you spell this word...) and and beans.

Please note, this is not normal for me. The only times I have ever passed out have been when needles were involved (shots, tattoos, piercings.) I have only been dizzy from a lack of food once in the 9th grade when I didn't know how to manage my vegetarian diet. My little near-fainting spell could have been for several reasons (or combinations of these reasons):

1. I hadn't eaten anything yet.
   
2. It was incredibly hot.
   
3. Not enough water.
   
4. My body is completely ridiculous and just decided to give out on me.

I doubt option 4 has much validity- I have been nice to my body and it should be nice to me too. Option 3 would surprise me, because I had been drinking water while I was on site. Granted, warm water, and probably not enough in proportion to the heat. Option 2 would be weird, since I've never had heat issues before, and I spent last summer out in the sun for ten hour shifts, four times a week. Also, we were inside an air conditioned building at the time. The food thing is possible, but I wasn't feeling hungry at all and have been eating very healthily lately. I assume it is a combination of these things. I will work to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Tomorrow, tree picking. Wednesday, digging the foundation on Michelle's house. Next week, our first workshop at John's house. Phil recommended that I read the section on floors in my Building with Cob book. (I've been reading Earthbag Building: The tools, tricks and techniques lately, since earthbag is our first workshop.) I also need to get my timecard set up online.