Going Up.

Alright guys. I've been avoiding posting. So much has happened at Michelle's... (This entry was written while listening to NPR's "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" and talking to my mother on the phone. Therefore, it might have a few mistakes/redundancies in it. I might go back and edit later. It just took way too long to write and I am glad that it is done.)

For kicks, here's what Michelle's looked like when you guys last heard from me:
Actually, it wasn't this built up. The stemwall was not complete at the time of my last post. Sunday, (the day that we were supposed to meet with a guy named Jeff to get some timberframing help but he didn't show,) we finished the stemwall.

Here's a now picture:
It has grown. Here's how:
These are the U-brackets that we attached to the concrete piers. We attached the whole in the bottom to the screw on the J-bolt that was sunk into the pier. The two holes on each side of the bracket would later be attached to a log.

The original plan was to lift the logs using a nifty tripod device.
The plan was to lift the log about halfway up using strength and a miniature tripod and then continue lifting the log into place on the pier with the big tripod.
This plan was unsuccessful. We did not have the manpower. So, we got machine-power.
Harol, the neighbor with the bobcat and cute dogs, came to help. Jessa's husband, Nathan, also came.
We used a safety chain on all our logs, which did not keep the raising process from being exceptionally nerve-wracking. Especially since Nathan had to crawl on top of the bobcat to move the chain around.
After we got the logs vertical, we used 2x4s for extra support.
Some of the logs had been notched out the previous week. The notches had to be lined up with the U-bracket so that the log would fit. There are also holes on the bottom of the logs that had to be lined up with the J-bolt.
Sometimes getting the logs to line up took a little "convincing."
Once the logs were in place, we screwed the two bottom screws in, then stood back and (judging primarily by sight) made sure the logs were straight. Then put our braces in and then a few more screws.
3 logs up. ^_^ The fourth log was difficult to get up. We didn't want to run over the stemwall and we couldn't really get to the pier from the outside because of fence nearby.
(I just like this picture.) We started at the pole from the outside, and once it was fairly vertical, it tipped. The chain held the log as it went from vertical to horizontal, knocking and breaking one of the braces on the first log. There were some screams and gasps, but everything was fine and the first log stayed standing.
We ended up putting up the fourth log from the inside.

The building, up. Hoorah!
The next day, we had to put up our sideboards. We hadn't picked up our scaffolding yet, so we winged it. Scarily. A shaky 10x2 is not a comfortable thing to stand on. Phil did, though, for the majority of the day. The 10x2 sideboards needed a place to rest, so Phil carved notches. He started just using a chisel, but soon picked up his chainsaw. I helped some, although found that I am slightly afraid of heights when on such rickity scaffolding.
It took us a full day to get these five 10x2s up, but the next day went by much faster. I believe in learning curves. (This is a favorite picture, if only because Phil and Jessa's butts are up in the air. Lovely.)
The supports have made for some awkward hammering so far, but we're leaving them up as long as we can.

The next step was putting up the floor joists for the loft. Although the loft covers two thirds of the building, we were only prepared to put up one section of joists. The second section will come when we put the curved cob wall in- the joists will be built into the cob.

The joists weren't a huge issue, as long as we measured our notches correctly. I did get to use a chainsaw for the first time in my life. Wonderful stuff.

Today, we were going to build stairs. Phil was looking at the plans and realized that, according the the plans, the stairs were only a few feet below the sideboards, meaning that people were going to have to duck quite a bit. This was not good. We decided to move the stairs a couple feet towards the curved wall, so there's less of a landing. When we move the stairs as far as we can and allow 6 feet under the sideboard to walk under, we still needed some steep stairs. 9 1/2 inch rise and 9 inch run.
Phil marked the stairs out, using a textbook from a construction short-term class. (I get a personal kick out of doing stuff that nobody on our team has done before, like stair building. That way, we're all on the same level. Learning together. Kinda.)

When Phil started cutting, the lumber REALLY started cracking. He decided that we need more lumber to act as a backing. We are going to pick that up tomorrow.

So, with no stairs to build, we were searching for something to do. The next step in our progress is going to be getting a roof up. Phil thought that maybe we could go ahead and trim the tops of the posts, since they were all a little long. Thus:
He put out a 10x2 to stand on, but it was a little too uncomfortable. We decided to wait until we got a temporary floor down on our joists (tomorrow, most likely) so we can use ladders and scaffolding and such. It would be safer and easier. And we got to leave the site early today because there was nothing else we could really do.

And, just because this picture did not fit into my narrative anywhere:
Adam and Nibbles, Harol's dog. Harol has another dog named Red who is super affectionate and rides around with Harol in his mule.

erinisshovelinggravel.com

Good news! I ordered a new camera battery charger and it was delivered today! We no longer need to rely on 5 minute Paint jobs! (There are some pictures in this post. They are Jessa's. Enjoy.)

We went to Michelle's on Wednesday and Friday. It's starting to get exciting out there- the site actually looks like we're going to be building something there.

On Wednesday, we finished stripping the trees. Locust trees are far harder to strip than pine, but luckily, there were only two locusts.
(See the tree that is the second closest? That one was the toughest to strip. All those curves and knots. Looks good now, but not an easy job.)

The last of our gravel was delivered. When Phil and I were out there Monday, there was some gravel, but we still needed a little more for a corner and to fill the bags for the stemwall. Jessa's mom was hit on by the gravel deliverer. Good stuff.

Just for kicks, here's the site before gravel:
Notice the columns. They were erected in the rain. They will hold our logs, which will hold the building. We are counting on these columns. (Jessa did a test to see if the columns were all in line and level, as we planned them to be. Only a few are a little off, and it's nothing that can't be compensated for when we cut the logs. Good.) Also, notice that, at the time that this picture was taken, the topsoil was not completely removed. Lastly, please notice the drain tile, which slopes downhill (thanks to some great digging) and comes out to daylight on the side of the hill (per code requirements.)

Post-gravel:
This picture was taken yesterday. I dub yesterday "Day of Extreme Heat." It was hot. We moved the tent-ish-thing to where we were working, but it was still, very hot. Please note in this picture, the pillars are mostly covered. By the time the floor gets put in, only a couple inches will be showing. Note me, filling bags (the same kind as what we use at John's) with gravel. This will make up the stemwall. The straw bales will rest on top of the bags. Notice the two rolls of chicken wire that were (later) rolled out so that the earthbags could be placed on top of them. They will, later, wrap around the earthbags, providing extra strength and unity in the stemwall as well as giving us something to plaster to. Note the lumber in the background that will be used throughout the structure.
The beginning of building. We are finally going vertical. (I can't really see the chicken wire in this picture, so I assume you can't either. I promise it's there though.)

Tomorrow (yes, Sunday,) we are going out to meet up with a guy named Paul who knows how to timberframe. I think Phil and Jessa both wanted someone with more experience in on this step, just to make sure things go well. We're going to put our long logs up. I will take pictures.

Now, another "picture bomb," featuring John's house. (I was only there for a few hours on Thursday, filling bags. I had something else I had to do in the afternoon. No real updates from Thursday.) (These pictures were taken a little while ago. Our walls are higher now.)

Electrical has been set. It was a little tricky bagging around the outlets, but we succeeded. They are nailed/screwed/attached to a flat piece of wood, which is nailed into the bags. We used a slightly-less-full bag on top of the outlets, molding it around the outlet as much as possible. Placing electrical stuff has been mostly John's project.
Another one of John's projects has been meeting code requirements for plumbing. Even though John has no intention of putting a commode in his bathroom, he has to put the plumbing in to support one. The pipe sticking directly up is for his non-existent toilet. The other lines lead to the kitchen and shower (I think. Again, this is John's project mostly, so I don't know a ton about it.) John has had to re-do the plumbing multiple times to make the codes inspectors happy.
He had to dig underneath the wall at one point (to get the plumbing to go to the kitchen.) Nothing collapsed. Even when John stood on top of the wall. We must be doing something right.
The dome is going to be 16 feet tall. This pole is 16 feet tall. It's weird to see how far we still have to go. The pole will be part of the compass once we start arching the dome (after the four foot mark that you can see painted on the door forms.) (We're probably beyond that point by now- I haven't been at John's much in the last several days, but after I left Thursday, more stacking was done and Jeff is back and was stacking on Friday.) I will post more about the compass as I learn more about it. (If you look very closely, you might see a tiny orange flag at the top of the pole. We needed a flag.)
Meet my least favorite job. Tamping. Since I've posted on this site that it is my least favorite job, Phil and Jessa always get a chuckle when I do it. I really don't mind it, but if there's something else that needs to be done, I will generally go to that other job. In this picture, you can see both kinds of tampers. The store-bought one that I am using (my favorite) and the homemade one sitting on the ground next to me.

I'm a barb-y girl.

(This entry is long and disorganized and possibly confusing. This is your prewarning.)

Today was a good day out at John's. Not that we ever have bad days. I just feel like there was a lot to say about today. I think I did a tiny bit of everything today at the site. Even tamping. Barely.

Richard, the SENS director at Berea and one of my professors, came out to visit the site. He asked how everything was going- it was still a little too early in the morning to be entirely enthusiastic, so I think he got short answers. He asked if I was learning a lot, which I kept thinking about throughout the day. Yes, I have learned a lot. It's very specific though; I have learned a lot about building an earthbag dome. I have learned how to strip trees and pour concrete and hammer without smashing my thumb. I am gaining comfort with the processes of natural building. I think when I began my internship, natural building was something that I had just read about, seen pictures of, and seen in the movies Richard showed. While it made sense, it wasn't extremely tangible. Now that I've been working on the process for several weeks now, I recognize the amount of work, thought, time and materials that goes into natural building. I think this means I'm learning things.

While I've done this before, I feel that I should mention to my Loyal Blog Readers a process that I get too much joy out of doing- that is, pinning bags. There are a few places in the walls where a bag's open end will be facing an open area (as opposed to our normal stacking method where the open ends stack against other bags, keeping everything tight.) Simply folding the bags' ends doesn't work very well- they tend to come open and spill dirt. Instead, we fold over the ends and take two nails and pin the side using the nails. Sometimes it's tough to get the nails to go all the way through- those bags are tough. Phil suggested using tie-wire instead of nails- to make the wire go in and out and twist it shut. I tried that and it worked decently, but the wire bent a bit as I tried to stick it though the bags. I could go either way as far as what I pin the bags with, but I like the look of (and get more personal enjoyment out of) using nails.

Phil also showed me another way to lay the barbed wire. Once the walls get to be four feet high (which will be very soon,) we will start the curve to the dome. We will take each layer in a bit more. Since our bags are so much smaller than typical bags used for earthbag building (I think ours are a foot wide,) we decided to make the walls two bags wide. This will make it easier to tamp and give a little more structural integrity.

I do not feel capable of explaining this correctly. Thus, drawings! Behold, my mad Paint skillz.

(Above) This is the way we are currently stacking our walls. (This would be the view from above.) Each course would look like this, but the directions of the bags alternate. (The next course would, if drawn, have the vertical bags on top and the horizontal on bottom.) The red shows where we put our barbed wire. On the vertical bags, we keep it low enough to be able to snatch onto the horizontal bags that will be stacked on top of it. (I hope this makes sense.)
This is the way that we are switching to after four feet. Because the bags are not alternating directions, they are, essentially, forming two walls side by side. We need to connect the two walls. So we use barbed wire.
This is the method that I started doing. It was very similar to my straight barbed wiring in that it was forced into place and pinned where I wanted it.
This is what Phil suggested. He called this method "serpentine." Instead of straightening the barbed wire when pulling it off the roll, we keep the natural curl and just lay that down. Sounds good in theory, but I really did not like it. It did not want to stay flat on the bags and kept jumping up and smacking my arms. I didn't feel like I had much control over it. I used it for a while, but then decided to switch back to my method.

(I am now done with my explaining of barbed wire.)

John had me do more math today to figure out how many bags we were going to need for something. (Now that I think of it, I can't remember what exactly was being calculated. I was too focused on numbers.) I really am rusty on my math. Easy math too. Subtraction. But I came up with the right answer eventually.

It rained today- we saw the clouds coming and were pretty ready to run to the neighbor's porch by the time it started raining on us. It was a hard rain, for about 15 minutes. We took some bags that needed to be turned inside out onto the porch.

There are two dogs at Egret's Cove and I love them very much. They both came up to the site today to walk around and visit. One of the dogs, who is quite short, followed Jessa up onto the wall, which is fairly tall. It was immensely cute.

***

Yesterday, Phil and I went out to Michelle's and stripped trees for her timberframe. I used a machete and a draw knife. Both of these had very short handles (in comparison to Phil's tool that I cannot remember the name of that had a very long handle with a flat metal piece on the end for wedging underneath the bark.) This means, I got to crawl all over these logs. Most of the logs were pine, and the amount of rosin they contained was ridiculous. When I got home, my shins and arms had rosin and dirt crusted on them. My back also hurt from leaning over all day. We left with one and two half trees left to de-bark. We stripped 10. We are going back tomorrow to finish stripping and start filling bags for Michelle's earthbag stemwall.

Different Days

Tuesday- Michelle's
The boys were gone and, for the first time, it was just Jessa and I working. And it went rather well. We went to Michelle's to finish taking the topsoil of the un-dug part of our foundation. (This is something that we asked the neighbor to do before digging the foundation, but somehow, it was not done.) Jessa had come out previously and dug for five hours, only getting halfway across, so I was afraid that this was going to take the whole day. I started digging while Jessa finished laying the drain tile. It wasn't bad- it was just a matter of removing the top 8 inches or so. Once Jessa hopped up and helped dig, it took no time at all. We were done by noon. Having nothing else to do on that site, we went home.

Wednesday- John's
Jessa and I were expecting a slow moving day, since it was just going to be the two of us and John. However, that was not the case. Many of the neighbors stayed and helped fill bags for a while, Jessa's mom came back out to help and we got nearly two rows layed. I filled bags some, layed barbed wire, placed bags and tamped. (A lot. I now have blisters on my hands. Tamping is still the least favorite.) At the end of the day, some of John's family came to visit and Thom Price came to visit (and bring us Italian chocolates. Yum.) It was a good day, and was far more productive than we imagined it would be.

Thursday- Jessa's
Jessa and I were on our way out to Michelle's to strip timber. We called Michelle to let her know that we were stopping by Lowes, so we'd be later than expected. When we called, Michelle informed us that the trees hadn't been delivered yet. Having nothing else to do at Michelle's, we turned around and headed back into Berea. Instead of going to John's (since he wouldn't be expecting us,) we went to finish up an example solar house for Jessa's previous job. The house was probably five feet tall at the highest point in the roof and had solar shingles and a floppy solar panel. The house just had a few finishing touches that it needed- it had a few screws that stuck out a tiny bit, the floppy solar panel needed to be attached and the floor needed to be waterproofed. The nails were tiny and only stuck out a little, but we were afraid that a kid walking through the house might scratch their finger, so we cut off the tips of the screws. (We started using little wooden biscuits to cover the tips, but it didn't seem extremely sturdy, so we decided to cut the tips off.) We then used some sticky tar-like substance to make the solar panel stick to the roof. Then we painted a thin layer of sealer onto the floor (discovering that it gets the sticky tarlike substance off our hands. Interesting.) I think Jessa was glad to finally have this project done, and I was glad for a change of pace.

Friday was supposed to be (and was) rainy (and the fourth of July), so we didn't go out.