Rumi’s Dome

Well, here we are….the final blog post to report on the final chapter of the goat mud hut adventure in Rainier, WA, spring of 2014. And what an adventure it has been! I’ve been back in Winnipeg for 6 days now. As I sit here reflecting on these last few months in my quiet little studio apartment, part of me wonders if it really happened at all. It all seems a bit surreal at the moment.

The last few days after the last post was a valiant effort to finish as much of the outside plastering as possible before I had to leave on Sunday, June 8th, and I must say, last minute shotcrete job cancellation notwithstanding, we got pretty damned close!

Let me begin this post with a photo summary of those last 3 days of plastering so you can see where we officially got to by the time I left and what is left for Meggan to do over the next few days/weeks.

Once again, here we were, at the end of the solo plastering day last Wednesday, three days and counting before departure:

And after all was said and done, this is what we had produced by late afternoon on Saturday, June 7th:

Looking pretty round, pretty complete, more mushroom, less beehive….but still a hybrid of the two.

The structure will stand tall and proud like this for another week or so until Joseph, the Eco-building, Earth plaster expert from Olympia will come out for a day with his plaster pump to apply one more thin coat of plaster over the whole dome to smooth it out and finish it off. It will then stand as is to dry out for another week or two at which point there will most likely be a waterproof membrane painted on to protect the dome from rainwater penetrating the porous Superadobe material. Meggan and I will be in communication to confirm and finalize this last step so that we both feel good about this experimental goat dome’s readiness to take on the wet Washington winter. I trust Joseph and Meggan will discuss some good options in this regard when he comes out with the pump next week.

Here are a few photos of the last plastering days and the wonderful helpers we were fortunate to have come out and assist with their great energy!

Lanakila came by on Thursday for a few hours and we had a lovely sunny day to get a few sections mostly done.

Thank you for all of your help Lanakila, you are truly a gem and your positive support and enthusiasm was so very appreciated! I look forward to checking out one of his many books through Amazon (I got a preview of ‘A Journey From Present to Past’ by Lanakila Washington and it looks fascinating, check it on Amazon)!

Friday and Saturday consisted of more of the same, plastering and more plastering. Meggan had hired Roger to come out for the last two days so we could maximize our production while I was still here. Not Roger of foundation plan and carpentry fame from past posts, but Roger who had advertised plastering/painting services in Betty’s newsletter in Yelm. Roger is a down-to-Earth, ex-fellow Canadian from New Brunswick but has been living in Washington for 20 plus years now (still has that hard-to-place Maritime accent though!). He was a great help and on Friday, he also brought another wonderful helper with him, the lovely Anna from Germany, via Edmonton, now also living in Tenino which is a quaint town next to Rainier.

Friday was also the day that Joseph made the trek out to Rainier from Olympia to show us the milk paint/lime paint options he had for painting the inside of the dome. Joseph is an amazing wealth of knowledge of all things eco. He is also very realistic and honest about what can be expected and/or accomplished with this milk/lime paint medium within the context of our project. He was generous enough to stay and mix up a small batch of milk paint to test it on our Earthbag interior and gave us the pros and cons of both the milk paint and lime paint. We may actually go with the lime paint for the upper coils as it gives a nice white white finished look as opposed to the milk paint’s off-white color. I suppose again that he and Meggan may discuss this further next week and reach a decision for the interior finish. Whatever ends up on the inner walls just has to be breathable so the Superadobe has an avenue for water to escape, especially if there ends up being a waterproof membrane on the outside which is not breathable. I am certain an easy, inexpensive and effective solution will arise for the completion of the inside of the dome.

In the end, we accomplished a lot in those last two days. I enjoyed the plastering company, good conversation and learning about the natural paints and plasters. Here are some highlights from the last two work days with Roger and Anna and milk paint visit/consult with Joseph:

Joseph sunning himself on the buttress while Anna plasters:

Anna and Roger in deep plaster focus:

Roger testing the strength of the entry buttress; solid.

Mmmm, velvety!

Entryway is getting plump

And the crowning glory to place above the entrance was the necklace that I had worn almost everyday whilst building this very goat dome…Meggan had gifted this necklace to me shortly after my arrival deciding that it belonged to me. It became my dome-building necklace. This was a necklace that she had made with her own hands so we thought it would perfectly embody both of our combined energies as a symbolic gesture of the blood, sweat, tears and love that went into the building of this inaugural Cal-Earth goat dome structure.

Here is the ceremonial embedding of the necklace above the door:

Gotta admit, I was pretty proud that I got that sucker to stay on a pretty much vertical surface, nevermind that Roger had to coach me through the whole process, thank you Roger! Meggan was appropriately looking after the goats while this was playing out at the end of the day.

Hopefully it survives the final plastering round next week!

And in order to say I was officially finished working on this particular dome project, I had one more thing I had to do:

Oh yeah, MILLER TIME!! A job well done indeed.

The nice thing about those final few days was that the panic potential had passed. No, the dome would not be ABSOLUTELY and COMPLETELY done by the time I left, but it would be ABSOLUTELY FUNCTIONAL with just a few small steps to say it was officially ‘goat ready’. It’s just us humans that like things to look ‘pretty’ or ‘orderly’ and yes, I had to surrender the part of me that was bothered by the mud stains still clinging to some of the upper coils on the inside that I couldn’t get to, or the ‘unclear’ edge of where the plaster would stop in the entryway as you enter the dome, or the glass windows that still needed to be scrubbed of cement plaster residue. Even the Earth plaster crumbs that lay waiting to be swept from the cylindrical trough of the pipe windows. No, I didn’t get my squeaky clean, perfectly finished Smurf hut photo-op before I left….but this ain’t Hollywood either. Perfection is a subjective perception at best (say that 5 times fast). We have to accept things as they are, not as our egos would like them to be. And when I remain in that beautiful heart space that brought me out here in the first place which Rumi so innocently reminded me of, I can’t see anything but the best damn goat mud hut this side of the Milky Way!

And speaking of Rumi and accepting things as they are, guess who came home for my last two nights after hanging with Dr. Sealy for a few days…..yes! I got to see Rumi one more time before heading back to Canada, what a treat! Now, to be sure, Rumi is still on the fence about which way he will ultimately decide to go in this Earthwalk but what an honour to have none other than this Divine goat, named by Meggan after the poet who inspired Nader Khalili, founder of this very style of Earth building in which we built this goat dome, return to this property, if only to be the very first goat to grace this goat dome proper! Now THAT’S perfection if you ask me, at least from my subjective perception!

Please enjoy this short video tour of the goat dome with our beloved Rumi infusing the whole structure and surrounding area with his pure love and awesomeness just by his PRESENCE!

I just heard from Meggan yesterday that Rumi has officially been adopted by Dr. Sealy and her daughter to carry him forth in the direction of his choosing. Bless them both for their love and dedication in caring for this precious goat.

On the morning of my departure, I got up early and went out to the dome with my djembe drum to sit and experience the energy inside the dome (it’s amazing) and play a few beats to feel the vibration of what we co-created together with all of the wonderful helpers, seen and unseen, who contributed some aspect of themSelves to be forever infused into the DNA of this structure. Wow, what a nice feeling that was. I won’t soon forget it. Nor will I soon forget all of the amazing folks I met out in Rainier. I feel as though I have a whole extended family in the Pacific Northwest now. There are some amazing things happening in this little corner of the Earth and I was honored and humbled to be witness to some of it.

Now what would a goat mud hut project conclusion be without having all of the goats check out their new digs? These were my final moments in Rainier, WA. Giselda and Ariel stopped by to say goodbye and we all walked out to the dome together for one last photo shoot. This time we left the gate open for the goats to join us.

Meggan, you’re a Warrior and I’d walk through the fire with you any day….back at ya Girl! WE DID IT!!!

Wayne, who had been a tremendous help in the earlier stages of the dome building stopped by to see the end product and to say goodbye as he will be off on his own adventures to Africa with his Biosand Filter/Friendly Water project soon and he asked me, “Tannis, now that you’ve gone through this process and built one of these, would you do it again?” And without a shadow of hesitation, my response was, “In a heartbeat.”

Dante, Vittoria, Lucy, Lily, Opal, Darwin and Rumi, in the flesh or in essence, we hope you enjoy your new dome.

Plaster party and goat love

Hello friends! Wanted to update you on dome happenings and baby goats as this is my last week here in Rainier (crazy!). I’ve been riddled with mixed feelings this week as you can perhaps imagine. I feel myself growing weary as the proverbial ‘finish line’ approaches, fantasizing about the hammock on my apartment balcony back home and dear friends and family that await my return. Simultaneously, I have trouble envisioning my days without the now familiar props and people that have become family in my day to day existence. This is part and parcel of any finale or departure, I’m sure. But when I look back on these last 3 1/2 months, there has been so much Divinity over the course of the entire dome project between Angel helpers showing up at PIVOTAL moments along the way and having those satisfying moments when you realize that what you thought was going to be a disaster ends up being bang on and awesome, (and occasionally the reverse)!

The latest Angel that came on the scene was Dr. Suzan Sealy who showed up last night to check on Rumi, the little goat that could! Rumi is Opal’s first born and has had quite a challenging introduction to life on Earth. He has captured the hearts of everyone in this household with his sweet spirit and vulnerability. His legs are quite weak, one particularly limp and he has developed a case of pneumonia as of late, poor little guy, so Dr. Sealy who, in addition to detecting the pneumonia and doing some healing energy work and connecting with his spirit to see where he’s at, offered to take him home with her to care for him directly for a few days so she could continue the therapy.

I’ve never been so smitten with a goat before, he really is a special little guy and has blown my heart wide open!

I’ll let you see for yourself, he’s amazing. Look at him!! 🙂

Brother Darwin is pretty damned cute too (but a little too frisky for Rumi at this point, which is great that he’s doing so well)!

And look at them both with their new coats to keep them warm, awwwwwww……………………!!!

The barn became too cold at night for Rumi so we started bringing him in the house where we’d arranged an area in front of the fire. I happily volunteered to sleep with him for three nights. I was in animal bliss with little Rumi at my head and my cat Leroy respectfully sleeping at my feet. They know when another animal needs care, I’m sure of it. It was really special to cuddle and bond with this little cutie by the fire! Here we are getting settled:

Leroy watched from afar, trying to figure out this interesting new member of the household:

Meggan and Cyrus had been doing most of the bottle feeding:

And Lori doing her massage magic on Rumi’s gimpy back leg:

We took him outside to see his Mama and bro for visits (until adorable Darwin would want to play with his brother and jump on him and wrestle as baby goats do, bless him, but that wasn’t going to help Rumi’s leg heal!) and sometimes out on the deck to warm up:

We just heard from Dr. Sealy that he’s not out of the woods yet and there could even be more going on than we knew so she will continue to monitor and treat him for a few more days. As I am leaving on Sunday, I am pretty sure last night was my last time seeing Rumi, whether he ultimately decides to stay on Earth or cross over to other adventures, but I am certain I will never forget him.

I believe animals are our best teachers…for me they certainly seem to be for many an important life lesson anyways. So this week as I’ve been trying to navigate the final stages of the dome project which is not quite finished (still a large chunk of plastering left to do despite a successful and fun plaster party this past Saturday which I’ll tell you about in a minute, and a coating of milk paint on the top inside coils of the dome) I would look at this sweet little goat and be reminded of why I came out here to Washington in the first place. I was following my heart. Logistically, it made no sense to leave a thriving massage practice of 12 years and a simple, peaceful existence back home, but on the other hand, I couldn’t imagine not having followed this push to come out here. Rumi reminded me that we’re all vulnerable, especially when we are fully in our heart space, and that is a beautiful place to be. I have been vulnerable this entire time here in Rainier. I didn’t have answers to a lot of questions being asked of me. I was never sure of what the outcome of any/every stage of this project would be. I couldn’t even give an accurate cost estimation coming into this project or the hurdles we’d come up against. I couldn’t guarantee I wasn’t going to leave Meggan with a big, ugly, half-finished mess at the end of it all. I had to rely on others to house and feed me. But I kept reminding myself to surrender to the process and trust that we will find the help we need or it will find us, more accurately, and answers will come exactly when we need them and everything will work out as it always does. And it has. And boy, have we had helpers, and Angels, and answers come to us. As the old adage says, ‘the Divine works in mysterious ways’, we are seeing that over and over again here and it has yet again humbled me and made me so grateful to be a part of this dance we call life.

And now, I would like to tell you about the plaster party we had last Saturday, speaking of Angel helpers! The rough plastering is a really fun and simple stage of the dome building process in my opinion, just time consuming which I would be totally fine with were it not for this pesky Visa expiration date. It’s not overly taxing on the body, extremely satisfying in it’s mud-slinging application, and fairly easy to corral people to gather for a fun, social, no pressure day of sunshine and laughter while getting our hands in some mud. It certainly paints a more enticing picture for people to want to come and help over the dome building bag-laying pitch, “Hey, wanna swing by and fling mud on the dome in a really satisfying huck/upsweep motion at a relaxed pace while visiting with fun and interesting people?” versus, “Heyyyyyy, wanna come over and climb up and down a 10-foot ladder over and over again clutching coffee cans of Earth between your fingers until they cramp up?”. If I were ignorant to the joys of laying bag, I know which request I’d respond to…!

We had started the rough plastering while Blake was here. He and I would use any leftover Earth from the day’s bag-filling and use it on the dome walls to fill in the grooves. It requires this ultra-satisfying motion of hucking the plaster in the groove and sweeping up in one fluid motion. I recall the first time I did this at the Cal-Earth workshop in September…I was instantly certain that I’d done it in a past life because it felt so good and natural! Katherine, Meggan’s neighbor that was on board for the plaster party said the same thing. Maybe we both worked together on ancient temples of bygone eras, who knows?

Here are some photos from that fun day with our team of amazing and masterful plasterers, thank you to everyone for your time, energy and cheer!

The first to show up were none other than the famous Giselda and Ariel (they really exist, not just random names associated with cement mixers!)

They did most of the plastering on the back of the dome. We heard a lot of giggling coming from back there so I’m not sure what they were up to, but the plastering looked great!

Neighbor Katherine, a natural plasterer like it ain’t no thang. Remember when we worked on Solomon’s Temple Katherine? That was fun, but nothing compared to this goat dome, right?

Diane, an amazing help and a kick ass aromatherapist too. Keep your eyes peeled for Diane and Lori’s line of therapeutic and decadent Palo Santo body butters coming soon by Higher Healing. Diane was a sweetheart and stayed late to help me finish and clean up, thank you Diane!

And I’m sure you all recognize the lovely Meggan rockin’ the plaster! Neither one of us slept much the night before with Rumi in the house needing some care and lovin’ throughout the night but the plaster party must go on!

An action shot of Ariel followed by his mucky farewell

And I took the top of the dome given it’s precarious height sans scaffolding. We couldn’t very well expect volunteer plasterers to climb 14 feet in the air and hover on a narrow ledge, could we?

Unfortunately the fearless goat plasterer Lori must have gone to sharpen her golden trowel when the camera came out but she was the other person on our amazing crew that day. We’ll re-post a photo of her from when she helped us tame barbed wire a couple of months ago, just imagine muck on her gloves.

And here is what we were able to accomplish with our dream crew, thank you to everyone for a fun day and for helping out!

There was one more person who stopped by to check out the dome that day and that was Brett, the lead drummer for the Crow Drummers from Olympia. The Crow Drummers are a West African drumming group whom I had the pleasure of joining in the Procession of the Species parade through the streets of downtown Olympia back in April. Check out the Websites for more info: http://www.oly-wa.us/crowdrummers/ and http://www.procession.org/ He wanted to see the dome before I left as he is interested in alternative structures like this. Brett knows a lot about portland cement as he is in the tile and linoleum biz. I was asking him about weather-proofing and he threw out the idea of waiting until the end of summer to potentially coat over it, or NOT. I’ve heard from a few people now that it would probably do fine to leave as is like he suggested rather than coat over with a rubberized membrane and risk tearing it and having to redo it. He then suggested I talk with his buddy Joseph who is an Earth plaster expert who is part of an alliance of dedicated individuals at http://www.ionecobuilding.org/. Hell yeah I’m going to talk to his buddy….what a gift, thank you Brett! After talking with Joseph the following day, right before the community ‘repair party’ he organized for people to come and have their tools fixed, so cool! He mentioned he makes his own milk paint or sells kits for people to make it themselves. This is what we are going to paint the inside, upper coils with (actually now the entire inside, explanation to follow) so I was thrilled to have a source from someone who knows!

We also talked about the possibility of having him come down with a pump to expedite the plaster process as it was Monday morning already and only 5ish days to complete everything.

Meanwhile, we’d also left a message for Meggan’s friend August who used to work with shotcrete and spoke to him about the project asking him for his thoughts on weather-proofing and getting it done. We were also hoping to find an alternative to hand plastering the inside lower half of the dome as we hadn’t found an appropriate recipe/ratio of Earth plaster to get it to hold on the concave corbels. He explained what shotcrete was and offered to come out and look at the dome to see if he might be able to help in any way. He warned us that shotcrete was not inexpensive but also had the pump option that Joseph spoke of as another means. August is an interesting, friendly guy with a warm smile and the inventor of an amazing cross between a rocket stove and masonry heater, check out his Website: http://www.zaugstoves.com/

Long story short, we’d arranged to have the remainder of the dome shotcreted on Thursday at a steal of a deal (but not inexpensive, he’s right) however, this morning we got the unfortunate news that it would not work out for various reasons in the end so he reluctantly had to cancel the job.

Of course this was a little disappointing because that’s another two days of plastering we’d lost now but in the same breath, seems about right that I finish this baby off by hand. No short cuts for me on this maiden mud hut adventure. Three days to go and we still have plastering to do and the entire inside finish.

I marvelled at my reaction to the news of yet another ‘regrouping’ required at this late and final stage in the project. After our emotional weekend with dear Rumi and lost plastering days due to that and holding off for the shotcrete job, I felt a deep sense of peace about the whole thing, remembering my reason for being here, thank you Rumi. I think I’d finally let go of all expectation and pressure of having to have a perfectly completed, finished dome in order to consider this endeavor a success. I’d finally let go of all concern that Meggan would be displeased with me if I left her in the lurch, so to speak, with a few details left undone. And I let go of the belief that something done from the heart is anything less than Divine.

So what did I do after hanging up the phone with August? I got my work clothes on, strapped my fully charged IPod on, and set out for a peaceful day of solo plastering with some good tunes and sunshine and had a blast! I think I covered some ground too! Check it out for one days work:

Start of the day:

End of the day:

All of the corbels are officially filled in so for all intents and purposes, this dome should be fully leak-proof as of tomorrow. The goats can technically inhabit this any day now.

Joseph is coming to Rainier with the milk paint for us tomorrow morning and possibly with someone who might want to plaster for a few hours, no guarantees though. I’m excited to meet him in person and talk more about the work he does. I also have a helper coming tomorrow, Lori’s friend Lanakila who helped us one day when Blake was here. He will infuse the plaster with his amazing energy I’m certain. Also, Lori’s client Gerry may drop by to help for a bit so we will have a mini-plastering crew and inch our way to completion, one handful at a time. Hopefully we can have the outside plastering done and inside milk paint by the end of the day on Friday (we’ve scrapped the notion of doing any inside plastering for now, milk paint all the way….Joseph said the goats probably won’t mind. I think he’s right). This will give me one day of rest and enjoying time spent with my beautiful house mates and comrades before hitting the road home on Sunday. But if there are final details to take care of, that’s ok too. I signed up for it and I’ll see it through to the bitter end if need be. Luckily I really love the work and the product it produces so it’s no real hardship,especially when I’m feeling peaceful about it.

I may be vulnerable, but with the help of so many other generous and beautiful Souls, I’ve built one kick-ass goat mud hut, finished or not.

Thanks for taking the leap with me Meggan! We did it!

I’ll be sure to let you know how it ends up before I leave, stay tuned!

xoxo

It’s a BOY! Two, actually!

They’ve arrived! Two adorable baby boys delivered this morning around 10 AM and 10:30 AM respectively by Mama Opal, like a pro!

What an experience it was to witness such a sacred event such as this, I feel very blessed to have been present!

Everyone was on high alert since last night….Meggan noticed some pelvic tilting and sensed the time was nigh. We had baby monitors going and Meggan had her doula hat on her nightstand. However, Opal bless her, waited until the reasonable hour of 9:30 AM to start the delivery of her two beautiful and adorable little ones! She was incredible! Meggan was there on standby to help once the kids came out and was a dyno-myte goat doula! I handed doula Meggan a few items as she needed them but mostly I tried to keep a respectful distance, get a few photos, watch Cyrus until the going was good to meet the babies and just soak up the awesome of everyone’s focus. As an outside observer, I can say the whole scene was a humbling, awe-inspiring performance by all. Wow. Here are some pictures of this special moment….any comments I could try to sputter out cannot come close to doing justice to the beauty that clearly speaks for itself here.

What a week! 🙂

The other goats stayed right near the fence throughout the delivery for support, amazing.

Wow. That’s all I can say, is wow.

THE DOME IS CLOSED!!!!!!!!

WE DID IT, YEAH!!!! Just plastering to go……! Oh, what a feeling!

And this was the dynamic foursome present for this momentous occasion, thank you to Johnathan for your amazing help today, we couldn’t have done it without you! Thank you Meggan for your fiery awesomeness and mixing expertise! Thank you Cyrus for your all around amazingness and adorableness! We rock!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear a double gin and tonic calling my name (!). 😉

Nearing completion

Well folks, this is it, we’re 4 rows from closing the dome. Hard to believe, really. And you can imagine how small the rows are at the top of a dome….the top one of course being the ‘capstone’ so to speak so hardly a row at all. It’s an odd and exhilarating feeling to think we are here, so close to this pivotal moment after all we’ve done, all we’ve been through! Take a look, take a good long look at this baby….she’s beautiful, isn’t she?

I want to savour these last moments of laying Earthbag which will complete my very first mud hut and initiate me into the ever-growing Earth builders community at large. Anxious as I am to finish it yesterday as we’ve been all too aware of the time pressure of the last few weeks with so much work to do yet and a looming June 8th departure date, I know there will be a part of me that will feel wrenched away from such a now familiar and sacred daily routine here in Rainier. Other than this last power week while Blake was here, I’ve developed a morning ritual of preparatory tasks that have become my daily meditation. While Meggan would be focused on her morning farming and Motherly chores, I would head out to the dome area and just sit with it, looking at it, thinking about next phases coming up, admiring it, photographing it some days, and then I would slowly and methodically begin to prepare some of the day’s necessities….filling the tractor with Earth from our Earth pile, cutting the next length of bag, chipping the leftover cement off of our shovels that we would continually forget to do the night before, and my all-time favorite, straightening barbed wire….who knew that straightening barbed wire would be such a relaxing and satisfying activity? Certainly not me! That first hour in the morning with just me and my thoughts and the birds chirping became part of my everyday reality.

Now as we are so close to closing, I can say it’s a really special feeling to look at something so big and beautiful and solid and say to yourself, “I was a part of this….from the first dig to the moment of placing the capstone on the 15′ high dome, I was there!” I’m sure I can speak for both Meggan and myself when I say that we will both be forever changed by this experience in our own way. Check it out….we started with an idea and both decided to go for it, in all of our naive glory, jump in with both feet, and see what happened.

Well, so far, this is what happened:

Here’s the start of the project:

From that exciting first dig:

To today, exactly three months and 13 days later:

I’m proud of us! And wouldn’t you know it, Opal, one of her current 5 adorable goats and future inhabitants of this dome, is due to give birth tomorrow, Wednesday, May 28th, if all is on schedule! It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she gave birth on the same day we actually close the dome. Here she is with her full belly looking healthy and ready to do her thing! How excited am I that I get to see adorable baby goats right before I leave!

The rest of this week will be focusing on these two things….closing the dome and Opal having two (or three?) healthy kids, not necessarily in that order. I am certain both events will go without a hitch!

So now, some details from the last couple of weeks so you can see more specifics of what we’ve been doing at each phase. As you know, Blake, the Angel that swooped in for a week fresh out of the 3 month apprentice program at Cal-Earth, was such a huge help on every level while he was here. He just left Satruday morning and was heading to a Permaculture farm in Montana for a week to help them out and learn some cool things to coincide with a course he’s been taking on the subject before conducting a couple of workshops on Superadobe basics North of here. It was so great having him here, not only for his invaluable help in getting us in a good position to be able to complete this project in time (we laid 13 rows in the week he was here!) but he certainly provided a solid wealth of knowledge about different aspects of building with Superadobe that were a bit cloudy in my mind. He was able to quell some fears about the water element that continues to confound me regarding weather-proofing and the construction process. For one, I learned that it’s not the end of the world if the Superadobe bags get wet, and you can build in the rain after all. If not for the unpleasant factor, you could technically work right through a downpour, but who wants to do that? Wouldn’t be the safest workplace being 12 to 14 feet up off the ground with no proper scaffolding and slippery, not-quite-foot-width Earthbags to stand on, but it could be done. It’s freaky enough being up that high on a sunny day! In fact, here he is in the rain shortly after arriving, ready to dive right in, bless him!

The week before his arrival was a power week in itself with great weather, our new cement mixer from Giselda and Ariel in operation and having two awesome helpers on two separate days, Linda and Johnathan, Giselda and Ariel’s son. The mixer has been life changing! We had to connect no less than three long outdoor extension cords from the shed in order to get power to it but well worth the stretch…it single-handedly eliminated our having to hand mix Earth from that day forward….a HUGE energy saver! I have to say though, there is no on/off switch on this mixer so we have to plug and unplug the extension cords whenever we need to use it. I feel like a mad scientist about to get lit up every time I connect the two ends.

Here is the blessed mixer doing it’s magic!

Meggan finishing off a row of bag laying and I laying barbed wire:

Linda tamping, bless her, as she herself has a tamping machine which does all the hard work for her so I’m sure she was really feeling gratitude for the machine with every effortful hand tamp she did for us on that row.

We also had a new helper in Johnathan, Giselda and Ariel (of cement mixer fame)’s son. He’s a great guy, a rapper (we tried to get him to rap about goat mud huts), and an amazing help who was up for anything and everything. We even had him laying bag the first time he came by! He helped out the following week when Blake was here too so we were able to maximize our production that day…pretty sure that was the first record ‘3 bag day’ that I posted last blog.

And then of course we had the second power week with Blake. Blake’s arrival was at a perfect time as we were just coming up to the crown of the door form and the buttress finale. I had looked back at the photos from the Cal-Earth workshop I’d taken back in September as to how we’d come over the door form and decided I would take the same approach here laying long finger buttresses in an arch over the door, flush with the inside diameter of the dome. This, despite the fact that I had started the door buttresses with a bit of an outward splay to them for esthetic purposes and to create a wider entry for the goats but then realized halfway up that the force would probably be better absorbed if they were straighter and more parallel to each other as is normally done with the Cal-Earth domes, likely with reason. I started angling the buttresses ever so slightly to be more parallel with each other every row from then on which was going to have a bit of a ‘double helix’ effect/look. I thought it would be kind of cool but then worried that I may have created a pseudo ‘pronation’ situation in my door buttresses, oh dear! But after studying my entry arch and buttress options I’d decided that the way we did it in the workshop would work and all would be well even if perhaps the force was not going to be dissipated in perfect resolution with the laws of physics (I never did do well in high school physics). So all that to say, Blake arrived just as we were arching over the door form with these ‘buttress fingers’ and it was perfect because I may not have remembered to brick tamp the Earthbags so tight and flush to the door form as he did to make them as solid and contiguous as possible. I felt very good about the door buttress when all was said and done. After a few days of building and getting a few rows above the door, we took the door form right out to test it for real, and let me tell you, something happened to me the first time I walked into that dome without having to do the sideways limbo under the wooden form….I don’t know if it was the elation from realizing that the dome didn’t collapse in on itself and was standing solid as a rock all on it’s own or what, but it was a pretty special moment!

Meggan trying it on for size….perfect, no?

Some details and an inside view:

With the door completed and no more buttresses, the last milestone other than closing it was to finish laying all of the PVC and glass window inserts in the walls. The biggest day for that was the first day Johnathan was helping us just before Blake arrived and we’d cut 5 PVC ventilation windows into the dome, the two lateral points on both the side wall 5-pointed stars and the center point of the back wall 5-pointed star. .

It was at this level that I realized we had officially gone above our heads, in a good way, and were really starting our inward corbelling, yes!

Next inserts were the two huge glass water jugs Meggan found at Sunbirds camping supply store in Yelm…she was Jonesing for some big light windows all along and when she saw these, she bought three of them to replace the mason jars for the remaining points on the back wall….a good choice I’d say. I decided to do what I had become good and used to and cut them into the dome wall. In hindsight, I would have just set them on the wall without cutting into the bag and laid bag up to them on the next rows as our Earth was semi-crumbly on one of them which created a bit of a droop below the cut, especially since we didn’t have to worry about maintaining any kind of downward slope with these ones. Alas, the dome stands strong regardless of it’s many characterful imperfections, as Superadobe domes will.

This is where we’d gotten to by the time Blake arrived. He arrived late on Thursday and we started working on Friday and literally worked everyday until the following Friday before he left this past Saturday. He was even game to come with me to Linda’s one of the days to help work on her pumphouse Earthbag structure. She was thrilled for the extra help (we got two full rows done for her, a banner day!) and being able to pick his brains about vault construction. Blake was happy to learn from Linda some ingenious ways to make working by oneself easier and more efficient…one of Linda’s specialities is finding the most efficient way to build with Earthbag, especially if you find yourself building solo. So it was an amazingly productive week to say the least. There were a couple of days where it was just he and I when Meggan was working, a couple of days where it was Meggan, Blake and myself and a couple of days we had helpers with us. Johnathan one day, Lori’s friend Lana Kila, a beautiful soul and another former New Yorker who has studied architecture in Hawaii (which is where he was given his Hawaiian name meaning ‘victory or to be victorious’), and finally Linda and her friend Peter, a fine and friendly gentleman who has an interest in potentially building an Earthbag structure himself one day. Additionally, the Weather Gods were gracious the whole week! Here are some highlights:

Early on in the week, mixing up stabilized Earth to start our day.

MixMaster Meggan

Focused barbed wire laying

Top o’ the door form to ye!

5-pointed stars COMPLETE!!

Johnathan and Blake mixing Earth.

Interior of the dome

Our opening is getting smaller and smaller….!

Assembly line production of Blake, myself and Peter, Meggan and Linda keeping the flow of mix coming our way and Cyrus, the tricycle supervisor making his rounds. You’ll notice Blake got us started on some of the exterior rough plastering too!

This was the last day of a wonderfully productive week with Blake to whom we will forever be grateful for his generous assistance, thank you Blake!! 😀

We all took it easy on Saturday to rest our weary bodies. Yesterday, Sunday, Meggan, Cyrus and I went out and laid one more bag in the morning before the rain came in the afternoon and this is where we stand as you saw in the beginning of the post.

Today was supposed to be raining all day and dry tomorrow but it appears Accuweather got their days mixed up, not one day after giving a nod to their relative accuracy, classic. Today has switched to mostly cloudy but dry and tomorrow looks like more of a chance of rain so I am contemplating going out later to lay a bag or two. At any rate, this is an exciting and monumental week as we will close the dome and most likely bear witness to some fresh new baby goats entering into this Earth realm.

I will look forward to sharing both events with you within the week.

Life is a wild ride of awe and wonder isn’t it?

Record Day!

Three rows today….just sayin’……!

Goodnight, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………………………!

A Picture is Worth…..

Hello again, it’s 6:30 AM on Wednesday, May 21st which seems like it’s going to be the only window where I have time and (bleary-eyed) energy to send an update. I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves as I have officially lost track of how the last week and a half have played out. But I can tell you that since the last post, magic has and is indeed unfolding! Not least of which was the appearance of a fresh graduate of the Cal-Earth apprentice program, Blake, who was heading up the coast from Cali enroute to a couple of other projects in this direction and was tipped off by Ian, the Director of Cal-Earth, that there is a project going on in Washington and ‘they could use some help’. I’d say! Thank you Ian and Blake!

Don’t get me wrong, we are and have been doing a stellar job given our lack of experience, but the deadline looms ever-closer with less than three weeks to complete this project before I have to be out of the country. So to say Blake has been an Angelic Godsend would be the understatement of the year. He and the cement mixer given to us on loan from Meggan’s friends Giselda and Ariel have taken this goat dome to the next level, literally, as you’ll see. We’ve sky-rocketed our progress since he got here late Thursday evening and have three more days with him before he has to head off again. And not only are we grateful for the very capable help he is lending us but I am learning so much from him and having many questions answered regarding this Cal-Earth style of building with Superadobe that have come up since embarking on this dome! He even came with me last Saturday to Linda’s, the woman whom I’m trading labour with, to help on her structure as well! He was happy to experience and learn different techniques from her and she got a record two rows laid with the three of us focusing our efforts collectively. She’ll be joining us today on the dome so I have a good feeling we’ll bang out three whole rows, yeah!

Alright, without further adieu, here is the drastic transformation of our goat mud hut from last post to now. The energetics inside the dome are tangible and the acoustics have definitely shifted! I will include more specifics and details in another post as I need to conserve my energy this week for maximizing our efforts to close this dome within the week so we have ample time to get it plastered before I leave. OK, here you have it folks, pretty exciting stuff!! About a dozen rows left to go!

Last post:

Now:

The three completed 5-pointed stars!

Back star of 5 glass windows and one open ventilation window:

And the two stars on either side of the dome of 5 open ventilation pipe windows and a center blue dot made from Skye vodka bottles:

More to come, stay tuned and send us all some good building vibes! xo

Runners, to your mark….

OK, just wanted to do a mini check-in before we launch into the week because I’ve got a good feeling about it…..a REALLY good feeling about it! The forecast is calling for another hot, sunny week in Rainier and we are going to run with it like you’ve never seen!

We got in two full work days last week and they were very productive, to be sure, but then it rained again for three….THANK YOU WEATHER GODS! We all had colds last week so it really was lovely that the rain provided us an opportunity to rest and recover from the brunt of that, no stress.

Linda came to help us on Wednesday, just before the rain, so we laid a record row and a half with two mason jar windows and both blue centre dots (Skye vodka bottles) on the side walls for the 5-pointed stars. I am really starting to see the corbelling starting now which is thrilling! It is so miniscule at the beginning that you start to wonder if you will just be laying row upon row upon row upon row forever until you reach the heavens. But it’s official, we’ve got some dome action starting FOR SURE now!

Today being Mother’s Day was very relaxed. Although it was the official start of the hot/sunny, we took it easy and I let Mama Meggan set the tone of the day. Didn’t think it would be cool to wake up and say, “Happy Mother’s Day, here’s your shovel, let’s GO!” She works hard enough every other day. So instead we had a lovely mimosa-laced brunch on the back deck and while she enjoyed some beautiful time spent with her beloved little cherub Cyrus and planted lettuce in the garden, I went out and did some prep work for our pivotal week coming up. I straightened barbed wire, cut bag for our next row, re-set the compass chain and filled our trailer of Earth. Yesterday I levelled the Earth around the dome so our scaffolding would be sturdy. We are READY!!

So here we are as of today and I’m going to update again on the weekend so you can see what magic takes place this week. Oh, and by the way, we scored some ladder scaffolding and a cement mixer from Meggan’s awesome friends Giselda and Ariel, woo hoo!

Let us see what magic unfolds….

POWER WEEK!

Hello and welcome to the fifth blog post of ‘Goat Mud Hut’!

Before I get into the specifics of what’s been happening with the dome structure this week and last, I want everyone to sit down. Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you fall over when I show you what I’m about to show you.

First I’ll recap where we left off last post…here we are with our ‘Above Grade Bliss’ row and a half, buttress bench started and my wonky door form, remember?

Friends, it’s been a good week here in Rainier….this is what we were able to accomplish with a full week and a bit of dry, sunny and warm weather with a handful of helpers a few of the days:

TA-DAAAAAAA!!!!! I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty pumped about the whole thing. Ladies and Gentlemen, WE HAVE A STRUCTURE!!

I’m beginning to trust that the weather Gods are in charge of our rate of progress and they will ensure we get the power weeks that we need like this past one, followed by ‘X’ number of rain days in order for us to recoup from the laborious intensity of this work (I am currently icing and resting my tingling, tamp-exhausted Popeye-esque forearms). My new mantra these days has become, “I release control and I enter the FLOW”. There is no sense getting all worked up about the weather or other factors that I have no control over…it only blocks me from being able to access the flow that is ever-present and available regarding all facets of this project . If I can keep my mind in it’s rightful passenger seat position, this can easily be accomplished. I am officially 100% certain that this dome structure will be completed before I am required to cross back into Canada and so long as I honor and respect the pace that is laid out for us by said Weather Gods (with perhaps a few reasonable requests)….utilizing dry, sunny days for productivity on the mud hut and rainy days for rest, regrouping, prep and planning for the next phase of productivity (scaffolding anyone?)….there is absolutely no reason for a sense of panic to kick in wondering if it will all get done. It is only my mind creeping it’s way back into the driver’s seat that has the ability to impose this sentiment into the mix. No pun intended.

I HEREBY PROCLAIM TO THE WEATHER GODS, WE ARE IN YOUR CAPABLE HANDS AND TRUST THAT YOU WILL SHOW US THE DIVINE BALANCE OF WORK/REST IN ORDER FOR THIS DOME TO BE COMPLETED IN A TIMELY FASHION, ALL THE WHILE FEELING WELL AND HEALTHY THROUGH ALL ASPECTS OF THE PROCESS!!!! So be it.

OK, let’s back the truck up and go through all of the fun and exciting steps we’ve accomplished since the last post.

We’ll start with the new and improved door form (I’m sure you noticed). I picked up some pieces of lumber and flexible panelling from Mountain Lumber in Yelm that I thought would make a feasible form along with the arched cut-outs from Maryanne. Roger came over the following day to help us assemble it (well, he didn’t actually help us, he just assembled it, we didn’t do a damned thing other than get the lumber). He did a stellar job, wouldn’t you say? I don’t know what it is about working with wood…just doesn’t seem to be my forte. I was so impressed with the ease in which he put this form together and ever so grateful that he was willing to help so that I didn’t have to contend with it! Here’s the form on it’s own so you can appreciate it’s free-standing beauty:

Much like the boulders plucked from the trench during excavation becoming a playground for the goats, this door form will likely become a playhouse for Cyrus once we remove it from the dome.

The door form was moved into place on top of cinder blocks. This way, once we have gone 3 or 4 rows above the peak of the form, we can shimmy the cinder blocks out and it will drop down for easy removal.

Our good friend Wayne of Bio-Sand filter fame showed up the day we set the door form into place last week to help us, what a delight! Here is the whole motley crew (minus photographer) filling another wheelbarrow of Earth to be stabilized with cement before filling the bags.

We’ve touted Wayne the ‘one scoop wonder’. He can fill a bucket of Earth in one giant gulp…we tried to do it visual justice here (not to mention Meggan’s impressive biceps!):

This is essentially the bulk of the work…mixing, mixing, and more mixing. As you can well imagine, we need a constant supply of 10% stabilized Earth mixture to feed into the bags as we are laying them. So when we get an extra person come by to help, it allows one person (usually Meggan, bless her heart) to be on constant mixing duty so that the other two can maintain a continuous flow of bag-laying without having to stop every few feet to mix up more Earth. We have tossed around renting/buying a cement mixer but so far have decided that we are ok to keep doing what we are doing and spare the expense of the mixer. We will see if we still feel that way once we get to the plastering. The mixture is more moist for that so perhaps it will be something to consider. TBA….

Katherine, one of Meggan’s lovely neighbors stopped by towards the end of the day to check up on our progress so we stuck a tamper in her hand and put her to work. OK, only for 5 minutes in order to say we officially have her love and energy infused into the dome….we’d never force anyone to work if they didn’t willingly volunteer (yet).

And one of my favorite aspects of Earth building…..post-work beer time! Yum!

The next day it was just Meggan and myself working away until 3:30 when Dennis, the personable 14-year old was able to come by after school to help us mix and fill bags for a couple of hours. This was also a special day as we laid the first two of eleven pipe windows into the dome walls, exciting stuff!! Here’s a photo depiction of the day unfolding:

Start of the day:

It’s a bit hard to tell in the photos but we tamped the second buttress ring on a slight down slope for water run-off.

Notice the plastic on the outside of the door form. This was done as a way to protect the non-weather resistant flexible panelling from the rain and dew overnight and eliminate the need to wrestle with the two 20′ X 30′ tarps which was becoming a less and less pleasant end-of-day chore. So now all we have to do is be sure the bags are covered but we can leave the middle and outside trench to absorb and drain the rainwater naturally….forget about having to ‘tent’ it in such a way that the water runs away from the workspace. With these crazy winds around here, that was not an easy (or fun) task!

Middle of the day:

Meggan laying bag in line with our center compass while Dennis fed:

Next up, the windows! We decided to cut into the walls to lay the pipe windows, carving a down and outward sloping groove for them to sit in. It is also possible to lay them right on the bag sandwiched between layers without cutting into the bag. I decided that cutting and sculpting the groove would be best as I wanted to be ultra certain that they would not straighten out during tamping with this rainy climate. This was explained very well as an option in the Cal-Earth Emergency Shelter book. So here goes the first cut….part of me felt as though I was cutting open the flesh of my baby! I was half expecting to see blood!

All is well, phew!

And voila, our first cute little window, awww!

I sloped some stabilized Earth up against either side of the pipe so there wouldn’t be too much gap when we lay the next row over top.

We finished the day after inserting the second window and laying the rest of the first half of row 5:

Next, we had a fun idea to buy 5 terra-cotta flower pots to use for the 5 different minerals that stay in the goat run-in shed at all times. Meggan taught me that goats will go to whatever mineral their body is in need of. They sit there available to them for whenever they need some. If they don’t need it, they won’t be drawn to it but they must be there for when they do, very cool! Kind of like when I get a craving for salty potato chips I guess. But I have a feeling if potato chips were left available in a bowl for me all day, there would be more than the occasional refill.

Alas, our idea was to get the pots and insert them into the walls of the dome on a tilt so the minerals will sit in there and they can just sidle up and indulge when necessary. However, Meggan felt the pots would be too deep for them to get their snouts all the way to the bottom so she came up with a genius idea to use leftover grout and beads/jewels from her beautiful dome home to fill space in the bottom of the pots to make them shallower (and waaaaay more pretty and interesting), seal them with grout sealant and end up with a functional and artistic display of mineral dishes for the goats! They will be so pumped! We were to be putting them in the next row so we had arts and crafts night making fun beaded pots to be ready for our next day’s work.

We didn’t get to setting the pots in the dome the next day but we did finish the 5th row with the other two windows on the opposite side of the dome and began the 6th row into which we will embed our pots. Neighbor Katherine came by to take Cyrus for a walk which enabled us to hammer out the last segment of bag without concern of the myriad hazards that double as magnets to a 2+1/2 yr old on our work site. Here we are with our completed window row. These four pipe windows will represent the bottom two points of two 5-pointed stars on each respective side of the dome. Each point of the stars will be a pipe window with a mason jar in the center of each for added light.

On the back wall above the mineral pots will be a third 5-pointed star in the reverse; the 5 points will be mason jars and in the center will be one pipe window. Since we had eleven pipe window lengths in total, this was a perfect configuration that the goats will appreciate along with the mineral pots, obviously!

The following day, this past Wednesday, we had another truckload of Earth delivered as we were getting pretty low on our original 12 yd pile. We had another 10 yds delivered, not because I think we’ll need another 10 yds as I feel we are well beyond halfway in terms of Earth volume, but because the price goes down significantly per yard starting at 10 yds. We would have only ordered 6 but for $30 more, we’d get 10. And I knew, sure as it rains in Washington, if we’d gone for the 6 yds, we’d need 6 yds plus one scoop to finish the dome. Nobody needs that so 10 yds it was.

As I was shovelling fresh Earth into the trailer to start our day of building while Meggan and Cyrus went into town to run a few errands, I was thrilled to see Wayne pulling into the driveway to help out for another few hours! It’s funny not having a cell phone while I’m out here…things transpire unbeknownst to me. I can be shovelling Earth all by myself in my own little zone and all of a sudden, a car pulls up and I get that thrilling moment of realizing, AN ANGEL HAS COME TO HELP US TODAY!! Very fun indeed. And on a day when we were inserting the pots which was great because I can never predict how long it will take me to execute a new detail on this project.

But as I’m finding, much like with the windows, the first one always takes some mental prep but once I get going, it’s really pretty straight forward, go figure! Nevermind the imperfect spacing and the fact that we will have to stray off of our compass line on the next row to go over the pots!

Wayne and I decided it would be a good idea to fill in the spaces between the pots with ‘plaster’ to buffer the impact of the over-laying bag so while Meggan and Cyrus went to make sandwiches, we borrowed Cyrus’ wheelbarrow to mix up a pseudo cement plaster that I hand molded into place, whetting my appetite for the rough plastering that lies ahead (I love rough plastering)!

Nice!

We started the next row but left off just shy of the pots. I wanted to be sure we were fresh and ready to cover the pots with the next row of bag as the tamping process might be a wee bit tricky over those fragile terra cotta mineral dishes!

Here’s where we left off that day:

Thursday was our last day on the dome this past week, and the hottest; 29 degrees Celsius or low 90’s Fahrenheit , love it!! If we aren’t having to tarp our Earth pile to keep excess rain out of it, we are tarping it to keep it from drying up in the sun. But I’ll tell you what’s been amazing and worth acknowledging a great aspect of building in a rainy climate….we have yet to add water to our Earth mix! By the time we add the cement to our slightly mucky Earth, it’s bloody near perfect for building! It is supposed to form a nice ‘log’ in your hand when you squeeze it but not leave too much muck on your hand. Yay for moisture-regulating tarps!

Linda, our fourth helper this week, was able to come by Thursday afternoon to help us build! You may recall I’d mentioned a woman who is also building an Earthbag structure on her property (separate from the woman who gave us the arched door forms) whom I will do a labour exchange with. We organized that she would come by on Thursday and I reciprocated yesterday, Friday, to work on her Earthbag pumphouse. She is a lovely pioneering woman, eager to help bring us closer to completing our project and likewise to have someone just as eager to help finish hers. She is building in a different way than the Cal-Earth style but it’s always interesting to learn other approaches to alternative building methods and of course there are overlapping commonalities. We’ve already learned some really good tips from her as to how we can make our work easier so thank you Linda! We were so immersed in our work on that day (and perhaps a bit touched by the heat) that I neglected to take any photos so I came out the next morning with my morning coffee before heading to Linda’s to document our victoriously productive week and this is where we stand, tall(ish) and proud, 7+1/2 rows up!

Since I was out there photographing our Cal-Earth dome, drinking coffee from my awesome Cal-Earth mug (yes, I am a geek, I brought it with me), I decided to get artsy and give a photographic plug to the wonderful folks who instilled in me enough knowledge, confidence and encouragement to decide to come out here, leaving the comforts of the known for the unknown. Ian, Dave, Hooman, thanks for your passion and enthusiasm for this work and sharing your knowledge and experience so generously. And thank you Nader for being the visionary genius behind it all! I know your spirit is guiding us! 😀

Until next update, enjoy yourSelf! xo

Above-Grade Bliss

Hello again….this is part II of the goings on of the last couple of weeks so you are up to date on our progress. The foundation completion seemed to call for it’s very own post given it’s monumental significance to this project and my growth as a ‘freshie’ Earth builder. However we have gone even further than that so allow me to share our work from this past week.

After finishing the wrapping of the foundation bags, I filled the outside of the trench with more drain rock sloping down and away from the bags. On top of this we used some of the natural Washington Earth that was rimming the whole trench to cover the drain rock and bring the ground level up almost to grade. Here’s what it looked like before we started on our first ABOVE-GRADE bag:

OK, ready to lay some bag! But first….I still had to rig up a door form. You might remember that the woman who is building an Earth bag home nearby had given us her arched door forms but I still hadn’t assembled anything workable. Carpentry, why not? Hell, I’m going to find something to weld while I’m at it!

I thought I would start with only the bottom part of the door form which would essentially be a cube and in line with my carpentry experience of zero. The arched forms are 37″ high so I decided 33″ for the bottom cube would bring our door height to 6′.

I have to say, between the scrap wood in Meggan’s barn, the rusty old hand saw that came with the property and my sad carpentry skills (ie, my sad carpentry skills), this partial door form is essentially useless. Except to Cyrus who calls it ‘his house’. So not a total loss! Just know that the form you will see in the next few photos will be replaced by a proper one in the next couple of days before we get too far into it. No laughing please.

While I was preparing to assemble this carpentry mish-mash, Wayne the plumber surprised us by stopping in to help us build for the day, bless his heart! Wayne is a very interesting, creative and kind soul who is doing some really cool things around the world with Bio-Sand Filters for water purification. He makes them from scratch and teaches others how to make them. His partner Robin is a talented artist who has added her creative adornments to these filters for customized orders. Wayne just returned from India where he conducted workshops on how to make these very inexpensive water purification units. They essentially maintain themselves without needing to change filters, etc. so the implications of this simple and effective technology for certain regions of the planet are huge! Here is a link to his work: http://www.nwbiosand.com Check it out!

So we ended up with a good crew last Saturday with myself, Meggan, little Cyrus, Wayne and Gerry, a dear client of Meggan’s housemate Lori, who had expressed interest in helping out as well. They both showed up to help on the same day, yay!

The first thing Wayne and I did was stabilize our center compass and attach the height compass chain to the outside perimeter of our dome in the door opening so it has space to move as we go up.

The following are photos of our highly productive day last weekend.

With Meggan mixing, Wayne scooping, Gerry feeding and me laying bag, we were flying!

The ever-continuous Earth mixing task!

Waiting for Earth…our circle is almost complete!

Cyrus is going as fast as he can, but there’s only so much!

Even the fabulous Lori came out to help ‘tame’ barbed wire with us!

Finishing the buttresses while Cyrus tested the roads with his dump truck and Mama multi-tasked filling bags and making sure the dump truck driver stayed off the ‘barbed wire’ road…tricky!

And our finished row at the end of a long, fun day of Earth building!

That evening I finally got my bonfire by the river. It was a nice way to celebrate our success in finishing the foundation and starting our upward climb on the dome project. A fire in a circle, symbolically apropos, no?

Over the next day or two we back-filled a wee bit more to level out the ground before laying our first of two ‘buttress bench’ rows on the outside of our main dome wall. After we got the ground up to the level we wanted, I used the leftover plastic sheeting to lay in a circle on the ground before laying our buttress bag (see, I’m learning!). And here is the finished buttress wall being barbed.

This was the day that I had to step away from bag-laying duties for a while as my low back was ‘speaking’ to me in no uncertain terms. It was this past Monday, April 14th and fortunately or unfortunately, the weather forecast was one of rain for three days which gave me a weather-induced reason to rest and embark on a self-care regime to get my back in order, including a trip to the amazing local chiropractor, Dr. Joe who was featured on ‘What the Bleep’, just sayin’….! So I’m officially ‘back’ in business and feeling 96% back to my plough-horse Self (but will be more mindful of my bag-laying body mechanics!)

So Meggan took over her bag-laying initiation a quarter of a row early like a natural and here she is finishing off the first half of the second ABOVE-GRADE row!

We had another helper on this day….a young and eager Dennis whom had helped Meggan in the past with clearing some brush from her property. He is a personable 14-year old and was able to come by mid-afternoon on Monday, last minute, to help us keep the stabilized Earth flowing so we could bang out another half row before sundown. We only had to re-route him from his IPhone a few times. Just kidding, we were grateful for his grunt labour and cheer! Depending on how our progress goes in the next couple of weeks, we may call upon him again!

And voila, this is where we left off before the rainy forecast and back-recovery phase of the last three days.

Today a woman came by who is also building an Earth bag structure in the area, totally different from the one we are doing but Earth bag all the same. We got in contact with each other after Meggan put an ad in a local newsletter calling for volunteers who were interested in helping/learning to build with us. She has been looking for helpers herself to finish off her project so we may organize an ‘energy exchange’ of 5 hrs/wk. I help her for 5 hours one day, then she comes over and helps us for 5 hours another day. That way we both get a day of extra help to inch us closer to completion of our respective projects. Besides, there is always knowledge to be learned from others so I’m certain we will both gain a bit of that from each other…win/win.

Next up, getting our proper door form made to replace the haphazard partial one. I went to Mountain Lumber in Yelm on Tuesday to get proper pieces of wood cut. They were also able to cut our recycled PVC piping to size for our ventilation windows so we officially have 11 lengths of pipe for this purpose. Wayne said he may be able to swing by to help with the carpentry so let’s all hope that will be the case. Bless my heart for trying.

Then, it’s up, up and AWAY from here on in!

Stay tuned!