Rectangle panes of broken grass

Self Heal

Self heal filling the "Herb Circle" garden - which is a space where the trees form a circle.  This area is where we currently live till the house is built

Butterfly weed & Black eyed Susan

We've been learning to grow using perma-culture and are reading "Gaia's Garden" by Toby Hemenway.  We are growing organically, but want to eliminate organic bug sprays  and fertilizers.  The plants in the first bed haven't needed any organic bug spray, but we did have to pick off some horn worms  - not an overwhelming amount and none for a while.  But the potatoes, beans and brassicas just were not in the right place at the right time.  When you go into healthy woods, you rarely see plants destroyed by bugs, it's in balance.  Nature knows how to grow plants without our help and people that study those systems have learned to come close to mimicking nature in many ways in the garden.  A balanced garden in a balanced place shouldn't need to worry about pest control - organic or otherwise. 

We planted the first of the food forests with things like golden currants, hazelnuts, walnuts, and about a dozen other varieties of nuts and fruit and native medicinal herbs.  Even though it'll take years to build up the soil through composting and get important perennial plants and trees established, this year was an experiment and a good start.  The bottom pasture has pathways mowed and the rest is gardens and wild areas.  A plant that came up and hugs the gardens is a magnet for Japanese beetles.  I'm trying to find it's name, but may have to wait till it blooms. There is no Japanese beetle damage in the garden just a few feet away.  They are all on this mystery plant.   

Plant Japanese beetles LOVE

Instead of rectangle panes of broken grass, the gardens are surrounded by a field of Queen Anne's lace, red and white clover, mullien, plantain, lemon sorrel, several types of thistle, comfrey, self-heal, butterfly weed, American bell flower, roses, elderberry, and many plants that haven't been identified yet. 

Bottom land with Queen Anne's Lace

Tomatoes, peppers, basil and okra in the first bed 

The oldest no till plot is doing the best because the soil was ready and is surrounded by so many wildflowers. The straw had broken down to a nice dark crumbly medium.  The last no-till bed I put in was intended for next year, but I had no where to put the potatoes and beans, so they went in there.  They aren't doing too well and poison ivy is growing everywhere.  After the beans are done, I think I'll cover the whole thing again with straw, seed with red clover, just let it be and keep reading and learning. The second no-till bed I put in has volunteer red clover growing in big bunches and the plants that are near the clover are doing much better than the plants that are not.

Cabbage with red clover

Cabbage without clover about 15 feet away

So with our first baby step towards perma-culture, I can see that it will only get better from here.  I hope one day to have one of those wild, mixed-up gardens I've seen in photographs that are so lush, abundant, healthy and in balance.

Big sunflower

Finally a house update

I have wanted to do a "real" update on the house for a while, with information to help anyone thinking of using the dry stack building method.  But with the actual work of building, getting gardens in, a booth at the Farmer's Market and trying to run a small business, there hasn't been anytime.  There is already a lot of written information on this subject though and I'll share that, along with our personal experience with you. 

Here are some things we ran into while building with concrete block.  Concrete may not seem like a "green" building choice, but it will withstand extreme weather and the weight of building up around it with earth, or earth-berming.  It also has a great deal of mass, which will greatly reduce the heating and cooling effort.  Therefore less spewing pollution into the atmosphere and less work bringing in wood in our old age.  Thermal mass in a house in the form of walls or floor will pull the heat out of the room in the summer and in the winter will store heat and give off slowly overnight night.

We originally were going to use the dry stack concrete block building method. Actually, really early on we were going to do slip form concrete method that Tom Elpel teaches.  But the dry stack method was supposed to be easier and perfect for the novice.

After reading more about slip form, we also thought the rebar requirements would be too labor intensive, block seemed easier.   But after working with rebar, we found that bending the longer pieces isn't hard at all w/out a bending tool.  I would like to build something with the slip form method now to compare.

Rob Roy's book "Earth-Sheltered Houses"  is a good overview and detail of house building and one of the methods highlighted is the dry stack method.  Like any one book though, you can't build a house after reading it alone.  It was about the best book for starting out for us and from there we got more detailed books on plumbing, framing and roofing, plaster, solar power etc.  His book is tattered and pages are falling out of the binding we've referred to it so much. 

The USDA has a brochure on the dry stack method which is brief step by step. 

There are videos and a rather poorly put together book at this site on dry stack method.  We purchased all his materials and learned a few good tricks.  He has created a better chart for block length and height than provided by the USDA, because he accommodates and teaches about wall growth.  If you locate blocks that are square and uniform in size and want to build with this method, I begrudgingly suggest you purchase this over priced material.  I think the price is ridiculously high for the book because it's so poorly written, more expensive than professionally written bound books and can't be sold used since it's in electric format only.  I will admit he did have a few good tips in there that I didn't find anywhere else.  If we were going to use this method for our house (we are currently building my  mother-in-law's house), I wanted  to try writing a better book and shoot a longer video that would take you from underground to roof.   If you've never done it before, you will not be able to build a house watching his videos or reading his book alone. 

We were not impressed with the dry stack method however and dropped it.  For us, it was much easier just to mortar blocks.  I've since spoken with several people who have the same opinion, they tried it, but it's more trouble than it's worth if you can't find uniform blocks.  However, the dry stack wall is supposed to be much stronger when surface bonding cement is applied than a standard mortared wall.
  
To start building with this method, you have to clean and sort each block by size.  This entails either dragging them back and forth across the blocks below them on the pallet or using a broken piece of concrete block and knocking off the high spots, or as in the video mentioned above - using power tools.  If you don't, of course the blocks won't lay level because you don't have mortar.  The cleaning wasn't that hard, but took time.

Then we had to sort by size since you can only dry stack a similar size per row.  Otherwise you'll end up with a space in that row that will drop the block in the above course down creating a chain reaction of un-levelness.  There were 4 average block sizes in our total order.  It is not easy to sort by size since the blocks are a different height depending on what part of block you are measuring.  We measured blocks at the only two locations available for purchase in our area and the blocks were just as bad at both locations.  The blocks we purchased were not remotely square, straight or the same height from one end of the block to the next.  This was our biggest problem. 

Metal shims do not easily bring your block to level as reported.  Using sand to level was even worse as there was always that one big piece of "sand" to throw off level and you have to literally pick sand particles up, put the block down - nope still not level  - repeat over and over.  After trying two rows of the dry stack method, which took an excruciatingly long time, mortar seemed almost magical in it's ease and speed.  After one row of mortaring, I got the hang of it and we started going much faster with laying block.

We watched mortaring videos on youtube over and over.  This is one of the best videos I found.  The first time through is too fast, but I would watch it after I mortared and picked up a nuance each time. 

In addition to the difficulty of trying to get blocks level using the dry stack method, we ran into problems with the line levels themselves.  After we kept running into problems with our elevation from one day to the next, we tested the levels.  Two of the line levels were not accurate and two were.  We also tried using a water level and that was not accurate enough either.  We bought a transit that wouldn't "zoom" in far enough so that you could not even see to the other side of a small house and then borrowed a transit that would move up or down, changing the measurement greatly, when bringing it into focus (yes even with the screws being tight).  So equipment tripped us up for a while till we discovered they were faulty and bought or borrowed tools that worked. 

After laying block up to the 7th course, we hired some help that had scaffolding and with all those hands we finished.  They were kind enough to leave the scaffolding behind so we can apply the surface bonding.  Since some of the courses are dry stacked and some are not, we decided to go ahead and apply surface bonding to the walls.  This will ensure their strength against the weight of the dirt that will back-fill the house to make it earth-bermed.  With so many hands helping though, we forgot to put in a transom I wanted for the bathroom - oh well.

Here is a progression:

Jeffrey has just finished framing the south wall using a combination of old timbers we picked up at auction and new material.  Some of the windows will be those we also picked up at auction. 

Right now we are cleaning a big straight log we found down in the woods.  It will be used as a vertical support post and will be beautiful between the kitchen and living room.  Our neighbor is a woodworker and let us borrow his draw knife to clean off the sap wood.  We are getting close to the heart wood and it's such a beautiful redish color.   We are learning a lot about wood from him.  He came over tonight and helped just about finish it.  So this beauty is about ready to place. 

We are trying to figure out what sort of horizontal support beam to use right now and are going back and forth.  We are also debating on what to do about the floor.  Originally we were going to do an earthen floor.  A good bit of dirt for the floor has already been screened.  However, my mother in law is paying rent and utilities and it can take several months to lay an earthen floor.  I love earthen floors and will definitely have one in our house, but the money hemorrhage has to stop.  Since we are so over due on building this house for her, we need to make a tough decision about the floor.

The interior walls will provide a good bit of mass and it's a small house.  So I hope we aren't going to loose too much by not putting in an earthen floor.   We are currently trying to find quicker methods of installing an earthen floor, but we may end up just putting in a traditional floor, perhaps using tile for a wee bit of mass. 

In other news, the tomatoes, peppers and herbs look GREAT!  The sunflowers are gigantic as are the jerusalem artichoke.  Brassicas, potatoes and beans are fair to midland.  Fruit trees and young elder trees took a beating from the 13 year cicadas, but my friend found a mature blooming elderberry on the bottom land.  The wild oregano is in bloom everywhere and I've been trying to harvest a hand full of leaves when I pass the patch.  We cleared a new path to a beautiful area of the creek with a natural water bowl and beach, and that will help make it easier to water the garden this summer.  We've have learned to cook with arugula, I just planted it because it was supposed to be good for the carrots.  The carrots didn't come up, but the arugula went crazy - and we are crazy about it.  I am successfully growing gladiolus, my favorite flower, for the first time. 

We've been learning all we can about perma-culture and setting up our systems.  This is a good forum for that.  I've been planting comfrey for chop and drop and left the area around the garden surrounded by queen anne's lace and all sorts of other wild flowers, clover, roses, butterfly weed etc.  I"m learning about planting guilds and building up the soil.  Trying to learn the difference between organic farming and permaculture.  I think we are probably several years from a good permaculture influenced system, but we are going that direction.

Here is a video ideo with Helen Atthowe that I thought was nice.  According to Paul Wheaton of permies.com, she is right up there on the permaculture pedestal with Sepp Holzer and Masanobu Fukuoka.

On a personal note...  I am trying to get an herbal website going.  I am stuck on the paypal shopping cart thing.  If anyone would like to help me, I can trade herbal preparations or can teach about making them.

Bobcat Fever in cats

We have lost two cats to Bobcat fever so we started doing all the research we could about this disease.  Even though we prefer all natural solutions, we hadn’t found a way to keep ticks off of our animals.  We tried several natural remedies but they didn’t work well or were too expensive to keep up with since we have so many animals.  We tried apple cider vinegar in their water, but some refuse to drink it.  Being in Missouri with lots of ticks and in an area known to have Bobcat fever, we reluctantly used topical drops while we kept researching. 

We found out that Frontline drops do not repel ticks.  They kill ticks after 48 hours and we were still pulling several ticks off of our cats a week.  Bobcat fever, according to Oklahoma State University and Kansas State University (which have both been researching the disease), can be transmitted from a tick bite within 2-10 hours.  So using topical flea and tick drops to prevent this disease will not necessarily work. 

I’ve also read about a woman who had her cat on Frontline and kept the cat indoors in a major city (Kansas City), and somehow the cat still contracted the disease.  So just keeping your cat indoors isn’t a guarantee that your cat will not get this disease if it’s in the area.

Bobcat fever, is a horrible disease that kills very quickly.  From the website www.projecthelios.org

“The cat becomes depressed, withdrawn, relatively motionless, runs a very high fever (103 -107 F), & refuses to eat. The clinical description of “hemolytic crisis”, “tissue microphages with production of schizonts & invasive merozoites” & other academic jargon, basically means that while the cat burns with fever, becoming anemic & dehydrated, the disease rages through the body attacking blood vessels in all organs; heart, lungs, liver, kidney, spleen. Under such systematic attack the liver & kidneys quickly overload with damaged blood cells & the body becomes jaundiced. In the end phase, the cat begins to vocalize frequently & at greater & greater length, a heart-rending agonal cry, hemorrhages, & dies.”

After realizing that even the expensive drops weren’t protecting our animals, we really worked as hard as we could to find a solution.  This is what we’ve been doing the last few months and so far it’s working better than Frontline.

The first thing we did was get chickens and they at least keep the ticks out of the immediate area.  But our cats travel far and they go much further than the chickens. 

At the door we keep a spray bottle filled with half Braggs unfiltered Apple cider vinegar and half water.  Also at the door we keep a mason jar of Diatomacious earth.  Every day before they go outside, they are treated with one of those.  It may sound like it takes too much time, but it literally only takes seconds.

I put about 8 shots of the spray in my hand and rub the vinegar water down the cat’s back, wipe very carefully around their ears and near their eyes, under their chin, the belly and arm pits and most importantly on their hind end. Then I do a few more shots in my hand and wipe again. Most of the ticks we were finding were in the short, thinner hairs between their ears and eyes, on their rear end and in their arm pits.  Wiping them down by hand only takes a few seconds and it’s better than outright spraying them, which they hate.  They still aren’t too thrilled with the wipe down – but they are getting used to it. 

Then at least twice a week, we apply the diatomaceous earth (D.E.).  To keep a cloud of dust out of their lungs, I straddle over them and take out a pinch at a time and rub it in.  Focusing on the same areas as I did with the spray.  This also doesn’t take any time at all.  It helps if you keep the D.E. jar full so you can easily grab a pinch with one hand and have the other hand free to hold the cat. 

Every night, we check them thoroughly for any ticks.  When I decided to use a bottle of cheap filtered apple cider vinegar that someone accidentally bought for me, we found a lot of ticks.  As soon as I switched back to the “good stuff”, the tick count dropped again.  When we pet them, we are doing a “love check” and check all the areas they typically get ticks.  If we see them outside we rub them in those areas, we take any opportunity we can to check them. 

The cats are getting used to being “man handled” everyday and are being much more cooperative.  I did a lot of reading about what other people have done to deal with Bobcat fever when it strikes.  I thought I’d share what I found.  If we see the symptoms in our cats again, this is the protocol we’ll use. 

When we lost our first cat to Bobcat fever, we learned what signs to look for.  At first the cat was just a little lazy and didn’t want to eat, which wasn’t like him.  The next day it was obvious something was really wrong.  We took him to the vet and found out some of the signs to look for. These may be signs for other diseases, but in this area where Bobcat fever is known, if we see these signs in one of our cats again,  we’re going to assume the worst and treat for Bobcat fever immediately.

Pull the eye lids back slightly until you can see the white of the their eyes, look for the eye to be bloodshot.  You will be able to see the blood vessels on the underside of the eyelids, so make sure you are looking at the eyeball. They will be lethargic and not want to eat.  Feel the ear for a fever.  We don’t have a thermometer to check for a fever, but it’s pretty obvious when you hold the inside of their ear if they have one.

I found several people online that have successfully treated this disease.  We started the protocol when the second cat got sick and she started to get well by the next day.  Technically it was my mother in law’s cat and she wanted to take her to the vet, so we did.  By the time we got there, Gracie was feeling so much better, she fought the vet so hard they couldn’t get her temperature.  They wanted to keep her there and run tests.  So we left her there.  I hate to say it, but when we picked her up about 6 hours later, she couldn’t stand or hold up her head and was dead about an hour after we got home.  Never again!  Next time we’ll start the protocol and not give up on it. I should have stayed at the vets office with her to continue the treatment. 

The most common successful treatment is using high doses of Monolaurin, an easy to obtain coconut derivative, which we now keep on hand at all times. It’s an anti-viral supplement that works directly on the virus by disrupting the conformation of the lipid bilayer, preventing adsorption to host cells.  The supplement comes in capsules and 300 mg is added to 4 CCs of cat’s “Just born” milk replacement and/ or water and given every 1 – 2 hours for the first day and night.  Some continue this for 3 days or until the cat is fighting horribly and obviously better.

I have read many cases that have successfully been treated using this method, some in conjunction with herbs mentioned below.  The treatment regimens are slightly different from case to case and some have dropped the dosage to every 2-4 hours by the 2nd or 3rd day as improvement is seen.

Some also give an herbal anti-parasitic twice daily (made with 5 drops black walnut shell, 3 drops wormwood, 2 drops cloves -- all tinctures). Or some have used "Cat's Claw" glycerin extract along with the hourly doses of Monolaurin and a blend called Recovazon for nutritional support. Cat's claw inhibits TNFalpha production and scavenges free radicals: a role in cytoprotection.  Herbal extracts can be obtained in vegetable glycerine form so it’s safe for animals.  Next time, we will work with Cat’s claw and Monolaurin and alternating with the “just born” cat’s milk and water.

If necessary, we'll make a trip to the vet for IV fluids and antibiotics such as Doxycycline or Baytril while continuing the natural treatment.   After the cat recovers, most put them on a vitamin-mineral cat supplement, such as Pet-tinic, to build up their blood. 

Dr. Ashley Allen at the University of Florida Small Animal Hospital has successfully treated this disease in a different way.  First she used diuretics to rid the cat of fluid in their lungs and administered oxygen for two days. The cat became anemic and experienced severe gastrointestinal bleeding that resulted in two blood transfusions during his weeklong hospital stay.  The cat had a low white cell count, probably due to infection.  Treatment with antiprotozoal drugs, antibiotics and nutrition administered through a feeding tube continued until the cat improved. The protocol UF veterinarians used to treat the animal were reported at the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine’s annual meeting during a presentation.

I’ve also read of other vets whose treatment consists of IV fluids and antibiotics for secondary infections, as well as a blood thinner for DIC ("Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation"), a complication of the disease.

If anyone has come up with a better method of keeping the ticks off of cats, please share.

Since this month has been horrible for ticks, I wanted to pass this information along.  I usually make a dusting sock with sulfur powder and baby powder to keep the chiggers off of me, but I’ve replaced the baby powder with D.E. and hope this dusting powder will help keep the ticks off of us as well.  I put this powder in an old sock and pat on my ankles and underwear line, then dress and dust my socks and clothes, then dust my shoes as well.  I’ll let you know if this works for us.

I’ll be doing a house update soon, but in a nutshell, we’re still working on it ;-)

Fear of a date

 December 21, 2012, a date that strikes fear in the heart of so many people, prepared and unprepared. There is a danger in being afraid of a date. Wanting to be self-sufficient is certainly a life style choice and one that shouldn't be taken up in the spirit of fear. When that date comes and goes, and nothing happens, then what?

Who said the world will end on 12-21-12? The archeologists? It certainly isn't the Mayan elders. Ten minutes online will tell you that. From my research, they say that the date marks an astrological event. Their prophecy of the changing of the world, the world ending as we currently know it, or the time of the new sun, is a time period that spans many years. Some say the end of which could even be as late as 2020. They prophecy a change of times, along with some upheaval, but one where humans come out for the better on the other end.

Regardless of the predictions of the Mayans, or the countless others, shouldn't we just live the way humans should live? Not out of fear of punishment from an angry God or fear of catastrophe. Though it is a good motivator ;-) I do feel more motivated to work faster because of the state of the world these days, but am excited about being alive during an event that only happens every 5,200 years.

We homestead because we don't want to be dependent, period. We live in the safest and most affordable place we can because we want to build something that will last and we'd like to be around to see our old age. The closer we get to self-sufficiency (and we are still a waaaaays off), the more freeing life becomes. When that date comes and goes, nothing changes for us.  We'll still keep working towards that goal. 

A big volcano could erupt, meteors could bombard the planet, an earthquake could swallow us up, or the poles could shift and all our preparations wouldn't matter. However, the freedom and security that comes from having food stored, productive gardens, not being financially obligated to anyone and a secure home covers many other scenarios. Much of that is still a dream for us, but we hold it, look at it and work towards it every day.  

California State Univ. Permaculture garden

Do I personally think there will be a major natural or governmental disaster in my lifetime? I have to say yes, but when - who knows? Meanwhile, lets just work towards being the best humans we can be, feed ourselves with good organic home grown (or traded) food that we store for winter and a rainy day, cause no harm, use only what we really need, take care of the land, and wisely take precautions to protect ourselves - but all with a spirit of community and hope for a better future for everyone. Even if one day we have to wade through dust together while it settles.

Cattle panel shelters

This weather has been incredible and we've been working on getting garden plots ready, getting supplies for temporary greenhouses and building shelters.  We have a lot of glass won at an auction for "permanent" greenhouses, but for now we need to keep it simple and quick to be ready to get back to house building, but be ready for seed starting at the same time. 

As soon as it's not freezing at night, we'll be able to lay the first course of blocks for Judy's house in mortar  - which can't freeze at night.  There are things you can do to keep the mortar from freezing, but there is other important work to do to, so we'll just wait a couple of weeks and get back to it.  Everything is square and the "dry run" row of blocks looks good.

We took cattle panels and tarps to build a shelter over the door at the RV and used the same method to build a small shelter for some equipment.  We tied the cattle panels to the luggage rack and arched it over the door/ fridge/ battery box area.  Rebar ties were used to tie the tarp to the cattle panels.  So far that is working well.  When it's windy out though, the metal of the rebar ties sliding across the metal of the tarp rivets grating the metal of the cattle panels is quite the noise!  Something is going on with my camera besides it no longer zooming and the photo of the new awning is gone. 

We'll do the same basic thing, except with carpenters plastic, for a temporary greenhouse till the one of glass can be built.  

Here is the little equipment shelter we built today though.  The way it's built, we can pull the garden tractor and trailer straight in, then pull straight out.

Joys and hardships of starting from scratch

The dream of building a simple homestead meets up every day with reality.  In the dream, equipment starts, when things get done they stay done, our bodies have sufficient energy and learning from a book is all that is required to make something happen.  In the dream, I would make herbal preparations to bring in a little income to the homestead and how hard can it be to build a website with a shopping cart? 

In reality, equipment breaks at a regular pace and we're not mechanics, we get tired and sore, and not everything is covered in the books.  In reality I don't have time to spend on online marketing and building a website is about to make me pull my hair out.  Food and shelter have to be the top priority.  So every day I have to think about what needs to be done to accomplish those goals and squeezing in everything else at the end of a long day. 

I thought I'd try affiliate marketing on our blog, other homesteaders bring a little money home that way.  There are many ethical businesses out there that we've used and I like.  But do I spend time learning affiliate marketing, or do I learn more about seed saving and how to keep heirlooms from cross pollinating?  Do I learn this shopping cart software or more about adobe plaster?

I gave learning to build a website a good old college try and the front page looks pretty good.  But it's not connected to anything and now other bigger projects won't wait.  It was not  fun at all, so I'm putting it down for a while.  Maybe when the garden prep work is done and it's too cold to build, I'll take it back up.

Taking up this life has been and is so rewarding and I wouldn't' trade it for anything.  Some days it would be nice though if we weren't doing re-work or fixing things that were already fixed.

It was much cheaper and easier to bring in a local concrete truck for the footers instead of mixing 200 bags by hand.  The weight of the concrete truck snapped our footer and gray-water drain lines and they have to be dug up and re-done.  

The lines to the spring are frozen and blocked even though we thought they were drained.  Just last night we heard a pop and now the water pump in the RV doesn't work.  We had no running hot water, now we have no running cold water either.

Fortunately, the spring water comes out of the hill is about 55 degrees or so and doesn't freeze.  We haul water by hand anyway, because I didn't want to drink water that flowed through a plastic pipe, now we'll just bring back more for dishwashing and such.

Sometimes I think that we are so slow and it takes forever to get something accomplished.  Then I think about the day to day life of ancient man.  They had to roll with the punches and things weren't that "instant" for them either.  Progress is made eventually though and the rewards are great.

Winter won't last and spring will be here in the blink of an eye.  Some of the no-till garden beds are ready and we'll keep building more.  I love the idea of food forests, so anything that is shade tolerant will be started in the woods.  It's been fun the last few days to get the seeds organized and I'll work on mapping today. 

Like most people, we have such a handicap trying to start a self-sufficient life.  My father didn't teach me how to build a house out of the surrounding materials because his father didn't teach him and and his father didn't teach him.  My mother didn't teach me how to preserve food without canning because her mother didn't teach her and her mother didn't teach her.  We don't have family around us all day to help with big projects like building a house, because people live in nuclear families now and go away from the home to work all day. 

"Nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do.  With no relatives, no support, we've put it in an impossible situation."  ~Margaret Mead

"The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit.  No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child.  He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born."  ~Pearl S. Buck

So now in our 40's, we're trying to learn everything that ancient man knew as a teenager and doing it mostly by ourselves.  Thankfully we do have some great neighbors.  We'll be glad when the house is built though so we can focus more on food production and the day to day tasks that go into this life.

The cistern is finally parged, so we'll have water at the house site and stored water that won't freeze.  The blocks have arrived and we'll start laying up the walls for Judy's house very soon. We're just doing our best and that's all anyone can ever hope for. 

The joy though is that it's so beautiful outside, to look up at the stars in a dark sky and the tall evergreens.  Listen to the owls and coyotes, taste raw living water, smell fresh air and feel the warmth in our muscles from a good day's work. 
We're trying to build something that will last and that can be passed down, that takes time.  Infusing that time mindfully with joy, means when I'm old I can look back and remember happy moments.  When I touch the wall, it'll be touching the happy time spent building that wall.  It's easy to forget to be joyful when things don't work the way I want them to, but I'm trying hard to remind myself to get back to that place every day. 

I hope you all have a safe, warm and happy winter. 

The photos are some ice ribbons that formed recently.

Footers for dry stack block, earth sheltered house

 Lots of rainbows this week!

We poured footers for Judy's house today. Putting in the rebar and insulation were a breeze a few days ago.  The insulation board was perforated by chance for our size footer (17"x9")!  Snapping them in parts and laying them on the bottom and outside of the footer was easy.  To the outside, it lined up perfectly with the footer form. 


We ran 3 pieces of rebar, 3 " from the bottom and sides.  They wrapped at least a foot around the corners and ran around the outside on the corners.   Long pieces of  1/2 " rebar is easy to bend without a bender (cutting is another matter).  Just put it on the ground, put your foot in the middle and push.  On short pieces, we used the trailer hitch on the truck. Inexpensive little metal chairs were used to keep the rebar 3" from the bottom. 

My mother in law tied the rebar together at each connection with a little $4 tool and a cheap roll of rebar ties. Funny, we didn't build using the slip form method because of the extensive rebar requirements and it's been one of the easiest things to do. 

We screwed scrap wood to the tops of the footers to act as whalers, or additional support for the forms to prevent blow out.  It should be interesting trying to get these off.

Old, long nails were put into the board insulation around where the rebar lay horizontally. The heads were to the outside of the insulation.  This was done so that when the forms are removed, the nails are in the concrete and the insulation doesn't fall off the footer.  Or so we've been told ;-)  We'll find out maybe tomorrow or the next day. 


Using foam board insulation around the footers is a compromise.  We are balancing each step between energy efficiency and all natural materials.  Not having to have the expense and maintenance of traditional air conditioner and heating system in a home is worth it.  Under the floor however, it'll be easy and affordable to insulate with a layer of straw and clay since we're building an earthen floor.

I marked along the top of the footer form (big mistake) where the concrete block holes would be for 3 feet out from each corner and then every 4 feet.  I made a template out of a piece of wood for 3 concrete blocks side by side so that I could quickly mark the forms.


We read about using keyways in the footer as a water stop and to lock the first row of blocks to the footer.  This was to resist lateral pressure of the earth on the bermed walls (the walls back-filled with dirt). We riped 2x4's in half and beveled them to the outside. Drilled holes for the rebar to go through and marked on the footer where to lay the keyway forms so that the rebar holes lined up with the rebar marks.

Keyways were horrible!  It was hard keeping them in place when screeding over them, which you are supposed to do, so the holes kept moving.  It was impossible to keep concrete out of the holes for rebar, so getting the keyway off might be hard.  The keyways would NOT stay level with the forms and kept floating up, making the footer be slightly bowed on top.  That would not be good for trying to lay flat blocks. 

After laying keyways for one wall, we decided to stop.  We ended up laying extra boards periodically across the footer forms and putting a concrete block on it to hold the keyway down.  One guy online drags a 2x4 through the concrete to make the keyways, but  that would make for bumpy ridges and the blocks wouldn't lay flat.  So you'd end up having to chip off all the excess. 

We vote for just filling the bottom first or second course of concrete blocks with concrete, on the bermed side, to resist lateral load.  

Another mistake was marking rebar and J bolt locations on TOP of the footer forms.  They should have been to the side.  Screeding the concrete, covered the tops of the footer forms with concrete and I couldn't see the marks.  So we had to use a pump sprayer and wash the form boards, going back over it with shop rags trying to find the marks.  I know we missed marks because there was rebar left over. 

We'll do much better on our forms.