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. 

Lasagna or no-till gardening

Oh fall has been glorious!!!

This year we tested out a no-till or lasagna garden patch.  It seemed easy and required less money and effort than a typical tilled garden with equipment and gas considered.  Not only that, it's much better for the soil and the micro-organisms that live there.  A small patch was started in March with just paper in some places, cardboard in others and really old hay.  That's all we could get for the first patch and the hay was very old.  Should have used straw.   Not a "by the book" start, but with no real compost yet and little time, it's all we could muster.  After 7 months, the soil looks great!  Dark and crumbly already and we've done a second planting. 

Footer forms

In this picture, the primary interior mass wall footer is not shown.  The house building is moving at a slow steady pace.  There have been equipment problems, but we are back on track and the weather has been wonderful.  We're at the footer stage.  I made a drawing outlining and numbering each board length for the inside and outside track of the footers.  While Jeffrey made sure the rubble trench foundation, that the footers will sit on top, was well tamped; I cut and numbered each board for the footers.  I used 4x6's laying side by side on the ground to lay the wood on for cutting and made sure the end being cut off could fall freely to the ground so as not to bunch up the blade.  Thanks to my friend Anastasia for showing me that I could get over my fear of power tools that can cut off body parts.