The "M" Word

Well it's a lovely warm day, and considering what was on the ground that means MUD... the dreaded "M" word. I really, really love mud... don't you? Especially since it's all clay mud which as it sticks to your shoes adds 50lbs to your foot.. or at least feels that way.
 Today we went out and put the rebar stakes into the MUDDY ground.
  The ground is just squishy enough to make it easy to get into the ground, I almost wish we had the ground rods to put into the ground, they would be very easy to get into the ground right now.
 While we were doing the pounding my son who doesn't currently attend a church got to stand in the middle of the mud circle and hold our 100ft tape to make sure we had the right length from the center.
 We also had to measure the distance between each one which needed to be 6ft 8in between each one.  The rebar "arches" need to be slightly off of where we put our stakes so that there is an opening in the center of the top of the dome. traditionally this is where a chimney is put.  We are going to put glass block windows, vents and a whole house fan in a small  addition above the top of the dome in the center.  Silver is planning to find a way to run the chimney up it as well, but we need to figure out the logistics of it first. The ground stakes have to be in the ground 2 foot so the 5 ft rebar stakes need to only have 3ft above the ground.  So after placing all the stakes Silver went back around and pounded them into the ground till they reached the correct depth.    
       We only had issue in one spot:
  I am not sure if you can see it, but this one here is stuck in a frozen block of clay, so once we have enough above freezing days we should be able to go back and fix this one.
 Well it figures we'd have one that would not be able to be at the proper depth.  We should have really gone out and fixed some of the mud piles before the bad weather came through.. but you know what they say about hindsight.
 I'll also have you know that as I am writing this.. all that snow you see in the picture?  Yeah... it's gone, not there... just the MUD!  
   So when we finished putting the stakes in we spent some time looking for the orange "tape" to mark where the stakes are as they are a tad hard to see against the browns. It is much easier to see the outline with the tape on the rebar.  also this is taken at the place where our door for the house will be put.  The nice thing about it is that the door will open to just across from our soon to be outdoor kitchen.  I think that is very convenient.
 As you can see from this picture there is much more mud than snow now, at this point we had the kids moving the rebar from up front to the house ring as Silver is going to start making the arches.
 The arches is what  the second floor is suppose to be connected to so that it is more secure, I'm not sure if we are going to do it that way as yet and Silver is thinking we may only need to make half of a second floor based on how much space there is in the interior.
 As for the start of the arches...
  First, after we set out three pieces of rebar of course.  We needed to bend the rebar, Silver discovered after trying to use his "bending" tool that it wasn't going to work very well.  That is because when he first tried to bend it the tool bent.
 So as you can see he went and got out the pipe wrenches and used them with me standing on one end of the rebar while he hand bent them.  The one downside I have to say for the birdcage dome site is that they do not mention how they bent their rebar.  So we had to figure it out ourselves.
 So we had to bend two of three pieces, the two end pieces.  The center piece gets bent when you attach them together.  We discovered it's much easier to bend with the help of two children in addition to me standing on the rebar.
 So after the bending comes tying the rebar together.
  We are using rebar ties to connect them together, now we have seen people using zip ties.  While they will hold a great deal, I think using the metal rebar ties will be 100% better as then they will be part of the concrete with the rebar.
 Silver is planning on using a couple of zip ties then we put the arches up and need to temporarily secure them to the rebar stakes while we get the others in place.  Then will go around and use the metal ties to finish securing them.
 Incidentally we did not put this one in place as we have discovered we need to have a ladder or a scaffolding in place to do that as we need someone at the top to hold it in place while it is secured. As it is flimsy while being strong.  I know once they are all in place they will be much more secure, jut one by itself would not be.
 We only put one arch together so as to get the "idea" of how to do it for the first time.  Notice in the picture... no snow at all and all the MUD on Silver's shoes?  That was after he scraped the MUD off.  The kids finished bringing back all the rebar, after some issue over figuring out how to navigate over the trench while carrying the rebar.  We found one random plank to place across it, and it's kinda working.
 One child of course fell into the trench and had a fit over getting muddy, I guess a 13yr old doesn't think MUD is fun anymore.  Well at least she had changed into the jeans she didn't want to wear before it happened so the pants she prefers are saved for school.  So now we are all sitting around the house MUDDY waiting turns to bathe the MUD off.  I'll be last as I have to go back out in it to get the laundry down.  Then it's on to start cooking our dinner tonight.  which will be a beef roast mashed taters and peas.  YUM!
 So I hope everyone enjoys their start of MUD season... I know I am... rolls eyes

 Be Well BE Safe and Blessed BE...

Happy Friday!

So today was our grocery shopping day, and we got a good deal on canned milk. Both evaporated and condensed, at $.50 a piece for as may out of one shopping cart we wanted. We now have about 45 cans of evaporated milk, which one can is the correct amount for my sourdough bread. So I'm happy.   I have a few picks of my plants in their trays that I took yesterday while the weather was nice and warm, and also a close up of the sugar cane that will be “sprinkled” through this posting. I have enough sprouted that I'm very happy aside from the sugar cane which we only have 1 so far, I am hoping and crossing my fingers for more.  
 Yesterday Silver finished setting up the hitch for the trailer for the track hoe as we are picking it up tomorrow. He also made a bender for the rebar that will circle the dome. After we are done with the digging we will start putting out the rebar.   He is thinking about running down the road with the grader that is on it when he's done as our road does not get worked on by anyone. There is a spot not far from us that while it has one of those “metal” culverts it still floods and almost always has standing water in it. I want to take a moment and comment on something I have been thinking of. Yes, I am trying to be as “green” as possible, however I know that you cannot be 100% green and exist in this day and age. Something has to give somewhere. One thing that me and Silver were discussing today has to do with chickens.  
 Now I know the “green” method of raising the chickens is free range. We do not do this... Why? A few reasons, the first being I do not plan on hunting for my eggs. Second is I bought the starting birds and they are an investment. I do not want something eating them if I can help it. Third... well they will eat your veggies given half a chance.
So we keep them penned. It is a very large one compared to the ones I see in the farm stores now.   In fact today I was looking at the ones in the farm stores, and they have a small yard built on and space for three nests. Now based on my experience and what I have read a single nest can be used by 5 hens. So based on the size of the “coop” we saw at the store it should hold 15 birds. However to my eye unless you have tiny birds you cannot fit that many in the available yard. So I do not understand them very much.

 Well I'm off to finish cleaning before the children return from school and make a disaster area.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Snow Day

..well not really, but the kids thought that it would be. It was so funny when the news people even said on the news after the kids got up, “Alright everyone time to get up and get ready for school”. The kids just groaned about that.
We had a bit of good news at about noon today...
  Our delivery of rebar was going to show up today! It was nice to see the work on it didn't take too long to get done with. Oddly, we were the only delivery, so I'm guessing we had the only one that required the flat bed today.      

     I think this loading, unloading device is really cool it's a forklift that latches into the truck.
                           
 Here's Silver setting some wood down for the rebar to set on until we can use it.      

           After the truck left Silver rushed to get out a cutting tool to start cutting some of the rebar for the “stakes” he needs to start the framework of the dome.
                 
 He even pointed them to make them easier to go into the ground.              
 30 minutes later this is what is left of the 4, 20fter's he was cutting up.
  Now he's disappointed as we have to wait till after the track hoe is here and done, so he's practically crawling the walls wanting to get the work done. It only took 2 days for the delivery to get here from 25 miles away. It was the truck's fault.. granted I imagine a horse drawn wagon would have gotten them here faster.    

           Hope everyone has had a good day, and is staying warm!

 Be Well, BE Safe, and Blessed Be...

Happy Monday!

 So here I am with what now seems to be a once a week update of sorts.

I started my plants yesterday I filled 2 trays so far, and I'm thinking of in a month or so starting cukes and squashes to see if they grow better from starts. I discovered that I did not use up all the sugar cane seeds I got from Listia so I put six into the tray to see if I can get them from starting in the house. I'm using a “all weather” birding journal to keep tabs on this year's plants and with what I planted yesterday I have nearly filled all the lined pages.

Silver has pointed out that I probably should wet the starting mix before I put it into the “cells” so I don't have to water under them to avoid losing my seeds. ...hindsight... I defiantly think I'll be doing that next time.

I am hoping for 100% on my plants, but who really knows right? I have it set for 12 of each of the two types of tomatoes that I want to grow. I did 6 sweet peppers 2 of each of the ones I have and 6 hot peppers 3 of two of the multitude I have of those. I have some onions planted as well as cabbage, mini Bak Choi, edible chrysanthemums, nastrums, Kale, and a variety of herbs. I am hoping this time I get the lemon grass to grow good.

We have gone and found out how much a track hoe (wow it really is a “track hoe” ) would cost from a Saturday to Monday. It would be $350, and that's considering that Sunday is given as a freebie. Just need a nice weekend and the money and we can get the digging we need done. Oh, that price includes the trailer to bring it home.

We didn't get the package of insulation that I wanted to try to make the papercrete to try out, so we'll have to make an extra trip before we can buy supplies just to try it out. As I'd rather buy in large quantities only once and have it all delivered. We did discover that we are paying about ½ price when we buy the rebar in 20ft lengths, it's just a matter of getting it home after the fact. Which again would be best to include in a delivery option.

We did find out during the last rain storm that the area the house is going does get water during storms, but we are planning to build a bit off the ground; so we should be ok there.

Well I'm up again baking bread at this early hour and I need to return to it. Have a good day everyone!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Rocket Stove Cooker!

Ok so for functionality our Rocket Stove cook stove is finished I do have a video of it here:



There is an occasional moments where the video halted before I uploaded it, and I'm not sure if it transferred that "hiccup" into the online copy. Now a few comments on this... We only spent about (give or take) 4 hours of work putting it together, and have about an hour or two more just to "finish" it. Though it's in working order. WE used 6 standard cinder blocks, 6 flat cinder blocks.. they cost a piece about $1.50. We used about $25 of concrete and chicken wire. The chicken wire was left over from our chicken yard, the concrete was some we bought for something and never used it. Oh.. odd thing about chicken wire... when you think you've used it all you have some left; almost as if it grows.

We bought one 10 pound bag of mortar mix to "glue" the blocks together. We used one bag of vermiculite at about $6. WE used one 6in elbow and one piece of the 6in 3ft long single wall stove pipe. The elbow we got for free and the 3ft section was a little over $5. We also "Scavenged" a few metal bits here and there for different parts we needed like that "face plate" we had above the opening for the burn chamber.

So just to point out again, this did not take hardly any time to make and I can say aside from "on the job experience" (with the cement application) anybody can make this. I hope to post more pictures when we have them and it gets finished. Also of our cook oven and the mass heater when they are both built!

The weather... not a complaint.. kinda...

WOW... rain for 2 DAYS!!!!! It's great... aside from the fact that it starts early in the morning with a intense thunderstorm. Being that it starts when it's still "dark" out my astraphobia kicks in... -yeah-?

Now being that said, it has cooled us off these last couple of days, we got our rocket stove cooker pretty much finished off and I'll have pics and a vid on it once it drys out enough for us to "fire" it up once. We still have some patch work to do on the cement, we used up 3 bags of ready mixed concrete and did it over chicken wire. Now this is the planned method for our full house construction down the line and it is showing us what we will need for that big project and how easy/hard it will be. I will say it takes more concrete than you think it will, so if you are going to chicken wire concrete something it will use more than you plan concrete wise. Also you need to make sure the chicken wire is -VERY- tight or you will be "stuffing" with concrete instead of just covering it in concrete.

Other than that it was fairly simple to do, more so for Silver as he's had experience working with concrete verses myself. This was my first time working with concrete, and it was interesting and took one bag of concrete for me to "learn" how to do it.

Well that's about it for now, yes the planned no internet for a while is still on for after the 8th so we'll see what goes on.

BE Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Root Cellar Update!

OK, I know it's been a while; but while Silver was sick we put the root cellar on hold. Now even though he feels better he's still coughing bad, and by his choice we got back to work on it this morning.

This first picture is of it when we started this morning:

Ok, I took this a few days ago; but still this is what it looked like before we worked on it this morning.

Now here is what it looks like now:

I put the shovels into the "hole" to give you some perspective on what it looks like now. Even though the one is "tipped up" a bit the soil under the handle has been loosened. We had to stop for a bit now due to my back and Silver's back. As of now it is about 9 1/2X 6 1/2X 1 1/2.. a bit closer to 2 ft on the depth.

We have noticed due to here that the hardest part has been the first bit of ground as there is so much rock in the top layer. I am sure it would be taking much longer if we were not using the hammer drill with the planting bit. I wish we could find another one of those bits as it has be a good tool for us. We were in Lowes the other day and hunted for one, but it seems they are out. I guess it is past the "season" for those.

Well we have decided the walls will be done with the ferrous concrete to save money. It will still be strong and keep the soil/clay out of the cellar. Silver is also thinking about making the floor into a concrete floor. Not fully sure on that one as yet though.

So what have you managed to do before breakfast? almost time for me to cut our bread for breakfast this am, and it's already been a busy day so far.

Oh, fun news on the kid front, my son left this morning for a 2 day one night camping trip with the local church. I do hope he has fun, seems they are going to go canoeing and he's really looking forward to that.

Be Well and Blessed Be...