Sonorama Rammed Earth Home: November 2006

Yes, That's Right, The Fifth Day Of The Galactic Underworld

A big day indeed. A high one, too.

As mentioned in the previous post, the trusses went up today. Today, the first day of the Fifth Day of the Galactic Underworld (or just Fifth Day for short.)

Phew! Who has time to put up the Christmas lights?

Who wants to know what an octopus looks like?

Monday we go shopping for (more) wood.

November 24th , Fifth Day of the Galactic Underworld

What a beautiful day to place trusses!

The weather could not have been more co-operative.

The company couldn't have been more pleasant.

The sun is so bright!

More pictures to come, we have to get back to work now.

THE BOX

This is what we did yesterday.

This is what we did today.

Now all four walls are up on the second floor.

It's quite the wooden hat. "Stick Frame" building is a whole different thing than rammed earth. It will be interesting to compare the two once they are finished--to see if in fact there is any noticeable difference between 18" of rammed earth and 3/8" of O.S.B...

There's much to prepare before the crane comes on Friday to put on the trusses.

So much for gloating about the weather. The upside of the rain is that the desert starts to colour up quite nicely.

Movin' On Up!

A little bit of this,

a little bit of that.

That would be floor of the second story, as well as the view. Working with wood is no match for the joys (and sorrows) of working with earth. We are working with something called OSB. A strange product that OSB. Sinister even. Some say OSB is eco because it uses wood waste, whereas plywood is made of peeled logs. Others say OSB is evil because it contains glues and paraffins, and is made out of entire trees that are speed-grown in monocultural forests.

But the view, oh the view-- so we splash in the filth with the rest of the death kultur, building with glues and extruded wood products just to get a peek at the beautiful view.
I hear China is building a new coal burning power plant every five days. The OSB versus Plywood debate sorta shrinks in importance against that depressing concept.

The trusses were delivered today, perhaps next week we will install them.

In case you haven't noticed, it's not raining here. Not snowing, either. It' s the middle of November and the sky is electric blue.

A Hole, Or Lest We Forget The Trenches!

Time to dig trenches for the 'services.' Who doesn't love watching a trench get dug by a piece of heavy machinery?

In goes the electricity, as well as the phone and the cable.

A trench from the middle of the front of the house was dug so old water can go out and the new water can come in. Very important!

As per usual, the aerial shot.

The conduits were first covered in sand, then 'back filled' with the excavated soil. The difference in soil appearance will let future civilizations know they're 'getting warm' as they dig through the rubble looking for valuable plastics to melt. Someone or another mentioned something about sand protecting the pipes from being crushed by big rocks. (Yeah, right...)

The kind neighbor lady who made us cookies way back when looked at all the goings on and said in her kind neighbor lady way "It's always something ya? I feel so very sorry for you both."

Oh if she only knew the half of it!

But all that begins eventually ends, and our excavator ended nicely with gentle slopes and the promise to return in the spring to "get fussy" with the grade.

when was the last time someone said this to you?

The carpenter was telling me about his neighbour who is involved with rammed earth and straw bale construction in Utah.

He said,"I'll ride over there on my horse tomorrow and give him your card."

The Floor

Once we get a sunny day, we'll take an aerial photo, in the mean time, these snaps should give you an idea of the colours in the floor.

As you can see by the white stains, we have pretty hard water here in the desert.

We tried to keep the cool tones on the south side and the warm ones on the north.

Don't those tarps look lovely?