Greenhouse Entrance and The Shaggs

Finished the step to the greenhouse entrance today. I dug a shallow foundation and lined it with landscaping fabric. Then it's basically a border of slate built up in rows, filled in with gravel and sand and then capped with the surface you see in the picture. I just finished reading The Art & Craft of Stonework by David Reed and wanted to try something. Plus I wanted to get this done so I could see how much slate I have leftover. It's a little off-center with the entrance, which is annoying  because I actually measured when I laid it out. I think it has to do w/ how I stacked it, plus the top stone on the right juts out where the one on the left is missing that corner. Like the guy with the portable mill said when he saw how I was building the greenhouse - doesn't look too scientific.

 I think I'm going to pack it in for the winter on the greenhouse. I'm out of sand and will probably save my money (or spend it on heating the house) and get a truckload delivered in the spring.

This is a picture of the Shaggs. We got them back in August from the Amish farm but I think someone else rescued them and gave them to him. They had their beaks clipped and all the guy would tell me is that he didn't know how old they were or what kind of birds they were. They have to be Rhode Island Reds, and I'm guessing they must be somewhere between 16 - 20 weeks old but they haven't started laying eggs yet. Their pal's name is foot-foot.

Patrick Dougherty

This dude is the bomb - http://www.stickwork.net/installations.php

Books and New Pictures

I started using this blog b/c when I began planning the cob wall and the greenhouse I was reading a lot of other blogs to try and learn how to use specific techniques, solve problems, etc. I thought if I ended up doing anything interesting, it would only be fair to return the favor and share my methods. However, as I started building, I ended up relying more on books and now only really look at blogs to see cool pictures of other people's work. So, here's a list of books I haven't mentioned yet but have read and learned from:

Michael Reynolds:  Earthship, How to Build Your Own
Ianto Evans:  The Hand Sculpted House
Becky Bee:  The Cob Builder's Handbook
Joseph F. Kennedy, Michael Smith, and Catherine Wanek:  The Art of Natural Building
Mike Oehler:  Earth-Sheltered Greenhouse
Rob Roy:  Cordwood Building

And here are some pictures of the Greenhouse. Slab was layed in 8' sections with a sand&gravel/clay/cement mix. I mixed a wheelbarrow at a time and shoveled it into a form made from 2x4's. Each slab section has a sheet of chickenwire in the center. Slab is just sitting on top of the tire foundation. North wall is 18", east and west are 12". South wall is 18" but most of that will serve as an interior shelf; I'll set the windows on the outside edge of the slab. There are three rows of slate mortared together on top of the slab at the north, east, and west. Mortar is also sand/clay/cement (mix is roughly 3-1-1) with the gravel screened out and spread on the floor. The floor has 2 layers of landscaping fabric between the ground and the gravel. I built the first window frame for the east wall and started the first (northeast) stackwall corner. That's it so far!

View from west (with bottom of doorway frame)

View from South

The Good House Book - Clarke Snell

http://books.google.com/books?id=xwLKa8-FRVoC&dq=Marc%2BAnd&ie=ISO-8859-1&source=gbs_gdata

This is an excellent book that addresses the concerns of natural building and alternative building without being crippled by fanatic idealism, or carried away by unrealistic whimsy. This could be a 101 course textbook for these fields.

The whole natural building, eco-community phenomenon, for all the attributes and good intentions, still leans toward escapism. I'm convinced, and even more so after reading this book, that the best approach is to leave any remaining untouched land untouched and instead focus on a remodeling/rebuilding project. Read the book yourself and see what you think.

Incredible Houses

Just found these examples of Indonesian traditional architecture -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5FCgfmDaMs

Irene

Well, the greenhouse roof is now "in a heap on the ground over collapsed posts" (as I feared in the earthquake). The hurricane took down the 3 largest persimmon trees in our backyard, two of them fell onto the greenhouse and took it down. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. However, the ranch-like arch that I put over the entrance to the goat pen caught one of the trees and kept it from smashing the fence and probably the chicken coop run. So... that was good.

Some photos Crystal took of our yard after the storm...

 

All Shook Up

Progress on the greenhouse so far:

Over the past few weeks, I finished the last row of tires, set piers, and put up posts. The posts are a collection of what we had down on our property - 2 cedar, 2 oak, and 2 maple. Cutting and peeling posts is hard but I enjoy it. Almost wish I needed more. After setting the posts on the piers, I got 2 oak beams and 2 cedar beams w/ the help of Jon Sola. I peeled all 4 of those and then decided the cedar were too narrow. So I set double 2x6 beams at the South that I also got from Jon leftover from a barn we took down on his parent's property. Next, I took a trip to the Amish lumber mill to order rafters and ceiling boards, all poplar. The order process consisted of me writing down what I wanted on a sheet of paper and putting my initials on it. I was there on a Saturday and they told me to come back Thursday. I talked to a friend who asked for some wood and was told to come back but when he showed up again they didn't have it. I didn't get my hopes up to high b/c of his story but when I showed up looking for my order on Thursday, it was there all bundled and ready to go. I think my friend forgot to write down what he wanted and initial it. I set the rafters on Friday and had Jon's help again putting up ceiling boards Saturday.

Northwest corner: Posts, oak beams, and rafters

View from the Southeast

Today the earthquake hit Virginia and it was pretty strong here. I was in the middle of a meeting at work, in a corner office on the second floor, and the whole building shook and swayed. I've never felt an earthquake before and it was definitely unnerving. As soon as we all got out of the building and I realized everyone was ok, I started to worry about the greenhouse. I began to picture the roof down on the ground in a heap over collapsed posts. But when I got home....

It survived!!

Antidote to Capitalism Gone Wild

http://www.lewishyde.com/publications/the-gift

This is the best half of a book I've read. In the first half, Hyde examines the role of the gift in various traditional cultures and contrasts that with it's commodification in ours. Second half was less interesting to me - two separate essays, one on Walt Whitman, the other Ezra Pound. In fact, I think I tapped out about three quarters of the way through Walt Whitman, skipped the piece on Pound, and re-read the first half. How's that for a book review?

R.I.P. Sophia

Sadly, we lost our beloved Sophia last night. I found her in our backyard this morning. One of our own dogs may have been the culprit but we can't be sure.

One thing we do know is that she was the most curious and adventurous of all the GGs. Each day when I got home she would have escaped and come running to the back gate to meet me. She would often fly out while I was working in the backyard and follow me around, leaving the other 2 GGs to pace back and forth, cooing along the fence line. When I was working on the roof over their run, she found a way to fly through a two foot opening that I hadn't finished yet, walk over the roof of the coop (about 12 feet high or so), along the cob wall and down into the hay I was using to mix cob. I never worried much about her wandering because it didn't seem like she wanted to escape, it just seemed like she wanted to be where I was. Quite flattering actually. I don't want to say I picked favorites or anything...

I don't know when she got into our backyard or how she died but I'm not surprised that her wandering got the best of her. Poor girl. We will miss her something terrible. We love you Sopia!

Greenhouse Foundation

I finally made some progress on the greenhouse. The first two rows of tires are finished and so is the drain. The drain is set on the inside perimeter, just below the level of the first row of tires, and runs out the south end (to the right in the 2nd photo). Pounding tires is slow work, and fatigue is definitely a factor in how much I can finish in a day. Especially this weekend with 100+ degree heat to contend with.

Footings with first row of tires

Greenhouse Foundation

Leonard Knight

I first learned of Leonard Knight through the film God's Architects (http://www.godsarchitects.com/)

Here's a virtual tour of his Salavation Mountain:
http://www.snubble.com/niland/

Jim Bishop

Here's a good video introducing Mr. Bishop and his work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDQsy7aiVD0&feature=related

This is a link to a feature-length documentary, "Scrap", that splits time between Jim and a Wisconsin sculptor:
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/scrap/

Official Web Site:
http://www.bishopcastle.org/#

Ferdinand Facteur Cheval

C'est Incroyable - http://www.facteurcheval.com/video.html

Two Fearless Builders

Lars Vilks - Creator of Nimis and Arx in the country(well, not exactly...) of Ladonia:
http://atlasobscura.com/place/nimis

Nikolai Sutyagin - Creator of a wooden skyscraper. Ultimately a failure as it's been torn down but no lack of ambition here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1544827/Gangster-who-built-worlds-tallest-log-cabin.html

Thank you internets.

No Mow Lawns!!

Something's wrong here -

http://abcnews.go.com/US/vegetable-garden-brings-criminal-charges-oak-park-michigan/story?id=14047214

The only thing more ridiculous than the case against her is the number of people chiming in to say she's actually in the wrong.

I can see getting irritated by a lawn with old washing machines, a collection of car parts, and some shopping carts (even then I don't think anyone should have legal recourse), but she's growing her own food. Something everyone is most likely going to be forced to do very soon. I wished I lived in that city, I'd have a front yard that would really give people a reason to complain (think 'abstract art').

P.S. - This issue grew into it's own blog - http://nomowlawns.blogspot.com/

Goats and Chickens in the finished Cob Wall

Cob Wall

A few more photos of the cob wall. I'm finished with all the major mudding. The darker areas are still drying. Only major work left to do is some trimming, fill a few cracks, and then the finish plaster. Still working on getting a decent mix for the finish plaster and right now I'm using a hatchet to chop up the straw. I tried the weed-eater in a bucket method but it didn't work too well. Need to find a better method or a different material because the hand-chopping is too tedious.

Cob Wall w/ shingle roof and chicken entrances

Bottles and cordwood

Feed storage w/ chutes for goat grain

Goat Pavilion

Dead Roof

The living roof had some leaks, probably due to the jigsaw puzzle work I did with scrap plywood. I fixed a pond liner over the plywood but there were a few low spots and water was sitting in gaps where plywood pieces weren't flush. Somehow water was finding its way through and there were a couple wet spots on the wood supports whenever it rained. I decided to strip off all the dirt, straw, and gravel and put up a new roof; I left the pond liner just to have a waterproof barrier underneath b/c the shingles aren't the best and I'm sure they're going to leak a little. After I cleared the living roof, I cut tenons into two poles and lay a beam w/ mortises on the ends across it. I built a basic 2x4 frame off of the beam and covered it with shingles. Here are some pictures of the finished roof and surrounding area.

Newly shingled roof

Goat pavilion with cob wall and chicken run in foreground

Cob wall and Goat Pavilion after taking off glasses

Feed Storage Roof

I put a small extension on the cob wall to make an area to store the goat feed. I'm planning to build a couple of shoots into the wall with bowls on the end. That way I can just dump their grain into the shoots each morning without wrestling the goats while they try to get at the bucket of grain. The extension is curved so I anchored one post to a concrete block on the ground, the other into the cob wall. The posts are white oak. The beam and rafters are a mix of white oak, cherry, and cedar. The cedar tree came down on its own. The cherry died so I cut it down. The white oak was perfectly healthy but I cut it down to make posts for the greenhouse. I used the leftovers to frame the roof over the feed area. I ran some old 1x2s between the rafters to hold the shingles. The shingles I put on were ones that we bought to repair the barn roof but weren't able to use. Progress is slow but steady...

Roof frame over feed storage area

Feed storage roof with shingles

Goat Pavilion

I started this project because I wanted to give the goats a little more room, put down some concrete to help keep their hooves worn down, and put up a shelter to keep their food dry. The first thing I did was dig out a small foundation and pour a concrete slab. Mixing bags by hand and pouring them one at a time isn't the fastest method. I included a drain, which is just a piece of plywood over a large buried flower pot and a drain plate cemented over a hole in the plywood.

Cement slab and base of cob wall

Since finishing the foundation, the whole thing has become an excuse for me to try and learn new building methods. I turned the roof into a living roof. I used 4x4 treated posts, 2x8's for the walls and a 2x4 frame. I put double 2x4's down the center and supported them on a cedar pole. The roof is lined w/ leftover plywood, which is kind of jigsaw puzzled together and reinforced at some of the gaps with more 2x4's. I lined the plywood with a sheet of pond liner, covered the liner w/ gravel, straw, and soil. There's a pvc pipe drain along the back. I was planning to run the drain into a rain barrel and use it for the goat's water. Not sure if I'll try that or not since I had a LOT of trouble w/ the rain barrel for the chickens. It's a trick making those things water tight when you have to have a spout at the base and can't reach the inside. Anyway, I planted wildflower seeds on the roof but they haven't sprouted at all so it's a soil roof right now.

Top of "living" roof

I decided to surround two sides of the cemented base with a cob wall and then run the wall up to the chicken coop. Unfortunately, I didn't read enough about setting up drainage for cob before I started building the wall. Part of the wall is sitting right on the concrete slab, which might be an issue. But I did dig out the other side of the wall, put in a rubble trench and lined it with brick. Still, I have about 2 feet of wall built now and the base is not drying. I will probably put a drain in front of it.

Since the wall runs along the south end of the chicken run, I wanted to put some openings to let light through. I made a few wattle frames with sticks and chicken wire to frame "chicken windows". I have them all cobbed in now and they are surprisingly solid.

Chicken Window

Chicken Windows and Chicken Run

The cobbing is taking a long time. I can put up one or two batches each day after work and about three each day on the weekend (any more and the wall isn't solid enough to work on). Two batches equates to roughly one inch of height on the entire wall. I can mix and put up a batch in about an hour. I haven't kept track of how long I've spent so far but at that pace, to make the wall four feet, which it needs to be to keep the goats contained, will take 96 hours. Then I have to put a roof on it and finish it. And this was just supposed to be practice so I didn't screw up the greenhouse!

Goat Pavilion

New Chicken Run

The original chicken coop and run I built are about two years old. Within a year, 4 chickens turned the run into a dirt bath. When it rained, they turned it into a mud bath. I put down straw, which would help for awhile, but then another rain and it would be a swamp again. I decided to build a new run to let the old one dry out and recover some growth. Here's the frame for the new run:

New Chicken Run with cob wall foundation in foreground

I used wood leftover from an old shed. There are three cedar posts cemented in the center and some cedar branches finishing off the framing. The coop is raised off of the ground and the new run is framed out from an entrance under the coop.

Unfortunately, before I finished this, one of my chickens got sick and died. I think it must have been a respiratory infection. The front run was almost never dry and the chicken poo wasn't getting turned over very well. She seemed to be eating and drinking fine but was very lethargic for about a week. I honestly didn't think much of it but I came out one morning and she was still laying under the coop where she'd been the night before. R.I.P. Rose.

The loss was pretty upsetting, especially since I knew the front run wasn't healthy and was trying to build a better set up to avoid something like that. I was afraid the remaining 3 might get sick too so I expedited the construction of the 2nd run. I was going to just cover the entire frame with chicken wire but instead of building another mud pit, I put a roof over half of it. I left the south end open b/c a roof there would just drain onto the cob wall. Here's the new run finished: 

Finished run (coop is to right, entry at bottom)

I used metal sheets from the same shed to cover half of it. Eventually I'll have a rain barrel connected to the back of the coop with water feeders to both the front and back run.

The girls seemed to like the new space. There's plenty of grass and weeds under there and I think they like the shade, too.

Girls in their new run

To move the girls into the new run, I closed off their front door and added a new one leading into the back. They learned the route in and out of the coop pretty quickly. Once I closed off the front run, I cleaned out all the poop-straw, turned the earth over, and added some dirt from the compost. I pulled a bunch of weeds from the garden and tossed them in there hoping they'll grow. Once the weeds start to grow (they better grow, they have no problem anywhere else), I'll put a roof on the front run and let the chickens back in there. I think rotating back and forth should work as long as I don't let either run get too eaten up.

Original run after I turned the earth and added weeds.

The coop is a pretty serious structure so rather than tear it down or try to convert it into something mobile, I wanted to try and work with it where it is. Hopefully this will be a long-term healthy set up for the remaining GG's. I may even extend the space on the front run and add a few birds to the gang.