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.