Plaster party and goat love

Hello friends! Wanted to update you on dome happenings and baby goats as this is my last week here in Rainier (crazy!). I’ve been riddled with mixed feelings this week as you can perhaps imagine. I feel myself growing weary as the proverbial ‘finish line’ approaches, fantasizing about the hammock on my apartment balcony back home and dear friends and family that await my return. Simultaneously, I have trouble envisioning my days without the now familiar props and people that have become family in my day to day existence. This is part and parcel of any finale or departure, I’m sure. But when I look back on these last 3 1/2 months, there has been so much Divinity over the course of the entire dome project between Angel helpers showing up at PIVOTAL moments along the way and having those satisfying moments when you realize that what you thought was going to be a disaster ends up being bang on and awesome, (and occasionally the reverse)!

The latest Angel that came on the scene was Dr. Suzan Sealy who showed up last night to check on Rumi, the little goat that could! Rumi is Opal’s first born and has had quite a challenging introduction to life on Earth. He has captured the hearts of everyone in this household with his sweet spirit and vulnerability. His legs are quite weak, one particularly limp and he has developed a case of pneumonia as of late, poor little guy, so Dr. Sealy who, in addition to detecting the pneumonia and doing some healing energy work and connecting with his spirit to see where he’s at, offered to take him home with her to care for him directly for a few days so she could continue the therapy.

I’ve never been so smitten with a goat before, he really is a special little guy and has blown my heart wide open!

I’ll let you see for yourself, he’s amazing. Look at him!! 🙂

Brother Darwin is pretty damned cute too (but a little too frisky for Rumi at this point, which is great that he’s doing so well)!

And look at them both with their new coats to keep them warm, awwwwwww……………………!!!

The barn became too cold at night for Rumi so we started bringing him in the house where we’d arranged an area in front of the fire. I happily volunteered to sleep with him for three nights. I was in animal bliss with little Rumi at my head and my cat Leroy respectfully sleeping at my feet. They know when another animal needs care, I’m sure of it. It was really special to cuddle and bond with this little cutie by the fire! Here we are getting settled:

Leroy watched from afar, trying to figure out this interesting new member of the household:

Meggan and Cyrus had been doing most of the bottle feeding:

And Lori doing her massage magic on Rumi’s gimpy back leg:

We took him outside to see his Mama and bro for visits (until adorable Darwin would want to play with his brother and jump on him and wrestle as baby goats do, bless him, but that wasn’t going to help Rumi’s leg heal!) and sometimes out on the deck to warm up:

We just heard from Dr. Sealy that he’s not out of the woods yet and there could even be more going on than we knew so she will continue to monitor and treat him for a few more days. As I am leaving on Sunday, I am pretty sure last night was my last time seeing Rumi, whether he ultimately decides to stay on Earth or cross over to other adventures, but I am certain I will never forget him.

I believe animals are our best teachers…for me they certainly seem to be for many an important life lesson anyways. So this week as I’ve been trying to navigate the final stages of the dome project which is not quite finished (still a large chunk of plastering left to do despite a successful and fun plaster party this past Saturday which I’ll tell you about in a minute, and a coating of milk paint on the top inside coils of the dome) I would look at this sweet little goat and be reminded of why I came out here to Washington in the first place. I was following my heart. Logistically, it made no sense to leave a thriving massage practice of 12 years and a simple, peaceful existence back home, but on the other hand, I couldn’t imagine not having followed this push to come out here. Rumi reminded me that we’re all vulnerable, especially when we are fully in our heart space, and that is a beautiful place to be. I have been vulnerable this entire time here in Rainier. I didn’t have answers to a lot of questions being asked of me. I was never sure of what the outcome of any/every stage of this project would be. I couldn’t even give an accurate cost estimation coming into this project or the hurdles we’d come up against. I couldn’t guarantee I wasn’t going to leave Meggan with a big, ugly, half-finished mess at the end of it all. I had to rely on others to house and feed me. But I kept reminding myself to surrender to the process and trust that we will find the help we need or it will find us, more accurately, and answers will come exactly when we need them and everything will work out as it always does. And it has. And boy, have we had helpers, and Angels, and answers come to us. As the old adage says, ‘the Divine works in mysterious ways’, we are seeing that over and over again here and it has yet again humbled me and made me so grateful to be a part of this dance we call life.

And now, I would like to tell you about the plaster party we had last Saturday, speaking of Angel helpers! The rough plastering is a really fun and simple stage of the dome building process in my opinion, just time consuming which I would be totally fine with were it not for this pesky Visa expiration date. It’s not overly taxing on the body, extremely satisfying in it’s mud-slinging application, and fairly easy to corral people to gather for a fun, social, no pressure day of sunshine and laughter while getting our hands in some mud. It certainly paints a more enticing picture for people to want to come and help over the dome building bag-laying pitch, “Hey, wanna swing by and fling mud on the dome in a really satisfying huck/upsweep motion at a relaxed pace while visiting with fun and interesting people?” versus, “Heyyyyyy, wanna come over and climb up and down a 10-foot ladder over and over again clutching coffee cans of Earth between your fingers until they cramp up?”. If I were ignorant to the joys of laying bag, I know which request I’d respond to…!

We had started the rough plastering while Blake was here. He and I would use any leftover Earth from the day’s bag-filling and use it on the dome walls to fill in the grooves. It requires this ultra-satisfying motion of hucking the plaster in the groove and sweeping up in one fluid motion. I recall the first time I did this at the Cal-Earth workshop in September…I was instantly certain that I’d done it in a past life because it felt so good and natural! Katherine, Meggan’s neighbor that was on board for the plaster party said the same thing. Maybe we both worked together on ancient temples of bygone eras, who knows?

Here are some photos from that fun day with our team of amazing and masterful plasterers, thank you to everyone for your time, energy and cheer!

The first to show up were none other than the famous Giselda and Ariel (they really exist, not just random names associated with cement mixers!)

They did most of the plastering on the back of the dome. We heard a lot of giggling coming from back there so I’m not sure what they were up to, but the plastering looked great!

Neighbor Katherine, a natural plasterer like it ain’t no thang. Remember when we worked on Solomon’s Temple Katherine? That was fun, but nothing compared to this goat dome, right?

Diane, an amazing help and a kick ass aromatherapist too. Keep your eyes peeled for Diane and Lori’s line of therapeutic and decadent Palo Santo body butters coming soon by Higher Healing. Diane was a sweetheart and stayed late to help me finish and clean up, thank you Diane!

And I’m sure you all recognize the lovely Meggan rockin’ the plaster! Neither one of us slept much the night before with Rumi in the house needing some care and lovin’ throughout the night but the plaster party must go on!

An action shot of Ariel followed by his mucky farewell

And I took the top of the dome given it’s precarious height sans scaffolding. We couldn’t very well expect volunteer plasterers to climb 14 feet in the air and hover on a narrow ledge, could we?

Unfortunately the fearless goat plasterer Lori must have gone to sharpen her golden trowel when the camera came out but she was the other person on our amazing crew that day. We’ll re-post a photo of her from when she helped us tame barbed wire a couple of months ago, just imagine muck on her gloves.

And here is what we were able to accomplish with our dream crew, thank you to everyone for a fun day and for helping out!

There was one more person who stopped by to check out the dome that day and that was Brett, the lead drummer for the Crow Drummers from Olympia. The Crow Drummers are a West African drumming group whom I had the pleasure of joining in the Procession of the Species parade through the streets of downtown Olympia back in April. Check out the Websites for more info: http://www.oly-wa.us/crowdrummers/ and http://www.procession.org/ He wanted to see the dome before I left as he is interested in alternative structures like this. Brett knows a lot about portland cement as he is in the tile and linoleum biz. I was asking him about weather-proofing and he threw out the idea of waiting until the end of summer to potentially coat over it, or NOT. I’ve heard from a few people now that it would probably do fine to leave as is like he suggested rather than coat over with a rubberized membrane and risk tearing it and having to redo it. He then suggested I talk with his buddy Joseph who is an Earth plaster expert who is part of an alliance of dedicated individuals at http://www.ionecobuilding.org/. Hell yeah I’m going to talk to his buddy….what a gift, thank you Brett! After talking with Joseph the following day, right before the community ‘repair party’ he organized for people to come and have their tools fixed, so cool! He mentioned he makes his own milk paint or sells kits for people to make it themselves. This is what we are going to paint the inside, upper coils with (actually now the entire inside, explanation to follow) so I was thrilled to have a source from someone who knows!

We also talked about the possibility of having him come down with a pump to expedite the plaster process as it was Monday morning already and only 5ish days to complete everything.

Meanwhile, we’d also left a message for Meggan’s friend August who used to work with shotcrete and spoke to him about the project asking him for his thoughts on weather-proofing and getting it done. We were also hoping to find an alternative to hand plastering the inside lower half of the dome as we hadn’t found an appropriate recipe/ratio of Earth plaster to get it to hold on the concave corbels. He explained what shotcrete was and offered to come out and look at the dome to see if he might be able to help in any way. He warned us that shotcrete was not inexpensive but also had the pump option that Joseph spoke of as another means. August is an interesting, friendly guy with a warm smile and the inventor of an amazing cross between a rocket stove and masonry heater, check out his Website: http://www.zaugstoves.com/

Long story short, we’d arranged to have the remainder of the dome shotcreted on Thursday at a steal of a deal (but not inexpensive, he’s right) however, this morning we got the unfortunate news that it would not work out for various reasons in the end so he reluctantly had to cancel the job.

Of course this was a little disappointing because that’s another two days of plastering we’d lost now but in the same breath, seems about right that I finish this baby off by hand. No short cuts for me on this maiden mud hut adventure. Three days to go and we still have plastering to do and the entire inside finish.

I marvelled at my reaction to the news of yet another ‘regrouping’ required at this late and final stage in the project. After our emotional weekend with dear Rumi and lost plastering days due to that and holding off for the shotcrete job, I felt a deep sense of peace about the whole thing, remembering my reason for being here, thank you Rumi. I think I’d finally let go of all expectation and pressure of having to have a perfectly completed, finished dome in order to consider this endeavor a success. I’d finally let go of all concern that Meggan would be displeased with me if I left her in the lurch, so to speak, with a few details left undone. And I let go of the belief that something done from the heart is anything less than Divine.

So what did I do after hanging up the phone with August? I got my work clothes on, strapped my fully charged IPod on, and set out for a peaceful day of solo plastering with some good tunes and sunshine and had a blast! I think I covered some ground too! Check it out for one days work:

Start of the day:

End of the day:

All of the corbels are officially filled in so for all intents and purposes, this dome should be fully leak-proof as of tomorrow. The goats can technically inhabit this any day now.

Joseph is coming to Rainier with the milk paint for us tomorrow morning and possibly with someone who might want to plaster for a few hours, no guarantees though. I’m excited to meet him in person and talk more about the work he does. I also have a helper coming tomorrow, Lori’s friend Lanakila who helped us one day when Blake was here. He will infuse the plaster with his amazing energy I’m certain. Also, Lori’s client Gerry may drop by to help for a bit so we will have a mini-plastering crew and inch our way to completion, one handful at a time. Hopefully we can have the outside plastering done and inside milk paint by the end of the day on Friday (we’ve scrapped the notion of doing any inside plastering for now, milk paint all the way….Joseph said the goats probably won’t mind. I think he’s right). This will give me one day of rest and enjoying time spent with my beautiful house mates and comrades before hitting the road home on Sunday. But if there are final details to take care of, that’s ok too. I signed up for it and I’ll see it through to the bitter end if need be. Luckily I really love the work and the product it produces so it’s no real hardship,especially when I’m feeling peaceful about it.

I may be vulnerable, but with the help of so many other generous and beautiful Souls, I’ve built one kick-ass goat mud hut, finished or not.

Thanks for taking the leap with me Meggan! We did it!

I’ll be sure to let you know how it ends up before I leave, stay tuned!

xoxo

Runners, to your mark….

OK, just wanted to do a mini check-in before we launch into the week because I’ve got a good feeling about it…..a REALLY good feeling about it! The forecast is calling for another hot, sunny week in Rainier and we are going to run with it like you’ve never seen!

We got in two full work days last week and they were very productive, to be sure, but then it rained again for three….THANK YOU WEATHER GODS! We all had colds last week so it really was lovely that the rain provided us an opportunity to rest and recover from the brunt of that, no stress.

Linda came to help us on Wednesday, just before the rain, so we laid a record row and a half with two mason jar windows and both blue centre dots (Skye vodka bottles) on the side walls for the 5-pointed stars. I am really starting to see the corbelling starting now which is thrilling! It is so miniscule at the beginning that you start to wonder if you will just be laying row upon row upon row upon row forever until you reach the heavens. But it’s official, we’ve got some dome action starting FOR SURE now!

Today being Mother’s Day was very relaxed. Although it was the official start of the hot/sunny, we took it easy and I let Mama Meggan set the tone of the day. Didn’t think it would be cool to wake up and say, “Happy Mother’s Day, here’s your shovel, let’s GO!” She works hard enough every other day. So instead we had a lovely mimosa-laced brunch on the back deck and while she enjoyed some beautiful time spent with her beloved little cherub Cyrus and planted lettuce in the garden, I went out and did some prep work for our pivotal week coming up. I straightened barbed wire, cut bag for our next row, re-set the compass chain and filled our trailer of Earth. Yesterday I levelled the Earth around the dome so our scaffolding would be sturdy. We are READY!!

So here we are as of today and I’m going to update again on the weekend so you can see what magic takes place this week. Oh, and by the way, we scored some ladder scaffolding and a cement mixer from Meggan’s awesome friends Giselda and Ariel, woo hoo!

Let us see what magic unfolds….

Above-Grade Bliss

Hello again….this is part II of the goings on of the last couple of weeks so you are up to date on our progress. The foundation completion seemed to call for it’s very own post given it’s monumental significance to this project and my growth as a ‘freshie’ Earth builder. However we have gone even further than that so allow me to share our work from this past week.

After finishing the wrapping of the foundation bags, I filled the outside of the trench with more drain rock sloping down and away from the bags. On top of this we used some of the natural Washington Earth that was rimming the whole trench to cover the drain rock and bring the ground level up almost to grade. Here’s what it looked like before we started on our first ABOVE-GRADE bag:

OK, ready to lay some bag! But first….I still had to rig up a door form. You might remember that the woman who is building an Earth bag home nearby had given us her arched door forms but I still hadn’t assembled anything workable. Carpentry, why not? Hell, I’m going to find something to weld while I’m at it!

I thought I would start with only the bottom part of the door form which would essentially be a cube and in line with my carpentry experience of zero. The arched forms are 37″ high so I decided 33″ for the bottom cube would bring our door height to 6′.

I have to say, between the scrap wood in Meggan’s barn, the rusty old hand saw that came with the property and my sad carpentry skills (ie, my sad carpentry skills), this partial door form is essentially useless. Except to Cyrus who calls it ‘his house’. So not a total loss! Just know that the form you will see in the next few photos will be replaced by a proper one in the next couple of days before we get too far into it. No laughing please.

While I was preparing to assemble this carpentry mish-mash, Wayne the plumber surprised us by stopping in to help us build for the day, bless his heart! Wayne is a very interesting, creative and kind soul who is doing some really cool things around the world with Bio-Sand Filters for water purification. He makes them from scratch and teaches others how to make them. His partner Robin is a talented artist who has added her creative adornments to these filters for customized orders. Wayne just returned from India where he conducted workshops on how to make these very inexpensive water purification units. They essentially maintain themselves without needing to change filters, etc. so the implications of this simple and effective technology for certain regions of the planet are huge! Here is a link to his work: http://www.nwbiosand.com Check it out!

So we ended up with a good crew last Saturday with myself, Meggan, little Cyrus, Wayne and Gerry, a dear client of Meggan’s housemate Lori, who had expressed interest in helping out as well. They both showed up to help on the same day, yay!

The first thing Wayne and I did was stabilize our center compass and attach the height compass chain to the outside perimeter of our dome in the door opening so it has space to move as we go up.

The following are photos of our highly productive day last weekend.

With Meggan mixing, Wayne scooping, Gerry feeding and me laying bag, we were flying!

The ever-continuous Earth mixing task!

Waiting for Earth…our circle is almost complete!

Cyrus is going as fast as he can, but there’s only so much!

Even the fabulous Lori came out to help ‘tame’ barbed wire with us!

Finishing the buttresses while Cyrus tested the roads with his dump truck and Mama multi-tasked filling bags and making sure the dump truck driver stayed off the ‘barbed wire’ road…tricky!

And our finished row at the end of a long, fun day of Earth building!

That evening I finally got my bonfire by the river. It was a nice way to celebrate our success in finishing the foundation and starting our upward climb on the dome project. A fire in a circle, symbolically apropos, no?

Over the next day or two we back-filled a wee bit more to level out the ground before laying our first of two ‘buttress bench’ rows on the outside of our main dome wall. After we got the ground up to the level we wanted, I used the leftover plastic sheeting to lay in a circle on the ground before laying our buttress bag (see, I’m learning!). And here is the finished buttress wall being barbed.

This was the day that I had to step away from bag-laying duties for a while as my low back was ‘speaking’ to me in no uncertain terms. It was this past Monday, April 14th and fortunately or unfortunately, the weather forecast was one of rain for three days which gave me a weather-induced reason to rest and embark on a self-care regime to get my back in order, including a trip to the amazing local chiropractor, Dr. Joe who was featured on ‘What the Bleep’, just sayin’….! So I’m officially ‘back’ in business and feeling 96% back to my plough-horse Self (but will be more mindful of my bag-laying body mechanics!)

So Meggan took over her bag-laying initiation a quarter of a row early like a natural and here she is finishing off the first half of the second ABOVE-GRADE row!

We had another helper on this day….a young and eager Dennis whom had helped Meggan in the past with clearing some brush from her property. He is a personable 14-year old and was able to come by mid-afternoon on Monday, last minute, to help us keep the stabilized Earth flowing so we could bang out another half row before sundown. We only had to re-route him from his IPhone a few times. Just kidding, we were grateful for his grunt labour and cheer! Depending on how our progress goes in the next couple of weeks, we may call upon him again!

And voila, this is where we left off before the rainy forecast and back-recovery phase of the last three days.

Today a woman came by who is also building an Earth bag structure in the area, totally different from the one we are doing but Earth bag all the same. We got in contact with each other after Meggan put an ad in a local newsletter calling for volunteers who were interested in helping/learning to build with us. She has been looking for helpers herself to finish off her project so we may organize an ‘energy exchange’ of 5 hrs/wk. I help her for 5 hours one day, then she comes over and helps us for 5 hours another day. That way we both get a day of extra help to inch us closer to completion of our respective projects. Besides, there is always knowledge to be learned from others so I’m certain we will both gain a bit of that from each other…win/win.

Next up, getting our proper door form made to replace the haphazard partial one. I went to Mountain Lumber in Yelm on Tuesday to get proper pieces of wood cut. They were also able to cut our recycled PVC piping to size for our ventilation windows so we officially have 11 lengths of pipe for this purpose. Wayne said he may be able to swing by to help with the carpentry so let’s all hope that will be the case. Bless my heart for trying.

Then, it’s up, up and AWAY from here on in!

Stay tuned!

Hallelujah!

Three guesses, first two don’t count……THE FOUNDATION IS DONE!!! Yes!! And not only is it done, I feel very good about it.

Now, this may shock you to know, but in the end, we went with the 6 mil black plastic sheeting….haha! True story. With some modifications I might add, so the plastic doing and undoing was still necessary but after the initial debacle played out, I received sound and concise advice from the Director of the Cal-Earth Institute (thank you Ian!) and we had a forward moving plan in place that I could ACTUALLY wrap my head around for real this time. It was essentially the same as Roger’s initial foundation plan only with a layer of drain rock underneath and a slightly shallower trench to deal with the now less daunting bunching plastic. It was mentioned by a few people that thicker plastic is the way to go if you’re going to use it. Many in the Cal-Earth community felt the 6 mil plastic sheeting would break down over time but I was told by local conventional construction foundation experts that around here and generally throughout the US (possibly beyond, who knows) the 6 mil variety is typically used for foundations without incident. I was ok with that answer. Can you imagine how I would be with even thicker plastic given my aversion to things that bunch?

OK, moving on from that topic, a recap from the ending of the last post…We’d finished laying our first Superadobe bag in our two foot trench directly on the tamped Washington Earth, here it is again:

Well, as awesome as it is, this bag has become the proverbial ‘sacrificial bag’ as we needed to create a vapour barrier so the groundwater could not creep up the structure through the porous surface of the Superadobe bag which was in direct contact with the Earth. Got it. In fact, I will never not get that again. Therein lies the value of the sacrificial bag. Perfect.

Next order of business was to order 6 yds of drain rock. We went with 1 1/4″ drain rock as was recommended by the folks at Teddy Bear Hauling in Yelm. ‘River wash’ as my Dad informed me when he and my Mom came for a lovely two-day visit on their way home from their warm winter excursion in AZ. They drove up the coast from San Diego and stopped to say hello before heading East back to Winnipeg. It was wonderful to see them and so comforting and grounding to hang with them for two days. No accident that they arrived just in time to help us kick start the SOLID foundation, thanks Ma and Pa!

Here they are helping us lay drain rock in the mist for the bulk of their one full day in Rainier, WA. I have to say, it was so inspiring to be doing hard labour with my parents (at their insistence, I swear), both in their mid-70’s, ever ready and willing to help out in any way they can. And I always love watching my Dad’s old ‘farm boy’ ingenuity at play! Hallelujah to strong foundations!

The finished drain rock-filled trench. RIP sacrificial bag, I’ll never forget you! You’ll always be my first!

See, the great thing about coming into this adventure with no experience save for the one week workshop at Cal-Earth under my belt is the fact that I had decided to go with 3 rows of below-grade foundation bags rather than the standard 2 rows normally used for this size of dome just to be safe. So unbeknownst to me, I had worked a ‘bonus bag’ into the plan. And what a learning opportunity that bonus bag turned out to be (see last post)!

Next up, (drumroll please) the plastic laying!! I think there was a silent agreement between Meggan and I that I would complete this step solo. It seemed right what with our history and all (the plastic and I that is). So I set out Monday morning, April 7th, the day after my parents left Rainier for home, with the neatly folded segments of plastic and proceeded to shear off some width from each piece as we were only going to be wrapping 2 rows of bag instead of 3, and lay them in the trench that was half as deep as the last time I attempted this feat. And wouldn’t you know, narrower plastic, a shallower trench and an attitude shift actually made for a positive and not too bunchy plastic-laying experience! Check it!

We were ready to lay our second first Superadobe bag!

These are the two spool supports I rigged up from scrap wood and rebar from Meggans barn to ease our sandbag and barbed wire measuring. They have since collapsed under the weight but were fun while they lasted.

The completed first row at the end of the day!

And this is what we had to look forward to all week after days upon weeks of sketchy weather. Does weather influence us or do we influence it I wonder…. Nevermind, we were definitely off and running, FINALLY!!

‘Wrangling’ the buttress wall:

Meggan and Cyrus pleased with their tamping efforts, rightfully so:

9th round…almost done the second row, mentally preparing for the pending wrapping job to ‘go the distance’ with this foundation once and for all!

Second row complete…..wait for it……..

YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

For the record…the wrapping (which was again silently agreed to be done solo) took one full day and was actually a very peaceful and almost enjoyable experience in the end. A big shout out goes to the inventor(s) of duct tape.

And after meticulously poking the barbs of the barbed wire through the plastic as I wrapped it, I can officially say I have put my blood, sweat and tears into this project! (Is that a dolphin?)

Next step is back-filling the trench and although this would still be categorized as part of the foundation work, in my opinion the moment I tucked and taped that last tuck of the tucker, I had conquered my fear of the foundation and had never felt more deserving of a Selfie in my life! Hallelujah!

Stay tuned for Part II of our progress to date!

Foundation Purgatory

Well friends, here we are, March 26th, 2014 and today is a very special day….we finally got to lay the second half of our first foundation bag and close the circle that will grow to be our goat mud hut dome structure, yay!! Here’s the photo….it was lightly/moderately raining for most of our ‘window’ today…window being the 4 hour block that Accuweather told us it would not be raining, so by the time I realized I didn’t even get a photo of our hard won victory after frantically tarping our vulnerable adobe bag, I had to settle for this. But trust us, it’s under there…snug and cozy for the next few days until the rain stops.

If you are curious about my choice of title for this post, do the math….last post was March 6th and I left off telling you that the excavator was coming that Monday and we’d be off and running…it’s now March 26th and I’ve just told you that we finished our first foundation bag today. Yep…..20 days to tamp down the foundation and lay one row of bag (minus the buttress walls, still have to do that to officially say we’ve completed the first row, and two more foundation rows to go after that). But don’t let this lead you to believe we’ve been doing nothing but drinking margaritas on the deck all this time, oh no, no, no. I’ll do my best to give you the short version of the last three weeks….it’s been quite the ride! Fortunately, I am well aware of the fact that I signed up for this and despite the snail-paced progress in getting a groove going and enjoying the satisfaction that comes with seeing our efforts take on real, manifest form, I am still having fun and learning A LOT…check.

Now before I get into the whole foundation saga where I am beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, I have to say that even before I left Winnipeg I was projecting that the foundation and final weather-proofing membrane would be the biggest challenge for me given my ‘green’ status as a builder and the fact that I’ve decided to build my first ever structure for a dear friend in one of the rainiest regions of the continent, no pressure. Well, it definitely seems that my initial projections regarding the foundation have come to light, as projections are want to do, but I still have time to shift that final weather-proofing membrane scenario into one of cool, calm, relaxed nonchalance; “pfff, 50.8″ of annual precipitation, gimme a challenge!” So the next few paragraphs will be the unfolding of my jaggedy initiation into not only the art of building with Superadobe, but also my readiness and willingness to accept my role as the ‘leader’ of this project and all of the accompanying insecurities that undoubtedly surface when we choose to exit the comfort zones of our lives and place ourselves in a completely unfamiliar role in unfamiliar surroundings doing an unfamiliar activity. I’m starting to realize (with the help of some great mirrors, thank you Meggan) how much I’ve allowed that inner chatter-box that is my doubting ego state it’s opinion and stifle my inner guidance and ‘knowingness’ during this research and planning phase. The aspects of this project that I am confident about, I am very confident about. But the aspects that I am insecure about, ie, the foundation and anything that has the word ‘weather-proofing’ in it, I’ve really been tripping myself up on. I’m working myself back to trusting that I already have all of the knowledge I need for this project to be a success and what I don’t know right now, I have a great handful of people I can call or ask (thank you Ian, Paul and the Cal-Earth forum! And all of the friendly, knowledgeable locals!) or my Guides and Angels will provide me the information when the time is right, thank you Guides and Angels! So all I have to do now is take one step at a time, and know that things are exactly as they need to be and enjoy the feeling and experience of wearing a different hat for a while.

Oh, and before I go on, I know most of you have been waiting with baited breath to find out which soil sample I went with….it was the silty sand from the pit at Teddy Bear Hauling in Yelm. We had one dump truck’s-worth, 12 yds, delivered last week. (That’s cutie Cyrus in front of the dump truck…he’s a big fan of trucks. He got to see a live excavator AND a dump truck within two days, can you imagine?)

Now, on to the foundation goings-on of the last few weeks. The original plan I’d felt we should go with was a french drain set outside the bench-height buttress. This buttress will wrap around the whole dome and the french drain would be laid to the outside of that based on recommendations and detailed drawings from the weather-proofing class of the Cal-Earth workshop itself and further information regarding supplies from the helpful staff at Mountain Lumber here in Yelm, WA. I still had questions about the right approach for the actual foundation bags that lie in the dug out trench and how to protect them from groundwater seepage but I seemed to lack a certain base construction language required to even ask the questions I wanted to ask. I was hoping an answer would magically plop into my lap at some point.

If you’ll remember from the last post, I’d made mention of meeting with a woman who had started building a Superadobe home for herself here in Rainier. We did this as well as organized a round table lunch meeting at the house the following day with Roger the builder, Wayne the plumber and Robin the artist, in-the-know locals of building different types of structures in this particular climate. Bless them all for taking the time. The woman with the dome structure even gave us her extra wide door forms to use for our extra wide goat door, amazing!

Essentially, by the time these two meetings took place, the original foundation plan was derailed completely based on new information we’d gathered from talking with everyone. We rescheduled the excavator and I had a whole new foundation plan in place. And I was happy for it because it meant the pressure was off me….’what if my plan didn’t work? Surely everyone else around here must know more than I do about these things! That french drain was just adding to the overall cost of the project anyways.’

The new plan was this: Builder Roger had the well-intended and sound idea to use 6 mil black plastic sheeting and wrap it around the 3 foundation bag layers and skip the french drain altogether given the superior draining ability of this rocky Washington soil. The suggestion was intended to help us keep it cost-efficient and simple. Everyone around the table agreed this was a good idea which was all I needed to hear to jump on board too even though I could not for the life of me visualize how we were going to neatly wrap straight pieces of big bulky plastic around bags set in a circle…with buttress walls sticking out the front to boot! But even with my reservations, it seemed like a good enough idea for all I knew. I felt that safety in numbers feeling given that we all said ‘yes’ to the plan. I chose to accept that it would be an awkward stage for me regardless and that I would deal with the bunching plastic like the Zen pro I like to think I am. I’m sure poor Roger must have thought my skull was as thick as that roll of 6 mil plastic with all of my questions about how this wrapping was going to work. Roger is quite a straight-up, genuine, why-make-it-more-complicated-than-it-has-to-be New Yorker-type of character, heart of Gold….in fact, I’m surrounded by quite a few (ex) New Yorker-type of characters out here, this whole household for one….I must be calling their confident, natural-born-leader tendencies into my life!

So there we were with a new foundation plan in place and we could move forward and prep for the excavator that we now had coming in a few days. Phew.

Here is some photo footage of the steps we took over the next week or two as we prepared for the impending excitement of finally laying the first Superadobe Earth-filled sandbag!

We hammered in the center compass stake (with help from Roger and Cyrus and Mama Meggan taking the photo), first task on our worksite proper!

Then we attached the compass chain, measured the radius of 7 and a half inches to mark the inside diameter circle with the nail-removing end of Roger’s hammer (not to be confused with Rogers and Hammerstein).

And Voila! Our very own crop circle! (Notice the orb between Roger and Cyrus. Just sayin’…)

We were now ready for Tony the excavator to come and dig the trench for us…..he painted the outline with non-toxic spray paint before he dug so there was no guesswork….kind of like a surgeon will ask their patient to mark an ‘X’ on the knee that is to be operated on with permanent marker. Not a bad idea.

The first dig!

BTW, anyone building one of these domes near Rainier, do yourself a favor and hire an excavator. I was marvelling at the hilarity of the image of Meggan and I digging the trench by hand….these are a few of the boulders he dug up in the 15′ diameter trench (!).

Conversation between me and Tony as he was plucking one of these babies out of the ground:

Tony: You weren’t really thinking of digging this by hand were you?

Me (with eyes bugging out): Yup.

Tony: I just saved you a surgery.

Me: Yup.

Here’s the final pile of boulders that came out of the ground and a simulated demo of what we would have looked like digging the trench by hand.

They now serve as a goat playground. Nothing is ever wasted!

And here is our freshly dug trench, ta daaa!

Next step was to tamp and level the trench…Meggan is a Tamptress to be reckoned with!

Then we used the compass chain to put wooden stakes around the trench marking our 15′ circle to use as a guide when we start laying bags. Tony’s digger savvy notwithstanding, there was no way anyone would have been able to maintain a straight cut here.

Next on the list of course, was laying the plastic for underneath and around our foundation bags. By now, which was this past Sunday, we had exactly 2 more dry, sunny and warm days to get these 3 bag layers laid in the plastic-lined trench and wrapped before a week of rain was predicted. No small feat!

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, suffice it to say that March 24th will forever be touted “My day of reckoning with 6 mil black plastic sheeting”. Now keep in mind that the whole time we were doing all these fun things; making crop circles, choosing our soil, excavating, tamping, etc.; somewhere in my subconscious mind I’m dreading the bunching plastic-wrapping job coming up, the very act of dreading it making it feel all the more dreadful. Not only would we have to figure out this ever-stressful (for me) bunching plastic lay pattern (you know I’m going to have to make ‘bunching plastic’ one of the tags of this post), but then fill and lay 3 rows of 18″ wide Earth bags with barbed wire between them, just the two of us, in two days before the rain threatens to muck up (literally) all of our efforts. I even got Roger to stop by quickly on his way to another job to show me again how I was supposed to wrap the ‘T’ where the buttress meets the dome.

It was then that he realized the buttress walls were not free-standing. I hadn’t told him they have to be integrated with the dome walls….he hadn’t asked….he didn’t know to….I didn’t know to tell him. At any rate, his momentary look of puzzlement in learning that minor detail sent alarm bells blaring in my head. But in his experienced builder nonchalance that I strive to attain one day, he just shrugged and showed me a little folding technique that would probably be fine. Oh no, this would not be fine at all. Roger was my only anchor for this bunching plastic technique…that momentary ‘look’ made the voice in my gut scream and kick even louder! But there we were, with two days to get this done….we’ve got the plastic, we’re here ready to work, may as well just get it done and hope for the best, right? I made a valiant effort to embrace the ‘un-fun’ task ahead with positivity, austerity and the self-projected reward of a celebratory bonfire by the river with a cold beer and some drum jamming when it was all over in 48 hours. Well it was over alright, in less than 48 hours too!

That day with the plastic took me through a crash course in “Learn to be a Leader, 101”. I’ll spare you the details but as I tried my best to outwardly put on a false air of, “Yeah, no problem, this is kinda hard but we can still have fun, it’s all good, right?”, inside I was experiencing a whoosh of overwhelm that included fear, uncertainty, pressure to perform (self-induced of course), confusion as to why I was sensing an increasing air of impatience from my friend as I needed to think through, yet again, this bloody Rubix cube-like plastic puzzle. Finally it was voiced that I needed to sit with it for a minute so Meggan (happily I’m sure) went to go check on her son who was napping inside.

So there I was, alone with 100 yds of black plastic sheeting standing in a 3 foot trench. Irony aside, I resolved that I would complete the laying of the plastic sheeting today come hell or high water, preferably the former in this case.

So that is what I did….I wrestled and laid, dragged and re-laid no less than 9 awkward and, you guessed it, BUNCHING pieces of plastic into that trench as best as I could for the rest of the afternoon. One of the ants from an anthill near the worksite took a moment out of it’s busy day to take this photo with my camera, bless it, so I can always look back and remember what it looks like when I fight my intuition.

But by golly, I did finish laying that 6 mil black plastic sheeting before sundown and even I have to say, it looked not too bad when all was said and done!

But a bitter-sweet victory it was as this still meant we now had only one full day to lay 3 entire layers of Earth-filled sandbags complete with buttress walls, not to mention the ever-dreaded wrapping job itself!

But it would never come to pass as that evening Meggan and I had a good heart to heart about how the day went, vocalized some of our concerns and observations about the process and each other, she mirrored to me how truly anxious this foundation process was making me, and I humbly contemplated those words for the rest of the evening.

In fact, that very night I dreamt that I was looking to purchase something at two different places and was denied until I discovered I had been holding in my own two hands that which I was seeking to purchase from an outside source the whole time.

As I sat up in bed early that morning, I heard my authentic voice loud and clear saying, ‘The plastic has to go’. So I repeated out loud to myself, ‘the plastic has to go’, as if to acknowledge that I’d heard it this time.

I sent off an S.O.S. call to the Cal-Earth forum to confirm my 6 mil gut feeling and that the dome would be sound with a french drain on the outside of the buttress bench (the original plan) and foundation Earthbags laid directly on the well-draining tamped Washington Earth. I didn’t wait for the response before telling Meggan about my dream and that we would not be using the plastic but laying our first bag today directly on the ground. She sensed my shift and immediately was on board with that as well. While she organized for her son to go to school that day so we could lay some serious bag, I went out and undid everything I had done the previous day which was symbolically healing and comforting and gave me a moment to reflect on the last 24 hours with gratitude while making peace with that 6 mil black plastic sheeting. This was so beyond it being about using plastic sheeting or not using plastic sheeting. I swear my lungs expanded with every piece of plastic I removed. It felt good to see Mama Earth again.

We were able to lay one half of the first row that day in 5 or 6 hours, just us two, feeling our spirits renewed at finally being able to start laying down some of the actual goat dome, working with the Earth and feeling the sun on our faces. Here is the result of our work that day. Is it just me, or is it smiling? 🙂

The other half of that ring was laid today (see beginning of post). There was a profound symbolism in completing the first circle. As Meggan mused, ‘The first circle is always the hardest.’

The foundation won’t be perfect as I later discovered the importance of a water vapor barrier via the Cal-Earth forum. But it’s going to be just fine and we will have a sound and solid goat mud hut to be proud of when all is complete. I will use the next few rainy days to my advantage to find the most suitable reinforcement to deal with this water vapor issue. But I learned that it can be dealt with even post first bag and the worst case scenario isn’t all that bad.

I’m looking forward to the next leg of this journey. The learning curve is steep but (and I’ll do my best to leave you with a zinger here) when you can jump into the trenches with both feet, get drenched and muddied and tossed around a bit but come out at the end of the day with a smile on your face, that’s a good day.

And much akin to my understanding of purgatory in the religious sense as being that holding space between heaven and hell, it’s easy to see the parallels here. But I have faith in the direction I’m being pulled now that I can hear the directions loud and clear again.

Goat Mud Hut

Maiden attempt at a Cal-Earth mud hut for goats

Sandbag homes