It's been months since a moment like this has come - a moment when it is 3:30 in the afternoon and I am still home and, yes, still in my pajamas. Quiet. Rest. Sewing the holes in the work pants. Petting the kitty. Sitting down to write some of our story to all of you.
It's been a long uphill on the roller coaster. We are sitting now at the top of that biggest drop looking down, anticipating the stomach drop. There have been a few crazy upside down loops on the way up here. But the view from here, and the moment of stillness before the plunge...nothing sweeter. Yes, friends, it's official. We have at long last reached the halfway point in building the holy place that will be our Lama's retreat cabin.
When last we wrote, the shingles were going on. Now our straw bales are completely covered with earth plaster on the outside, the interior walls are framed out, the bathroom and utility shed framed and decked. All of the parts are there. Now we just need to finish them - lime plaster over the earth, adobe floor over the tamped base floor, drywall on the wood frame walls, earth plaster on the interior walls and then, hard to imagine, appliances, fixtures, cabinets, furniture.
After the shingles were on we made cob and stuffed it in the holes, then coated the walls with slip, thin mud. Thanks to Peter, Katie, Michael, Mikey, Jane and Jill for rocking this out! The unstoppable Scott V did the dirty work for us by trimming the bales with a chainsaw to shape them and get rid of loose straw.
In July and August we could barely think straight because of the tiny biting gnats, but still we braved the bugs and mudded nonetheless. Cortney of course shoveled, screened and mixed all of the mud pretty much single-handedly.
In there somewhere, we put in all the windows, prepared them with diamond lath, and poured mud behind the lath to make a nice shape to plaster on.
Kelly is our new window installation expert. Nothing like learning on the job.
Then begins the earth plaster. This is what makes the walls go from kind of wonky shaped straw bales to relatively smooth.
Earth plaster is by far the most time-consuming step on a natural building like this. It took us a month to finish. We are enormously grateful to Kelly and Tassy for their help with this stage.
The plaster has to be many inches thick in places, and you are sculpting the shape of the house as you go.
