A 24'x18' straw bale lodge

[John Raabe]

What an energetic team!!

Actually building a building should be a snap!

[Drew]

We did more on the plumbing aspect of the lodge project.  It was dry enough that we might have been able to bring a truck down with the floor materials, but I really want to get past the wind and rain before I leave an unfinished floor exposed.  Rain I don't worry as much about.  Stuff dries.  The winds can turn a lot of lumber into a kite.  I get enough of that in Pacifica.

Anyway, we dug the sod off for the complete 610' run from the tank to the fence near the lodge.  We're digging to 12" and have about 40% of the trench at that depth.  Another couple of crew days with a little rain before the work day should be all we need to finish.  That would be 4 crew days for 610' of 12" trench in clay.  Not too bad.

I'm still thinking about whether we want to do the last 150' run around the lodge after the lodge construction is complete so we don't have to work around it or even if it would be an issue.  Right now it is not a critical path issue, so I let it rest.

Here's the trench.  That's my dad in the chair.  We put the chair at the middle point between the two sections we were working on.  The "winner" got to sit down.



Dan and Robin worked on the hill.  This was the slowest, most thankless work of the day.  They busted more rocks than a gang at Sing Sing.  They still kept their sens of humor.  And all the cookies.

[Redoverfarm]

Drew I have to hand it to you all. Anything bigger than a post hole and I'm looking for a piece of machinery.

[ScottA]

That's some serious will power. How did you keep it so straight? I couldn't keep that straight with a trencher. 

[Drew]

That's the thing, Scott.  We stretched a mason's line on 18" stakes, eyeballed it, and got going.  When you are digging 4" at a time, it's easy to correct.

[Willy]

That's the thing, Scott.  We stretched a mason's line on 18" stakes, eyeballed it, and got going.  When you are digging 4" at a time, it's easy to correct.

I had a few trenches like that on my place(longest 475 ft) but they need to be 4-5 ft deep due to freezing. Course we use a back hoe for those trenches! I try to put everything underground and on deep hard to get ones I throw in a 2nd pipe due to the cost of digging compaired to trenching. Also if during the winter a pipe should break you just switch over to the spare one. No way to dig again when the ground is frozen. All my trenches have 2 PVC pipes for important water runs like to the barn or house from the well. Mark

[Sassy]

That's one impressive looking trench!   

[glenn kangiser]

I'm getting tired just looking at it.  Good job, people.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I'm still in awe that y'all are doing that by hand... very impressive.  Looks like a ton of work.

[Redoverfarm]

Drew check your PM.

John

[Drew]

It was in the low 60s yesterday at the farm (Man, I love California!) and we had our third trench digging day.  You'd think it would get old by then and you'd be right, but we had a few things on our side that kept the spirits going easily.  The biggest is that we are not trying to do it in multiple days in a row.  While it's 3 hours each way, we get to drop in on my dad, have dinner out while we groan about our pains, and have a great picnic lunch.  I think that stuff and the progress on a big, cool job is what gets remembered.

Everyone in the family has had this flu bug but me.  Until lunch yesterday.  After digging all morning I came up to our picnic table and put my head down.  I'd also managed to overwork my right wrist, so my shoveling was over.  We had lunch and I felt a little better.  I ended up helping  Dan by picking the rocks from her trench, holding the soil on her shovel, and lifting the blade with my left hand for her.  It made a huge difference on the progress through the trench!  Dan could get bigger shovels full and didn't have to stoop for the rocks.  Plus we got to talk and I didn't end up sitting like an invalid getting sunburned while everyone else worked.

We have a little over 60 yards to finish the last 6"-8" on.  I'm still planning to start laying the pipe next weekend.

We've been having a devil of a time locating clay for our earth plaster.  I did not want to mine it from my land since it would be easier to pay and transport it than it would be to dig it up.  But none of the quarries I called up had or knew of a source for mineral clay.  This is Oroville California!  It is made of gold (which is mostly gone now.  I checked.) and clay!  Well, we finally found our clay.  It's sitting next to our trench at the bottom of the hill.  The field is full of it.  Not so good for growing, but great for earth plaster.

We came to this realization late because our digging started at the top of the hill where the soil is sandier and lower in clay.  At the bottom in the field we cut the sod away but didn't get past the organic material.  Now we've finally gone to depth and we have clay in spades (so to speak).  We don't have to mine it since we already have it.  All I need to do is store it so it doesn't get rained on until we need it.

Porphyr to the People!

[glenn kangiser]

As long as you're having fun, Drew, we're happy.

When I worked at the phone company we used to get a new shovel, heat each side with a torch and bend it up at about 2 inches to make side boards.  The wife could lift more dirt that way without it falling off here shovel.

The clay is good news, Drew.  For a minute there I thought you might have to drive all the way to our place.

[glenn kangiser]

It is made of gold (which is mostly gone now.  I checked.

How did you check, Drew?

The easy 5 to 10 % is gone.  The rest is still there, waiting for you, calling your name, maybe right under the next rock you dig out.

Do you own a gold pan?

[Drew]

I admit I was looking for the big gold rocks the neghbor puts on top of his fence post.    And none of the 1,265 rocks we've pulled up are that shiny.  Still pretty, though.

I have no gold pan but we do have Wyandotte Creek going through one corner of the property.  There would be worse ways of spending a day than panning.

I had thought about the drive and was resolved to that silver lining should we not find clay anywhere.  My niece and nephew live in Manteca which is even on the way.  Now it looks like I'll have to find another excuse to come meet you and Sassy. 

[glenn kangiser]

The real necessary work, trenching etc. gets in the way of fun and prospecting sometimes. 

Maybe we can meet halfway sometime or take a drive up your way...maybe after the trench is done.

[Drew]

Ha!  Yeah, I admit our ability to entertain is a bit strained at this point.  The "kitchen" is a couple of saw horses and scrap plywood.  But it opens out into the "dining room" a lovely unfinished picnic table.



We offer a wide selection for "comfort" facilities.  You have your choice of several hundred oaks or the can in the Casa.  We won't look.



There are a few BB guns for plinking my dad's Diet Rite Cola cans ("We're surrounded!").  There's always walking around the place; down off the hill, through the meadow, into the forest.  It's kinda big for 20 acres.

The snakes scare my niece's family and with the little ones I don't blame them.  I've only seen one rattler and my dad dispatched it with a slender piece of OSB.  Funny.  It got shorter each time he took a whack, 'till he finally delivered the coup de grace with an 8" stick.  "How are we set for scissors around here?" he said.

But there is no ATV and no tractor.  I have my eye on the BCS 853, but that's not the thing the grandkids want to play on.  Hmm.  Maybe I can teach them to plow and make raised beds.  We don't get a lot of trenching volunteers.  I'll bet we'll get some help for putting the earth plaster on though.  That's fun stuff.

[glenn kangiser]

We may drop in for a work party or something sometime.

While it seems early, the rattlers are up and stirring now.  Mikey B. killed a 28 incher the other day.  Wear your leather boots.

Facilities look great BTW.

[Drew]

Saturday might be the last work day we get for a while, but what a day it was!

This time it was my dad, my son (Dave), and me.  Dave worked on the remaining trenching while the Old Man and I doped and laid pipe into the trench.  Here's a picture.  The vertical lines are the 2" risers.  They're on 60' centers.  The ones I don't need to use yet will have a cap on the top connected by a compression fitting.  The other ones will have a homemade manifold, also connected by a compression fitting.  That way I can move manifolds around, change them out, design new ones, and expand as I need to.  The whole system can deliver ~3,000 gph to 4.4 acres on this field.  I can expand it out at the end when I need to go further west into the trees.



The whole line was 610'.  We had our share of rock veins, but none so bad as this one.



That's the OM working on what we now call "Dave's Rock", a table about 4' x 2 1/2' or so.  No idea how far down it goes.

"Since I have a farm, can I have dynamite?" I asked the OM.

We talked about renting a jack hammer.  We talked about putting a car jack under it, if "under" it wasn't somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

"Why don't we go around it?" asked Dave.

"Well, because it would reduce the pressure at the far end of the pipe, Dave," said Dave's dad, "It's better to have a straight line to reduce friction."

Dave's grandpa advised Dave's dad that he was full of fertilizer.  Okay, yeah.  It was an aesthetic thing.  After some careful surveying, Dave's dad said, "Yeah, Dave.  Let's go around."

[MountainDon]

Bends in pipe like that may increase friction and reduce flow slightly, but do not confuse water pressure with water flow.


Water flow is the result of pressure on volume. Volume is the amount of water available for delivery, and pressure is the force exerted on it. There is a big difference between the two.

[Drew]

Excellent point, MD.  And I am more concerned with pressure than with flow.  Even though the slight detour around the rock would make very little difference, the concept is good to keep in mind for next time.  Even the expansion.

[Redoverfarm]

Drew check your PM box.

John

[Sassy]

Ha!  Yeah, I admit our ability to entertain is a bit strained at this point.  The "kitchen" is a couple of saw horses and scrap plywood.  But it opens out into the "dining room" a lovely unfinished picnic table.

Looks just like a bunch of picnics we had at our place before we built anything!  We had our horse trailer with the RV in front...  Glenn made a nice picnic table & we had lots of get-togethers - each little step seemed like such a milestone -we were always inviting people over to see the progress! 

[Drew]

I never work so hard as when I'm unemployed.  Didn't even have time to log in and report on What's for Dinner.

We've made great progress on the lodge foundation and the irrigation system.  We got the beams up, leveled, and squared.  We have a few nails in the Simpson brackets and a 2x8 over the three beams to keep it that way until we put in the cross braces.  I've managed to damage both wrists, so I'm thinking of finishing up with long screws instead of 16d nails in the brackets.  I wasn't being a jerk with my wrists, either.  It didn't take much to mess them up and I admit to being a little concerned.  I'm going to take them into the shop.

Anyway, here's a picture of Dan, Dave, and the Old Man working on the nails.



The irrigation system was very educational and profoundly satisfying.  Going from  "I want an irrigation system" to "How do you build one?" to "Learn the requirements, math, physics, materials, etc." to oh yeah, the digging part, to testing and finally looking up the hill at the Thing that came from my mind.  Not a box.  This beats golf any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

So I learned a few things along the way.

1. You should bleed the system all the way before cutting into it.  Even a few PSI will spray you in the forehead.

2. If you cut out a piece of cracked pipe, throw it out.  The patch you need to make later will amazingly be the same size as this piece of pipe you just found in your scrap.

3.  Primer and dope need 3 hours to set, not 10 minutes like it says on the can.

4.  Pipe dope does not smell good.  No, if goensn't.

5.  30 psi on 2" of pipe = 3.14*2*30=a whole lot of pressure to try to hold back with your hands.

6.  POP! means the pressure test is over.

The mainline has seven risers on it.  In order for us to tell them apart, we gave them names.  The Old Man decided we should name them after presidents.



This is a Nixon.  Two bibs up in the air.  "I am not a crook!"  Yeah.



This is a Clinton.  The early manifold models were attached to the riser with a compression fitting.  When brought to pressure, this one, which was at the far end of the line, would pop off and make us stop everything else.



This is just an end cap on a riser, so it doesn't do anything.  We call it a Carter.

Here's a picture of the whole line going up the hill.  Right now I have a 200 gallon tank in position, and that should get us through the straw bale construction.



It's a good thing I like to color green, man.

[Redoverfarm]

Great progress.  Makes you want to stay off work doesn't it.  Little different with the nails instead of the mouse huh. I mean with the wrist.  Looks like the weather is good enough for the spandex. Had snow flurries here today. I had completely forgot about your project. Not really I occassionally wondered but didn't check out recent post as the last one was in 2/08. You've got a lot more digging to be able to use all the presidents. Maybe just use the ones you remember.  No one else remembers the others either. 

[MountainDon]

Carter... I like it...

Re: using screws instead of nails. Screws ('deck' screws at least) are manufactured from a more brittle steel, or maybe the heat treating makes them that way. Screws can, and do fracture (I've had it happen myself), when subjected to shear forces. Nails give instead of breaking. So, screws might not be a good idea for anything important to making sure the structure stays erect.