Straw, thanks to so many!

Straw, THANKS to so many!

Near the end of the first straw bale raising workbee: Tony, Jonathan and me,
with Joshua doing some stuffing

Holy huge thanks to (in no particular order): Nathalie and Tim, who win the award for coming the farthest distance to help: England no less; to Jim, Roy (for all the days), Toby, Daniel and Wren, M & P, Tony, Laurie, Robin and Camilche, Thekla, Seamus and Elimar, Roger and Sarah, John, Eleanor, Van, Llew, Joshua, Jude, Odin, Simon, Oliver, Jenine, Stepha and Travis, and i am sure i am missing one or 2 others - you know who you are, and of course to all the others who got us this far (James).  Putting up the straw bales was easier than we thought, thanks to the huge turnout for the workbee(s).  Though, there were glitches, of course. Ah, details details, for which, if you are interested, 

you will need to come talk to us in person and ask us 

what we would do differently, if we were to do it again (HA!). 

Thanks to the 2010 WWOOFers who made it possible to have

delicious organic food growing

and happy animals cared for while the house grew, slowly but surely:

Phil, Lisbeth, Stephanie and Paula. It was a blast and a total pleasure to have you here!

Many thanks, merci beaucoup!

And endless thanks to our loyal worker Earen, who worked

incessantly all summer it seemed on that blasted roof, among other stages!

Thanks also to Robin for sitting in for Swamp for the meat bird slaughtering so he could focus on the house, some more.  And for cooking us dinner on another occasion:  WOW!

Last but not least, thanks to the hundreds of firefighters for saving our neck of the woods, yet again, and to the powers that be, for not evacuating us this time.

Also thanks to our very own finest fire protection workbees crews.

What a summer...

Going back in time, to recap the summer's work:

After much, much milling...the framing - oh those dormers, how they are beautiful, and time consuming!
This is one dormer in the big people's bedroom, looking east/southeast.

Summer Solstice time.

Through the alfalfa and crested wheatgrass.

Through, an apple tree!

Oh! Koda, our new dog!

That sure is a lot of strapping, a lot of wood, mostly logged and milled by Jonathan and co.

Our first Apples! YUM

Holy amount of wood!  Holy amount of angles!

Earen, an awesome, loyal worker, flashing...

Daniel, strapped in - those poor knees!

The roof, almost finished! (4 dormers: never again!?)

JUMP FORWARD: the FIRST bale! What a happy moment, happy day!

Nat, queen straw stuffer!

Jim, an experienced straw baler and cobber

Roger

Roy, ever so present, helpful and cheerful throughout many of the stages! Here, threading the baling needle

Roy's truck, Jude's trailer

Thekla and Elimar, who (both) helped stuff, re-tie and take photos

Joshua

The smiling boss man!

Seamus, King of the Last Row!

Toby, re-tying bales

Sarah

Tim

Laurie - get 'er in there!

Llew

Jamie and Logan, having fun!

Camilche, wire guy

John

Tony, resting!

THAT WAS A FUN DAY! Thank you everyone!!

The plastering, well, is still in the experimental phase.  We want to use an earth plaster, and so far, we have found it cracking and shrinking a lot.  One more try with more sand, and therefore less clay in the mix, and then maybe we will give up on the completely natural way and go with lime cement?  hmm.  Luckily, we live in a dry climate, and Jonathan designed big overhangs on the roof to lessen the solar heat in the summer time (notice the lack of shade from trees!), so with the straw bales up, we can relax, a little...