Too much wind

Well, time passes, and work gets done (slowly but surely!) More importantly, people who were thought to be enemies are no longer!

Turns out that my neighbor is a facebook user, and I just happened to look him up. I spoke with him some, and I don't think we'll have any trouble from him again.

The llamas escaped from our property about a week ago, and were congregated into my neighbors yard. We were very fortunate that they didn't get to the road, they easily could have! I think they were after the trees in his yard. He called me at 7 am, and I ran out the door to the truck. Before I'd even started it, I saw that the bylaw officer was at my gate!!!

We herded the llamas out into our pasture, and spent most of the day getting the fence fixed up, in scorching 32 degree heat. I've never worked as hard in the first 27 years of my life, as I have this last year alone....and I love it!

I got a bit more money from my business taxes for last year, so I'm pushing ahead on the workshop project. I'm not sure if I mentioned our plans yet, we're going to sell the mobile home we're in now, and move into the workshop, which will be converted into a cottage. We'll stay in the cottage for about one and a half years, until we finish building our house. We will be building a home for our friends first, which will probably take all next spring, summer and fall. We'll break ground on our house, and start the foundation, but we won't have time to build it until the following year.

We have to sell the mobile, and recoup our money. Only then can we start saving and stop paying so much in debt! I had the seeds of a plan to sell the mobile as an "off-grid" home, and include the batteries and renewable energy devices as part of it. I would move it onto whichever parcel the buyer wanted, and probably build a permanent foundation for it, which would give the buyer a better setup, and let them mortgage it as a permanent home. We would purchase and install a rack of solar panels, and the buyer would set up his own water supply system (I could probably build a small water collection tank for not much money by using dry stacked concrete blocks)

I want to set up color brochures, and a website to advertise the house. I plan on doing all of this over the wintertime, and we're gonna try to get about $120k for the whole package. This will not only pay out the rest of the mortgage, but will also give us a bit of extra cash to re-purchase the renewable energy items that we will be selling.

Speaking of renewable energy....my turbine collapsed!!!
We had a heck of a wind storm a few days ago, and the pole that supports the tower just could not hold up. It bent in half like a pretzel. It was the thickest steel pole that I could find, and it wasn't enough. Obviously, we need a stronger setup for a wind turbine out here, the wind can be extremely punishing!!!

The turbine is actually not damaged badly, just two of the blades broke off. The blades can be replaced for a few bucks, and the pole is about $80. Probably $150, and an extra $50 for more guy wires....a necessity. I'm going to fill the steel pipe with concrete too, as an added measure of strengthening. I hope it's enough... That turbine produces about $60 worth of electricity a month, so I want to keep it!!

I'm working tomorrow, so I'd best go to bed now.
Quite likely within the next couple of days I will start framing the wall of the workshop. I've got almost all the bags laid out for the foundation, I just need to cover them with concrete! It shouldn't take me long, a few days to hammer at it should be sufficient. It takes a while to mix the concrete, even with the mixer (that I now own for almost $700). I've placed one side already, as you can see in the pictures below. The water tank is also pretty much finished, just needs a coat of water proofing.



Water tank about a week ago, floor is poured, final wall under construction.

Concrete block retaining wall, which will be actually inside the building shell. It simply holds the dirt back in my little "basement"

One perimeter beam poured, the wooden forms are the 2 x 6 boards that I have now used to frame the floor above the water tank. Nothing is wasted! I have a lot of backfilling to do on the trench and block wall, which unfortunately I have to complete by hand....boooooo! It is good exercise though.

Git er dun Cletus!

Six more days of summer...but daytime temps are still hitting around 29-30 degrees Celcius (85 F), but the daylight is getting shorter and shorter : ( Nice indian summer though!

I received another lovely visit from the Development officer today, and he was a little more terse this time. He told us "Don't bring any more trailers or anything out here" until we've had some approval from the Almighty County Council. I didn't know, but they require a development permit even for temporary dwellings...boooo! I guess we'll get the permit, but I don't want to hear that we need to wait several weeks to allow them to use their new home. We just spent the day moving all their stuff out here yesterday, there's nowhere for them to go!! I wrote a letter today, and I'm going to bring it there tommorow. If I can, I will be attending the Council meeting on Wednesday this week. I want to be there when they read my letter, and possibly explain further.
We just have to leave this in God's hands. There will be a way!

Despite the lack of money for materials, I've been chugging away at my workshop. I managed to find cinderblocks for $1 each, and I got 60. It's enough to finish the half-basement wall, but I ran out of cement! The basement wall isn't really supporting much, so I'm just filling the holes with cement, and then I'll plaster the outside of the blocks to keep them together.

I've amended my expectations to assume that it will take me until the end of October, which is fine. As long as the weather stays fairly dry, and it's not excessively cold (think -20 degrees) I can git er done.

Nosy people

Well, summer is really almost over now. Ironically, the weather has been very nice, and should be nice for a while yet, probably till the end of September. I've been doing as much work as I can afford, when I have a spare moment to do it. Our friends have started moving stuff out here in preparation for the Big Move. There's now a big 5th wheel trailer sitting here, and there will soon be another smaller trailer for some more of their kids to sleep in temporarily. They're insulating both trailers heavily to prepare for the winter chill, and save propane/electricity.

We now have llamas! We located some free llamas and brought them out here just a few days ago. They've been roaming around the land here, almost in a regular patrol pattern. We had to stretch a gate across the entrance just to make sure they wouldn't get out, and they've been drinking from a huge wetland area that covers almost a quarter of our field, which brings me to another topic.

Our neighbors are being NOSY! Twice in two days, I've had a visit from a gov't official regarding a "concern" about what we're doing. The first was the development officer, who came to investigate why there is a trailer here, and a building being built. Someone apparently thought it was a house! He mentioned that we might need a development permit for the trailer, since it's going to be occupied full time, but he didn't seem too concerned about it. We don't need a permit for a workshop, and it's not really any of our neighbors business anyways!

Then, today I noticed the Bylaw officer had stopped his vehicle just outside of our entrance, and was just sitting there. Now I already know the officer, and I know how to deal with gov't and police (since I am one), so I went to chat.
Apparently someone had a concern about our llamas not having any water..........not joking at all.
WTF!!!!
I laughed and told him about the two troughs of water that we put out, and the huge wetland, and he just said he'd close the file. They have to investigate, so it's not his fault at all, in fact he confided in me that people in the county tend to be nosy like that since they're all quite elderly.
I'm not sure what to do about these neighbors, whoever they are, but we're here to stay, and I'm not too pleased with the harrassment.

On a more pleasant note, I was pouring through my taxes and all of the farm expenses we've incurred, and I think I can get about $5000 back in taxes from last year, and maybe another $2000 from this year. There are quite a few things I can write off, and I've got to collate all the receipts and numbers to file the right paperwork. It's a real pain in the hiney, but it'll be worth the money when I get it back!

I should go now, and resume my work outside while there's still sunlight to do it!

The brick wall of economic reality.

August is now over, and the summer is winding down quickly. In two weeks, I expect our first fall frost to kill my tomato and cucumbers, but the broccoli should continue to grow for a week or two after the first frost. My single pea plant has been producing peas vigorously for a couple of weeks now, and man, are they delicious!!! Next year I'm planting waaaay more peas. I plan to bag them and sell them to friends. People love peas, at least most do.

Now for the hard facts...we didn't get any financing for this project at all. Well, we got $1000, which isn't nearly enough to finish it on the scale that I wanted! We're at our limit for debt, and with the credit crunch hovering overhead, banks won't lend without equity or collateral. I could perhaps refinance the land at some point in the future, but the cost of the appraisal and other fees is a lot, and I don't want to pay a lot of money just to find out we can't refinance!

So, we scaled it down. A lot. It's going to be really basic, just a shell until next year, and only half the size we wanted, although I admit the size I wanted was pretty big (800 sq feet). It will still cover the cistern, and I can still put some living space, and even park my car inside, but the strawbale aspect will have to wait, and even if I can put some bales around it, there will only be one door and one window. I'm going to have to get those for free too, which shouldn't be too hard.

I have almost finished plastering the water tank, which I ended up doing entirely by hand, mixing the plaster in a wheelbarrow.
I'm waiting an hour for the plaster on the upper level to dry, then I'm going to place some forms on the backside, brace them, and pour concrete down into the space. I'm not going to hand plaster all of that, especially since it has to be thick.

I did attempt to find an easier way to mix plaster, I bought a powerful corded drill and a mixing paddle, and then I bought a compressor to run the sprayer, but it's still faster to place the plaster by hand, ironically. Unless I had a big mixer, and a large capacity compressor, I can do it faster by hand. When we start plastering the bales, I WILL have a mixer for that. I am not mixing all that stucco by hand.

Well, time to go back and finish the job!

Hard work, just like Grampa used to do.

At last, we've had some decent weather! I've never seen so much rain in August, it was really unexpected. I only wonder what fall and winter will be like this year, if spring and summer were this messed up.

My friends were come and gone, and, unfortunately, I didn't get the entire project finished like I'd hoped to. We had one and a half days rained out, and we really could have used a cement mixer! We were mixing cement plaster for the walls by hand, in a wheelbarrow, which is tiring work. With a mixer, we could have one person mixing a batch while the other two throw plaster on the wall with trowels or shovels.

This was my last day off of this week, and I spent almost the entire day doing plaster! I mixed it in a wheelbarrow, only this time it was just me doing it. I still managed to get a lot of plaster on the wall, probably about 300 lbs of it in total. I have to use a lot more plaster, because the wall is so thick at the bottom. It has to support the weight of the earth behind it, and some of the building weight, so I'm not holding back on plaster.


When my friends left, we had about a foot of plaster at the bottom. I added everything else, almost to the top, just today by myself. Needless to say, I am very tired! If you look closely at the bottom of the picture, you can see that the excavation has about 6 inches of water pooled in it. We have a piece of plywood under the water, which makes work much easier, but it's going to be difficult to get the plywood out later, especially with all the water over it! I used the water on the bottom to mix the cement with, saving me from using the hose.

This is how much we completed before the rainy day spoiled our fun. I've almost run out of sand, which is quite amazing, since I had an entire truck box full!

Going even further back in time, before any plaster was placed.


When we get a mixer, I expect to be able to plaster around 4 times faster, even by myself. The local hardware store sells an electric mixer for about $350, so I will purchase one tommorow or within the next week. Renting one is $32 per day, and I need this thing a LOT, so buying it just makes more sense! I might even advertise myself out to do small cement jobs in town, if the demand is there. Cement is really quite easy, when you have a mixer!

Once we get a little financing from the bank, we can really take off with this project. I haven't been able to get going without any money, unfortunately. I still need a lot of gravel, and about 3 yards of concrete to complete the foundation, as well as a Bobcat and another day with the excavator. I'm looking forward to starting the framing, which I can do anytime now. The framed pieces will simply sit around and wait for the foundation!

On the garden side, my broccoli just LOVES this weather, and recovered quite well from the hail, but the cucumbers did not do very well at all. Some of them will produce a few cukes, but nothing like they could have! I do have about a dozen little tiny tomatoes, which ought to mature by the end of August.

Testing some crazy ideas

Well, just a short while left in our Alberta summertime, but progress has been made! After many rotten delays, mainly due to very unseasonable rainfall, we had pushed ahead with construction of a unique building, that will hopefully demonstrate the wonderful buildings that can be made with local, inexpensive materials, and not only meet, but exceed the current building standards in every measurable category!

After racking my brain, and making a dozen or so designs on paper, we started construction of our strawbale workshop. Because of the quickly approaching wintertime, and our financial constraints, I elected to use some unconventional techniques to build the foundation and overall structure of our workshop. As it stands now, we have more time and labour than we have money, so we're opting for labour intensive, yet, inexpensive techniques, which I will describe in this blog.

First, a funny story: We rented a small excavator to dig out our foundation, but we could only afford one day's rental, so I needed to really make it worth-while. I had a few projects that I would have like to get to, but the foundation was primary! Unfortunately, there was a horrible turn of events that led to the excavator being trapped in a deep trench (not completely my fault). Only through the wonderful grace of God, and my way cool neighbors with big tractors did we manage to free it! Unfortunately, time was lost doing that, and I spent the next day from 7 am trying to catch up. I managed to get the foundation done, but it was pouring buckets of rain, and I had to stop now and then to scrape off accumulated clay from the bucket. Washing off the excavator took me $40 and almost two hours at the car wash! Then, I broke something on the trailer, which cost me $100 extra too. Even so, I consider that it went well, considering everything that was stacked against me!

My good friends came out to help me slave away, and put in nearly two days of solid work to build an earthbag wall (pictured below), which will serve as the bottom of a rainwater cistern, and will also double as a portion of the foundation.
The Hole. Doesn't look like much, about 5 1/2 feet deep, 11 feet wide at the top. I dug this in about an hour and a half with the backhoe.
Earthbag construction: Literally, filling bags with excavated dirt, placing them on a stack, and ramming them down. Includes barbed wire in between layers to keep them stable. The dirt was simply hacked from a spot on the wall that will become the staircase to the half-basement. One side (seen in picture) is the cistern, the other (off camera) will be a root cellar, and will house the pump and pressure tank.

Twelve layers high forms a good foundation. The wall is curved to give it strength, and will be reinforced with rebar, and wire mesh. The plywood on the ground helps us work in the mud. It rained twice, and is raining right now. In the middle of August...sigh.
I left to purchase cement and sand, and return to find that, not only have my friends placed the rebar, they bent it to fit the shape. With just their hands. I was very impressed!

We left off by placing many tall rods in place, and putting wire mesh against it. This will provide the strength needed in the cement to withstand not only being filled with water, but also the pressure of the dirt and some of the building weight as well. I believe it will be fine, but I'm not taking chances. I'm simply over building as much as possible to avoid any failures! The corner of the cistern that will be under the most strain is curved, which gives it tremendous strength over a flat design. The bags, rebar, wire and cement plaster should hold up better than conventional techniques, yet uses less cement, which is very expensive!

Tommorow, I rent a big 'ol compressor, which will power my plaster sprayer. I bought a truckload of sand for peanuts, and my cement bags are rain-protected. My friends will be back to assist tommorow, and we have two days to get the job done!

I'd like to point out lastly, that we are doing something that has NEVER been done before (as far as I know)! I have never heard of someone using earthbags to build a water cistern, especially not below the ground! When we're finished, hopefully someone will be able to see this, and either use it, or possibly even improve on it.

Just to give you an idea, so far I've spent less than $1500 on the entire project. The entire building will cost around $8000 (or less), and will be more than 800 square feet inside! This is a building that could easily be turned into a small home, or scaled up and made into a bigger home! In fact, if anything were to happen to our main house, I would move my family into this building until more permanent arrangements could be made.

Stay tuned for more pics in a few days!

PS - We're having another baby too! We just found out! We're ECSTATIC!

Hail!!!!

I was educated yesterday, regarding severe weather in Southern Alberta. A couple of days ago a person was killed at the Big Valley Jamboree when a massive wind gust blew down the concert stage. The wind that caused the damage was called a "plough" wind, and preceeds a thunderstorm. It's basically a powerful downdraft wind that spreads out in all directions like water pouring from the faucet when it strikes the sink. It can reach speeds of 100kph, which is almost hurricane velocity, and 1/3 tornado velocity. The same downdraft blew through downtown Calgary, and tossed plywood sheets off of construction towers onto the streets. A 3 year old girl was killed when she was struck on the head by a piece of metal flying off a building!
A friend of mine was on the Bow River when the downdraft hit, and Calgary Fire Rescue pulled him and his family to safety. So, these downdrafts can be deadly, even though they don't last very long.

We experienced this twice over several days. No major damage occurred from the winds, but the thunderstorm last night brought hail, which basically pulverized my vegetables. Some of them look like they might make it through, which is encouraging, but all of them sustained pretty severe damage, except the tomatoes, which were getting out of control anyway.

I have come to the conclusion that I need a permanent system to deal with hail, which is a constant presence out here on the flat prairies. We very much need a shelterbelt around our house area, which of course takes time to establish. I also plan to build a metal framed mesh around my garden tires, made of bent 5 foot rebar with chicken wire stretched over it. The chicken wire should deflect most of the hailstones and reduce the damage significantly. It's also inexpensive, and lasts a very long time. The rebar will be bent in a curve or two bends (whichever works best), and tied to the chicken wire. I could also stretch plastic over this and make a very decent mini-greenhouse in the spring, perhaps starting the seedlings a week or two early.

I really pray that my plants will recuperate from the hail, which will surely knock them back in growth by a week or two.

The workshop/shed/barn project is progressing well, with tommorow being the excavation day. I staked out the 42 x 24 foot area and cut all the vegetation down to make it easier to see. I purchased some thick cable for the electrical circuit, and ran it out to the edge from the house. I want to be able to just dig the trench, bury the wire, and rebury it right away. I only have the machine for 1 day, so I have to be completely prepared!

Look for pictures as I complete the digging.