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!