Today, Thomas and I went out to the land to collect and transport some of the pin oak trees I’ve cut to the village. We went out with the infamous ‘Cynder cart’ (a homemade handcart), which would serve as our sturdy, two-wheeled transport vehicle.
First, we had to drag the 30 foot long trees out to the edge of the woods, and then strap two at a time to the cart with bungee cords. These were heavy suckers. Some were heavier than others, but each weighed at least a couple hundred pounds, I’d imagine. I’m not really sure how much, but they were heavy. With the heavy ends strapped in the cart, we each pulled at the opposite ends of the secured trees to cart the whole mass up a slope, down a path, over a dam, upslope again, through a field, and then into the village. (It was quite far.) The cart bore the majority of the weight (with the careful positioning of the logs), but it was still extremely physically taxing. We managed two trips before calling it quits. I sit here now with muscles sore and stretching to keep from tightening up.
It’s very gratifying to do very physical labor with simple tools. Few people would choose this method of working. Here, we often use what we have, simple tools and human power to achieve what we need. Our dependence on resources is much narrower when we are able to do work by hand. I hope to continue with this philosophy of handwork throughout the construction of my cob house.
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The days have been packed recently. A few days ago, I began cutting down pin oak trees for the living roof of my cob house. On Tuesday morning, Dan lent me a hand and we took down three trees in an hour and a half, despite the ground being quite muddy.
This morning, I went out alone and cut down a tricky tree more centrally located in a dense patch of pin oaks. It was very tough to bring down, since it was hung up in the tops of the trees. I walked back to the village, and thankfully Liat offered some help, and together we shook and pulled and dragged the tree down. This afternoon, I cut a smaller tree and easily toppled it. That leaves me with five total trees thus far. Hopefully I will be able to get at least two rafter poles from each. I need between twelve and sixteen of them.
The patch of land that I have been doing the cutting is very dense with pin oaks. Some are growing mere inches from one another. Pin oaks are tall and straight, making them appropriate for the reciprocal roof I want to build. The toughest part of the job is not so much the cutting, but the toppling of the trees, since they are so tangled with their neighbor trees. All of the cutting has been done with a bow saw, a hatchet, and a smaller saw for branches. It has been gratifying work.
Unfortunately, I don’t yet have a plot of land for my house. I have been in talks with another member here who is interested in letting go of his warren, since he has determined that it’s not worth the cost to him for the small amount of gardening he does on it. So there is that possibility. Because it’s not definite, I have not bothered with transporting the trees back to the village. (A damp ground doesn’t really help with that, either, though, which is probably the real reason I haven’t carted them back.)
We shall see.
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All clear now.
Today is the first day that I’ve truly felt that spring is arriving. Ok, well, the second day, but this one feels much more promising. Last weekend, on a 70+ degree day, we could see flock after flock of Canadian and snow geese flying north. A week or so earlier, the red-winged blackbirds, the first birds of spring returned.
It’s been cold this past week after that unusually warm weekend, so those couple days of warm weather were more of a tease than anything. Today felt pretty good, with a temperature somewhere in the 40s, but the energy was different. It really felt like spring was officially creeping up on us. People were out and about and working. Liat here started digging a trench for her schoolbus-turned-house, and I lent a hand for a while. Kids were running amok and playing outside. Green grass shoots are popping up out of the ground. And Skyhouse visitors and a guest recently showed up, a very sure sign that it’s almost that time again.
I anticipate this spring season. I am excited about being able to spend more time outside. Spring will have definitely arrived when the ratio of time spent outdoors to indoors is greater.
This week, I plan to start the next DRTV video. I should have started sooner than I am, but the idea behind this latest vignette is to highlight individuals’ plans for the upcoming season, how they have been preparing, how they’ve been keeping busy throughout winter, etc. Hopefully this video will shed light on the how life here is much more in sync with the seasons than elsewhere.
In an earlier post about my cob cottage plans, I mentioned that I had some new design ideas. I’ve done some thinking about a new shape for the house, this latest (and perhaps final?) design being more like a spiral. (Or a scotch tape dispenser if you think about it.)
Check it out:
Originally, the design was more like a rounded rectangle, with the entrance in the southeast, opening directly into the room. This time, the door is in the northeast, opening into a curve of the house. This gives me a little space for shoes, jackets, etc., and it also means that people won’t immediately see the whole room upon entering. It’s a more gentle transition from outdoors this way. I’m pretty excited about this. It changes the feel of the whole building.
I also settled upon a reciprocal roof design. I don’t have an exact plan yet, but I have a good feel for how many beams I’ll need. I’ll probably get some oak wood poles from our land here if all goes well. Using a cart, I will transport these poles to my plot, and strip the bark before constructing the roof. I’m not totally sure what the layers above the poles will look like, but I’m still planning on having a living roof, probably with an EPDM membrane. EPDM is a type of synthetic rubber product, intended for waterproofing (ponds, for example). I should note that this product is the least exciting part of the roof construction. It’s a petroleum product. Unfortunately, I have not discovered any detailed instructions for creating a living roof without synthetic materials, but it must be possible since it’s been done in the past in places like Sweden. So instead of taking a gamble, I am going to be using EPDM, which is apparently very durable and has a long lifespan. Overall, I intend to use as few human-made, synthetic building materials in my cottage as is possible. EPDM is one exception, though.
It’s easy for me to get pretty excited about food. Especially making new and different types of food. Yesterday, I went to the dairy to get some milk for my usual kefir making. I left an extra quart of plain milk outside overnight, and since it was so cold, it froze and the cap bent up and became loose.
Around lunchtime, I took the milk in after it had some time to unfreeze, and I noticed that the top looked to be distinctly like cream, and since it was still pretty frozen, it was easy to spoon out from the milk. I did so and stuck it in a tiny mason jar, and started shaking it. About 20 or 25 minutes later, I had about two little pads worth of butter floating in buttermilk.
I was enthralled. Last year, I visited the superheroes people / The Possibility Alliance community in La Plata, and they had homemade butter that they made from cream from their Amish neighbors. It was the best butter I ever had. Anyway, ever since then I have been wanting to make butter of my own.
After shaking up that small bit of inspirational butter, I called another local dairy here (not the one I usually go to that is a mile and a half down the road) to find out if they sell cream directly, which they do. It’s $1.75/pint (versus the $3 and change from in the store here in town), so it’s a much better deal to bike out there and get it direct. The milk at the dairy down the road does not have a significant cream content, so it might be worth traveling for the cream specifically if there’s a good deal to be had on larger quantities…
I hope so. Nothing beats fresh, homemade butter. Drool.
Sometimes, I think I should be keeping up more with current events. I don’t often read the news. I often find it to be mostly rubbish, and I know that I’m not getting what I want to hear from most mainstream sources.
If I ever check the news, it’s usually very briefly, and usually at the BBC’s website. I used to frequent some so-called “green” or progressive websites (or whatever you want to call them), but I’ve mostly stopped browsing them. I do keep up with certain issues, but stuff like the current political race is a chore to follow.
Thankfully, I can get a quick reality check/current events update if I really need it from blogs/sites like Clusterfuck Nation. Otherwise, it’s very tedious to read news from drab mainstream news outlets that provide no serious commentary on what’s going on out there.
