Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Work Trade

Now that I am back from tour, the weather is good, and I have some time, it is back to building. Yesterday, I helped Mr. Don Bryant with an adobe project at his place. It is good to see the old guy excited about working with earth materials instead of cement and metal for a change. With adobe, one doesn't have to worry about getting cement powder in the pores of your skin or in your lungs, as well as not needing to clean off your tools at the end of the day. We acknowledged how much faster the work goes with two people instead of one. Depending on the chemistry, it is usually more than twice as fast, which is why it is helpful to form work trades as much as possible.




This perimeter footing is literally just dirt from the ground, as is, mixed with water. Don noted that with the economy souring, we are alright, because even though we are dirt poor, at least we have dirt. "You can build a house with it". I responded, "If we have dirt to build a house, doesn't that make us filthy rich?"

Today, we resumed work on the dome. It took almost the whole day just to re-prepare, locate all the tools, and get the materials ready (sifted sand, fly ash, etc). We did manage to get some stuccoing done though. It has been a number of months since any work has been done on the dome, so it was good to have an easy day to get back in the mode.

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