Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Spring?

I know, I know.  It's not spring yet.  Even though the snow is pretty much gone for now, and we've had temperatures above freezing for a couple of weeks now, I know that winter will come back to greet us at least one more time.  But there are signs!  Really, there are!  

Sign one:  Over the last two weeks, our chickens have gone from laying a total of between five and seven eggs a week to, all of a sudden, over a dozen eggs in a week!  Yesterday alone we had three eggs in the coop, although one of the eggs was laid on the floor.  Why do they sometimes lay right on the floor?  They've got beautiful nesting boxes filled with fluffy, clean straw, yet this morning I walked in and there was an egg, right in the middle of the floor.  I picked it up and there was a hole pierced right through the shell from someone stepping on the little thing.  Bummer.  Maybe she was so surprised that she was laying an egg she forgot about the nesting boxes?  Maybe the boxes were all in use?  I have no idea why she did it, but I hope she doesn't make it a habit!  Anyway, an increase in egg production is a sure sign that spring is on its way!  Soon we'll have so many eggs coming in I'll have to find ways to use them up:  angel food cake, custards, ice cream, Easter breads, anything to use up a bunch of eggs at once!  If you ever wondered why the egg is a symbol of spring and rebirth, get a flock of chickens and you'll never wonder again. 

Sing two:  The spinach is growing!  In October I planted about twenty little tiny spinach seedlings in my greenhouse.  When fall turned to winter I covered the little plants with a second layer of coldframes, and I waited for the sun to come back.  Last weekend I went out to check on the little plants, and I was so happy to see them growing and growing!  I picked one little leaf from a plant for just a little taste of spring.  So sweet!  And green, and crunchy and oh so wonderful.  Right then and there I ran back to the house, grabbed my seeds and started to plant my early spring crop of kale, winter bibb lettuce, mache, arugula, carrots and parsley.   I also started a flat of onion seeds to be transplanted in the big garden in late April.  I lightly watered all of the seeds, covered them all up and stuck a thermometer into the soil to monitor.  A couple of days later I went back to check, and even though the temperature outside wasn't above 38 degrees, inside the coldframes it was a balmy 85!  I had to crack open the frames to make sure the spinach didn't want to bolt in that heat!  

The smell of that moist, warm soil and the sight of the eggs piling up in my fridge are such welcome treats in February, and promises of the spring that's just waiting for winter to finish up.  

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Pouring the Foundation

The day we poured the foundation was an exciting, nerve-racking day. School was back in session, and Donna and I decided that the arrival of two big cement trucks and a spider-like pumping truck on the island made for an interesting educational opportunity. We agreed to walk over to the house site with our eight students and watch the pouring together. I think Whit, five-years-old at that time, and I were both feeling the same amount of exhilaration at the thought of seeing those big trucks. I was feeling that way because we were pouring our foundation, Whit was feeling that way because he's a little boy, and what little boy doesn't just love really big trucks.

The days leading up to the foundation pouring were long and tiresome for Jason. He spent days hunched over in the hole laying out the Durisol blocks, leveling each one individually. Since the footing blew-out during the first pouring, he needed to level each individual block he put down, we're talking hundreds of blocks. While he was working on building up the foundation walls, after school during the evenings I filled the wheelbarow up with crushed stone, rolled it down in the hole, and shoveled the stone around the outside of the footing to create drainage. I don't know how many trips with the wheelbarrow I took, but I can tell you my back and arms felt numb. This was not my favorite part of the job, and it seemed to go on forever! But then the day came to pour the walls.

Jason worked out all the tiny details with the barge, the cement trucks and the pumping truck. The pumping truck and the first cement truck would be barged over first. When the first cement truck was empty it would meet the barge and ride off in time to pick up and barge over the second cement truck. When the second cement truck was empty, both the pumping truck and the cement truck would be barged off together. How many barge trips? Four all together. Yikes.

Around 11 in the morning, Donna and I walked the kids over to the house site. Whit and I couldn't contain our excitement: when we saw that huge pumping truck we ran, leaving the rest of the group behind! What a sight! The truck itself was huge, but it looked even bigger because these huge legs reached out from it in all directions for stabilization and then the pumping arm reached out from the nose of the truck all the way to the foundation walls. It looked like a huge spider crouching over the road, getting ready to pounce, it's pincer outstretched.The cement truck backed up to pumping truck and began to pour the cement. The cement ran from the cement chute to the pumping truck, and then the pump kicked in. Over at the foundation, Jason and our wonderful friends Cory, Kaitlyn, Will, Iann, and Eric were all standing ready to begin their work. Jason held the long nozzle from the pumping truck and directed the cement into the cavities of the Durisol block. Will, Iann, Cory and Kaitlyn followed Jason around the foundation and punched into each block cavity with long poles to pop any air bubbles. Eric followed with his trowel, smoothing over the cement as it oozed up from the holes.
Whit and I were not disappointed that day! Whit got to see some really big trucks, and by the end of the afternoon Jason and I had a foundation! Yippee!


Friday, February 19, 2010

Pouring the Footing

Over a year ago we began our house project.  We spent the long winter nights working on the design with my sister, and the short cold days in the woods cutting down trees and hauling them to our property to be cut up when the sawmill arrived.  The days went by, and when winter turned into spring and then into summer, our friend Roy offered to dig our foundation.

Jason and I spent hours analyzing our house site:  Which direction exactly should we place the windows so we can gain the most passive solar energy?  How close are we to the right-of-ways?  What about my gardens--where will they go, will they have enough sun?  After a lot of debating we settled on just where to place our house.  We measured out the dimensions of the house and placed stakes at each corner, Jason calculating every angle twice.   When those orange-flagged stakes were finally in the ground I remember running around the staked-out house, imagining just where my kitchen would be, just where the sun would stream through the windows into
 our living room, just where I'd sit in front of the woodst
ove and warm my toes in the winter. 

Roy began to dig in early June.  It took him about a week to dig it completely with his backhoe. 
 After digging and digging and digging, Jason began to work on compacting the foundation floor and preparing the basement for the footing and foundation walls.  We had an abnormally wet summer, and Jason worked in that wet hole for weeks, moving rocks and shoveling dirt to make things just right.  At times we both felt like it was endless, we would never be ready to move out of the hole.  One evening I sat on a dirt pile next to the hole, covered in mud, crying in the rain.  At that point we had spent weeks trying to dry out the hole and get materials in place to make the ground stable.  That evening it seemed like it would never stop raining and that we would never be finished prepping for the foundation.  But somehow the sun finally came out, the hole began to dry out, and the time came to layout the footing materials.  How we celebrated!  We used Form-A-Drain for this portion of the project.  It's a plastic form that acts as a mold for the footing and a permanent drain for the future basement.   Inch by inch Jason laid out the Form-A-Drain, making sure it was level.  

One day in the late summer, after carefully making sure the form was level and secure, Bill and Cory came over to help us pour the footing.  The day began with waiting for the cement truck to arrive on the barge.  Jason and I couldn't keep still.  He must have walked around the footing a million times, checking his prep work.  I chewed all of my nails off.   Jason had explained to me a million times how important this piece of the foundation is.  It's what will support the whole rest of the house.  If we didn't get this right, the next stage would be that much harder and take that much more time.  We were both imagining all of the terrible things that could happen. Maybe the form wouldn't be strong enough.  Maybe it would burst and the cement would gush out.  Maybe....  

Finally the truck arrived and Jason led them up to the house site.  Bill, Cory, Jason and I jumped down into the hole, and slowly the cement began to flow from the truck.  We waited at the end of the trough for the stuff to roll down, shovels and rakes in hand, and quicker than we were ready,  it began to pour into the footing.  We hustled around, pushing and pulling the cement around the form.  The day was hot.  Our arms, legs and backs began to ache, but we continued to move around the form--we didn't really have a choice.  
We made it almost halfway around the foundation when we had a blowout.  This is what we had been afraid of happening.  All of Jason's careful measuring and leveling were now ruined, and the cement was oozing from the busted section of the form, costing us time, energy and money with each glob.  There was a moment when I just wanted to cry, and I think Jason would have, too, but we didn't have time.  Jason ran to find some plywood to fix the blowout and Cory, Bill and I began to pull cement from the hole as quickly as we could.  I felt so overwhelmed.  The cement seemed even heavier, and I could not imagine how Jason would make this alright.   As I continued to pull that thick stuff around the form, the guys worked away, too but I don't remember much except my thoughts and worry.  Somehow the hole was plugged up and we were able to continue with the rest of the form.   By the end of the afternoon we had a footing, for better or worse.  

Thank goodness our friends were there to help us.  Jason and I never would have been able to do  this section by ourselves.  Thank you so much to Bill and Cory for your help.  


Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Sawmills and Chisels


16 braces done, 23 to go.  Not too bad for one week of work, and I can't believe my learning curve with the chisel.  I think Jason is even satisfied with my work now, and that is saying something!  How many hundreds of pieces do we have left to cut?  Don't ask!  But we're on our way now, and we're both feeling confident that we really can do this!  

At the beginning of our relationship, and really right up until we got engaged,  Jason  could not tolerate talking about the future.  So, you can imagine how surprised I was when he proposed, I said yes, and right then out of his bag he pulled out house plan books.  I sat there with my mouth agape, in utter shock.  It was then, right after deciding to get married, that we began to think about our future house.  

At first we planned on building the typical way--stick frame, foam or fiberglass insulation, drywall and mud.  But then one idea led to another and somehow here we are, very far from our original idea of simply building a house.  So, how did we get here?  I think it began with the sawmill Jason really wanted and the framing chisels he received for a wedding present.  I am happy to say that the sawmill is up and running, and the chisels are getting a workout! 

The sawmill.   I hope that this piece of equipment if the most frustrating part of our 
project, because,my goodness, it has been a process!   The good news is, the sawmill is cutting beautifully now, and we are now using the lumber to cut our frame.    

Last weekend Jason and I began to cut the first pieces of our frame from our very own lumber. Jason started each brace by making the major cuts with his power tools (the ones I'm kind of afraid to use).  Then he handed over the pieces to me, and I learned how to use the timber-framing chisel to make the finer cuts to each brace.  The first weekend I finished five braces, during the weekday evenings I chiseled 7 more, and today I finished off the last of the 16 that Jason had prepared for me.  Tomorrow we need to cut more lumber and then we can get to work on more braces.  Or maybe we'll work on a different piece of the house?  




 


Sunday, February 14, 2010

A Lazy February Sunday

It's cold in here. It's always cold in here. I'm sitting on the couch, looking out our big windows at the skeletal trees shaking their branches in the wind. The snow's melted for now, and the brown grass and decomposing leaves add to the chilly feeling. Past the treetops in the distance we can see the tippy-top of the barely snow-covered Cadillac Mountain. Looking down from the window the playground is icy and a lone pink bicycle is propped in the bike rack underneath the basketball hoop. We live above the school. It's a nice, roomy apartment with two bedrooms and an open kitchen and living space, but I can't wait to move into our new house.

When might that be? Hopefully a year or two. We'll see. Right now our foundation is frozen in the ground. Inside the foundation we're piling up freshly cut timbers, ready to be carved into each piece of our timber-frame. A week ago we started cutting and carving the braces. That was a long time coming, but we're finally working on the frame! I have a stack of partially done braces waiting for me in the workshop, but I'm not in any particular rush to get out into the cold this morning.

A little over a year ago Jason and I began the long process of building our house. We started by working with the amazing designer (and my little sister) Laura Eysnogle on designing our house. We gave her way too many perameters in which to work: under 2,000 sq. ft., preferrably around 1,500; a story and a half, not too boxy, please; big kitchen and open living spaces; easily heatable; numerous entrances so we don't have to carry the day's work into the house (which I hope to keep somewhat tidy); and the plan needs to be compatible with a timber frame. Easy. Right, Laura? She did it, and we are so pleased! I cannot wait to live in the space she designed for us!

Soon after finalizing the plans, Jason began to speak to our neighbors about harvesting trees from their land. We offered to thin over-crowded spaces in their wood lots and clean-up blow downs in return for the wood. During weekends and vacation days we loaded the pick-up truck with chaisaws and other tools for cutting up trees and we headed out to spots all over the island to begin cutting down the logs that would become the pieces of our house. I loved this work. The snow was deep and the air was frigid, but we were warm as we dragged brush into piles and cleaned up trees, preparing them to be dragged out of the woods. When the snow began to melt, Jason retrofitted the tractor with an 8,000 pound winch and we struggled to drag the wood out to the road. There are still piles of logs waiting for us all over the island, and we're slowly getting through them, turning each log into a timber.

No, it's not the easiest way to go about building a house, but it's always an adventure! Soon I'll get up and work on cutting those braces, but for now I'll enjoy another cup of tea and maybe I'll fry an egg from our flock of chickens. What a pleasure it is to laze about on the Sunday before the week of February vacation!