Winter firewood

Getting ready for winter.  Collecting, chopping and stacking firewood has been top of the list for a while now.  Our strawbale living quarters are very well insulated, so we only tend to keep a small fire going most days in the winter months.  Still, each year we wonder if we'll have enough wood ready.  We were hoping to build a woodshed/bike shed this season, but time seems to have slipped away.  For now the large back porch will do.  Oh, the hours of enjoyment, with our little eager helper working side-by-side with her papa...

Strawbale update - final renos for 2009 done

With our last push before winter, we finished up the final renovations on the strawbale additition including soffits and fascia, eaves troughs, building the fence across our driveway, and installing a woodstove! The last bit for December is to build a wooden deck along the back of the addition (the hens like to roost here, and it will help keep snow off the plaster walls - for next year it will provide the nicest view of the pond and garden and will be prime relaxing space with a bench or hammock!). For next year...living roof, front porch, landscaping, more fruit trees on new driveway garden space...etc (lots of time over the winter to dream about all of this).

After some debate, the woodstove we chose to heat the strawbale space was a tiny Jotul. These stoves have been made in Norway since the 1890s and come with a great reputation. The one we have is the smallest model as we really only need to heat about 600 square feet with it - our living room and bedroom in the strawbale addition. The clincher was that it has a cookplate, so we can always have a kettle on for tea, or a pot of soup warming...Typing here with a little fire warming my back, I know this was the right decision. It was a little chilly with no external heat in this addition last winter - though extra socks, slippers, sweaters and quilts did go a long way to providing comfort. Now the room is really cozy and feels festive with faint smell of woodsmoke in the air.

Documenting strawbale - Almost Final Plaster

We're nearing the end of the strawbale plastering - we are now on the final lime plaster, with two more walls to finish. Then come several coats of whitewash. We are also now into fall weather, which means that time is running short for this house project - if the weather drops to below freezing the lime will fail and we'll be at this again in the spring. Since the weather has been around 4-6 C at night lately (and feeling very chilly) there is a pretty big rush to get this done over the next week or two, although the coats need adequate drying time so can only go on so quickly. We've heard of many a strawbale house project that got into cold weather and had to either wrap the house until spring, or use tarps and heaters to finish the walls. I guess it's not unusual for this type of project to take longer than expected, especially when so much is being done by hand and is a learning experience for us. Some photos here show how the walls need to be scratched so that additional coats adhere; walls need to be continuously misted so they don't dry too quickly; the white lime colour which can be tinted to other shades (e.g. using pigment used for cement stucco). The lime we are using has been soaking in pails for over a year - we've heard of builders soaking lime for many years (the longer the better). It's also incredibly drying on the skin! Hard to believe we are this far on the house project - some days have seemed like we'd never get it done. It's been almost a year and a half since we started. Thanks again to all the hands that have helped out! There have been a few key invaluable people we can call on to help out for a few hours when we've gotten overwhelmed by this house task (there are days) - you know who you are.

More strawbale plastering

Strawbale Documentation: Third coat of plaster

It's almost September...fall is in the air...we've been wearing extra layers, adding a quilt at night, and thinking more seriously about making a final decision on what woodstove to buy for our addition. The garden is nearing it's summer harvest end, and we've planted some fall crops like fresh greens and more kale. With all the rain lately we've been collecting an enormous amount in our 1200 litre tank (overflowing numerous times during some storms!), and I've been able to have fresh rainwater to use in all my soap batches! This makes a superior soap in my opinion.

We're also feeling the final push on the strawbale house addition - and the third coat of plaster is taking shape. We had a few groups of people come by to help, including local friends, and a few CRAFT interns from two nearby organic farms (Everdale and Ignatius Farm, both near Guelph). Thanks to everyone who has been so helpful on this project!

Strawbale House Update - Volunteers Welcome for Plastering Work!

We've completed one coat of the plaster on all four walls of the strawbale house!! This is a huge accomplishment, given the plastering started in earnest on the hottest days of the year. We are grateful for this weather though, as the heavy rains of July have held us back. Now we just need to ensure that the plaster walls don't dry out too quickly, which is easy enough to do by misting them gently every few hours during a hot day. There are three more coats of plaster to do, the top being a very thin skim coat to finish off. The walls are still very rough at this point, but with each layer we even out the bumps and lumps from the strawbales underneath, and the walls take on their characteristic rounded earthy look. Beautiful!

We are hoping to organize some workbees - if anyone in town is reading this post and wants to learn about plastering, please contact us or drop by. You only need gloves, and it's done by hand. The trowels are used in the final coat to smooth things out, or create a more evenly textured finish.

Documenting strawbale - clay slip

A quick update on the strawbale house - we sprayed on the clay slip yesterday, and today the lime plaster is being mixed for the first exterior coat. The clay slip helps prepare the wall, aiding with adhesion when the first full plaster coat goes on. Lots of work still ahead...

Documenting strawbale - starting exterior plaster

Here are a few photos of the straw bale house again. The wrap-around porch is now nearly completed (roof still to be added, and deck boards to put down). All the protective paper has been removed from the walls, the soffit and fascia are on (ahhh, no more possibility for birds, squirrels or mice to get into the roof!). Despite all the rain lately, we've managed to keep the straw walls dry. Tomorrow we spray on the first clay slip on the walls - we are renting a texture sprayer for doing this - and then the first coat of plastering starts on the weekend! Exciting! Hope to organize a workbee soon, as plastering will take several weeks and is hands-on labour intensive work...there won't be much time to blog here for a few weeks, but I hope to keep up a photo journal.

House renovations - porches continue

Still working on the straw bale house addition, amidst scattered showers we seem to be having every few days this summer. The porch posts have been set, the rafters are up, the today the metal fascia was finished. Plastering will hopefully be starting soon...

Staking Tomatoes and Strawbale House Renos

There's been a lot of rain this summer already. One farmer friend who lives west of the city told me she had 4 inches of rain in one downpour, and her lettuce was drowning in large lakes that had formed on her hard, slow-draining clay soil. The way she predicts what the season will be like is to follow the first three days after the spring equinox, and that will give a general indication on what April, May and June will be like. Then the three days after the summer solstice give us indicators for July, August and September. She swears by this method, which she learned from a grandfather who also farmed.

We've also noticed the rainy weather, as we've been trying to get started on the exterior work of finishing up the strawbale house addition (there are many previous posts about our building project, which can be found in our 2008 blog pages). We've now prepared the post holes and had them inspected, begun the porches (there is a large wrap-around porch and new front deck/steps coming), and then of course the plaster. We've continuously had to watch the weather reports, and tarp up the straw walls at night in case of rain.

Also spent the day staking some of our tomatoes - we grew about 25 varieties this year, and kept between 2-5 plants of each kind, so we have around 60-70 tomato plants in our yard! It's hard to believe we found fairly sunny spots for all of them. No ripe tomatoes yet, but lots of blossoms and some green ones coming. Usually we have been eating the early red or cherry varieties by now, but the weather has not only been rainy, it has also been cool. Everything seems to be ripening a little slower than most years.

All the Tulsi Basil I seeded a few weeks ago in flats was planted out into garden beds today, and it's looking beautiful!

Jan 18 - Moved into Strawbale! And Open House Celebration!

We've come a long way this past year since the strawbale project began, and now w've finally moved in! Many finishing touches are not done yet (bookshelving, plants in south window, wood trim, woodstove)... but the space is completely liveable and beautiful. We had a lovely open house celebration with many friends and volunteers who helped out on the project throughout the season. It was wonderful to have you all here - the new space feels properly "warmed" now.

More fun to be had in the spring, with exterior plastering, porches to be built, new front landscaping projects, and a living roof to design/plant.

Documenting Strawbale Addition - 10 Earthen Floor and Drywall

Last week Monday we had a BIG working day, as the entire earthen floor was completed in one go. We had a few friends who have experience with earthen floors here to help and we couldn't have done it without them! (if any of you are who were here are reading this, then a HUGE thank you for that day!)

One person was running the mixer and wheeling in the heavy loads of clay (4 parts concrete sand: 1 part clay to create a 1/2 inch base layer), then others troweling it on the floor, and then leveling and smoothing, packing it firm, and finally applying a clay-slip top coat (1 part clay slip: 2 parts very fine 50 mesh sand from pottery supply shop). It was a long working day but the end result completely satisfying. We didn't have champagne but did celebrate with locally made wine, as this really was a major accomplishment! The only issue now, 1.5 weeks later, is that with the cold weather this floor is taking quite a bit longer to dry. The final step is to apply a sodium-silicate sealer which protects and hardens the floor, but we will likely need to wait a few more days before we can do so.

Drywall in the vestibule, bathroom and new laundry has been put up. Taping and mudding to happen later this week, and then painting with natural paints. We bought the paint yesterday - and when you buy paint for any project it always signifies the end being in sight. I've bought enough paint to also redo the kitchen and new dining area, ambitious but I'm so excited about this non-toxic paint and the rooms do need new life. Due to slightly warmer weather outside we've also been finishing the final outdoor aspects of this project - roof vent pipe for composting toilet, heating ducts, yard clean-up, winterizing the new doors with weather stripping and so on. We still have someone coming to hook up the radiant floor heating pipes, and another person to install flashing on the roof edge to prevent water leakage - both key pre-winter jobs that should happen sooner than later. There are just so many details!