rain and rainwater harvest

We have not had a sunny day yet this September. It has been just a little ridiculous actually. It will stop raining just long enough to get at least a little dry and then it showers again for a few hours. Day after day of gloomy, wet, damp misery. At least that is the way I am looking at things right now while the harvest waits to be started. I ended up buying another swather last week. It is an old Versatile 400 that is in nice shape. So, while we wait for things to dry up, the work on the house continues.

Late last week we installed our cistern behind the house. We purchased a large tank (4100 gallons) and we will use it for our domestic water needs. We will also use this tank as a catchment for rainwater from the steel roofs of the house, the garage and the shop. The rainwater will go through a filter and first-flush system before it enters the tank. From there the water will enter the house and go through our distiller for drinking and cooking. It will go through an ordinary filter element for the other household uses like laundry and bathing. From time to time we will likely need to fill the cistern with city water from the nearby filling station.

As you can see, the hole for the tank was huge! That is an 8' ladder leaning up against the wall of the trench. It was interesting to see the different layers of soil that extends that deep underground. That black patch to the left of the ladder is actually a very small deposit of coal. We also unearthed some big pieces of granite that are quite beautiful. We will use those for some landscaping accents here and there.

straw bale raising pending!

Well, it looks as though everything will be in place for us to be able to have our "strawbale raising" party this weekend. Work is still underway with the base building assembly and the top building assembly and the window and door bucks. That should be completed by Friday. The actual bales are scheduled to go up on Saturday and Sunday. We seem to have a good amount of help at the ready so it will be a lot of fun to have friends and family actually helping with the construction of our new home. We will be sure to take plenty of pictures and maybe some video of the event. It will look like a different place by this time next week! Stay tuned.

construction update end of july

So here is where we were at with construction of our straw bale house at the end of July, 2010. As you can see the garage has been up for some time now. All of our household stuff is being stored in there and it fits! That means that we have downsized all of our crap that we feel we no longer require in our lives. Stuff that bogs us down and certainly has no place in our new house which will be half the size of our old place. I still cannot get over what a good feeling it is to simplify things even just a little.

As you can see the slab is prepped and the plumbing is in place for our hot water heating system and potable water. As I type this on August 3 the concrete has been poured and materials are on-site for the wall construction to commmence this week. I will post some pics of that process. This is where it finally gets a little interesting and begins to look like something a little out of the ordinary. 

At the start of the bale assembly construction, the measurements are taken on the slab and the wood bale bearing assemblies (BBA) are constructed. Next, the window and door bucks are built. Towards the end of the week, the bales will be delivered and the final plans will be made to build the walls by placing bales. This all has to be timed for good weather, the arrival of the trusses and the crew to roof the house. Once the bale walls are in place, they cannot get wet! 

New Farm Construction - Day 3

Just getting finished up on the rough shaping of the driveway and yard. Next will come the grader, packer and then finally the gravel. It is starting to look like a farmyard already...well, not really I suppose. But, it is easy enough for me to envision how things will look when complete.


Rain in the forecast for the next 3 days. We need it so bad it isn't funny. There are over 60 wildfires burning in Alberta today...more than 4 times the normal for April. This is ridiculous. Whoever says that the climate isn't changing has their head in the sand. When I see the rains in the midwest and central prairies, the droughts along the foothills. The intensity of winter storms along the east. Seems pretty obvious to me that things are more volatile and changing fast.