Day Eleven
October 12, 2023
finally got to use something other than a sledgehammer
beams and boxes
for the first 10 days of the build, the only thing i needed was a sturdy pair of gloves. but today … well today i got to use other tools! allelujah.
btw, the pink, heart-shaped sunglasses in the picture above were given to me by someone because it was her birthday. she gave a lot of them out to others, which wound up being funny because a lot of people worked all day in them. i did not feel compelled to wear mine, never took them out of the wrapper, and then gave them away at day’s end. sour grapes on my part because i bet her age begins with a ‘2’.
today i ran gravel to fill tires that will serve as the base for the outer glass wall, helped to glue and nail the bond beam, a horizontal beam that runs across the top of the first, inner glass wall. it, along with the beam that runs along the back wall, are what will hold the roof up. then i helped one of the crew as we built window and door boxes that will be along the outer glass wall.
it’s nice to get into a groove with whatever you’re taking on at the moment. when i was running gravel, it was with 4 other people and it was actually fun, with a lot of laughter, goofy behavior and good conversation. and that’s crucial, otherwise it could really be a grind.
ultimately, this largely amounts to lifting heavy things and carrying them to another spot, then lifting some other heavy thing and carrying it somewhere else. broken up occasionally by swinging heavy things, shoveling heavy things or cutting heavy things with a saw.
the usual trip around the site. a lot more dirt built up around it, running almost to the top of the tires. i believe that’s to where it will eventually rise the top row.
a couple pictures looking down into the structure. the inner glass wall is framed out with window and door boxes. the tires in front will be the foundation for the outer glass wall. the space in between the two glass walls is where the greenhouse will be.
a picture of the back beam, followed by one of the detail of that beam. from the bottom up - the top row of tires, a vapor barrier, two layers of 2x12 glued/nailed together. the whole thing is attached to the tires below by drilling holes through the lumber, then pounding rebar into the tires below, then bending the rebar over using … you guessed it, a sledgehammer.
the video at the end is taken from the berm, standing between the back row of tires and the cisterns. the dirt is now piled up to the height of the top row of tires. as i look over the tires into the structure, kris and janette are preparing an area for a concrete buttress (i told them i was gonna film them and they chose not to look up), and then others are working on the window boxes and bond beam.