Building Our Earthship; July Updates

July has brought us less rain and more work, which is exactly what we needed. The earthship is coming along fairly well now, although we will be lucky to get this one room enclosed before winter. This is the kitchen; we started here because we feel like it is the most important room in the house. It is the epicenter of all that happens on our home. It is super important to get this right.

We were delayed with permits in June, but the department of transportation permit finally came. We are a few rows up in the tire pounding process and are close to starting the backfill process. There is a ditch dug around the back of the tire wall that will have drainage tile, gravel, and then a vapor barrier that will be back filled into the wall. The dirt will continue to be backfilled as the wall goes up. This will also help give us something to stand on when we are pounding tires.

We have found that at a brisk pace, with Dan pounding while I shovel the dirt, that we can fill a tire in about 20 minutes. One would think, therefore, that we could fill many in one day. Wrong!! It is so labor intensive that we can only fill 3-6 per day. We are also trying to keep up a large garden, as well as the house we are currently renting. There is always so much work to do that even when we are up early, we still end up finishing our day around 10 pm. This makes for a long day but no one has complained of insomnia lately.

As you can see from the above pictures, we have the rounded "U" taking shape. Where the tires stop closest to where I was taking the pictures will be a entryway into the living room. The two filled tires that stand alone will be built up into a small partial wall in the kitchen where we will put the wood cook stove. We had some issues while filling the 3rd row because the tires didn't seem to want to level correctly. Dan was becoming very frustrated and I don't know if he was over filling the tires and maybe that was causing the issues. He has been trying to find that balance as he continues that row. 

This is the view from above. The kids have been doing very well to help with all the various jobs that have to be done, but we have had some really warm days that has made the job a bit harder for them. This week has actually been very mild, with the highs being in the 60s and 70s. We are enjoying some rain, as well, as it gives us a break from the tire pounding. Pounding tires has got to be the hardest work I have ever done. Not that I'm old, or have ever had a job involving laborous work. But we are only able to do a few tires per day on most days. There was one day last week that we managed 8 tires in one day, which made us extremely tired and cranky the following day. We figured out that we need to pound 3 tires per day in order to be finished by frost. I'm hoping that when Dan figured that out that he included the time for roofing and enclosing in the room. 

I like this picture but I can't help but laugh at my shadow taking the picture.