Going Up!

After 5 months spent in or on the foundation ditch we are finally starting to go UP!

Here are the first two posts up where the adobe wall will be.

We can finally see something above ground!

Playing With Mud

Now it's time to play in the mud! Story polls are marked (those are the two posts on either side of the adobe wall marked where each course of adobes will go), gringo blocks (those are the wooden boxes that will replace adobes on either side of the windows to give something to attach the window bucks to) and window bucks are made - we are ready to go! Since we are laying adobes in November we only have about 4 hours of working time each day. We can work until 2 but then have to stop to give the mud a chance to dry out some before the cold night. (If truth be known, I'm not sure my body would make it lifting adobes - 30+ pounds each - for more than four hours at a stretch!) Fortunately it looks like we are going to have good weather the next 4 or 5 days so hopefully we can get the whole wall up.

Gringo blocks

Window bucks. The wall they are going in is in the foreground.

Here is the footing that the adobes will be stacked on. The black is asphalt to help protect the first course of adobes.

Here is Rick mixing our first batch of mud.

It's been a while since I took my adobe classes and I was not sure how much I'd remember but as we worked it all came back to me. Sort of like riding a bike!

Here I am laying the first adobes in mud.

Here's the first course done! The first 4 courses will be double wide for the banco (seat for those of you outside of NM) that will be in the sunspace. Once those 4 courses are done, the wall will become one adobe wide and the adobe laying should go much faster.

Two courses done! Time to stop for the day.

Pretty exciting to see this wall going up!