Winter Work Continues

As winter continues and the snows fly, we are cozy in our house of straw as we continue with the straw bale stacking. We've had strange winter weather. Dry but cold nights. A lot of pretty mild afternoons with really cold ones thrown in here and there. In other words, see-saw weather.  Inside our house, however, has been pleasant. All the plastic we put up has worked like a charm keeping the snows out and most of the wind at bay. We can just imagine how cozy it will be once the windows and doors are in and the plastering is done.

Things I've learned: splitting and stacking bales is DIRTY work.  There is straw EVERYWHERE!!  Years from now we will probably still be picking tiny bits of straw out of work clothes.

I've also learned that stacking bales makes one stronger <g>  I was amazed at how easy it was to lift my suitcase up into the over head storage bin the last time I flew!

We've spent the last month or so filling in straw up to the roof.

This is the wall between the house and garage. This is Rick attaching the bales to the trusses with bailing twine.

Here it is done. Still have to do this to the wall at the end of the garage.

We have also finished constructing and installing all the boxes above the windows and doors. This is the box over the large window in the office before and after bales were stacked.

Looking toward the studio and office - the pile of bales is smaller!!!

The living/dinning room.

99% of the bales are done! And enough room has been made so we can start on the next phase: digging the footings for the internal walls and trenching for the plumbing. The next immediate chore is to move bags of straw and plies of wood to make more room so digging can begin.

Work is progressing as well as we'd hoped during these cold winter months.  So well, in fact, that we are starting to feel comfortable setting a "move in" date!  Our goal is to be able to move in and celebrate Rick's 70th (!) birthday in the house in November - so mark your calendars!  Lots yet to do in the next 8 months but we're starting to see a tiny bit of light way out there at the end of this tunnel.