Feeling the Love!
This past weekend marked the first two days of our Earthship build! The thought that kept occurring to me is that none of this quite seemed real. Were people really beginning to arrive to start the process of building our home or was this all a dream? Saturday morning as all the prep was underway for the first Tire Foundation Workshop day, my heart sped up each time I heard another car pull up our gravel drive. We ended up having over 30 people come out for the first workshop day!
We started off the day by sorting our stockpile of tires by the "section width" number on the wall of the tire. This number is the first number in the oftentimes series of three numbers on the side of a tire. Thus, we had piles of tires ranging from size 245 to 195. Once we got a good look at how many tires of each size we had, we began with the largest sized tires and laid out the first course (layer of tires). The first course will hold the largest sized tires and the smaller sized tires will be laid on top of those; with the smallest tires of the bunch being placed in the last courses.
After laying out the first course of tires on our excavated and leveled land, Zac began dumping dirt in the tires all along the first course. We chose to rent a Bobcat with tracks for four weeks throughout the tire foundation portion of our build as we had seen in several other builds that a lot of manpower and energy appeared to be spent moving dirt from here to there. Therefore, even though diesel fuel isn't the most environmentally friendly way to go, we chose to rent a piece of equipment that would allow for a more efficient use of everyone's time and energy. It was a huge time saver indeed! We were able to just throw a hand up in the air when we ran out of dirt; only to have some delivered minutes if not seconds later!
After the first couple of tires were pounded with earth and checked to ensure that they were compacted enough, each tire was leveled with the ones next to it and then checked to ensure that all sides of the tires were level on its' own. This proved to be a time consuming, frustrating process as just when you think you have everything leveled out, something gets thrown off and you have to start all over again.
I think we all felt a bit out of place that first day; still trying to figure out what methods worked best for each task. There were certainly some shining stars that day; people who seemed to be born to pound tires! We deemed these individuals "beasts" and I won't embarrass them by giving them a 'shout out' but you all were truly something to gawk at.
Toward the end of the first day, my in-laws came by with our son. Elliot was spending the weekend with them since we would be consumed with the build and it was the first time he had spent the night away from both of us. Seeing him at the land immediately caused tears to burst through as I saw, toddling before us, the reason we chose to trade in our life for something more sustainable and honest. Ellie-Bean was just what Zac and I needed to remind ourselves why we were pounding dirt into tires in the first place! The first day came to a close and participants slowly started leaving to rest up for the next day... boy is tire pounding hard work!
The second workshop day was met with fewer participants overall but a different feeling pretty early on. Everyone immediately got to work as we all seemed to have a better handle on what tasks needed to be completed and just how to go about working on these tasks in a timely manner. I felt more present that day than I had the day prior and enjoyed swinging the sledge while connecting to my fellow tire-pounders. I never would have thought that pounding dirt into tires could be so rewarding.
Being more present, I was able to take time to look around and appreciate just how much love and care was being placed in building our home. Had I been a bystander, it would have been difficult for me to tell who this home was being built for as every person was working as though they were building it for their very own family. This awareness caused me to become teary eyed yet again as I felt so filled with contentment and love in that instant. There was certainly something special in the air this past weekend. We managed to pound 209 tires with dirt in just 2 days and were approximately 1/3rd of the way through the tire pounding portion of our home! And yet, getting all those tires pounded wasn't the only thing that was accomplished. I have a strong feeling that we met people that will be in our lives forever. This weekend was as much about community to us as it was about building our home. For the first time in both of our lives, we truly felt as though we were where we were meant to be and felt understood by the people surrounding us.
I was so energized by everyone's presence and didn't feel my energy fade until Tuesday night (2 days later). I was riding high and couldn't believe that we had actually begun the building of our home! Now that the magic has worn off a bit and we have resumed our 'normal' lives for the work week, we are taking some time to figure out just how to proceed from here. We want to make sure that we aren't rushing the building process for the sake of completing our home as quickly as possible. This is to be our home forever and always and as such, proper care must be taken to ensure that we are building this home in a sound manner and that we don't have to redo any work that has already been done. With that said, we plan on speaking to our building consultants, the architect we are working with as well as the County to come up with a game plan as to how we will proceed from here. As of today, the plan is still to keep moving forward with all of the workshops and work weekends and we will be sure to post any changes should they arise.
I knew this would be an arduous process to tend to while raising a family, working our jobs and tending to our other responsibilities and so that is all the more reason we need to put our heads together and decide how we plan on making this happen without losing our steam early on. I know we have it in us to make this all work out and I think the key will be in creating a "new normal" for our family.
Oh, and we finally were given approval by the EPA to use tires in building our home! Therefore, at least in the eyes of the EPA, the above picture is not of a "rifle range backstop" anymore; rather, it is a home... our home! And to the county, it still remains a "rifle range backstop." One step at a time!
If you're interested in learning the skills to build an Earthship home, send me an email and we can discuss what dates would work out for you to come by for a day or weekend to lend a helping hand and to build skills. Weather permitting, we will be at our land working on our home every weekend from here on out and we'd love to have you out there with us!
We started off the day by sorting our stockpile of tires by the "section width" number on the wall of the tire. This number is the first number in the oftentimes series of three numbers on the side of a tire. Thus, we had piles of tires ranging from size 245 to 195. Once we got a good look at how many tires of each size we had, we began with the largest sized tires and laid out the first course (layer of tires). The first course will hold the largest sized tires and the smaller sized tires will be laid on top of those; with the smallest tires of the bunch being placed in the last courses.After laying out the first course of tires on our excavated and leveled land, Zac began dumping dirt in the tires all along the first course. We chose to rent a Bobcat with tracks for four weeks throughout the tire foundation portion of our build as we had seen in several other builds that a lot of manpower and energy appeared to be spent moving dirt from here to there. Therefore, even though diesel fuel isn't the most environmentally friendly way to go, we chose to rent a piece of equipment that would allow for a more efficient use of everyone's time and energy. It was a huge time saver indeed! We were able to just throw a hand up in the air when we ran out of dirt; only to have some delivered minutes if not seconds later!
After the first couple of tires were pounded with earth and checked to ensure that they were compacted enough, each tire was leveled with the ones next to it and then checked to ensure that all sides of the tires were level on its' own. This proved to be a time consuming, frustrating process as just when you think you have everything leveled out, something gets thrown off and you have to start all over again.
I think we all felt a bit out of place that first day; still trying to figure out what methods worked best for each task. There were certainly some shining stars that day; people who seemed to be born to pound tires! We deemed these individuals "beasts" and I won't embarrass them by giving them a 'shout out' but you all were truly something to gawk at.
The second workshop day was met with fewer participants overall but a different feeling pretty early on. Everyone immediately got to work as we all seemed to have a better handle on what tasks needed to be completed and just how to go about working on these tasks in a timely manner. I felt more present that day than I had the day prior and enjoyed swinging the sledge while connecting to my fellow tire-pounders. I never would have thought that pounding dirt into tires could be so rewarding.
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| Taken after Elliot spontaneously kissed the tire! |
I was so energized by everyone's presence and didn't feel my energy fade until Tuesday night (2 days later). I was riding high and couldn't believe that we had actually begun the building of our home! Now that the magic has worn off a bit and we have resumed our 'normal' lives for the work week, we are taking some time to figure out just how to proceed from here. We want to make sure that we aren't rushing the building process for the sake of completing our home as quickly as possible. This is to be our home forever and always and as such, proper care must be taken to ensure that we are building this home in a sound manner and that we don't have to redo any work that has already been done. With that said, we plan on speaking to our building consultants, the architect we are working with as well as the County to come up with a game plan as to how we will proceed from here. As of today, the plan is still to keep moving forward with all of the workshops and work weekends and we will be sure to post any changes should they arise.
I knew this would be an arduous process to tend to while raising a family, working our jobs and tending to our other responsibilities and so that is all the more reason we need to put our heads together and decide how we plan on making this happen without losing our steam early on. I know we have it in us to make this all work out and I think the key will be in creating a "new normal" for our family.
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| End of Day 2! Not bad... not bad at all! |
If you're interested in learning the skills to build an Earthship home, send me an email and we can discuss what dates would work out for you to come by for a day or weekend to lend a helping hand and to build skills. Weather permitting, we will be at our land working on our home every weekend from here on out and we'd love to have you out there with us!
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