Earthship Time Zone

My comparing building an Earthship home with being a parent to a newborn is not spent.  The white flag is raised.  We are relinquishing any and all control over our lives and our schedule to our demanding, whiny home to be that we are completely and totally in love with and dedicated to.  It feels as though we live in a different time zone entirely.  No matter what plans we try to make for the weekends to come in working on our home, everything is dependent upon an array of variables that we have little to no control over.  Thus, we must find some way to make progress with the time constraints we're dealt.

Case in point: We had hopes last weekend of being able to move the remaining dirt in our dirt pile blocking the driveway to the berm so that perhaps we could rent a compactor this weekend to begin compacting the dirt for the berm.  "HAHA" said mother nature and other forces out of our control.  We obtained a great deal of rain last week which made moving dirt around Saturday nearly impossible.  But, even if we hadn't had all that rain, the tractor we just bought broke down on us.  Thus, Zac had to spend all of Saturday fixing it.

Not unlike our first few months with our sweet son Elliot, Zac and I have had to adjust our expectations of what it would be like to build our home and surrender to the process completely in order to enjoy it.  While this is particularly difficult for me to do (did I mention I'm kind of a control freak?), Zac has been coaching me along and we have been having a LOT of fun lately despite the obstacles that continually present themselves.  

Last weekend, when the tractor was rendered useless for the day, we focused on changing our perspective and had one of the greatest days overall as a family than we've had in a while.  Zac felt incredibly accomplished fixing the tractor and taking some time to explore the inner workings on our new machine.  Elliot and I went grocery shopping, took a walk around Clifton, visited a local Alpaca Farm, and made a dinner fit for kings!  Walking up our gravel drive from our walk, we saw Zac off in the distance on the tractor brush hogging the land around our chicken coop.  As we got closer, we saw that he had a huge maniacal smile on his face.  He was SO happy to finally be brush hogging an area where Elliot could walk around and play safely.  While we finished up dinner, he continued working outside and came to dinner (outfitted with the same wild grin) saying that he had also cut trails in the remaining 2-3 acres at the edge of our property and that we should take a walk together after we finished eating.

Thus, we all went out there together and had the greatest time exploring the trails Zac had blazed earlier that evening.  He pointed out some of the larger trees he cut the trails around that will provide us with shade many years down the road.  He also showed us the gorgeous patches of wild flowers all about.  It was so gratifying to be able to take a walk on our own land and enjoy the spot that would eventually envelop our Earthship home!  

The next day, Zac spent the morning working on the finally hooking up the rain harvesting system on the micro cabin as we have been frustrated that we haven't been able to capitalize on the loads of water from the sky we've been getting.  He only hooked up the back portion of the roof to our cistern as the front will require a great deal of cleaning and prepping before we'd be able to harvest water off of it.  Monday evening, the rain rolled in and the feeling felt similar to what I used to experience as a kid on Christmas morning.  HOORAY!  We would be harvesting some of this water to be used for our purposes instead of just letting it drain off!  (Note: We don't have this water set up to be potable at this time and anytime we're working on the home or are at the land together, we bring in our own drinking water).

It is the most basic of things that are bringing us joy these days and that fact alone is incredibly freeing. Fixing something with our own hands, taking a walk around our own land, sharing a meal as a family, harvesting rainwater.  We have never felt so full.  With this joy, it has been easier to let go of my lists and schedules as each weekend we have laid out to work on our home, something will come of it.  No time is wasted and eventually we will live in our dream home.  In the meantime however, I will embrace living in the "Earthship time zone" and soak up the happiness that lies in the small things.

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Other Miscellaneous Updates:

• We ended up purchasing the ErgoTamp (pneumatic tamping device that cuts the tire pounding time from 40-60 minutes a tire to 5-10 minutes)
• We have put all of our items from our old home into storage so that it will be ready to be rented out within the next month hopefully... goodbye money pit!
• We are looking into purchasing a walk-behind compactor instead of renting one for use throughout the construction.  Our plan would be to sell it when we're done.  We're so sick of putting out gobs of money and would rather try to recoup some of our investment at the close of our build.

This weekend, we'll continue working on the berm and laying out the fourth course of tires.  Our hope is to be able to begin compacting the berm within the next couple of weekends.  If you're interested in coming out to volunteer for a FREE skill building weekend, please email us to set up a date!