Lesson #85 in Building an Earthship: Always Expect the Unexpected!

It's been quite some time since I've provided an update on our progress in building our earthship home as we are feeling, more than ever, the weight of all the different hats we wear in life.  As I mentioned in July 23rd's blog post, we were dealing with the threat of losing our beneficial use of tire permit granted by the EPA if we didn't make the extra tires on our land disappear in a matter of about a week's time.  On top of that, Zac had come down with a mystery illness and was down and out for about a week though he had to continue to work as he doesn't get sick leave or paid time off.  As an aside, we later realized we purchased some organic peaches that were part of the recall due to listeriosis and his symptoms matched up with those perfectly.

Fortunately, once the "EPA push weekend" rolled around on July 26th and 27th, he was feeling much better.  With many new and old friends' support, we were able to put many of those tires to use and move the rest in time for the inspection on July 30th!  I just received the letter Monday from the EPA restoring us to compliance.  As much of a rebel as I'd like to seem to be, I must admit, it is good to be in the "powers that be" good graces once more!

Another dragon slayed!!! 

But, that weekend unfortunately didn't progress without incident.  No, that would be too easy!  On July 26th, after we had just began to pick up steam on the 4th course, the tractor's axle knee literally broke off; rendering the tractor useless as it couldn't run without this part.  Fortunately no one was injured and we were so grateful for that.  We had to laugh because "expect the unexpected" has become a saying we've been living by these days.  In order to remain sane while building an earthship, one must roll with the punches.  And so we did.  With the tractor lying idly by, we fortunately had enough hands to help and used buckets, wheelbarrows and shovels to do our dirty work.  We carted dirt to the tires to be Ergo-Tamped and then a team of people followed up the Ergo-Tamp by leveling and marking them as "good to go"!

Thank you SO much to all the lovely people who came out the July 26th and 27th
weekend and helped us steer clear of troubles with the EPA!

Once the weekend was over, Zac took a look at the damage on the tractor and found that an entirely new axle knee was needed.  After scouring local farm junk yards with no luck, we were able to find the part online... all the way in Alabama.  Due to having a tractor out of commission for two straight weeks, were unable to make serious earthship progress but still made use of the time!

Zac was able to install the first piece of plumbing that will eventually connect the three 1,700 gallon cisterns to our indoor plumbing.  We are going to be harvesting rainwater from our roof.  That rainwater will be filtered and then deposited into our cisterns at which point, it will be utilized in a normal manner delivered by the traditional plumbing inside the home.  So while this was a necessary step in our build, it was about as far as we could get without having a large earth-mover working for us.  We could have plodded ahead with shovels, wheel-barrows and buckets as we had to the rest of the "EPA push weekend", but it didn't make much sense as we'd be killing ourselves and wouldn't have gotten very far with just two people.  This is where modern advances such as machinery come in handy!

The scene from our build the big EPA push weekend.  That large orange thing is the GINORMOUS air
 compressor we have to rent to power the Ergo-Tamp.  We are almost done with course 4 and have
begun laying out the 5th course and filling the tires with dirt!

Last week was all about our chickens.  Our gals are nearing egg-laying age and so it was time to give them a proper place to lay their eggs.  Utilizing scrap materials Zac had salvaged from construction dumpsters and that had been donated to us by people we've met along the way, he was able to fashion 8 lovely nesting boxes for our girls to choose from!  Then, he installed a rainwater harvesting system hooked up to their coop's roof so that we never have to dip from our own water supply again to quench their thirst.  The rainwater harvesting system was also completed using all secondhand materials (aside from screws) and according to Zac, that made the experience even richer!

The fold-up-top nesting boxes

Rainwater harvesting system for lucky chickens

Happy chickens roosting on a fallen log on our land.
Mendez the head rooster is looking over his ladies!

The tractor parts finally arrived Monday only for us to find out that one of the parts sent was incorrect.  The correct part was sent out yesterday so we're expecting it to arrive tomorrow or Friday.  Our hope for this weekend is to work on building the berm up again so that it is level with the 4th course and then fully finish out the 4th course of tires.  We are diligent about building up the berm at this point as it adds to the structural integrity of our home.  From the 4th course up, each course of tires is set back into the berm 2 inches to offset the pressure the North wall would otherwise receive if it were completely upright.  By stepping the courses back, the wall then shares the load with the berm.  So, we have to ensure that the berm is compacted as we build up each course of tires from here on out to ensure we are building a structurally sound home.  This isn't a feature of a traditional (if that word can even be used) earthship home, but we chose to eliminate the u-structure from our earthship in place of a larger U that had additional supports.  This saves us a great deal of time and energy as that means far fewer hundred tires that need pounded!  The picture below from MiddleEarthHome.com shows how many earthship homes have been built so far with the U-shape tire walls.

LOTS more work!!!

In the midst of all this, regular life must also continue and so I've been neglectful of social media sites and this blog because I've been holding down the Craig Family Fort.  I've been spending my time trying to potty-train our sweet little guy, manage our household, run two Etsy businesses and maintain some sanity along the way... though, I think sanity is overrated.

Our original plan to be under-roof by Winter is looking unlikely, but no matter.  We're just pleased that we're moving forward with our dream of living more sustainably as a family and are proud to feel like we're really living life for the first time!

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The next blog I'm looking to post will be about pounding the perfect earthship tire with step-by-step pictures!

Also, if you're interested in getting some hands-on experience in building an earthship home, we welcome you to come out and help us some weekend soon!  We work Saturdays and Sundays from 9:00 AM- 5:00 PM.  Please email me at SecondhandHomeProject@gmail.com for more details.