Hot August Nights

August is nearly making its close, and we are anxiously awaiting the next steps in building our house.  Since we are settled into the yurt we have been thankful for having a cozy place to come to after working long hours in the hot sun, and we've been putting in plenty of those hours.  Tanner has been busy working with Jardy, our excavator, and Jerry, our contractor, to get the foundation dug and footers placed for the home site.  In the planning stages we decided to continue our driveway into a loop, making it simpler for large trucks to come and go in the building process and future use. 

Looking South down additional driveway from the home site

Looking west toward home site and yurt, stem to the right will go to the back of the house

pouring additional gravel

Many a dump truck load to take away excess dirt from the foundation

a big hole where our house will sit

cement pump truck

Tanner and Jerry had framed in the footers, ready for concrete

ready to pour concrete

Tanner and Jerry have been working together as a great team.  All of the footer was framed in after just three days, and pouring concrete Thursday morning.  We are so excited to get to experience this process with someone as knowledgeable and easy-going as Jerry. 

 The footer being complete, we are ready for our FasWall block to arrive so we can continue working on the foundation.  I will write more about the block in future posts, once they arrive on a big truck from Oregon.
The block will stack just like legos, but in the shape of a cinder block, over the rebar in the concrete.  Once the block is stacked to a desirable height it will be filled with concrete again.


In the meantime, I have kept myself busy with a lot of things in the yard, and making our yurt more functional.  Since we purchased our land, just four months ago, I've been busy on a few occasions taking care of thistles and noxious weeds along our road, in hopes to keep them from spreading.  Now that we are land owners, I am cursed with the conviction that our land cannot have these pesky weeds.  We don't necessarily want to go straight to poison in our options, so this spring when the ground was nice and wet, I spent 3 days straight, digging up and pulling thistles.  I was so disheartened when they began to sprout up anew just a week or two later.  Irritated and busy with getting moved, I left them to grow for the meantime.  I consulted with friends and family to see what might work best to get rid of them.  I decided that I would wait until they were ready to sprout seeds, cut them at the base, and pour salt onto the nub of a stalk that remained.  I finally had time to get back to them once they were ready to sprout their seeds and they were waist-high monsters.  Waving to me mockingly in the wind, dangling their blossoms as if to taunt me.  I spent the better part of three more days on gravel hillsides in long sleeves and pants in the hot sun with mullen and yarrow poking me in the face when I bend to snip them low to the ground, at the base of the problem, sprinkling salt onto my tiny target.  After day two on the second wave of thistles, and a small melt-down later, I decided that we are just going spray poison on the bastards next year!  I'm hoping that there might be just a few less to spray due to my efforts this year.

The site of all the thistle carnage (after)

 My faithful Moose dog would lay in the shade at the top of the hill, keeping watch over me as I toiled.

Once I could rest knowing that thistles wouldn't be spreading their seed all over my new clover patches, I  set to work on adding pathway and more duff to the east side of the yurt.  I am watering the area like mad in the heat, hoping to have some green come in soon.  I'll post a picture when it's looking more complete!

In the meantime, things are good, and lots more to come!
Cheers!