A.Door.Able

They say that having a red door helps bring wealth into your house.  I guess that means that we will have a rich root cellar.  This weekend we installed the door to our unique root cellar (made from an old septic tank, < yes it has been cleaned and sanitized >, encased in structural foam and concrete, and partially buried).  It’s not too big but will be the perfect place to store our apple harvest, and a few bottles of wine.

We were going to try and get our trailer up the hill this weekend but between the rain and trying to schedule someone with a big tow truck, it didn’t happen.  But we did manage to run the main power feed from the meter base (in the pump house), to the  “box” in the house.

First I applied a generous amount of synthetic wax to lubricate the heavy wires. Then I pushed…….

 

While Jeff pulled using a pulley we set up to make it easier.

Another step closer to moving in.

The Root of all Cellar Doors

This was a good weekend to work indoors. (forgive the pun)  We had 2″ of rain on Friday and then blowing rain off and on for the rest of the weekend.  I am happy to report that the hill is still on top of the house and it is dry inside.

We started to make the door for our root cellar.  Its an odd shape and size and has to be tough enough to keep the bears out.  I really enjoy this kind of project. We also built some shelves for the pump house and a temporary covered entry all of which were constructed from recycled  or reclaimed materials.

House Binky

The Rains Have Cometh!

We have been half hoping for and half dreading the arrival of the rainy “season”.  It looks like we will be starting off with a bang expecting a major rain storm this weekend.  The slopes on the south side of our berm are fairly steep and erosion will be a problem.  Unfortunately we were unable to plant the hill because we didn’t have a way to water it earlier on. Yesterday Jeff sewed grass and wild flower seeds on top of the house and berm.  Last night, using flashlights, the two of us laid down erosion control mats on the steepest parts of the berm.  Hopefully this will give the plants a chance to grow and prevent any major erosion.

I guess this weekend will be the test of how good our waterproofing is.

The Essentials

What could be better than running water, clean clothes and a warm place to sleep.  We achieved all three this weekend.

With our new pump now providing pressurized water we were able to set up our washer and dryer.  It’s been three weeks with no clean laundry so it was great being able to wash clothes again. (I was getting down to my last pair of old ratty socks)

Since the weather has started to turn much colder, we have had to start using the furnace in the trailer.  But now we will be sleeping in warm comfort in our house.  The thermal qualities of our earth sheltered home are amazing.  It stays warm and cozy all night.  And though we just have bare stud walls, we set up our new bed. It was so beautiful laying in bed looking out our arched window at a clear star filled night.

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