Friday, June 22nd
Time flies...
and the progress seems slow to me. Obviously, changes are subtler this year since we're now in the never ending phase of the finish work... or as ALain likes to call it (in French) infinition. We haven't really looked much into the roof problem besides peeking into the turbines' openings and finding out that the cellulose doesn't look like it's suffered as much as we thought. We'll have to replace it right under the turbines where it was soaked, but around it, everything is in top shape.
The first thing we did was to work on levelling the soil at the back of the house. We want to be able to install the insulating umbrella around that section and finish burrying it in order to do the green roof before it snows. We think it's better to protect the membrane from UV rays as soon as possible and it'll be nice to hide some of those white billboards. When we unwrapped that section, we noticed right away that we were missing a retaining wall on the West side and that the East wing needed to go farther to stop the backfill from eroding. So, we packed some tires, just to get back in shape!
Then, we had to make sure that ground water would flow towards the ditch and not the house. The soil had settled during the cold season and we had to move quite a bit of dirt to get the desired slope. We knew the huge mechanical shovel that had done the job last fall couln't get where it was needed. We hired a local guy with a backhoe, but when he brought his machine, he couldn't climb up there without wrecking everything... Anger, depression and questions: would we have to do all that with just a pick and a shovel? We finally opted to rent a miniature mechanical shovel and our lucky us, our neighbors lent us a first class operator: a member of their family who came in from Abitibi (12 hours drive) to help them with their own building project. We couldn't have done it without him. THANKS Michel!!!
As a bonus, we dug a pit for our compost. The pallets we assembled wasn't keeping the dogs and other criters out of the heap. So, we thought out a new project; in case we get bored... we'd like to build, on top of the pit, a pretty composting outhouse from cob and colored bottles. If you plan on visiting us this summer, collect all your bottles and bring them in when you come around
In the early afternoons, when it's too hot to pack tires, ALain started on the forms for the stairs and shaping the wooden steps. It's a real work of art, I can't believe how beautiful it is already. And speaking of beautiful things, take a look at the rammed earth floor Etienne and Marie-Eve put in last fall. I went for a visit to borrow a book and get a few hints to do our own floor. I was impressed by the warm look of tanned leather with the beech wood inserts. They are very pleased also by the water resilience given by the linseed oil finish. It convinced me to go ahead with that idea and I think we might eventually cover the cement on the first floor also!
Three short news items to conclude this chronicle:

• After a few one day stays with us in the past, Alex decided to spend this summer offering his help to various green building projects. We are honored to be the first on his list. We settled him into the big family tent last Tuesday and we hope to keep him around as long as possible.
• We received an e-mail from Austria; a group promoting earthships at a local fair next week wants to show pictures of our project. They were wondering if we had some that showed the entire house. It made me realize that there aren't any recent ones in the photo section... we have fixed now that.
• Finally, another TV channel is doing a story on us. It'll be in French and should be available on the internet sometime in the fall. I'll keep you posted.