Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] build to last? was: preserving poles

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: <eureka AT hctc.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] build to last? was: preserving poles
  • Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:06:23 -0600


On Sat, 3 Nov 2007 18:25:32 -0500
Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:
So, perhaps, vernacular to you in this regard means your personal heritage, the today result of your life journey?

Yes, I suppose that would be my heritage. Although with recent genealogy research we are proving to be a little of absolutely everything, so perhaps borrowing from many traditions that resonate and are achievable with what's on hand would be OK.

You have enforced building codes where you live?

Building permits are required, but obviously not enforced. A lot of "six pack deals" going on in the good-ol boy world here. We recently discovered (through a system failure) the septic system upgrade filed at the courthouse and signed off on by the local inspector eight years ago was never installed. We don't know if the previous owners screwed us, or if they were screwed by their contractor. The local government is so corrupt it didn't seem worth persuing in court. My husband spent the entire summer rerouting the sewer line. We figured, why bother taking out a permit, when we were only doing what was on file anyway?

Like small river stone?

Exactly. Our land is largely a natural conglomerate of greyish limestone river erock compressed by the earth into what looks like concrete aggregate. In the creek bottoms the stone is loose, and it is also readily available for delivery by a local supplier. I like your idea of slipform, and seem to remember a cool reusable form design in Home Work.

Nothing is unstackable if a suitable bonding medium is used. How about slipform masonry, using either concrete or clay/sand/cement as a bonding medium? Think of the stones as large aggregate, then make them exposed after the medium sets up overnight by brushing with appropriate tool and water.
The cedar here in the Ozarks is Juniperus virginiana, which range extends into Texas. I wonder if it is the same.

Juniperus virginiana, which grow a very straight trunk ranges into Texas mostly in the Blackland Prairie east of Austin. They are planted a lot in Texas cemeteries and are often called cemetery trees. Here in the west, we have Juniperus ashei, a much more branchy subject with no real central trunk and lots of smaller limbs better suited to fence posts. One consideration is using the rock/masonry in slipform for short perimeter walls on which to stack strawbale, something locally available that I actually have experience with, and would insulate well enough that air conditioning would be less costly. Perhaps the small juniper branches could be used as latias (sp?) in the ceiling if I could find anything big enough to use as vigas, although not necessarily in a New Mexico venacular.

Well, do so in spite of all that. Beside your unusual stone (what color is it?) and smallish woody shrubs or trees, what is the nature of your soil? Have you read how cob is created?

Don't you have limestone in the Ozarks too? The limestone rock is gray, and the overall soil on the land a greyish-dun no doubt coming from the mother stone. Would say the soil to rock content is 30-70, so not much dirt. The soil seems to be about 15" to 24" deep on top of an impervious layer of the limestone cobble conglomerate. Interestingly, the fireants bring up a more brown clay-like soil (shapes when pinched) from where we have no idea, we haven't hit any digging. Maybe their little bodies go beneath the rock shelf? Different species grow on each side of the creek, and a geologist friend suggested there is a natural fault going on which would also account for our artesian spring well.

The soil down in the creek is quite different and delicious--an earthy mixture of decaying leaves and topsoil from adjoining lands that comes down in the flash floods. By comparison to the plateau prairie, it's almost tropical feeling down there. We "mine" this soil, hauling it up to the garden where we cannot till because of the rock and have a very nice raised garden built from discarded pallets.

I have experienced cob--helped build the two room house (that washed away two years later) designed by Gail Borst illustrated on the cover of the cob book. I found it physically much more demanding than strawbale, although I like the look of it. I also like the idea of some interior rammed earth walls. There is a B&B in Marathon made out of papercrete. I don't know much about this but would like to know more. Seems like a great way to repurpose junk mail.

--Sage
Way Out in Texas




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page