Let’s talk about it
We're ready to build! Last week we got the hole down to depth, leveled, and dug the rubble trench, and all through a few feet of rock hard clay, hopefully our walls are just as tough. We built a water level, a dirt sifting screen, installed the compass pole, got some more tampers ready, we've got bags and barbed wire, and now we're just waiting on our gravel to get here tomorrow... on the full moon of course. We did a test bag today with our clay rich dirt, one with added sand and another with added lime, which we'll use for all of our subterranean stem walls. We'll be posting more frequent photos on our facebook if you want to check in there as the walls start to go up. And oh yeah, we saw a Bald Eagle flying low as they checked out whatever it was those silly humans were up to.
And we were visited by Herbert, the pesky gopher, who pierced the side of the excavated hole and was so surprised to see us that he fell to the bottom of the hole and couldn't get out. If not for the assistance of the kindly DJ, who rescued him.
For further information on earthbag building just do a simple google search, there’s a vast catalog of resources available from an active online community. Our favorite website for this kind of stuff is www.earthbagbuilding.com, our favorite YouTube channel is My Little Homestead, and here’s a beautiful photo gallery of another earthbag village concept.
Or if that’s too much homework for you, then you can check out the fictional novel Liberation’s Garden, a free download featuring earthbags, activism, and life on the reservation. Authored by one of our core members, it holds a vision for the future as we take the first steps toward bringing that vision to life.
