EarthSong Retreat

Our new place has a name! We're calling it EarthSong Retreat! This is in keeping with our plans, both ours and Merry's (the owner), to do workshops, retreats, classes, etc. out here. Plus, with my flutes, and her teaching music, and the Permaculture and Magickal elements, EarthSong seemed a natural! We are also in negotiation to become a cooperative project with the Vajra Azaya community. All to the good!


As for our moving here, we are almost done. The portable buildings are finally here, we have only cleanup to do at the old place. It is proceeding a bit slowly, as the heat has been a roadblock. For more than a month we've had temperatures of 107 degrees or so. Cat has begun doing some of her woodwork out of the carport until our studio is finally leveled and wired. That should happen soon. My office trailer is here and leveled, so I can get back to finishing out the interior. No more wasps to deal with! Finally we'll be able to put stuff back where it goes instead of stepping over it!


A bit of great news! I'm traveling again! I'm leaving August 19th to go to a Permaculture Teacher Training Course with Scott Pittman and Larry Santoyo with the Permaculture Institute. The class is being held near Santa Fe, NM. A friend paid for my tuition and Cat paid for my flight. I am so grateful to both! Another giant step toward my being able to teach Permaculture. 


There's a lot to do before I go, so, back to work!

The Sting

 One of these guys has rendered me hors d combat for the day. Yesterday  I was stung for the second time in a week. The local red wasps are in an aggressive mood lately. One got me on the ankle last week as I walked past the shop. A couple of days with a swollen ankle and achy joints and it passed with only some residue of itching. 
Then yesterday, I was re-installing the new window in my office re-build, when another one apparently decided I was too close to the nest and nailed me on the elbow. 
I moved away rapidly, the window fell without breaking, luckily. I immediately applied an ammonia compress to the wound. The pain subsided rapidly, but I didn't sleep too well. When I woke this morning the elbow was burning and itching like I had left it in a nest of fire ants all night. 
I did go out early and get the window into place. I bundled up and worked till the wasps started flying again, then quit. It was too hot to work with the long sleeves, etc. anyway. Sitting around the rest of the day with herb poultices and baking soda on my arm. Taking Benadryl, etc.

Progress: The RainCrow Writing Cave. Part 3

 Since the side wall has been open for awhile, one of the landlord's roving hens has made a rather itchy nest in my pile of insulation. I've gathered a half dozen eggs from here in the course of my labors so far! When I close up the sides for good I'll have to find her another space.

The skin is back on, and I'm piecing together the area around the replacement window. You can see it is a bit narrower and taller than the original, which was identical to the one to the right of it. In order to keep the tin pattern the same I chose to re-use the piece cut from the bottom part of the opening and make shingles of it to go up the side. There was just enough.

 Here is what that looks like. I suppose it was a toss up whether that is any better than adding a solid piece of flat metal, I had one I could have used. After painting perhaps it won't be too noticeable. However, I could always add fake shutters on the sides if it bothers me later.

The replacement window is installed. Looks pretty good, actually. Fortunately, the panes are enough of a match to visually match the lines of the other window, so it almost looks like it belongs there.

Here is the door re-hung. Should I be honest and admit I had problems with this step? Somehow in the framing process the right side of the door jamb shifted a bit and the hole was slightly too narrow at the bottom to accept the door. I had to cut some things loose, as well as the siding, and shift things back a bit to get the door back in. 
On second thought, I won't admit it, don't tell anyone, okay?
All that is left to do with this part in this pic is to add a trim piece over the door and along the bottom to cover the new outside floor joist. Some caulking will also be done before painting.

Remember this? this was the same area when I started. No more eggs in here for a while, anyway.

 The next part of the project will be to tackle this bad corner. The dark strip to the right is a strip of pegboard, there is a second one above it. These will be handy, but I'll have to remove them temporarily. All the wall framing is rotten in this corner. It'll be an interesting fix.

The end window to the right will be replaced as well with another of those taller windows. It's broken, and will have to be re-framed anyway, like the previous one was. The side window on the left of this picture is a good one, but some of the framing for it needs work. I'll know when I get the paneling pulled off. I'm hoping I don't have to remove this part of the skin. The end wall is already coming off. No doubt the hen will move back in when I open it up!
Eggs are good!
Back to work! I've already had word that I'm losing one of my storage spaces soon, so the pressure is on!

Update on The RainCrow Writing Cave. Part 2

We've had some really nice weather for working on my office trailer project. We definitely need rain badly, but it would not necessarily be a good  thing while the wall of the trailer is wide open. However, I could put up with some.
Anyway, I've been moving right along.

Shown is the front end of the trailer. (Front being where the hitch is.) This end will most likely wind up being more for storage eventually. It may look as messy as before, but actually it has been cleaned up. What you're seeing is my scavenged building material ready to use in re-building. The end window was really not fixable. I have to totally re-frame the area around one window on the wall to our right, so I re-located that good window to the end. The (also scavenged) extra windows I have are of a different size. Since I'm re-framing anyway, I will frame it to accept the different size window. I'll have to finagle the exterior skin some, but that will be minor.

 This next series shows what remains after demolition of the bad wood and removal of the outside skin and insulation. A lot of the insulation is still usable. The door has also been removed, as the supporting board running beneath the floor has to be replaced as well as one of the jambs. The metal pan looking area is a sort of fender well for the wheels below. I assume it was to keep the wheels from throwing water and dirt up onto the floor above. I left it intact.

Outside view of the same area with the outside floor joist and rotten portion of the floor removed.

 Another exterior shot of demolition. Rotted wood and bad paneling are piled on the ground outside. Here you can see where the door was removed.

I replaced the outside floor joist 2x6 along with some judicious splicing. Here it is already attached.

 An outside shot of the new floor joist 2x6. This acts as floor frame and also supports the wall. There are metal braces below that attach it to the steel trailer frame.

Here is some of the new floor framing. 2x4 cross pieces were cut and inserted at about two foot spacing. The old flooring was cut even with the next existing 2x6 floor joist. A new 2x4 was added as a cleat against the existing joist to give something to attach the new strip of plywood to. In the upper right corner you can see one of the new floor pieces. I suspect you give up a bit of strength doing this. The floor was originally one sheet of plywood continuous across the width. That continuous piece gives it a membrane effect. To replace the whole floor would involve rebuilding the entire trailer from ground up. I don't have time, energy, or money for that. This will have to do.

Here both new sections of flooring have been attached and screwed to the floor joists. A note here, I've done this sort of thing on several mobile homes now and I've never once found one with a "standard" thickness of flooring. Fortunately, I had a piece of floor decking (also scavenged) that was pretty close to the same thickness. The new wall framing is also visible in this picture.

 New wall framing in place. To be consistent with the existing style of framing, a 1x2 runner was added along the top of the floor edge and new 2x2 verticals added to duplicate the original locations. One vertical stud had to be slightly relocated to accept the replacement window that, again, is of a different size.

 Verticals are notched on the outside to accept the horizontal 1x3's as well as the existing wiring. The skin will attach to the horizontals, while the inside paneling attaches to the vertical studs.

All the new framing for this wall is done. We're ready to screw the skin back on, insert the window, do insulation and inside paneling.


I'm not sure how feasible this project would be without having all the scavenged lumber available. So far we've only been out the moving fee for the trailer. All the lumber has come from scrap piles at other vendor's booths out at the Sherwood Forest site. The windows, paneling, and other material came inside this free trailer or the portable office building we were given that we now use as woodworking shop. (See previous post.)


More to follow soon!