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Posts Tagged ‘straw bale’

Sheathing

July 26th, 2009
Coyote House Farm | Blog

[slideshow id=76]

Yesterday Drew and I spent the day sheathing. Good thing he is the guy with the plan. I don’t need to know much about sheathing, but I’m very good at measuring a spot that needs a piece of wood, pondering about rotations, translations, and other geometric transformations, marking plywood, re-measuring, mentally cutting out the shape from plywood and matching it up to the hole, cutting the actual piece, and ending up with a really good hit rate for the thing actually fitting once Drew goes up on a the scary ladder to nail it into place.

The sheathing is the wood that runs around the tops of the exterior walls, just below the roofline, and above the top layer of straw bales, all around the building.

The shape of the sheathing is different on each of the different sides.

We are now done with all the sheathing, except for two tricky corner pieces—my job for the next work day. After that (and probably to be done in parallel) is the task of tacking the lathe (which really just means chicken wire) all over the building to completely encase it—straw, sheathing, and anything else in there—in a material capable of bonding to stucco.

Tags: Straw Bale, sheathing, lathe, chicken wire, plywood, measuring, cutting, farm building construction

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Another good thing

May 26th, 2009
Coyote House Farm | Blog

One of the reasons we had for using bales was protection from teh heat and cold. The cold at 400’ in the California North Valley is not too bad (good for fruit trees, no frost heave, etc.), but the heat in the summer is double plus ungood. We were all set to get the benefit of the cooler space once the place was dried-in, but found we were getting it as soon as the bale walls went up. True, we were not getting an 108 degree day, but it stayed at 72 degrees inside. Letting air cool down in the shade is a lot better than warm air passing by.

Dan is at her desk checking weather reports for the coming week. We look dry until the weekend, but there are some thunderstorms threatening to come in early next week. Looks like we’ll be doing some baling and more tarping next weekend.

Tags: rain, temperature, weather, Straw Bale

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Bales!

May 26th, 2009
Coyote House Farm | Blog

[slideshow id=46] Wow! Our bales are up! I can’t believe what we’ve gotten done! This was the smallest straw bale construction crew I’ve ever heard of, and actually probably the smallest crew that’s even feasible—just me, Drew, and Dave. In two work days, plus two days of Drew’s time getting materials set up ahead of time, we have put up almost all the bales on the straw bale field shed. What remains will be probably just as time-consuming, but the muscle-straining… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: straw bale construction, bales, courses

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I Can See Russia from My Field Shed

May 17th, 2009
Coyote House Farm | Blog

The weather report said we were going to hit 104 degrees on Sunday at the farm. We still had to finish the roofing. Dan had the brilliant idea, “Let’s do it at night.” Much better. While we have zero interest in staggering around on a slant 15 feet above the ground in weather that hot, doing so in darkness is quite alright with us. We rigged some florescent shop lights to run off a portable battery and congratulated ourselves on Dan’s genius in the merely warm evening… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: Straw Bale, roofing, bugs, field shed

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Pop!

April 28th, 2009
Coyote House Farm | Blog

At the end of the week of the 13th I looked at the NOAA weather report and saw that we were going to get a bit of heat in the North Valley. I took out my trusty EVo spreadsheet and laid in a course for an estimated average daily EVo of .25 for the week. That gave me back new timings for the watering: 9 minutes daily for the vegetables and 2 hours 11 minutes for the trees on Wednesday and Saturday. All watering is dripped at 4:00 am to avoid any annoying evaporation that does… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: irrigation, radishes, Straw Bale, roofing, EVo, fruit trees

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We Gots Apricots!

April 13th, 2009
Coyote House Farm | Blog

With the seeds in the ground and the timers set, the routine for the next few weeks has turned from planting to building, weeding, and checking on the infrastructure. This is the sweet spot at our place where the rain has tapered off and the snake desiccating heat has not started. Our son Dave came with us this weekend. He turned 18 a couple weeks ago and is getting ready to go off to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks in the fall. We’re going to miss him around the house and on the… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: Deer Fence, Straw Bale, dogs, apricots, building, Solar Living Institute

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Buck Building

April 6th, 2009
Coyote House Farm | Blog

Since we do not live at our farm, when we come to work at the farm, we really have to work! Drew has taken on the project manager role, planning each day’s action items and drafting lists of materials and tools we will need on hand to get the planned work done. Then, we spend time while we are at home in the Bay Area procuring whatever we don’t already have at the farm, doing advance research, everything possible that can be offloaded from the farm work day and done ahead of time… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: Straw Bale, window bucks, project management

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Newer entries »

Three farms are starting from scratch.

They are turning the dirt and hoping to be successful enough to turn a profit, and to become a valuable part of their communities as suppliers of organically grown food.

Peaceful Valley is giving them a head start by offering them special pricing as part of this Freshman Farmer program.

The Farm Blogs

Freshman:
New Farms Coming Soon!
Sophomores:
	Daily Grace Farms Crescent City, CA
	Freestone Family Farm Vernal, UT
	Wise Moon Farm Redding, CA
Graduates:
	Coyote House Farm Palermo, CA
	DeepSeeded Community Farm Arcata, CA
	Driftwood Farm Fort Bragg, CA
	EarthDance Farm St. Louis, MO
	Ellwood Canyon Farms Goleta, CA
	Four Frog Farm Penn Valley, CA
	Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm Poulsbo, WA
	Home Plate Organic Farm Orleans, CA
	Honey in the Heart Farm Nevada City, CA
	Willow Springs Farm Penn Valley, CA