New Blog Site

We moved in to the house two months ago.

I KNOW!!!!!

The house is amazingawesomespectacularwonderfulbeautiful.

It's a lot of work and we are scrambling to get the place ready for winter because, well, WINTER IS COMING. So that is why I haven't been blogging. Sorry about that. I have been updating the Facebook page (Tiny Abundant Life), so if you aren't following that you really should be.

Also, I have been sporadically working on a new site. When I get some more of the process written down, that is where it will go so be sure to join us at: http://halflingeverafter.wix.com/house.

The Stove: Part Two

Our stove, Smaug, was built by Ben.

(The Money Spent is all included in the "The Stove: Part One" post.)

The Roof: Part Two

Much of the roof work depended on the weather: the wind, the temperature, rain or snow, etc. A complex of tarps had to be rolled back to do the work and then unrolled at the end of each day to protect the roof materials from the elements. 

In February and March, we finally had warm enough weather to use the glue to adhere the blue board.  Over the eyebrow arches we needed a tighter bend than the 2-inch blue board would allow.  On the first layer, we cut long wedges to fit the curve.  It was tedious and tended to leave gaps at the top.  For the second two inches, we used two layers of 1-inch blue board.  It would bend far enough, but needed blocks laid on the edges to keep it glued down.

In late March we rolled out the craigslist pond-liner, discovered how much more we needed, and bought the remainder.   The seams of the EPDM pond-liner were glued with a special adhesive and then taped. It was a treat to remove the tarp completely and put it away.

The roof layers are (from bottom to top): 2x6 tongue-and-groove boards, plywood, flashing (on the edges of the overhang), blue board, pond-liner, straw, lava rock, straw, dirt, plants.

Flashing!

The black material on top is the pond liner. All of the blue board on the right side of the house in the picture will be bermed with earth.

This happy bird chirp chirped away while I took pictures of the roof. Soon there will be glass in that eyebrow window!

Roof! There it is!

The to-be-bermed area.

Money Spent: $7359 (17,637 total for roof)
$2153 pondliner for waterproofing
$3515 blueboard insulation
$  176 glue for blueboard
$ 890 lava rock
$ 545 25 4x8 5/8 cdx plywood and 4lb 1 5/8" black screws-coarse
$  80 16D vinyl coat sinker nails, 9x3 gold star screws, 2x8s, 15"x24' R19 insulation

(+ flashing and 12 tubes glue included under building materials)

The Waterproofing

We primed the outside of the wall and footing with Polyguard LT, some nasty smelling, strangely sticky, pink goo. It went on with a paint roller. If the wall was too wet, the primer would pull off in strings, reminiscent of an even more unwholesome version of cotton candy.

Once the primer cured, we adhered sheets of Polyguard waterproofing membrane. First we applied a strip to the base of the footing, folding it up toward the wall. Next we cut a much longer sheet. With one person on the roof and one on the ground, we positioned the rolled sheet of Polyguard. The roof-person held the top edge and let the roll fall. The ground-person lined the bottom of the edge and lifted the sheet to allow the backing to be peeled off. The roof-person began peeling off the backing and pass it to the ground-person. Then both would smooth and press the sheet onto the wall. The top of the sheets wrapped six inches or so onto the plywood of the roof.

Money Spent: $736

$   72 2 gallons everclear

$ 664 waterproofing for walls

The Front Door (Swoon!)

We have been working on the Hobbit House for nine months now and things are starting to get pretty!

The wall was framed in an uncharacteristically typical fashion: a flat face of 2x4 studs covered in plywood. Of course after that it went atypical with curved tops to the window and door frames. We stuffed in fiberglass batting into the stud gaps. Then we covered that with 1 1/2 inch blue board. Outside of that went a chunk of 6-mil black plastic that had been part of the roof-tarp complex. The next layer was 1x6 tongue and groove boards leftover from a project Ben had completed long ago.

Under the wall went a layer of plywood--basically an extension of the floor out to the edge of the footing. We laid two inches of blue board between the footing and the plywood. Since that plywood is outside, we put flashing scrounged from Grandpa's scrap piles over it.

We needed long screws--four inches so they could get through all the layers. The depth also lead to a door of extraordinary depth. The door is made of an inner layer of foam insulation sandwiched between 1x6 boards and another layer of 1x6s around the edges and crossbuck, that slightly swooping diagonal board. These layers are secured by pegs driven and glued into holes drilled through the whole door.  The pegs stand out from the surface, proud, and are rounded of for a nice finished look. To protect the wood from water and light, the door is finished with spar varnish. The door's window required round frames made of thin strips of wood glued into hoops, one for each side of the door. Ben also crafted a pair of steel hinges beefy enough to support this ponderous door.

The windows themselves were custom fabricated in town. Holding the windows in their frames necessitated thin strips of wood fastened with brads and silicone caulk.

I thought this was pretty adorable. It was just the beginning.

The weather outside is still often frightful, so all openings had to be covered with plywood when not being actively worked on.

Here is Ben working on the front door. The design went through several modifications.

We are all thrilled with the result.

A super thick custom door requires heavy duty custom hinges. So Ben made some. Like you do.

Getting more adorable with each step...

Windows in place. Wood on top of the foam insulation layer.

My heart bursts with the beauty of this.

The view from the road.

The view from inside.

The circular window frames the landscape so nicely. Those black squares will be removed, of course.

It's like a real hobbit hole!

Money Spent: $112
$  33 3/4" 4x8 thermax r 4.5, 3 1x6-10 3&BTR fir and larch

$ 19 6 4/4 poplar

$ 4 2x6-08 #2 & btr fir & larch

$ 20 6mil 10x25 black sheeting

$ 7 4 2" white china bristle brush

$ 9 subzero weatherstrip

$ 20 #2 whitewood

Katie and Sam take a walk

I wrote this for Sam about a month after we had (finally) met in person after six months of email courtship. We immediately knew that we wanted to get married, though we didn't get officially engaged for another few months.

For You

by Katie Carey

copyright 2010

beneath a belt of stars
in the early morning dark
she heard within her dreamtime
the lighting of a spark

the sound awoke a secret deep
within her, always known
the promise of a greener life
waiting to be grown

wind and flame, earth and rain
a crash, a burn, a death
something shattered, something singed
then All at Once new breath

     beneath the same new moon
     on his early morning stroll
     he heard from somewhere not far off
     the music of his soul

     he could not help but laugh aloud
     he knew this sacred song
     that blessed, affirmed and guaranteed
     what he'd known all along

     air and fire, soil and dew
     a bud, a hymn, a birth
     something offered, something claimed
     new life in his earth

          anointed by the breaking dawn
          they shared a love requited
          side by side, hand in hand
          he and she united

          Love found Home within their hearts
          consecrating both
          augmenting each other and
          cultivating growth

          mind and body, heart and soul
          a sigh, a dance, a code
          something gifted, something earned
          a consort for the road

excellent photo by Brigid Carey

Katie and Sam Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

I commissioned this poem during our first email flirtations...he aimed for a late wedding present and hit a birthday present. Now, of course, we have small children to defend as well.

Katie and Sam Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

by Sam Louden

copyright 2011

“chi-chouck-Boom!” goes the thunder and shivers the Earth

With foreboding: travails to come without life

Thence delivered but rent and devoured by rot.

Without hope, without love, nothing eases the globe

In its trembling fear of the coming of Death:

Its humanity doomed by its evils entombed.

First the Moon turns to blood, and the land is just ash.

Then some dreadful contagion that quickens the dead—

Into graves, through the gravel it creeps with the worms.

Then the corpses start clawing out, drawn to the warmth

Of the surface . . . and flesh of the living above.

It’s a walking corruption, Hades’ larval eruption.

But fair Katie, concerned about cosmic alignments

Thus neglects all the global upheaval around

With her eyes on the sky, she sees naught of the hands,

Whilst they claw from the dust within reach of her shoes,

But their clutches eludes by some provident grace:

A disaster unshown in the stars from this stone.

Meanwhile Sam, in the city yon thousands of miles—

And so terribly distant he never could hear

Of his loved ones’ triumphs or tragedies, save

For a seldom come messenger-note sent to disturb

The unending mundanity studying law—

Is distracted as well from the rising of Hell.

But the lumbering carrion too rank to ignore

Are discovered, belied by a shriek as the first

Of the billions succumbs to the hungering horde

Thus the flesh of the living is rent from their frames

And consumed to power their enemies’ march.

The sarcophagal woe to be feeding the foe!

And while watching for angels, the daemons moved in,

But awash in the noise of the falls of Spokane,

All the screams and the panic poor Katie hears naught

By peripheral vision, a stalker she spots

With its claws slackly reaching and staggering gait

But good Katie perceives as afflict’d, what aggrieves.

“It’s a leper!” she gasps with compassion misplaced,

While another fell Sheolite nears from the left.

She says, “Wait just a moment, there’s help for you now!”

So she runs for some yarrow, the ulcers to cleanse,

And some cloth to bind poultices, treating the fiends

Whose barbarity feeds on what charity cedes.

With a notion of healing incurable death

By the laying of hands and a brewing of teas

From salubrious herbage, goes Katie the Brave.

Far off sirens descry the emerging attack,

As quick units respond to callers aghast,

But the heroes arrive to find no one alive.

In an ambulance rushing the shreds of a girl

To the hospital hoping for life-saving care

The red ribbons of flesh and her bones start to stir.

As the rescuer holds down the oxygen mask,

A dull eye down below coolly gauges a strike.

With a lunge from beneath, he is pierced by her teeth.

As the melee of gluttonous monstrous gore

Across Boston intractably spreads, there are bands

Of the pushers of drugs and nefarious deals

All protecting their turfs from a tougher-still gang—

Almost ghosts: it is goon against ghoul and the guns

Of the living just slow up the dead as they go. . .

On to crunch on a thug, onetime thought to be tough,

But perhaps a bit soft in the middle, like cream

In canoli, the gifts of the gangsters fill those

Of the Sheolites.  Organized criminals flee

To the cops who are nursing their wounds all afraid

That they know what is next, like the doomed duly hex’d.

But in Eastie, the street-gangs, less easily spook’d,

Are resolved to resist with machete in hand

A good tool, which is found to destroy the undead,

And the trick to the kill is to sever the spine

At the neck or to spill out the skulls of the creeps.

So from clutches depraved, Sam by Jésus was saved.

On a jet out of Logan, abandoning books

And the mess of the city goes Sam towards his home.

It’s the last of the flights as the slaughter soon shuts

Down the airport’s security—threat-level: Black.

As the airliner circles the city to head,

To the West—he sees smoke from the Hub’s ev’ry spoke.

But for Katie in Spokane, the smoldering scene

Is less crazed and dramatic since masses of folk

Can still flee to the hills and since fewer rent crypts,

From the graveyards—diffuse, were there spilling forth death.

So her city is silent and smokeless—all dark

Without riot or fire it’s a quieter shire.

While the horrified herd in the pines are well hid

Some survivors in hopeful small pockets in town

Still remain behind barricades, vigilant, true,

Where they care for their comrades wounded by barbs

Of the gaucho wire coils on the battlement walls

In resisting a while with both shotgun and guile.

For with wily resistance alone can the folk

There together hold out, more unsafe by the hour.

As the horrible horde unbelievably grows

As the gathering ghouls turn their fodder to friend

For a bite from a fiend will infect the poor soul

Who receives it, then kill and subvert it to ill.

And ‘tis folly to punch an attacker’s slack face

For a fist in the teeth is as bad as a bite

To the hand, which feeds the innumerable ranks

Of the enemy dire whose desire is the blood

And extinction of healthy humanity: war

Of attrition and war of additional gore.

An Alaska Air jet liner flies over land

Overrun by undead and hysteria’s flush,

All unseen from the air where a passenger, Sam

On the aisle is sitting absorbed in thoughts

Of his home and insomnia.  Nothing like sleep

Could be possible now though the quites allow.

There is no one complaining the drink cart stayed stowed,

Because everyone’s minds are on something more dire.

Of the passengers sped through the security lines,

There is one looking ashen and shivering tired,

But if anyone notices, they take it as nerves,

Because all are appalled by the doom but forestalled.

In mid-flight the wan passenger seems to pass out

On the shoulder of neighboring Twenty-one E

Who, displeas’d as she is, has to bear his head too,

For the seatbelt is fastened and tray-table down.

Then a piercing and gurgling scream like a shock

Sends the passengers spines into rigid designs.

In a flash all their seatbelts were shed all as one,

And the bloody necked woman is freed from assault

By the brawny quick hands of Samaritan men,

Put on edge by the terror attacks of the past

And the horrors of stories more currently run.

Her assailant restrained, they then see themselves stained.

In a crush all the passengers flee from the scene

Of the woman convulsing and heroes besmear’d

And the struggling body beneath them, fierce.

In the panic of futile escape many elbows are thrown

And some legs are now broken and many have blood

On their skin and so begins a tsunami of sins.

Accusations and punches are flying while wails

Of the fearful, the outraged, and people unhinged

Through the cabin engulf them in waves of cold fire.

Although Sam is still safe having stayed in his seat,

Some contusions from other folk scrambling by

Are the signs of the strife of the struggle for life.

In the blink of an eye, the once victim now bites

At the ankle of one of the men holding the first

Of the crew of contagion.  Bit to the bone

The once valiant hero lets go of his hold.

Unrestrained the monster begins to get free

And sinks teeth into meat by the exit row seat.

So now everything moving is suspect of harm,

And the mob of the passenger savages beat

Into motionless goo anything threatening to move

Until no one is conscious but Sam who is still

In his seat saying, “I WISH it were snakes!”

Though the bloodbath was done, he had want of a gun.

Back in Washington, Kate, at the falling of night

Had to tend to survivors of daylight attacks

On the camp where she heals the wounded and sings

Away fear, while her fellows grow fewer and hope

Has run low.  Through the avenues eerie, grim sounds

Of predation and prayer, often burden the air.

Through the densest of dark in the midst of the night,

A tremendous loud crashing resounds through the town.

All at once it awakens those sleeping through dreams

Of their nightmarish days.  At the sound they all quake;

All but Katie, who hurries to help if she can

Those entrapped or hurt by the cause of alert.

Upon wreckage extreme and distressing she came,

The aluminum fuselage torn from a plane

And upholstery shredded and heaped in piles

On the sidewalk and strewn from the streetlights and signs.

From behind a small heap of a crumpled up wing,

Comes a whisper through shakes, “I wish it were snakes.”

And so Katie finds Sam still snug-buckled in seat,

And is HE glad she freed him at last, trapped no more

On the worst ever flight!  To the camp they return

But too late—for a raid of the ghouls left alive

Not a single survivor.  The couple reverse,

Yet unsens’d by the foe, and by safer ways go.

Thus together the couple must hide from the creeps

On the roads and in basements relying on luck

And the other.  They often survive by the skin

Of their teeth, but they DO survive, thriving on herbs

In the woods and on love in their hearts, and avoid

Being slaughter’d or worst, turn’d to creatures accurs’d.

In the surfeit of carrion, even the wolves

And the ravens, disgusted, can stomach no more.

With the bodies so many and flies all too few,

There is nothing around to dispose all the corpses

So bacteria pick up the slack, and the air

With putrescence hangs like Rot’s yellowy fangs.

In the hill they have burrow’d, ensconc’d in basalt

Thus protected from weather and weirdo. They stack

In rough heaps the loose rocks to prevent an assault

By delaying the charge and hiding from view the keep,

In which Katie and Sam behind walls are alive

And so tougher to eat while still tender and sweet.

In the pantries of derelict bungalows, Kate

With due caution collects imperishable foods,

While her Sam is on guard with a shovel in hand

To dispatch any prowlers out foraging flesh.

In the gardens of empty rancheros grow plants

That can serve as a meal and alternatively heal.

A machete is found and so Sam feels secure,

Between that and his shovel most dangers are null:

Both the perils of cannibal fiends and the weeds

That bedevil the cabbages’ beds.  But the beasts

Have decreased in number and vigor so brush

Gets the chops of his blade more than monsters decayed.

Through the stink and the loneliness Sam and his Kate

Somehow manage to make do and make out.  And at last

There are few enough freaks to let fires be lit. Warmth

Is most welcome to cave living Kate, who can heat

Up the beans from the cans she has scroung’d or the beets

Just uprooted and sit, now remembering to knit.

And so Kate car’d for Sam and her Sam car’d for Kate

In the thick and the thin, in the perils and calms,

Just like love ought to play out, a mutual help.

And humanity lasted persisting in Katie and Sam

In the love of the other a team made of win

Which defeated the foe that crept from below.  

bad ass cartoon by Mike Ott