It's a house

It's starting to look like a house.

Well, it's really starting to look like a house now.  Sam and his crew are done with the framing.  Tomorrow they will come back for a day or so to put the roof on.  It's already been delivered, we're going with a dark green, metal roof.

Les and I spent a good portion of Saturday going out to Monte Vista, Colorado, to pick up the straw.  It was an adventure.  We left early in the morning, and got out there about 3 hours later.  Fred, our straw guy, loaded us up with 90 bales and we came on home.  Straw chaff flying everywhere.  We still need another 300 bales for the house.

Les and Fred loading the bales.

Our trip was uneventful, but we enjoyed the beauty of the drive.  Colorado is just such a pretty state.  The aspens are starting to don their fall regalia.  The mountains were bright white with the recent snows.  It's still in the high 70's or low 80's during the day, but night time has been getting down to the 30's.  I have our bedroom windows cracked open only about an inch at night now.  Soon, it will be time to close them altogether until spring.

Nails to hold the base layer of bales.

I've spent a few hours pounding nails to hold the bales on their perches.  Les took this morning to cut the foam that will insulate these perches... 2 pressure treated 4x4's lined with foam and rock.  This keeps the bales dry and off of the concrete. 

We had our first material snafu, we ordered all of our windows and doors from Lowe's.  But the big windows on the south side needed to be tempered glass.  Sam pointed that out last week, so we went to check and sure enough, they're standard glass, not tempered.  Several calls later, we have a rush order on 2 - 7-1/2 foot and 2-10 foot windows.  These windows are HUGE!  The better to see our beautiful view, but mainly they're for the passive solar heat gain. 

Our new front door... almost finished!

I also talked to the guy building our front door.  Les will be thrilled... it's gorgeous.  I'm thinking of having our kitchen cabinets made out of the same beetle-kill wood.  The beetles cause a fungus to get into the wood, turning it a beautiful blue-gray.  The only good thing about this epidemic is the wood... it's stunning!  And since the tree is dead anyway, I don't feel bad about cutting it down.  Tree-hugger Mary.