Here is the ho-made lumber rack slash canopy for the pickup. Jenny and Eric made it in their spare time and almost froze their kahoonies off.

With the supervision of legendary Rob Roy Mackey we finished the floor joists. As you can see it is trying to snow also.

some google sketchup shots of new building.

Here's a shot of the eco house that is on display at the Botanic Gardens on the Mall in DC. It is strawbale with some fantastic plaster on the inside. With luck we will have it out here in Maryland after New Year.

Today we placed and bolted the sill beams. They are 10x12 timbers from the old Matapeake Ferry dock. They fit nicely on the brick piers and have a very solid feel. Barrett Snow came back to help us, he is an up and coming stunt man, check out his site: www.barrettsnow.com. Jenny Nazak is also here , she lives in Austin, TX and has graced us with her presence for a while. It actually tried to snow a little today. Pretty cold and breezy. Kappy is recovering from donating a kidney to her friend Lee.

Today is Monday and I finished off the piers and filled them with concrete. Now we just wait for them to harden before placing the 10"x12" beams which were recovered from the old Mattapeake ferry terminal . Before the bay bridge across Chesapeake Bay you had to use the ferry which ran from 1919 to 1952.

on site board stack and foundation piers

Building a space for healing

Kappy Laning has been a Breathworker for many years and decided she wanted her own special space to practice. She and her husband Sam Droege have done extensive remodeling of their home with strawbale and timber framing so they wanted a simple building that used locally available and recycled materials to reduce the carbon footprint. There were several trees on the land that were not fairing too well so they were cut down and turned into boards with a Wood Mizer portable sawmill. Sand from a foundation trench has been mixed with broken concrete and local gravel to form piers. Windows and beams will come from Rob Roy Mackey who collects just about everything. Rob Roy also loaned us his winch truck and dump truck. We will be getting recycled boards from the Community Forklift, a building material recycler near here. Straw bales will come from a local farmer. We have several volunteers helping us and Barrett Snow, up and coming stunt man has been hard at work for several weeks. At this point the piers are almost done and as soon as the concrete and mortar have hardened we will place the foundation beams and go up from there.