Creating a Home in Romania
“One of the most joyous things we can do is to find our place, the land where we belong. Having found our place, we snuggle into it, learn about it, adapt to it, and accept it fully. We love and honor it. We rejoice in it. We cherish it. We become native to the land of our living.”
Carol Deppe
Last winter we witnessed 24+ hours of water flowing down our road … millions of liters. The sound of running water was beautiful but the sight of that water escaping was sad. It caused some damage to the road leading up to our property.
It was, I believe, a result of a wet season and years of over-grazing higher up in the valley (causing lack of vegetation to slow the flow of water and reduced water holding capacity in the soil).
When I talked about this with someone in the village he explained to me that it was my responsiblity (as the owner of the property) to build water ditches alongside the road to divert the water flow + “we’ve been doing it like this for generations, and there’s never been a problem!” It was as if he didn’t hear me … I could not find a way to show a deeper chain of causality where choices that we make upstream in our ecological cycles have downtstream effects.
Today I came across this video and wanted to make a note of it as evidence for future reference:
via Sunni
A house that was built in the late 80’s using Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language … how sweet to hear the talk of simple, natural, real unfolding:
“there was never a real set of plans … it evolved and its part of a philosophy, you wait until you get in the context and then you decide … does the window go here? does the windo’ go there? … its real easy on a drafting table, miles from the site to go ‘ok, we’ll put the window right in the middle’ … but when you get there you go ‘lets see, riiiiight there’s the view'”
I enjoyed this video of a house that was apparently built (~40 years ago?) by a pioneering thinker (Lloyd Texley, the former head of science for the Omaha Public School District). It gives a good idea of what is possible and I can only imagine what additional improvements and potentials lie ahead:
What a wonderful skill … beautiful work with a basic element and basic tools. I can imagine something like this being built over eathbag walls (though I don’t know about using it for an underground roof that may carry alot of weight … will it hold?)
The only place we’ve seen sunshine for the past … oh … I don’t know … at least a week, maybe two … was on a video call with Annelieke in Portugal. And this is what the 10 day forecast looks like:
This is that time of the year where the sun can be absent for weeks and the temperatures drop … and the theory of passive solar design simply cannot deliver. We simply cannot rely [for warmth during our winter months] on a daily cycle of solar charging and discharging.
That shortcoming hit me during the first winter at Bhudeva … and that is why I got excited when I discovered Passive Annual Heat Storage which is about creating a YEARLY cycle of charging abundant summer warmth and discharging it during winter.
After winding down from the full-house weekend … we got back to our “regular schedule”. Marta stayed with us a while longer and helped us get almost to the finish line.
We were excited to finally get to level 21. Here we are passing over the front arch for the first time:
When we finished that wall segment we finally got to pull out the forms … and … it was exhilarating to unveil the self-supporting arches … so simple, powerful (the more we weight we put on it – and we will be putting on quite a bit – the stronger it gets!)and beautiful (I’m really glad we decided to give arches a try!):
Yesterday we finished, with Marta’s, help going all the way around the structure and were left with only with two small segments of the outside wings.
Today Iulia and I went out and completed those two small segments – counting down the last of 6 sacks … and suddenly the the last can is tossed up, the last sack is placed down … the last tamping … earthbag walls were complete!
Fascinating journey from a crater to a structure… made of the same earth we dug out!
We are now waiting to see if we can get the acacia logs we want to make into a roof (our preferred option). If we do, they will be freshly cut and will need some time to cure … meaning that we won’t be able to place them on the structure before winter. If we don’t get the logs we will rever to plan B: regular 2×8 to build a flat roof. That may still happen in the coming weeks.
Depending on the weather we may be able to get some more primary rendering work done … but that is optional … maybe continue with the electrical wiring … I am relieved and satisfied we got this part done … much to share … too tired to do so now.
