Number 1 shot gun kuti

Today we continued work on the first of the small cabins. It took us most of the morning to move tools, materials and equipment to the site, set up power and the air compressor, and finally get ready to start working.

The main beams were leveled and shimmed, then the joists were assembled into a frame. Building felt was attached to the frame, then hardware cloth "rat wire" on top of the felt. Next we flipped the frame so the rat wire is on the bottom, insulated it with R21 fiberglass insulation, and prepared to deck the surface. Just before this we back-filled around the footers, mostly by hand. Although the foundation and deck are simple there was still a lot to do.

We would have gotten more done save for a number of screw ups and obstacles we encountered. One of the joists had a shape like a football, so we had to pull that one out and replace it with a proper joist. A staple gun lost its spring power and entered early retirement. The decking T&G turned out to be a 1/2 inch less wide than we expected and that stopped us, amid much cursing from Brian who was quite affronted by this shortcoming.

Along with the materials issues, we found ourselves many times missing a tool or a supply of nails or *something* which was needed and so sent somebody up to the barn to fetch it. Usually this was Mischa (thanks Mischa!) - he ran up and down that hill probably 10 times today.

Pictures here show Mischa and Brian working on the foundation and deck.

Back to work, Electricity again

I (Brian) got in late yesterday and this morning went to work on putting in electricity at the "VIP Kuti". As expected it was an all-day job, but with Mischa's help it got done. I put a very small load-center breaker box in the kitchen area and installed a single utility receptacle nearby. On the other end we sorted out all the cuts, unions, curves and joins of the conduit to safely and securely wire in to the barn load center.
The weather is very typical for this time of year. It got up to about 96 degrees and was mostly sunny. I hope it cools down soon, hot work is more tiring.
Now I'm exhausted again - a familiar feeling for my OGM time. Someday I'm going to come up here and not work... Some day. Maybe...

Plants, deer, new kuti and temp facilities.

Mischa and I have been really putting in the work. Don't know what I would do with him helping.

We have gotten temp kitchen, bath and laundry facilities up and running. Mischa built wire deer proof cages for ALL of the landscaping trees and shrubs, about 100, and installed them as well as weeding around every plant. We poured the concrete footings for the first 2008 kuti today with Mischa doing most of the mixing and me helping when it was time to set the beam clamps.

I spent time in the VIP kuti putting in the safety railing in the loft. Pictures of that when it is done.

Here are pictures of the deer cages, and the temp facilities.

We had a different sort of visitor last night - some creature tore through the stacked trash and left a few mementos. Apparently it was a large black bear.

OGM is really rolling along.

Continuing to work

Since Brian left about two weeks ago Mischa and I have been steady working at many tasks.

We completed the hookup of grey water lines at the Central Bath Facility (CBF) and covered that trench. Have completed the installation of the cedar ceiling in the VIP Kuti. Thought we had finally finished with the water leaks/cheap valve replacements at the shop area but now it seems we still have some problems there. I will dig again ( fourth time ) in the next day or so.

We have almost completed "deer proofing" all of the vulnerable shrubs and young trees. We have been building wooden frames in three sizes and then covering them with poultry wire. These work well and can easily be removed to allow for weeding/pruning. The deer here are voracious feeders and what they won't eat today they will tomorrow or next winter. I have found that plants listed as, unappetizing to deer, are not always that.

I have now installed the "temporary" kitchen at the CKF. Last friday I purchased a new refrigerator and used gas range and installed those along with a counter top. Today I will hang a sink and plumb it as well. This "temp" kitchen will serve until we install the permanent one next month. The temporary one is in another area from where the permanent kitchen will go so will be usable the entire time we are building.

The CBF is up and running except there is no sink as of yet.

All in all things are rolling along fairly well. Facilities are coming on line even if they are still in need of much of the cosmetic finishing touches.

Coming up in the next week or two is digging and filling in electric line trenches. More water line repairs and digging. I have some work to do in the VIP to install a railing in the loft and some "temp" facilities in the kitchen. When Brian gets the electric hooked up I have a small sized refrigerator for the Kuti as well.

Brian's last visit of three weeks was a great help here at OGM as it always is and we thank him for it. Also the good work we are getting from Mischa is very much appreciated. As soon as we get three cabins up for him and his two fellow retreatants they will be going into retreat. We hope that will be by Oct 1st of this year.

We are still waiting on the IRS to rule on the 501c3 application. Last we heard was they had recieved the paperwork and cashed the check ( of course ) and that they would be in touch within the next 60 days. That was 35 days ago.

Shacks

The plans for what we've been calling "shotgun shacks" - the design doesn't actually qualify as such since it doesn't have a back door - is nearing readiness. It's basically a one room cabin with a door and 4 windows and a propane heater. There's a small porch, a little loft, a sink and a small counter, a bit of furniture, and that's about it. No electricity (yet), and no other plumbing. The interior area is about 80 feet square. It would make a nice artist's studio or small office, or small crafts workshop. We'll see what the hermits think of them.
The roof profile is based on the practical rural buildings found in Arkansas and Missouri.

Broken pipe, Electricity!

The electrician came today and did the hookup. At long last we have juice at the barn! Since we actually spend more time in the barn than anywhere else when working on projects, this milestone is very significant to us.
I had also planned on completing the supply plumbing and getting the bathroom up in the barn today, but Murphy's law asserted itself: The buried valve we found last week that supplies water to the barn broke when we tried to turn it on. It now needs digging up and replacing before the barn water can be re-established.

Wat Metta Monks

The Ajahn and another of the monks from Wat Metta near San Diego came for a visit. They chanted a long blessing for the place and Roger's amulets.
Pictured here are Roger, Ajahn Thanissaro, Tan Dan, and Brian.

Supply plumbing, rock wrangling, rainbow

The supply plumbing is about 85% done and we can see the way clear to getting the toilet and shower online tomorrow. Also tomorrow the electrician is coming and Roger had to cut some more trenches for the conduit. Along the way he hit a very big rock. After 1/2 hour he finally wrestled it out of the ground and dragged it away in triumph! At the end of the day the rain finally quit and a big double-rainbow graced the eastern sky.

Interior walls, Vent plumbing

Our internet service has been out for 3 days due to the ongoing storms. Now we're back online.
Partition walls went up today for the barn bathrooms, along with vent plumbing for the wet wall. It's all looking straight and tidy despite our amateur status. Mischa is learning how to properly swing a hammer.

Plumbing milestone, more wire

Today I closed the barn subfloor, having *finally* finished the DWV plumbing for the central bathing area. Michael and Mischa continued doing conduit and wire work. Later this week we hope to have the local electrician make all the connections. Shown here are M & M gluing up some conduit in the ongoing rain. The order errors were corrected today with an afternoon delivery from Omak, so we're back on track. Tomorrow we start putting up walls and vent plumbing, then supply plumbing, then flush!

More wire and conduit, a change in the weather

Today the conduit to the barn was completed. The weather turned from sunny and warm to cool and rainy, with lots of lighting last night. Late in the afternoon we had a ferocious rain and hail storm. There's nothing like the sound of grape-sized hail pummeling the metal barn roof. We discovered that our big materials order had some serious errors in it. Have to call and hassle the vendor on Monday.

Wire unrolling day

We unrolled 3 big spools of wire for the electrical service. Shown here are Brian and Mischa wrangling a spool. It was a hot sunny day and sunburns all around. Once the main wire was laid out we started sleeving the conduit.

Big materials delivery

Today we received a substantial order of building materials. Other than that and cooking and setting up a tent, we took it fairly easy today. With our volunteers on hand we now have more than enough to keep us busy, starting tomorrow...

Kuti A plumbing, spring visitors, storm

This evening we had quite an impressive storm - several inches of rain, huge bolts of lightning and thunder, wind - awesome. The sky was a rare orange-gold color, and highly variable. Towards the West the sunset was still visible, towards the east dark, grey, threatening. Overhead like a boiling cauldron.

Monks and laypeople showed up today as well. We now have 4 visitors.

Over the last few days we did some more purchasing, including a $6K order to be delivered by our friends at H.Depot in Omak, we put up all the available cedar boards in the ceiling and gables of Kuti-A, but ran out of wood before we fininshed. Also the sheetrock in the main room went up. Today I plumbed a greywater line and supply and hung a sink in Kuti-A, and cleaned up the site. A monk sleeps there tonight.

Some plumbing, and a Not so good Barn Cat

 

Today we got a lot of plumbing done; Roger put in 150' water line to the first Kuti in a 4' trench (12 hours of digging!), and I laid out the pipes for the greywater lines. I'm missing a dozen or so fittings and will have to wait until Tuesday to get them as there are no open hardware stores around until then.
I also pulled up a bit of the decking on the north side of the barn and ran an electrical conduit (grey 2") across the barn crawlspace for future use to run power from the forthcoming barn sub-panel down to the first Kuti.
In doing this bit of work I discovered a massive mouse-stash. The barn mice have been busy stashing food in this one convenient corner of the barn under the floor. I found about 2 pounds of dog kibble (from Snoozer's days), chicken scratch feed, (from a bag in the barn) and several pounds of CAT FOOD, stolen from the barn cat, "Kiddos".
Kiddos is an American short-hair, spayed female, looks to be about 4-5 years old. She has a reputation for catching mice, but apparently the mice have been getting away with regular food-snatching forays. Pictured here is our mediocre barn cat, looking fairly harmless.

Big shopping, found water, hare

Yesterday we went shopping in Spokane and dropped a couple of grand on building materials. We're not done yet, have to have another order pulled for us by our vendor(s). We're spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave.
Today we received some additional information on the layout of the service lines and based on that were able to find the water to the barn; we're very pleased! But time is flying by and it seems not much actual progress is happening. The days are too short or we're too old or something.
In the evening, after calling it a day, a snowshoe hare hung out in the front garden to greet us. He's brown now that the days are longer, with just a little bit of his white winter coat still showing. He froze on the gravel for me for a good 3 minutes while I took pictures.

Barn septic tank access lid location

The tank access plate is about 12" down from the surface, a few dozen feet to the south-west of the barn. It is a 8x12 concrete lid with a pull-loop fabricated from 12-gauge copper romex cable.
Its location can be triangulated with two tape measures. It is 37'-6 from the west post of the south barn awning, and 20'-6" from the frost-free water tap to the South of the barn.

The Hunt for the Water Line, Trenches

Yesterday we got the last window in Kuti-A installed, plus finished the interior walls and put in a trench for greywater. At the end of the day a hose blew out on the backhoe.
Today the trenching continued. Roger's Deere backhoe got a good workout, after minor repairs.
We went looking for the water supply cutoff valve to the barn by scratching (shallow excavation) in front of the rollup door. The valve is probably there, but we just couldn't find it. After excavating about 250 square feet we gave up and decided to tap into one of the lines connecting a nearby frost-free water tap.
Next we went looking for the septic system cover and found it on the first try. As expected it appears unused, but it is full of water suggesting that the local rain and snow-melt accumulates there, probably because the access port is in a depression. We'll mound it up when we re-bury it.
I started wall layout in the barn for the central facility but quickly ran into several small issues. First I'm getting a cold or something and feel pretty awful. 2nd there's a perforated pipe that vents the underside of the floor deck which runs exactly where I want to put the main waste stack. Will have to re-route it. Next we went to put in a trench for the greywater line and started by scratching down along the side of the building to find the base of the foundation. We were assuming a poured foundation and quickly discovered that we're dealing with a a wooden foundation the first I've ever seen. That was good news in a way because now we don't have to drop our greywater line very deep to go below the base of the foundation, we can go right through the side of it. On the other hand I reckon a wood foundation won't last as long as a concrete poured foundation would do. Next we went to dig a greywater trench and ended up cutting the sewer line.
A mixed bag day for sure.

Hammers start to swing

I (Brian) arrived on site on Thursday evening and after a day of review and planning, today Roger and I started swinging hammers. We re-set the loft in Kuti-A, built 1 interior wall, installed two windows, and purchased a bunch of stock to build the interior walls in the central facility.

The plan for Spring Building

With the planned arrival of 3-4 full-time meditators in July, we've changed direction on accommodations a bit. We're setting aside the plan to build a second kuti similar to the 1st, and instead we're planning to put set of 4 very small single-room cabins and a central bathing/office/cooking facility at the barn. We only have 3 weeks to get most of it done and fortunately we have some volunteers coming to help. We're also going to run grid electricity to the barn so we can power the workshop, office, and laundry/bathroom/kitchen facilities for our visitors.
Brian on site 5/15, start work on 5/16. Visitors on 5/29. Brian leaves 6/6.

Construction and garden

The porch and steps into the VIP kuti are now done. The porch, covered, is approx. 6'X8' with a set of steps from the ground to the porch and another set from the porch into the kuti. The roof was a bit difficult given that the existing roof on the kuti is a very step angle thus not allowing a continuation of that angle for the porch roof. The level of the porch had to drop by nearly 2 feet to give the needed head room. The rafters for the porch are bolted to the main roof rafters and are also strapped to the kuti walls. All in all a sound and strong system if not the prettiest.

In the garden the strawberries seem to be making it and I am waiting for the first planting of lettuce, onions, carrots and radishes to come up. We have been having a few days in the 70's alternating with days in the 50's. I have had to cover a few nights as we are still getting some freezing temps. I will put out the first round of plants, that have been started inside, this next week. Temps are projected to be in the low 80's by weeks end with over night temps staying in the low 40's.

Most all of the 110 trees/shrubs that were planted this spring are showing signs of life and many of last years plantings as well. It will be another week or two before it's possible to know for sure who will make it and who won't.

Brian will arrive late Thursday to help with the 2008 building season. We have some very ambitious plans for this year. Finish the VIP and add four smaller kutis. Install a central bath and kitchen facility and run electricity to the shop/bath/kitchen building and on to the VIP kuti. The electricity will require digging about 800 feet of trench to bury the lines. I have a backhoe so that should be mostly machine work.

Garden for the hermits

I put in 80 strawberry plants and 25 asparagus plants today. I also have several varieties of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, 6 different peppers and two types of tomatoes waiting for it to warm up a bit more before putting them outside. There will also be peas, green beans, corn and potatoes in the garden. This garden will be for the hermits that will be staying with us.

Construction work begins tomorrow now that the garden is pretty well lined out.

Spring is here? Maybe!

We have been having a few warm days ( 65 degrees ) but it is still snowing every few days.
110 trees and shrubs have been put in so far this spring. These are either fruit trees for the orchard or wind break/privacy screens for the Kuti sites.

There are two monks coming the end of May and the first of June and then there are going to be four full time lay meditators arriving sometime late June or early July. These four will be here indefinitely, continuing their extended meditation practice.

Brian and I will start the new seasons building projects the middle of May. Finish the VIP Kuti, build a central bath and kitchen facility and put up four "shotgun" cabins for the new meditators.

We will be very busy to say the least.

Once the threat of frost is over I will be moving all of the vegetable plants outside that I have started from seed inside. Looking forward to some good home grown vegetables.

It's almost spring

Well we are getting ready for a big second season here at OGM. The snow is almost all melted and the ground is beginning to thaw during the day and refreeze at night, but we are slowly gaining on it.
We have plans for finishing the interior on the first cabin and getting two more "habitats" up and usable by the end of the summer. These may be yurts, miners tents or mountain tents, but we will have something going.
Plans are finalizing for the central bath facility and for installing some electric and propane to the shop/post office/general store.
There will be a lot happening this season to include a fully operational website and hopefully the final approval on the non-tax status from the feds.
There should be a lot of listings starting in a about a month.

First Guests at the Hermitage

On December 3rd I traveled to Spokane,Wa. to pick up our first guests. These were two Theravada Buddhist Monks from “Wat Metta Forest Monastery” near San Diego,Ca. They stayed with us for 10 days and Brian was able to fly in for a few days as well.
The Monks were Tan Peter, a monk of 6 rains and Tan Chris who has just completed his first rains retreat. They both felt that we had chosen a beautiful spot and one which carried good feelings with it as well. The kuti (cabin) was not completed but was in good enough order to keep a monk warm and dry. I built a small temporary structure inside the shop for the second monk to stay in. Brian and I are very pleased to have had our first visitors and look forward to many more. We hope to have two more monks in January and then a visit from Ajaan Thanissaro Bhikku, the Abbott of Wat Metta, is expected this summer. He is a well known translator, author and teacher of Buddhist literature and meditation in the lineage of Ajaan Mun, Ajaan Lee, Ajaan Fuang and Ajaan Suwat.

Brian and I are gratified and honored to be able to support these monks and their “Forest” tradition.

Window installation

As soon as I started to install the first window I realized that we had made a major mistake. Brian and I both knew better but must have gone "brain dead" for awhile. We had installed the T 1-11 while waiting for the windows to arrive but of course the windows need to go in BEFORE the siding so that the siding will lap over the windows "installation/nailing" flange. Well I certainly wasn't going to remove the siding so I cut an inch and a quarter piece of siding off from both sides and the bottom of each window. Leaving the top edge intact. I then caulked the exposed window framing and slid the window nailing flange under the siding along the top edge and then set the window into place. After plumbing and leveling the windows I secured them. I then cut some 1/2" X 1" stock and used this to fill the gap between the siding and the window frame. I used liberal amounts of caulk when installing the filler stock. All will be covered by a wide trim around each window. The pictures show 5 of the nine windows installed. The large "picture" window is ready to install but as it is to heavy for me to go up the ladder with it by myself it will remain, temporarily, installed on the inside until our first visitors arrive next week. There will be two Buddhist Monks coming to stay for ten days starting the 3rd of Dec. I will get them to help me hoist the big window into place. The other windows, one on the north side and two in the loft will wait until after they leave. The Kuti is now heated and minimally acceptable for someone to stay.

Brian is going to come for a weekend while the Monks are here as they are our first "hermits" and he wants to be part of that. These Monks will also do a blessing ceremony while they are here.

Insulation and siding.

Finished the interior insulation yesterday. I used R-21 Kraft backed fiberglass on the walls. To cut insulation to fit special sizes and shapes it is easiest to use two pieces of wood each laying parallel to the desired cut line about 1/2" away. Then push down compressing the insulation and use a sharp knife or razor cutter. Place a throw away board underneath.
Today I finished installing the siding on the gable ends. I will still need to cut out the window openings when I am ready to install the windows.

INSULATION

INSTALLED R-30 KRAFT BACKED INSULATION BETWEEN THE RAFTERS AND ON THE EAST GABLE END. USED 1/4" STAPLES BUT FEEL THAT 5/16" WOULD BE BETTER.

Roofing Pictures

Have been a bit under the weather for a few days but now feeling well enough to post the pictures from the last of the roofing work. You'll see Brian cutting the gable end steel with hand cutters as it is beginning to snow, installing the ridge steel while riding the horse, a shot of the west end showing the completed gable and one of the mountains to the south with a fair dusting of snow on them. Those mountains are about 1,000 ft above the hermitage so our days are numbered as far as snow pack is concerned.

Next I will be picking up the windowns and installing them along with roof and wall insulation. After that will come a small set of stairs with walkway and a small sitting deck all on the north side.

Thanks to Brian

Many thanks go to Brian for dealing with all of the "High" work as my legs begin getting electric shocks in them when I get up high and the perch feels precarious.

Mission Accomplished

I'll let Roger post the pictures, but I'm happy to note that we finished the critical bits of the metal roof trim, specifically the ridge cap and (most of) the gable ends. It was a bit touch and go there for a while - I managed to get caught on the roof when a little rain storm came along. Thankfully the sun also came out long enough to complete the on-roof work.
At this point the building appears to be weather-tight and ready to insulate.

Miscellaneous

Door hung, 1/2 the drip edge up, 1/2 panel of T-111 up on the gable end, heater installed, and generator moved to supply electricity to the barn and (eventually) the kuti. Raining and snowing and cold and wet today, lovin' it. A decent amount of work, we celebrated with pizza inside the kuti, the first meal there.

Arkansas dry-in

All the roof steel is up save the trim, which we'll do later this week. Cutting 12' panels of roofing steel with a tin-snip by hand is tedious. Now we have plastic sheeting on the window holes, tyvek on the gable ends, and the exterior door nearly mounted. Tomorrow maybe we'll put a heater in there and we'll be "dried in" It seemed like a lot of work today for relatively little result. Some days...

Roof, shopping

Woke up to rain, but managed to work in the last big sheets of roofing metal during the breaks. A bit scary up there today.
Went shopping and picked up drip edge for the eaves and some material to hook up a heater inside, and an exterior door. Tomorrow we hope to place the siding on the gable ends and dry it in using poly sheeting over the window holes. It would be nice to work in a heated space...

Metal Roof

Fabral Grandrib-3 metal roof, the standard choice in these parts. The color is "tan" which should blend pretty well with the grassland aspects of the environment, if perhaps not so well with the trees. We actually preferred "forest green" but couldn't justify the heat load during the summer as that color absorbs about 2x as much heat.
Much cursing and minor bloodspill today. We got about 2/3's of the sheets up after several hours of puttering, talking, figuring out how to do things, making mistakes and so forth. If we had it to do again of course it would take half as long.
Roger's big innovation of the day is a ladder laying on the roof, suspended by a "deadman" (seen the photo here) which acts as a counterweight. The ladder on the roof gives a relatively safe working surface, albeit one that's a bit tough on the knees, shins, hips, etc. I'm wiped out this evening.
Today's Painful Lessons:
- The flanged bump goes UNDER the bump of the next sheet, not over.

- Avoid 45 degree angle roofs (more reasons to avoid them discovered today)

- Never use OSB for any structural purpose. Even though it's "rated" for our application, about 20% of the screws went through the metal and failed to get a proper bite in the decking. Plywood would not have failed in this way. OSB is cheap to buy, but not so cheap to work with. Plus it irritates the skin when you're putting up tarpaper on your 45 degree angle roof which the designer stupidly specified because he likes the look. Fire that guy!

We'll have to order a custom fabricated metal drip edge for the eaves because of the horizontal rafter cuts, but that should work OK for shedding water.

Back to Work

Winter's coming and we're finally getting around to finishing up the basics - getting the roofing material on, and (maybe) the doors and windows in. With whatever time we have to spare from those activities we'll get started on the interior.
Today we put tarpaper down on the slightly weathered OSB roof decking. I like the look of the 12:12 pitch roof, but it's tough to work on and I'm not doing *that* again. The next roof will be one I can stand on without toeboards.


Roger went out and bought a new tractor for the place, an extremely nice John Deere machine with a loader, backhoe, rock rake, and other implements. This should be good to handle all the heavy work for many years to come. Today I drove it around a bit just for the fun of it...

NEW EQUIPMENT

Did some horse trading and finally got the right equipment for work around the hermitage.

Traded the big yellow hoe for the orange kubota and cash.

Traded the kubota and cash for the New Green Machine and attachments.

Gable end framing

Nothing special about this just straight forward framing.

Filling in the spaces.

Finally back to work on the Kuti.

Now it's time to fill in the spaces between the rafters just under the roof and above the wall top plate. We wanted to make double sure that we are rodent proof as well as keeping out wasps, ants and other small pests. We also want to allow for some venting of the insulation area under the roof and over the ceiling. This opening is 10 inches from the top plate to the underside of the roof sheathing. I used 5/8 CDX, thinking it thick enough to resist warping. I cut one sheet into 3 pieces 16"X96". I then tacked one of the pieces flat on the wall touching the bottoms of the rafters. I alligned one end at the NW corner of the building. Using a straight edge I mimicked the width of the rafters and drew my lines for cutting at each rafter. I took the board down and completed the lines to a depth of 10 inches. I cut these out using a combination of skill saw and jig saw. Next I measured half way left to right and top to bottom of these cuts. Using a 1 5/8" hole saw I cut holes at each of these points. I then cut 3" squares of 1/4" hardware cloth to use as rodent defense and 5" squares of metal window screen fabric to use as insect defense. Laying the hardware mesh centered on the screen I folded the screen edges in and over the mesh. Then using roofing nails I fastened the screen/mesh to the backside or inside of the board and proceded to install on the building. The area will be caulked before painting or staining. Be careful and pay attention to the lines drawn using the straight edge along the sides of the rafters. If the rafters are not plumb it will give you false cut lines on your fill in board. You must compensate for warped or angled rafters.

Window cutouts

Finished with the window cutouts today.

cutout of windows

Today I began cutting out windows were I had sided over them. It's easier to frame the windows and doors when framing the walls and then just put up the siding over the openings and cut them out later.

I used a "Sawzall" which works quite well. Being battery powered though it does go through alot of batteries.

South Wall siding

Put up the t 1-11 siding on the south wall today.