Foundation piers are completed

I finished up the concrete mixing and pouring yesterday and just came back to the site today to check and make sure everything was alright with the forms.

The main concerns with the footings are that they remain plumb and straight in line with the other footings in their same trench. Height of footings are not critical as posts can be cut to achieve level for the beams to come. A diagonal measure from the corners is very important to get your building started off square.

It seems I also had a supervisor today.

Pouring the concrete

As we have no power at the building site and because I have vast experience at mixing concrete in a wheel barrow that's what I am going to do. I am using high strength crack resistant "kwikcrete" with a PSI rating over 5,000. Mixing in a wheel barrow is easiest with a square edge shovel as it scrapes the bottom better than a round point. As each additional bag was mixed and put into the forms I would beat the outside of the forms with a hammer to help the crete settle and eliminate air pockets.

Each form will hold nine eighty pound bags which comes out to 72 bags--almost three tons on concrete.....Alot of mixing.

Building the footing forms

I designed and built the forms for the footings in the shop building on site. I had some sheets of 3/4" exterior grade plywood that had been used and reused and used again so I decided to use them as forms. I cut them into the appropriate size pieces and used 2x4's as the frame and built the forms. they are 20" square by 9" deep at the bottom then 12" square and 48" high from there. There is over 30' of 3/8" rebar inside each form.

The galvanized post clamp seen at the top is firmly attached to the rebar cage on the inside.

So it begins

Today is the first day of actual construction. Up until now it has all been thinking, planning and dreaming. I took the backhoe down to the site and dug two trenches about twenty feet long and slightly over four feet deep. The frostline in this area goes below three feet so we I went somewhat deeper than that. I used the "hoe" to dig with as the soil here is full of rocks from hen's egg size up to volkswagon beetle size.

On site and ready to go

I have finished all of my travel for the year and have returned home to begin building the first Kuti (cabin) for the "Old Gold Mine Hermitage". I just spent several days with my friend and co developer Brian and we feel we are ready to go. He will come for a two week "working" visit in July. I need to get the foundation piers, posts and support beams installed by the time he arrives. Over the next three weeks I will be getting tools and workshop space setup, designing the footing forms and generally trying to get organized.

Initial Design

Roger & I have been emailing design ideas for the first kuti (cottage) back and forth, we're fairly settled on a rectangular floorplan with basic accommodations on the main floor and some additional space in a loft. The emphasis is on getting everything into the box to allow a hermit to stay and be self-sufficient for weeks at a time, with only food deliveries coming in from the outside world. The next main considerations are to allow the kitchen and bath areas to be closed off and make the main room into an uncluttered meditation area, to keep it simple so us amateurs can build it, and to stay within our admittedly tiny budget.

How it all started

Years ago when I first became involved with Buddhism and began visiting a Monastery in southern California I realized that these Theravada Monks who followed the forest tradition had no place in the wilderness to wander about. In Southeast Asia until very recently the Monks of this tradition had almost limitless space in which to wander and the locals would feed them. Now that the jungles and forests of that region are fast disappearing and many Monks are coming to the west as well as westerners ordaining here there is a need in this country for support of these individuals.



This started me thinking of setting up a place where they could come and stay long term that would provide the support that's needed and place them in the middle of vast areas of wilderness land over which they could roam. Next I realized that there was a need for such a place for advanced lay practioners. A place where someone could come and spend six months or a year and never see another person or hear another human voice if they so desired.



The Old Gold Mine Hermitage is going to be such a place. It wasn't until I met Brian that I was able to begin fulfilling this dream. He has come to share my dream and together we will bring it about. He lives in the Bay area and I live on the land in Rural Northeast Washington State.

He deals with most of the technical and administrative considerations and I do the day to day work here at the Hermitage. As he is able he will come to visit and help out here with building and other on site issues.



The Hermitage will be open to all faiths, the only requirement is that the applicant have a deep and abiding spiritual practice that can benefit from a completely silent, individual and long term retreat.