Hi. Just wanted to share some cool photos of what we did today in the retreat valley. The life of a construction worker at Diamond Mountain is never dull. Today we started pouring our magical blend of dirt into poly bags on the upper third of the walls at the kitchen round where Venerable Kunga will do her Three Year Retreat. We're building with earthbags, sometimes called superadobe because the earth mix is the same or similar to that with which adobe bricks are made, except instead of pressing it or firing it into bricks, you pour it into long tubular bags and set it by hand, with a heavy tamper. Then it dries and hardens, and...voila! Super thick mud walls with lots of thermal mass.
Here's what the building looked like a month ago - foundation only, no walls:
We were experimenting with burlap bags (see the green bag in the lower left corner in the photo above), but had problems with them because they stretched out too much, and ripped when we tried to tamp them.
Here's what the building looks like today. It's as tall as me!
If you're wondering how exactly this earthbagging process works, here are a couple more shots:
Earthbagging is really fun, especially when you buy pre-made adobe mix and make your mixes with the Bobcat. We still have one more building to go - the meditation round (photo below). So if you want to get your hands in this karmic dirt pile, come on down and volunteer! You can also donate $$ to the building of this cabin via this web site (go to Venerable Kunga's blog), where every shovel full of dirt is tamped with love.
