The Final Countdown

In preparation for this weekend when our 3-week build with 50 people will commence, we have been working on several aspects of the earthship, like finishing the two courses of the stem wall and finishing the pack-out of the 9th course so that we can create the bond beam to hold the roof up.  In addition, I've been running errands to ensure everything falls into place, like the donated lunches, purchased lunches, housing 10 crew members and the beds and linens and dishes etc that go with that, finding 50 washable plates and forks for the work lunches, renting a car so that the crew can have 4 methods of transportation when they're here, making phone calls, emails, setting up times for people who want to visit and/or help... the list goes on.  I'm starting to feel that this is just about the same amount of work as I had planning our wedding last summer... except this event will last for three whole weeks!

Scott, a PhD student at Cornell in biological engineering, came Monday to check it out and pound a couple tires.  After grocery shopping and running errands Tuesday evening, I came home just in time to catch Scott leaving saying that he pounded out two tires for us, even though we weren't even there!  Thanks Scott!!!

Today Scott (center) brought his wife Kari (left) and their friend Joy (right).  I caught joy taking a break from the shovel to toss in a large dirt clump!

Kari and Joy put on a second slap of cement to pack-out between our tires

pack-out

Sunset picture of our progress as of August 8, 2012!