I am continually blown away this time of year.  I can’t believe how incredibly beautiful this world can be.  I absolutely love living in a place that experiences all four seasons.  Each one seems to come along at just the right time, just when I’m needing a change, and may not even realize it.  I love the simple scenes, like that same cemetery I see on my way to work if I stop into the coffee shop ~ the other day it was cool enough in the morning that a beautiful mist was floating through the long shadows of morning.   An irrigation canal runs along the east side of the cemetery and lends to some pretty beautiful effects when the weather is right.

I feel like this is also a great time of year to start going inward, and focusing even more on personal development.

This photo was taken on my cell phone on a drive through the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho last fall.  I love how the compression of the phone created a watercolor effect.  What an incredible drive.

I happened upon the Little Tree Bed and Breakfast online while planning a stopover in Taos on our way to Las Cruces, New Mexico. What an inspiring city. We couldn’t have asked for a more romantic place to stay, and we made some very dear friends.

Yes, the fall session of welding class has begun. The majority of the first class was spent refreshing my memory on safety and methods. I also learned to TIG weld, at least just a few passes. It takes a lot of coordination, because your heating the metal with the torch in one hand, and feeding your steel filler with the other hand. My first attempt was great. From there, I heated it too much, and then went to fast and didn’t heat it enough.

I guess you don’t have to wear leathers either because it doesn’t put off sparks (usually). My instructor said you can just wear a long sleeved dark colored shirt (dark so you don’t burn through it from the UV rays). Luckily I had some cold-rolled steel to practice on. She said that if you get hot-rolled steel, it is rougher on the surface as the impurities rise to the surface, and you have to grind it smooth to TIG weld, or your weld won’t be smooth.

I started cutting out pieces for my new project using the plasma cutter in the second class. My new project is a dragonfly to go in my mom’s garden. I’m trying to do the body in semi-3D by curving the 2 halves of the body and head on the hydraulic press using curved molds. I think I know how I’m going to do the wings. Rather than try to cut a highly-detailed pattern out with the plasma cutter, I think I’ll get several different thicknesses of wire and form the wings with that. We’ll see how it goes. My goals for tonight are: (1) don’t hurt myself or others, and (2) don’t break anything (I’ve already broken a part on the torch and a grinding disk).

Yes, I’m a CAD monkey in one of my lives.  I’ve decided to document some of the commands I need to remember here, not only to help others who share my frustrations, but also to keep my CAD notes in a central location.  No more searching for those little scraps of paper I make my notes on when I’m in a hurry.  And, just so you know, I’m still working in Version 2008.  I refuse to upgrade as fast as they send them out because I think it’s ridiculous to change your work environment that often.  2010 is sitting on the shelf, but I won’t be installing for some time yet.

So, have you ever been working on a CAD drawing, and all of the sudden CAD won’t let you right click to repeat the last command (even if you go into your options and try to reset this as your preference), and it won’t let you select something with one mouse click, and then apply the command you want without taking other more tedious steps?  Well, I was saved by a colleague who researched this issue a while back after pulling his hair out over it.

You just have to type “pickfirst” at the command prompt, and then set the value to “1“.  That’s it.  For some reason, something just gets tweaked once in a while, and it’s never easy to wade through the help files to get exactly what you need.  I was ready to re-install CAD when Gus came to my rescue.

On my way to work, I drive past a small cemetery in town.  This morning I saw a UHaul parked in the cemetery.  The thought popped into my head – was somebody trying to take it with them?  ; ).

We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.

- Henry David Thoreau

A great quote included in Peter Lawrence’s article in the latest Simple Living Network Newsletter.  Check it out for some great reading suggestions, and some great reminders.

FOUNDATION

We had the good fortune of traveling to Colorado in July to assist our friends, David and Maureen, with the earthen plaster portion of their straw bale home construction (view the slideshow here).  They have a beautiful home site on 2 1/2 acres located on a mesa, surrounded by orchards and incredible views for miles.  The straw bales are load bearing – the bales were compressed using the same kind of polyester strapping you see around stacks of lumber.  They said the polyester was much easier to use than the metal strapping we used on the greenhouse.   Plus, you don’t have to worry about moisture condensing on the polyester like you do on the metal strapping.  They said they would tighten down a few straps, go do something else for a few hours, and then tighten them down some more after the bales had settled and compressed.  With the metal straps, you pretty much just get one shot at getting it tight – you can’t remove the tool that tightens it to move to other straps until you’ve clamped off the one you’re working on.

The foundation was pretty basic – they sandwiched angular gravel between two panels of blue board, then poured 1 foot of concrete on top of this.  The bottom of the foundation only went to undisturbed soil – so it was 1 foot deep at the front of the house, and had to go down 4 feet deep at the back where fill was added to create a flat building site.  Rebar was incorporated into the 1 foot of concrete so the base plate could be attached.

ROOF

The roofers were there the same days we arrived, installing the light-colored metal roofing.  David and Maureen did an excellent job designing the house – the roof overhang on the west, north, and east sides is sufficient to keep blowing rain and snow off of the bales.  The roof overhang on the south side is a little narrower to allow for passive solar heating.  They are installing a cob wall inside the house which will act as a thermal mass in winter, absorbing the heat from the sun coming through the south windows and releasing that heat slowly throughout the night.  The overhang is just wide enough to keep the sun at the bottom of the windows in the heat of summer.