Ajijaakwe: Let's Call This, Oh, Say, "Stage 1, Step 3A"

So, Lorenzo showed up well before the projected 10:30 start time this morning, to get to work on grading and leveling with his Bobcat.

This was the first pass.

Turns out that we have a change of plans with regard to what comes next; more on that below. It'll put our schedule back some, but then again, we weren't ever anticipating that it would move as fast as it has to this point, so it's all good.

More below:

Backing over it.

Turns out we will not need the fourth load of fill; we actually had a little more than we needed, although once Wings and Lorenzo got to measuring and estimating, it wound up being pretty close to dead-on.

Finished and pretty:

I'll be taking photos mostly from the ends, mostly at angles, to give folks more or less the whole picture. Seen from the front, I pretty much have to stand on the old deck to get it, and it foreshortens the shots.

This is what it looks like up close. It really is a nice neat job. Also very solid, despite how deceptively soft it looks.

Here it is in an angled shot, from the south corner. There is a bit of a layering effect going on here, which shows up better in the last photo. I'll explain more then.

The augur.

Wings needs to extend the back of the studio on the outside, for a variety of reasons. it won't be enclosed (at least for the foreseeable future; just an overhang). He's done way too many post holes the old-fashioned way, with a post-hole digger and a shovel, but since Lorenzo has the 'Cat and the augur, it was easier to have him create the post holes today.

It's a remarkable piece of machinery, amazingly quiet and neat. That small cloud of dust? That's as messy as it got, even at full speed.

Did you know that we live atop the bed of an ancient and very, very big lake?

We do. I wrote on Wings's site last Sunday about the shell mounds and beds and reefs here in the New Mexico desert, and of course, I've written numerous times about the pseudomorphs and shells and fossils that are common to Native art here that were not acquired via trade, but pulled right from the earth itself. We have them here, on this land, too. What you see there in the pile is the old, old river rock, now dry and in some instances powdery, that the augur kicked up from the hole. Wings dug it out with a shovel in between rotations.

There is a history here that predates even our peoples, and there is life and spirit in this land in ways that we can even really begin to fathom.

But for today, practical considerations were paramount. That was the sum total of the day's work on building projects per se, although Wings did have to make one correction:

This afternoon, he climbed up onto the roof of the gallery to make a quick repair. When it was moved by crane, the straps impinged on one of the canales (i.e., the word used around here to refer to gutters), knocking it slightly out of place. With a flat roof in this climate, you need working canales, or you'll have a catastrophe on your hands come monsoon season (or, more immediately, the first thaw following a big snow). So he climbed up to straighten it out, reset it in its proper place, and patch up the stucco.

I snagged this shot late this afternoon, from the same corner as the last one. That feathery effect is from the shadows of the stand of red willow on the west side — the same stand that stood next to the old house, only larger now and more luxuriant.

I said above that I would explain the variances in the leveling, and the upcoming change in plans. Originally, we were going to go ahead and lay the foundation, which we could do based on what we've managed to save throughout the process so far. That's going to be delayed.

Lorenzo's background is architectural engineering. The guy knows his stuff, and he's good at it. And while he acknowledged that most people (around here, anyway), do indeed lay the foundation as a next step, he recommended that we lay the plumbing first instead.

Part of it is that it's easier to do the necessary excavation now, before the foundation is poured; it's always easier to lay stuff on the shortest and simplest route than it is to try to get around a solid barrier later. But there's another consideration, too: We're heading into winter here, sooner rather than later. The ground gets hard very fast, in both ways: It turns hard not all that far below the surface, and it will turn hard from freezing temperatures very, very soon. We're already hitting the freezing mark in the mornings, but it won't be long before we're down into single digits and less.

Some of the excavation work, and the pipe laid at that point, needs to go below the frost line.

I think that probably draws a sufficiently clear picture.

So while I will not have pretty foundation photos for you next week — and while I will also be hassling everyone to share the link to the next youcaring page for the upcoming stage of the process much sooner than I expected — we'll be doing this in a more efficient and effective manner, one that will also likely wind up saving us a lot of time and money both over the long run.

I don't know when that point will be, although it will not be very long. We have to sit down and figure out everything that's going to be needed, both materials and labor, and then call around for estimates. There's also the question of when work can be started, and when people will be available to help with the labor. But I'll have some answers next week sometime, and we'll go from there.

So, y'know . . . y'all been warned.

And now, I need to finish making dinner, so I'm out for a while.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Ajijaakwe

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Let's Call This, Oh, Say, "Stage 1, Step 3A"

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