The Straw Bale Casita in Spirit Valley NM

Straw Bale Casita in Spirit Valley

Well, it is probably about time that I wrote about my experience in building with straw bales.  I had an unusual situation where I already had a post and beam framework in place, a hexagonal burro “shed” that had levels that spiraled upwards with a few different levels, including a hay loft and a central support system that doubled as a feed drop and feed bin.  I was out of money and had quit smoking cigarettes, so I was needing a project that 1) kept me away from people and 2)I could use salvage and saved items to build it with and 3)was physically challenging to give me a way to vent my energies.  I built the thing using credit cards for about $15,000 and that money was almost exclusively for the purpose of feeding me and paying the small mortgage I had at the time and taking care of my children when I had them.  The banker was horrified when I told him I had racked up that much  card debt and was now trying to refinance the property (40 acres with an adobe house, a big adobe “Teen Cottage” and a huge log shop/studio).  I had plenty of collateral and equity in the place, but no clear way to prove income other than the rental I was starting to get from the straw bale rental house, called BJJ, the BJ job; BJ (Benjamin) was my donkey who was now being relocated to slimmer digs, along with Isabella, his female sidekick.  I am sure they were not pleased with this new arrangement, as the “shed” was very cool with a good winter southern exposure and a good windbreak from the northern winds and a nice place to hang out in the summer too.  And the girls liked to play in it and hang out in the loft and hang off the beams and goof around.  There was water there, too; placed for a steady supply of well water for the tank. 

I am something of a rustic artist, so I decided to go for that aesthetic and celebrate the shed and also make it clearly made from recycled items, scavenged items and smaller pieces.  It had an overhang all around so I realized I could put straw bales in between and have them still roofed.  I knew that a lot of straw bale places were made this way; post and beam with infill.  I had designed various straw bale construction methods before, thinking about ways to get the electric line and other things into boxes that were part of the “post and beam” scenario.  I also had a few 8 x 8 “logs” left over from my shop project and knew I could continue that construction method; post and beam.  I was also interested in Mike Reynold's “Earthships”, which utilized car tires, rammed with earth, for foundations for houses.  I needed something strong under the bales without making a completely new foundation and that was labor intensive and low cost.  I also owned a small “bulldozer” with a front bucket, so I could easily get the gravel and stuff to ram the tires with.  So I went to local tires stores and they gladly gave me their old used tires, which I stuffed into my Bronco and brought home.  They, of course , were the perfect sized for a straw bale set-up.  I planned the lay the bales not on edge, but the thick way, which was close to the size of a tire.  I also dug trenches where needed and put in gravel foundations under the tires, where I could.  Now, this project was under the radar of the authorities, so “unconventional” was easier to accomplish than in other places.  The building already existed and looked like a now plastered over burro shed that had been there for some years, from the public side, which was the back. 

Pictures of it can be found on my blog:   http://thor-sigstedt.blogspot.com under the architectural slide show category; found following links to another blog or two, etc.   Others are on my Picasa Web Album, I think, which is public.  I can provide others if need be.

Of course, it is important to get dry and mold-free bales, and ones, that are tight enough to not be too goosey loosey, as they are being stacked and need some strength.  They are actually harder to deal with than one might think because they tend to tip over and are not heavy enough  to easily stabilize themselves.  I was surprised at how gangly the whole thing could be.  The sizes are important, too, and the spacing for post and beam if you are going that way.  You can break them apart and rebind them, but it is just more work to do that a lot. 

I invented a way to attach the stucco netting, which we call just that around here.  I also used some chicken wire, but it is weaker and harder to plaster.  I tried lacing tie wire through the bales to hold the stucco netting, but it was almost impossible, so I took old steel cable (and maybe some aluminum I had lying around), thick cable like they use for guying power poles. And cut it into lengths, say about 15” or so (I really don’t remember the exact best length, so you would need to experiment) and then separated the strands and then bend the single strands in half so you ended up with a bobby pin sort of deal with wavy forks.  Then you could just jamb them into the bale and pin down the wire quite easily.  I was truly impressed with myself for this invention.  I used this for both sides as they lathe support system.  You need quite a few to get a good tight fit against the bales. 

Then it was scratch coat of Portland, sand and lime mix on the outside; then a “brown” coat (which has nothing to do with the final color) of the same mix.  The brown coat is floated with a  special sponge to get a stucco type finish/surface.  Then the bank, when they finally agreed to refinance me, made me put on the final stucco coat so it looked finished.  The place looks like a 200 year old double adobe building and it quite attractive in that respect. 

The down side has been that it does attract mice and pack rats.  So I would recommend that special attention be paid to sealing it off really, really well from the outside.  In my case, I left the inside with barn wood siding from the original shed and it has many cracks where critters can come in and out.  I do not believe that the problem is impossible, but I know to be aware of it from the get-go.  I am still puzzled at how they get in.  Of course, they would be trouble in a fiber glass insulated building also, like most homes, so it is not unique to this place; most of my neighbors have had trouble with pests. 

The best features are that the insulation value is stunning for a wall (R40 or more) and the sound proofing from outside sounds is extraordinary (we have a train that passes by a few feet from the building and you can hardly hear it go by!), the looks are stunning. 

It is really important to have dry bales also, especially in an eastern climate.

Well, there is a lot more to talk about here, but that gives a basic overview of the deal as it relates to my experience. 

Good luck…….

      -Thor Sigstedt, Adventure Trails Ranch, November 20, 2011

Guy

When I first saw him he was playing with a large pig

Then he tipped his hat to my wife

Then regaled us with talk of roping elk, riding elk and chasing burros

For only twenty something I think he was quite a guy

In fact I think his name was Guy

He could live here too and take a cowboy dip at the falls

Or he could be driving the crawler around the ranch fixing things

Or taking Belle out dancing and two-step, polka, waltz, schottische, pretzel

Or making a table or set of shelves with all those tools, or less tools

He could be drunk in a bar, staggering all over the place

Wrapped around the toilet after closing time

He could be getting a divorce from his Anglo wife or his Spanish one

He could be talking to cops because his son turned him in for child abuse

He could be crying like a baby because it is all so beautiful and yet so sad

He could be writing a story of how he dumped the 1010 off the back of the truck

Or drove it off the mesa with no brakes with the 1010 and wife aboard

Or lifted it with a crane with neighbors and cops everywhere

Or hugged the bulldozer and then the crane guy for good measure

Or picking peaches with Fernando and supporting apple branches with sticks

Or walking in the river bed looking at rocks, beautiful rocks

Or making art, rustic and textural, pouring bronze or melting glass

Or wondering where the next dollar was really coming from

And worrying whether he was taking too long or charging too much or too little

And  bringing children onto the land so they could scamper around day after day

All summer long

Or catching rattlesnakes with a long pole and loop, dropping them into the dynamite box

And watching the children dreaming of catching one themselves later that day

And hearing his daughter talk of how the hawk swooped down in a blur of feathers

As she stood by wondering “what the hell” as it tried to get the duck six feet away

Or watching the ducks in water as they freed up that tension in his chest

Just by being themselves and loving water by birthright

Or playing his electric guitar loud and long and feeling the music in his body

Or playing Leadbelly songs on a 12 string Stella

Or going to an iron pour in Denver and playing for everyone solo

As the molten metal was poured into moulds for bowling balls

And sent down the chute spraying sparks and glowing red-orange

Headed for the white pins made of ceramic mold

Or speaking Spanish all day long to his helper, learning about Mexico

And how difficult it is down there and how much poverty and crime

Robos and drogas, gubierno sin mucho ayuda

And how they took the railroad apart for the steel

Or working hard, sweat dripping, arms pushing and pulling

Hands manipulating, making , making, thinking , thinking

Stress and tolerances, level and plumb, straight and curved

All things leading towards a goal, a house, a fixture, a door, a shower

Working for a living like our lives depended  on it

Like a young cowboy, Guy, playing with a large pig

On a beautiful rented ranch above Folsom and east of Clayton

Just a small one, barely 20,000 acres, barely enough to make a living on

Ya gotta give us credit where credit is due

For playing with that pig, alone, with noone watching

Except for maybe a tourist or two or a lessor and his friend

Credit for knowing that a donkey can toss a lady in a creek

If you aren’t careful

Or a sunset is worth taking a camera to, worth pointing and shooting

Give us credit that we got that elk and butchered it and brought it home than lean year

Credit for telling his hunter friends they are full of shit

Cause they don’t know a rat turd from a pinon nut

Credit for tanning the hide or trying to

Credit for buying the gun and chasing the bastard down with it

And going half-crazy afterwards, like a man in war who just shot a guy

Yeah and for saying “Howdy, maam”  and tipping that hat to the lady

And deciding not to get wrapped around a toilet anymore

And learning how to help things cool off

And learning how to type

And knowing how to read a tape measure, by god, and not tossing it into the nearest drink

And write stuff that is important, somehow

Wisdom From Dixon Orchards

I watched the news last night and, for the first time, I heard someone talk about something other than fireworks issues (no brainer) or the number of acres burned, how hard the firefighters are working (rarely  how much they are paid or what the total cost is), the percentage of containment (a vague number based on ?), how the Santa Fe watershed is safe (but the Nambe watershed is devastated) and the smoke.  An interview at the Dixon orchards which was first reported to be safe and then was found to be devastated was the first time I heard from someone close to the land who had a thought more piercing than the above banter.  He actually wondered why the forests had not been previously logged and thinned.  The nerve; to mention the unmentionable; why not wisely use the forests and get the wood and biomass before the fires do and protect the surrounding areas at the same time.  How dare he mention this kind of stuff when we are in the midst of a crisis like this (which occurs every summer with varying size and location).  How dare he suggest we create erosion in the forests by any roads (ever looked at the erosion caused by these fires).   Doesn’t he know we are in serious drought (of course we were in serious drought in 2000-2001, 2004, 2006 and pretty much every year).  Doesn’t he understand our love of trees (other than he is part of one of the most celebrated orchards in this country)?  Isn’t he just ignoring the need to protect our wilderness (believe me these areas are not wilderness areas, including the Pecos wilderness as they are the result of massive logging and poor management from 1850 to the present).  Maybe it is time to listen to some of these people and try something new other than a steady diet of controlled burns (if only they knew when to light that match), and compare millions of devastated acres to a network of very carefully thought out roads and access to the forests that would allow biomass fuel production (kind of a controlled burn wouldn’t you say), a way for the people to help out (rather than the easier job of hired hot shot firefighters, planes and fuel guzzling helicopters who can really do very little under these conditions).  All this is to appease the litigious guard dogs of the forests and the naïve enviros.  The solutions are right in front of us and represent billions and billions of btus that do not have to go up in smoke and can create jobs, a true environmentalist movement that is based on careful interaction with our forests, which represent the only thing that will prevent our civilization from collapsing.  Imagine; thousands of young people in clear and purposeful interaction with the one thing that will save our economy.  Hmmm…..sounds like a plan.  At least the subject should be raised rather than tossing off such thoughts as not cost effective (as the price of gasoline goes up, the cost effectiveness changes, doesn’t it).  There is a wealth of ideas out there that have been worked out in detail and are close to being foolproof.  I would look up Jean Pain for something that might be of interest to some and see that he was thinking of what to do in arid areas surrounded by forests.  Check it out as well as the numerous other possibilities.  Read Away With All Pests by Norman Bethune for some idea of what “the people” are capable of.  As Henry David Thorea said, “….the world is bigger than our view of it”!  In the end it is all about aesthetics as many have suggested.  When we solve the aesthetic problems (Santa Fe might be able to glom onto that idea) we are on the way to solving all the rest.  I find the aesthetics of helicopters and burned out watershed to be almost untenable.  How about you?  The forests are like the acequias and water rights; you don’t use them, you lose them.  That was the Law of the West.  We need more environmentalists who know how to use a chainsaw and a bulldozer properly.  Same goes for newscasters who reflect the air conditioned response to the problems and the lack of clarity by urban people for a rural problem. We need more people who can protect the watershed, the viewshed, the soil, the air quality and our economy at the same time. I pose the question: how many foresters do we have in the state?  What is their jobs? Is this about competing with oil interests?  Do most people know that utilizing biomass is carbon-neutral?  As Einstein suggested, “problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them”.