.
We've been up homesteading in Tennessee now for a month. The weather for the most part has been wonderful, outside of the last 5 days of rain, which has drenched all the South.
The gazebo canvas roof was torn to shreds from snow when we arrived. The girls and I moved it down to the center of the barn. I had to disassemble the roof to get it in. We laid down old boards for planks for the floor, I got a 16'x30' tarp which folded in half made a roof which I tied down to the barn framing. Ultimately we added 4 more tarps which wrap around the entire dwelling, which can be rolled up or left down, the front tarp often rolled up to get in and out. With the bamboo blinds and tarps, the place is like a mini-apartment and very comfortable. We've weathered several severe storms in it - it stays totally dry inside. I put in a $5 clamp lamp for overhead lighting, there's a rug down over the old planks, and the futon of course, now with a double futon mattress - very, very comfortable compared to last year.
We've planted one peach tree and several apple trees. We'd like to eventually have a whole orchard of apples . . . they seem to do well here.
We've got 7 large garden beds planted this year, not only tomatoes and melons, but a whole bed of giant sunflowers also. My wife did a lot of the planting. The girls helped.
We continue to compost humanure, and have bought a mower - it's the ultimate "cover material harvester". Why pay for all that straw? Grass and weeds harvested with a mower are a far better and denser cover material, full of nutrients, site-harvested, and cutting the grass occasionally has kept down the ticks and created more living space. Good humanure compost needs high heat from thermaphilic bacteria, and grass clippings get unbelievably hot inside just sitting in a pile for a day. It's a great discovery.
I'm building dawn to dusk again, and have gone back to my original plan for the cabin in general. I've built 12 16"x16" concrete piers, digging down about 30" for each, putting down packed gravel, a concrete footer with 1/2" rebar, and block with rod and infill where the piers come up substantially above grade. All the block piers were then covered in surface bonded cement for additional lateral strength.
I put in 3 big girders, each 25' in length, composed of tripled 2x10's. On top of this went a 2x10 floor frame. I'm almost finished with the 3/4" flooring. I've ordered the wood for the post and beam frame and rafters. We're still sticking with the additions. Framing lumber is really cheap right now - they say the cheapest in 30 years. I got 16' lengths of 2x10 for only $9 a piece. Last year they were more like $14/$15.
Though ideally I would have liked to do straw bale, we need a cabin ASAP, and once I saw the size of those piers I was putting in, I knew they could support the weight of the entire building. The cabin footprint is now 16x25, and we're going higher, with more loft. Loft will cover most of the upper space and be used for bedrooms for both us and the girls. The final height of the building will be 15', with a short gable roof coming down to 13'. We'll still have clerestory windows over the north and south-facing additions. My wife's been buying windows from Builder's Surplus.
This cabin is going well and one of those projects we're finally going to see through! (though we're already talking about going back out to New Mexico for months - to take the girls to all the places we camped when they were little and now don't remember).
I'll add photos when I can.