Next meeting:

Eric Achenbach wrote:

to let folks know in plenty of time ... somewhere during an enjoyable and interesting (and wicked hot!) june meeting i offered to host the next meeting at my house ... we settled on july 8th at 5 o'clock as a likely time. people are invited to come use our grill, porch, kitchen, above-ground pool, and the coolness of a 200 year-old farmhouse. i'll have iced tea and munchies and salad and ... (if someone brings lemonade and someone brings ice cream and ...)

google 1040 fort bridgman road in vernon, or i can give directions closer to the time.

as for agenda ... we said it would be about foundations. we all have to think about them, eh? sarah says no pounding dirt into tires, mark talked about epoxy and rebar and cement and cutting steps into bedrock, ... but there's lots to discuss in more detail.

not long after i asked where i might get bales of straw around here, tristan said i'd better plan far in advance, and so my agenda is as much about planning as about techniques ... what kind of planning (for foundations, and bale sources, and things i don't even know enough to ask) should i be doing in order to have a small, hyperinsulated house for a toddler and me built pretty quickly, starting next summer?

i've read a few books; modified post and beam (roof support and openings by way of 2x4 and plywood constructed 'posts' infilled with bales) seemed like the way to go ... then tristan described a stick-built solution that robert(?) riversong uses; 2x4 outside, 2x2 interiorwall, celulose in the 12" between.

i'd love to settle on THE way to go (cheap, lots of work i can do myself, fast, hyperinsulated, extensible) so i can stop choosing and do research on the chosen technique.

i'd love to have people who have experience with straw bale or other alternatives come to next month's meeting and chat over the various pros and cons (from personal, but also from regional and environmental, points of view). (and wouldn't it be great if these resurrecting-the-group meetings resulted in the forming of a free-flowing cooperative work gang ... people who need lots of us to help raise a post-and-beam wall and will, in return, come for a day of stacking bales when it gets above my head ...)

i have a going-on-four year old; bring your kids if that makes it easier to say yes to coming.