Straight Goods

Hey Denman Island made the travel section of The Straight.... see it here

The short strokes of outside plastering

Straw Bale House Update: The weather has been crappy on Denman Island this spring. Wetter and cooler than normal. (graph on right proves my point (white line is seasonal norm) Perfect weather for plastering! With the humidity high, the plaster takes longer to dry. This makes for a much stronger wall. Just a few slow details around the living room windows and the exterior will be finished (for now). Once that is done the walls can sit for a year and do what they will. Any small cracks that develop over the next three seasons will be repaired and covered with the colour coat, which will go on next spring. The colour coat is only 1/8" thick so the 2nd (brown) coat finishes 1/8" shy of window and door trims.
The first few mixes for the first coat were mixed in a mortar mixer, which the straw bale gurus highly recommend. The rental was expensive and it turned out that my trusty (and cheap) cement mixer does a great job, (it just takes a little longer). I run the mixer for about six hours a day, six days a week. Not what is it intended to do, but so far, so good, (knock on plaster).
I highly suggest buying one of these cheapie mixers if you are going to tackle plastering yourself.... (or without a large crew). I also suggest dedicated clothes and footwear, as it is even messier than you would imagine. (My "plaster shoes" used to be brown).

The company that supplied the hydraulic lime did the volume calculation for me when we ordered it. It's going to be very close! I think we'll end up within a single bag....(on the plus side, I hope).

It's Tax Freedom Day!

Totally Bizarre

Tomorrow, Columbia will elect the first world leader from the "Green Party".

Australia has begun international court proceedings against Japan for it's whaling practises.

You can watch live video feed 24/7 of Gulf Oil spewing out of the ocean floor.

It's a bizarre time in history.

odds and ends

It may finally be apparent that corporations are not the best stewards of the earth. Perhaps some of Obama's "land on the asteroid budget" could be diverted to some R&D to come up with a solution that would put BP in some other line of work. (It's got to be cheaper)

A couple of YT's that deserve a look-see.

from "why, that's delightful" So, why is she performing in her kitchen? Great loop-pedal action.




(from treehugger) The two best high-tech inventions morphed

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

May Two-four

Ah, the May two-four weekend. The first real drinking weekend of the summer and the first weekend with long ferry line-ups. Lulled into complacency over the winter Denmanites are jolted awake on the May two-four by ferry line-ups of weekending hornby-ites. Leaving the island, it's back to the 20 minute rule.... being that the Hornby traffic arrives at the terminal 10-15 minutes before the ferry .... the astute Denmaner arrives at 2o minutes before and smirks as the Hornby 500 arrives at the top of the hill, loaded with kayaks, bikes and anything else that will fill, or can be bungied to their vehicle. Getting on the island.... all advantages are lost and residents must line-up with the Hawaiian shirted beemer drivers. All that remains is the thought that, yup we live here and they wish they did.

Straw Bale Building: Yes, still more plastering... Taking advantage of low or no wage challenged participants, (relatives) there is progress being made, The interior is about 75% done (plaster 2nd coat) and the exterior just over half done. Pictures of window details and exterior finish are in order.

Brainstorm

Don't know where this idea came from, but what if a huge steel reinforced concrete box were lowered onto the the BC legislature in an attempt to stem the flow of corrupt egotistical drivel spewing out. It would be a challenging target as the legislature is constantly moving to the right and even if it were to be placed correctly it would undoubtedly be immediately plugged up with bullshit.