Bad step - bad storm

I stepped into an opening in the floor and sprained my ankle.  All the other openings were covered.

Then a storm was predicted. It came,  and boy did the wind blow.  One big branch broke off and landed on our car.
Amazingly there are only a few scratches.

I'm hoping my ankle comes out as well.

The steel is going up

Oops! here is a spot where two wrongs do make a right.  The bolts were set to low into the footing, so the nuts couldn't go all the way on.  We were afraid we would have to cut them off and move the post.  When we measured over to the first floor slab on the house we discovered that the posts were all 1" to high.  We had exactly one inch of adjustment room, so all the posts were lowered and the bolts went completely on.

Looking up at the balcony and roof walk from the lower drive

Looking toward the living room from the roof walk

Long view from the roof walk

Close view from the Roof Walk

This is the stairwell web in the foreground and the Master bedroom balcony and roof walk

This is the steel in the middle of the house in the stairwell that supports the roof

Putting in the bolts to hold the steel

View from the top looking down

Around the site

The next few pictures are late June showing some of the recovery of the area around the pond and looking up to the house.

The grass is finally growing around the pond.  But will the water ever get clear?

The rocks in the middle are the bottom of the "stage".  The house is in the background.

Mud Wasps are moving in.  They seem to prefer the metal air ducts.  The metal amplifies their buzzing so there is a chorus of buzz, but it doesn't drown out the saws.

The pictures from the house are obviously in the most impacted areas and will need a good bit of recovery.

View from the living room tall window

Wide angle view from living room looking down into the amphitheater.

view from the ground floor looking back toward the parking area

The geothermal wells are in the foreground and the parking area is the clearing in the back.

Little one got parked in our amphitheater while mom went grazing.

our pondlet after being enlarged and cleaned out with the little bobcat.

the is the "solar path" analysis from the site of our solar panels.  There is some significant tree cover in December.  Particularly that tree in the center.

This is one of the nearby rocks.

Here is the beaver pond in the Wilderness Area below our house.

Septic System

Drilling the wells

Best wishes for the recovery of Billy Yow.

On June 20 Billy was drilling a well (not at Gray Owl) and a high pressure hose broke hitting him in the face and knocking him off the machine so he hit the back of his head on a rock.  He was in critical care for three days, regained consciousness, recognized his wife, and was upgraded to "serious".  It was great fun talking to him, learning a tremendous amount, watching him solve difficult problems and enjoying his fine sense of humor.  I hope very much that he has a full recovery.

Drilling the wells at Gray Owl

Drilling the wells was a huge project.  There are 4 of the 400' deep geothermal wells, and one 200' water well.  We expected it to take 4 days, but it took about 2 weeks.  The problem was that between 80 and 120 feet there was a boulder field with the boulders packed in clay.  During the drilling the air pressure that runs the hammer drill at the drill head forces out any water in the hole. We were blowing out about 100 gallons per minute and this was washing out the clay from around the rocks.  When the rocks shifted they collapsed the well casing on one of the wells and we had to abandon that well.  This also produced a vast quantity of mud that collected in the silt fences and we spent all day cleaning out the mud trying to stay ahead of the drilling.

Geothermal wells have to be packed with a clay/sand mixture and instead of the planned 4000 lbs we needed 40,000 lbs to fill all the voids around the boulders that was washed away.

When it came time to drill the water well we moved about as far away from the geothermal wells as we could and we had no problem.  We have 30 gal/minute of excellent water - tastes like bottled water.

It is time to begin the well drilling for water as well as four 400 ft deep geothermal wells.

After the hole is drilled the geothermal pipe need to go in it.

Setting the Steel

The concrete basement

The footing are done

The forms for the basement wall are ready for cement.

The pumper truck is ready to fill the walls

Here is the view from the basement "family room" looking into the shop at the far end.  A bathroom and the mechanical room are in the middle.  The conduit and plumbing are ready for the slab to be poured on top.

Looking from the forest toward the living room window at the basement level

The bulldozer does it's thing

Here is the beginning of the driveway clearing

This is the awesome machine that cleared the road and the brush from the 5 acre park that surrounds the house

Things look a lot worse when the bull dozer gets to work on the road...

...next it starts work on the foundation.

The foundation is dug.

We dug up some pretty big rocks

The original drawing and model

Gray Owl House is designed by Frank Harmon
for Ruth Bromer and Joseph Huberman.  

It is situated in at the edge of an old clearing with large trees on the border of the 20 sq. km Birkhead National Wilderness Area -- a fantastic orienteering area with 14 sq. km already mapped.

The builder is Szostak Design+Build

These are the original sketches by Frank Harmon.  We wanted to blur the distinction between inside and outside and to have private as well as long views.

This is the view from the path approaching from the parking area

This is the view from the forest ridge looking toward teh patio.  The first door after the window is the main entrance to the house.  Note the skylight along the ridge.  The balcony is from the master bedroom and the roof walk is above it.

This is the view from the deck looking NW into the living room.

This is the what the forest on our property looks like.