Back to the grind

You'd think that winter would be more tolerable down here because it is so much warmer than in the Cleveland area. However, I am finding myself with the same level of jetlag that I'd get going back to Cleveland after a February Chile trip. Somehow when I land in summer, I have no problem, but the last two days have been a blur of sleep, headaches and clouds. Blech.

Anyway, it's back to work for us for 4 weeks. We are going to have to keep burning the candle at both ends because we have a LOT of work to fit into this time: On Aug 14, we leave again but this time for 6 weeks. We are going to Cleveland, Jackson Hole, back to Cleveland for a wedding, then to AUSTRALIA! to buy/order sheep embryos, then BACK to Cleveland and finally back here. No joke, I am going to go from being a regular old frequent flier to a gold flier just with these trips. I am excited about Australia, but it will be mostly work-- sheep farms, fairs, mucho hay and manure I imagine. I am most looking forward to Jackson because I need a few days of relaxation and zero obligations. Brian and Becky are coming so goodness knows the food will be good, too!

So, here's what's on our plate:

HOUSE As you all know, the farm house was destroyed in the earthquake. I haven't really updated about that situation because I have been out of my mind busy with that. Nick and I have looked at this past trip as a symbolic closure of the Earthquake Period here-- the straw house is done, and we have a temporary place to live-- we bought a mobile-home-type ditty that was delivered ready-to-go, but it's TINY (two bedrooms/450 square feet) and anyway we were going to build our own house even before the earthquake hit. So since before we moved here, Nick and I dealt with an architect to design a house. We shopped it around to various builders but unfortunately the price was just WAY too high for us (1/4-1/2 million USD! wth!). Back in February we were about to sign a contract with the company that made our casita (it's what we call the mobile house... nicer, isn't it?) to build a full-sized house for us. It was affordable and reasonably nice. Since we've had the casita, though, we've realized that we have a bit more time to think about things and also we weren't crazy about the quality of it. It's fine, but it gave us pause when we realized a whole house like that could be a pain to live in... soo.....

Nick and I have decided to build our own house... ! ..... ! We are going to continue on the straw theme, and employ the same two farm guys that helped build the one on the farm the employee. We came to the realization that in order to get the quality that we wanted (and are used to in the US) for the price that we want, this is the only way. Plus, the only people accountable to us are us. If we don't show up for work one day, we know where we are. If we go over budget, we know why. And saving so much on labor will enable us to have the best quality materials, ensuring that our house will last longer than something we'd contract out. The building project will start around November, but we are going this afternoon to discuss it with an architect, so start looking for posts about this soon. I am really excited to be able to blog about our own straw house!

BUSINESS The other big thing I have on my plate is a business that Nick and I, a friend from the US, and possibly a partner here in Chile have talked about starting for some months. I don't want to put too many details on the internet because it's a very competitive industry, but I look forward to talking about it more as we progress. But for now I have to write a business plan to get us operational as soon as possible. One thing I learned from attending a entrepreneurship seminar here is not to sit on your ideas because there are ten other people our there trying to make them work already! So we decided that in order to get things into motion, I was the least busy member of this group and I could start the heavy work on things as soon as possible. Exciting, but lots of work.

Ok gotta run to this meeting, but it feels nice to have some clarity of mind, and moreover TIME, to be back here blogging and telling everyone about life in Chile! See you soon!

Back to the USA

Wow, what a visit home. Nick and I went to the US on July 1 and came back to Chile yesterday. It was the first time we had been there since the earthquake and so coming in was extremely emotional for me. The landscape itself is so different than here in Chile, and when I saw the flat land filled with green, green, green and the lake in the distance, I can't even describe the feeling that welled up in me. It was coming home, but it was different, more powerful. It was a place I knew that was still there, unchanged, unshaken.

I won't bore you with too many details of what we did and who we saw because many of you were either there or don't know the people I am talking about! However, I would like to mention a few highlights:

GO TRIBE-- The day we got back, crazy person that I am, I arranged for us to go to an Indians game. They lost miserably and played like an AA team, but it was great to be there. The fireworks were amazing, and it was about as All-American as you can get after 6 months away. Considering all of the drama always surrounding the other teams in town, I hope the Indians can get it together in the coming years... lots more opinions here but this is not a baseball blog.... :)

ROOT CAFE-- I hadn't been here since they moved/changed from the Phoenix, aside from a quick dash in over Christmas to get coffee. I have been hooked on Phoenix coffee since Brian introduced me to it (Phoenix and Equal Exchange decaf are my signature blends!) but the old place wasn't exactly my kind of hole in the wall (and hole in the wall, it was). But the Root is the really comfortable, relaxing kind of coffee house I haven't seen around town since the Red Star was open down on Detroit & 116th. I went once just to try it and we ended up going on several consecutive days. The food, which is sourced locally when available, was great and reasonably priced. I am hooked on the beetnik muffin-- a beet & blueberry creation that is dense, moist and really tasty. I am going to have to experiment with beets in bakery now! They are much sweeter here in Chile, so it will be interesting to see how that works out... Recipes to come?

BAC-- This was the other dining discovery of the trip. Nick, Brian & Becky and I were in Tremont and wanted some interesting food for dinner, so we decided to try Bac. The family who runs it includes a friend-of-several-friends so I had seen details about it while we were here in Chile but obviously didn't have the chance to try it until this trip. The menu had me DROOLING a few months ago when I read it and it turns out that it lived up to its hype. The dumpling and rangoon appetizers we had were excellent, and the sauces flavorful (and not just soy sauce with chili in it like some places). I had Pad Thai because I can't resist trying it wherever I am. It was really different from any I have had but really good. A reviewer on another site said it was better than the one at Ty Fun, which is my favorite pad thai around... I wouldn't say it was better but it was just as good in a different way.

HILL CUMORAH-- After many years of talking about it, Sarah, Alison and I finally went to the Hill Cumorah pageant in upstate NY. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a dramatic rendition of part of the book of Mormon and how it was rediscovered. Sociologically speaking, it was fascinating to see so many mormons in one place, and with the dichotomy of the attendees with the anti-mormon protestors surrounding the place. Despite my fascination with mormon culture and my disbelief in the book of mormon, I really do not understand anti-mormon protestors. I, too, find it quite odd that there is no historical evidence of a book many people believe to be accurate (although this was explained away in the pageant by God having wiped the historical evidence off the face of the Earth), but I have never been driven to yell at believers over it. Also, Mormons? Probably the least likely people in the world to engage in any sort of dialect over their beliefs. The pageant itself was ... odd.. It was about an hour and a half long, and probably 1:15 of that was a summary of fighting between groups of people. Then it got on to what I thought was the important stuff-- the discovery by Joseph Smith of the book of Mormon at the very site we were sitting! But it spent maybe 10 minutes saying "And so Joseph Smith found the book of Mormon here on Hill Cumorah. The end, have a good night!"

Post-wall building... go on a road trip!

What sounds like the best way to relax after building the walls to a house? How about a 1000-km road trip the next day??? No? Well, that's what we did.

On Sunday, we left the straw house project around 4pm, only to rush home, shower, put something classy on and attend Nick's grandma's 95th birthday party. Normally this would have warranted a post all of its own, but I was so wiped out and thinking of the upcoming trip that I barely have any recollection of the party (except that I FINALLY got to wear this cute strapless red dress I found at a thrift store in Cleveland for $5).

Monday morning, we hit the road in the farm truck at 7:30 am. We were trying to beat beep-o'clock but it started early that morning, so there was lots of traffic and noise trying to get out of the city. Just on the other side of the mountains that form the border of the Region Metropolitana and Region VI O'Higgins, we encountered our first earthquake-related delay. Both the bridges on Route 5, the Panamerican highway, had collapsed, so we had to take a detour through the country. The upside of this was that they didn't charge tolls, so we didn't have to stop and wait in the toll line every hundred kms or so.

The whole way down, we passed many bridges that had completely collapsed or sides of the road that disappeared. Here's one where the other lane just fell off:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

Another where the bridge just snapped off:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

This is the old bridge over the Rio Claro that broke as well:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

I was a bit disappointed when we got to the South because it was cloudy from farmers burning off their fields. Burning stuff is one of my biggest frustrations here. No one seems to care about the environmental implications of burnings acres and acres of vegetation, let alone the quantity of garbage that is burned. I read reports from the tsunami ravaged areas that said they were dealing with the debris by burning it all in order to avoid a health crisis. Avoid a health crisis? It just changes what type of health crisis you will have! But I digress...

We got to where we were staying, outside Puerto Varas on the shores of Lago Llanquihue, late in the evening, but the skies had cleared and we were greeted with one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen in Chile. Above the grand Volcan Osorno, a full moon had risen and was wrapped in a beautiful halo.

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

I know this looks completely fake, but this is an unretouched photo (long exposure obviously) I took of the situation

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

Straw House Pics

There are so many photos that I took that I can even begin to tell a story around, so I thought I'd just post a bunch of photos here of the process.

The first wall developing

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

Within an hour or so, the walls were developing

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

The walls where I planned for sections to be one bale thick turned out the best.

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

While the walls were going up, they started planning the roof dimensions on the floor:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

The house was like a beehive:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

Nick and the farm guys enjoy a late afternoon beer. It was HOT that day.

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

This was most of the people who came, but not even everyone. I can't thank them enough.

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

At the end of the day, the house looked like THIS!

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

Here's an interior shot with the roof plate:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

Ongoing list...

This is sort of for myself, sort of for you. People have asked me what I need from the US and also I tend to forget these things when I'm actually there, so I thought I'd start a list of things I/We could always use and/or always want. (Note that this is not directed at the group of you coming to visit in a couple of weeks!!!)

Mr Clean Magic Erasers

Q-tips

Rica-rica sauce from Teahouse Noodles

Malley's hot fudge

Decaf coffee (esp Trader Joe's Mocha-Java or Phoenix anything med/dark)

Trader Joe's olive tapenade

Flip flops from Old Navy (love 'em! but the farm kills them)

Almond butter

Beer- especially

Briana's blush vinagrette dressing

Campbell's tomato soup

Straw House 1

March 27 is my and Nick’s 7-year dating anniversary. Never in my wildest dreams on that night in 2003 when Nick first told me all about his grandmother’s farm and its vastness did I imagine myself here 7 years later, building a house that was destroyed in one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded. One of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded. It’s a phrase that gives me chills and probably always will…

On this bright Saturday morning, however, here we were about to build a house. Over the past week, Nick and I have built frames for all of the windows (10 of them) and have begun laying the wood frame that goes around the base of the straw bales. We preserved the original foundation, which was not damaged, but when the remainder of the house was demolished, we discovered that all of the concrete floors were at different levels. The guys who work here releveled the foundation—60 bags of concrete and a truckload of gravel later, it’s ready to be built on.

Nick and I got to the job site very early—around 7:30—so we could finish installing all of the wood pieces before the volunteers showed up. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the day threatened to be quite hot, but at this hour, working outside was manageable. By ten o’clock, this is what the base of the house looked like:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

Let me explain what all of the bits are. At the very bottom, of course, is the concrete foundation. On top of that, we laid the black tar paper—this seals out moisture rising up through the concrete from the straw. The wood on top of that is also to give the straw a base and to keep it up off of any potential moisture. The frames everywhere are for the windows. These give the windows added stability and also keep them square because bales don’t have a tendency to be square. Finally, the rods sticking up are something of an unorthodox touch, and maybe not one we’d repeat. They are to spear the bales as they come down, keeping them in line and adding more stability to the building in the case of an earthquake. You also find these rods in masonry buildings for the same reason. More about why we’d do it differently next time later...

Around 10am, our architect friend, his business partner and a coworker appeared to begin helping us. Since we hadn’t finished frames for the doors yet, we put them to work doing that and squaring up the joint. This is another thing that in the future I would not worry too much about at this stage. Bales coming down from every angle and being pounded into place have the potential to unsquare even the best-braced frames, plus the whole thing is adjustable until the plaster goes on. Live and learn.

I began to wonder if our volunteers were still coming when suddenly a train appeared on the horizon. A quantity of vehicles I have never before seen on our humble little fundo raced down the stony hills and into the makeshift parking area, and 10, no 15, no TWENTY young men spilled out in shorts, tennis shoes and bandanas, ripping open packs of work gloves and pulling out coolers with drinks and ice. It was as if an army of worker bees had showed up to build a hive.

I stood frozen in awe at the tableau for just a moment before it erupted into chaos. Suddenly gravel was filling the wood base, bales were being moved from the storage site to the house site, a flurry of orders were being given. In all this excitement I nearly missed the first bale being layed, but I caught it like a blink of an eye:

From Straw house and Puerto Varas

And from there it was a marathon. Bale after bale after bale was speared on the rebar, quickly stacking into a wall. I have the muscular strength approximately equal to one of their toes, so I left the lifting to the capable ones. During the course of the day, I ran around cleaning up straw (huge fire hazard), consulting our straw bale bible, and making sure people were fed and hydrated. The temperature climbed and climbed, with not a cloud in the sky or roof above to provide shade. It must’ve been in the 90s.

Suddenly it was after 6pm, and since it’s autumn, the light was beginning to wane. I informed everyone of the hour but no one wanted to move. A last surge of energy meant victory—we finished all of the walls!

Back at the main center of the farm, the complex where our house is/was, we had an asado arranged. A late birthing season led to the availability of a few lamb—a perfect thank-you for this occasion. The wife of a farm employee arranged everything, including a picnic table for 30. Nick and I ran into town to buy wine and soda—the volunteers had brought a truckload of beer.

The sun plummeted in a way it only seems to do around the equinoxes, and we celebrated under the stars with one lightbulb and the full moon to light us. Course after course of roast lamb, potatoes and kept coming, and we toasted with red wine. The house had a shape.

House Tomorrow

I am slogging through the slowest internet connection on the planet because I have to tell you about the straw-bale house going up tomorrow. Finally! Sort of perversely, the one-month anniversary of the earthquake is tomorrow. It all at once seems like a month is way too long to have taken to get to this point, and like it can't POSSIBLY have been a month already. But, here it is, at 3:34 tomorrow morning... Incidentally, in 1985, the last big earthquake here like this one (an 8.0 near Valparaiso), they had a 7.2 aftershock over a month after the initial shock. Here's hoping that doesn't happen again.

As I have mentioned before, an amazing friend rallied his architectural and engineering coworkers to help us rebuild one of the employee houses, which we are doing with straw bales. Tomorrow we are expecting almost 20 people to show up and help us raise the walls! Somehow even though I've always tried to reach out to people in need, it's still striking to a) be the one in need and b) have people reach out to us. Not only are they showing up, but they have arranged for their own housing (seeing as how we don't have any) and food. I am floored by the generosity of all of these people.

Despite the way it sounds, a straw bale house is not just a square fort made of straw bales stacked in line. In fact, it's a rather intricate procedure. First we had to make a solid foundation. Luckily the foundation of the original house was not damaged in the earthquake, so we were about to keep it. It had to be leveled out, and yesterday the guys finished pouring that cement. In a weird twist, I was doing some measuring around the foundation when I found an inscription from the original maestros:

Ok, blogger and my ridiculous internet connection are not agreeing with me posting a photo, so here's a link--

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3701524&l=8e9dbee3a4&id=795878287

The original foundation was laid 50 years ago to the date! So weird. It's a sign of some sort, but I can't quite figure out what... (maybe that our straw-bale house will be leveled by an earthquake in about 49 years and 11 months?)

Once the foundation is done, you have to set a wooden frame for the bales to go on. Under this frame, you must put some sort of waterproof barrier-- we used tar paper. The whole purpose of both of these is to prevent water from seeping in and ruining the core of your straw walls. A mirror of the bottom frame is made to lay on top of the straw bales once they are up. This helps compress the bales (making it more sturdy and fire retardant) and make an even surface for the roof. We finished both frames today.

Additionally, since you don't have a wood structure for the windows and doors to sit in, you have to create one for each window and door. This is what Nick and I have been up to all week, and we just finished the last frame today.

Tomorrow, at sunrise (don't cringe... the sun is rising at almost 8 now), we'll head back out to get everything started for the group that is coming. What we have to do is set all of the window and door frames on the bottom wood frame, put steel rods all around to spear the bales as they go up (thus making the house even more seismically stable), and then finally start loading up the bales. At some point during the day I have to run to the "nearby" town (35 mins) to get things for tomorrow night-- as a thank-you, we are having a lamb roast for everyone.

So that's our progress in a nutshell. I have LOTS of pictures already so as soon as we're back in Santiago, I will upload a step-by-step of the house.

Oh. Did I mention that we have to drive to Puerto Montt on Monday? For those us you not brushed-up on your Chilean geography, that's south, way south. Like, at least 12 hours south. We have to go pick up a ram... yeah, more on that later....... when does the fun stop?????