Shae’s Earthbag Bedroom
Episode 6
Laying Walls for 2nd Half & Hugelkulture/Permaculture
We are up to ground level and have began to bag the heart all together. The door posts are in and there's an update on our self watering system & permaculture method called a hugelkultur (some techniques we use for desert gardening)! We also received a visit from a unique guest and he helped us out! Please enjoy!
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http://mylittlehomestead.com/ep5-shaes-earthbag-bedroom-begin-to-%20build-the-earthbag-walls.html
Next Episode
http://mylittlehomestead.com/ep7-shaes-earthbag-bedroom-building--heart-walls.html
Shae aka Winter_Apple
August 11, 2017
Video Transcript
last episode we completed the first
several rows for the lower circle of
Shae's earthbag bedroom
[music]
the guys begin
setting posts for the second circle
[music]
the posts are a little shorter than normal
normally you can just bury them a couple
feet in the ground
on top of some gravel or
something
and just concrete them around
and go that direction
but since they're shorter
we've built up small pedestals
to be able to put them on
They're eight inch blocks
and we just double
stack those
and everything is all
concreted in
and then we strap them down
with a piece of metal
the reason they're
shorter too and not as long
as we would like them to be
is we came
across those poles
somebody let us come to their place and pull them out
and they were free
gosh, we got the materials - use
them
[music]
it could go that way
better?
much better
oh you're so good
it's level this way too
[music]
is this the doorway?
this is not the doorway
you're putting in the other pole for the doorway
[music]
this old self water container we built a while back
and had this kiddie pool in here
and it's got a float to fill it with water
recently it stopped working
so we suspect the reason for that is the
amount of dirt that was on top of it
this was at one point in time
crushed down from all the dirt
it started filling up as soon as we took all the dirt off
filling in
if you haven't seen
these before what we do is we have our
rain barrel and then we've hooked up to
the rain barrel
we hook the hose up
which could be hard plumbed
right now it's hooked up with a hose
the hose comes into this float
it fills this little kiddy pool up
the float keeps the
rain water up to a certain level
then we put a screen down
that glass cloth there
cloth and wire
if we didn't have that
all the sand would fall in
then we'll fill it back up with dirt and
then we'll be able to plant
then that water will wick up
if you've seen
the self water containers or self water pots
it works similar to that but it
just works off of our rain barrels
the object is the whole self watering
container is that the soil acts as the wick
so it wicks up the water into the bed
and keeps all the dirt damp
the plants are happy
we're going to put a
little of water on here to get the
wicking started
happy planting
[music]
all right
grow good
we do these kind of techniques
because it actually saves on water in
the desert and it's because it waters it
from underneath as opposed to above
when you water a plant the extra water either
goes down or evaporates at the top
of the surface
but doing it from here
gives the plant just the perfect amount of
water and it doesn't go to the top of
the surface
it stays underneath so we put wood chips
on top the surface which helps keep the
moisture in
[music]
where's your toy?
one side or the other
[music]
hi dad
hey
no no no don't run it
[laughter]
A lot of people have suggested these auto
fillers for filling the earthbags up
they use a hand cart or big tubes
occasionally
there's a lot of different methods out there
and the reason we use the coffee cans or shovels is
we have enough people here that it's
really fast to get three or four
people on one bag and you
can move really quick
don't have to fiddle with a machine of any kind
I suppose we would need something like that if we had 2 people
to be that if there were less people
if we had less people then we would use a different method
[music]
Are you going to put it in the wall?
I'm going to have stairs right there
the pot over here might be kinda cute
but if we're going to have shelves
are they going to
be in the way
because that would be cute
right there
these buildings are so organic and just different
you don't really ever know what they're
going to turn out like until they're
done
picture this
this whole thing is open
so it comes up to this level and it's open all the way to the wall
there's a post in the center
there's so much going on low
and then windows
okay so we're going to put the pot in higher?
yes
okay that's simple then
we'll set it off for later
sometimes it's a surprise
yeah
it's never been bad
no matter how much time I spend
looking at it and planning it
it doesn't turn out exactly like what's in my head
the way it is
but it's even better
I am a human stabilizer
are you growing your hair out?
[music]
move your tootsies
[music]
oh the old man get down in the trenches
come here Monday
come on Monday
come on up
Monday!
[music]
gardening is really easy if you stick
with cactus
I think some people are successful in a desert
but it is hard
Bryson helped me this year to put in a
couple hugelkultur's over by the self water area
the hugelkultur which are also
called permaculture and probably
other terms as well
they're not an exact
science
so I suppose there's lots of
different ways to make these
the way we do it is we start out with wood on the bottom
the scrap wood that we have
around the property
put cardboard down
we'll save junk mail throughout the year
I've been saving my junk mail for
a year
and just putting in this box
for this very moment
sticks and stuff on top of all that
break up sticks because we don't want to
poking out of the hugelkultur's
and then we put our dirt
[music]
and then wood chips on top of that
[music]
our center post
I'm working on right now
a little bit more artistic
it's a shapely kind of a post
scraping it all down
there's a lot of bugs so it's going
to take a little bit of time to get out
some of those worm holes
chase those worms out
to make my life easier
instead of using my draw knife like we
used for all the railings
which is a lot simpler
went out and got a electric hand planer
that thing's just
zipping it right off
faster than my arms
if I had used my arms
I'd have arms bigger than Garen's
they'd be monstrous
I was watching my little homestead YouTube
videos for six months and decided to
totally stock everyone
I followed all the siblings on Instagram
Shae looked about my age
I could use another friend
so I DM'd you on Instagram
you thought I was how old?
I thought you were either in your 40s or 50s
I always assume whoever's watching the
videos is older and that's not true
he does some old man things
His Instagram name is Mr. Jacob
and I don't know that's old manny to me
and he had a Bible verse
in his bio so I thought
oh, this is an older dude and he would call me
Miss Shae
I thought you were just being a
sweet old man
you want to look at this Dad just to double check?
In case something is not right and you hate it because you're roof won't fit
My roof doesn't matter there
um hmm
uh huh
It puts a nice curve
I'm happy with this
Garen's happy then everyone is happy
There was some weird thing going around where you would pick a color
he picked blue and it happened to be
most embarrassing picture
Were you in a tribal costume?
yeah
so I get this
picture of him in a tribal costume and I
was like you're not old
I start to be his friend from there on out
you make a good old man
get out here as often as I can
he's gonna help us dig and build
thank you by the way
that's what you're here for right?
that's all you wanted to do is
build on a building that's all
that's the only reason you came down right?
Yep, totally
definitely
the only reason
good to know
I'm glad that your sarcasm matches
up
She takes dirt from where I'm standing
why would you do that?
We've only spent $80 so
far on the building because he's only
had to buy the barbed wire
plastic for the outside
and then some electric stuff
[music]
we really appreciate you
being here
stay tuned for next time when
we continue building on Shae's earthbag
bedroom
we also have those Wednesday
evening podcast
you're invited and we
hope you join us
thanks for watching and
have a wonderful week
bye
[music]
please consider supporting us on patreon
our family moved from the city to the
country
thanks for taking part in our
adventure
we have new videos every
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see the links in the description
stop filming us!
she already loves me dude
I'm good
I'm golden
the hard work is done
[laughter]
the work is never done
how long do you want me to love you?
[laughter]
and so it begins
[music]
Partners
Resources
www.greenhomebuilding.com/adobe.htm
www.earthbagbuilding.com/articles.htm
www.earthbagplans.wordpress.com
We moved from the city to the country in 2005. Since then, we have been building structures, raising livestock and growing some of our own foods. We are crazy about family, nutrition and want the best for our growing family.
