Kristie's weekly-ish pics

Kristie-

Awesome!!! Thank YOU again, for the wonderful pics!!!

Mariamne

Taylor Taranto wrote:

Kristie Wheaton wrote:Taylor- what would you like to know about the tree?

I wanted to know if that tree was bent intentionally or if that was just nature being unnatural. Either way it is beautiful.

How did you use that tree in the wofati? Did you cut it at the angle or leave the bend for part of the property?

Sorry for taking so long to reply its been a little busy with the nice weather. No the tree just grew that way, an it was going to be used in our final wofati for tim an i , not this first one we built. so we havent cut it or anything yet.

Alivia is helping p.d. plant seeds on the berm at base camp

Here is the important lesson of the day from Emily an p.d......

Kristie Wheaton wrote:Tony has been working on building the berm up around the tipi the last couple days

Hmm, the only tipi thread is about the RMH, so I guess here is the place to ask....

Why the berm? Actually, I guess the real question is: what is the experiment with the tipi? what is being proved/disproved, or learned and improved? It appears that a RMH can keep people warm in a tent without problem though the tent itself has cool air.

It may be interesting to compare the tipi (designed originally as summer shelter) and the ger (designed as a year round tent). I use the word ger to distinguish the Mongolian home from the many yurt copies in North America.

- shape: The tipi is tall, the ger is squat.
- breathing: Both use the bottom of the skin lifted for air in and have a hole in the top for smoke... but the hole in the ger is much smaller and has been replaced (by the multitude of people still using them) with only a chimney hole.
- skin: the tipi has a thin skin of animal skin and now canvas, while the ger has 2 or 3 inches of wool in the summer, double in the winter. The summer wool insulation is generally in three pieces about 200lbs each.
- anchoring: Tipi use pegs to hold things down, The weight of the wool on a ger does that, though additional ropes with heavy rocks are used to hold the external cover on too.

These are just a few of the differences. I would compare these two home types because both are made for relatively dry climates... here on the coast we use the long or big house and the great lakes region is similar.

My thought is that the berm is to make the tipi nicer to live in when it is cold. I am wondering if the tent design would rather be changed.

I am more curious than anything. I think personally for a home that stays in the same place I would choose a different form of building.

My understanding is that Paul felt a hankering to have people live through a Montana winter in a tipi with just the RMH for warmth, to show how effective the RMH is at creating comfort. The whole driver for the experiment was the amazing rocket mass heater. He currently does not feel (or at least recently did not feel) that the experiment can be called a success, because the RMH was not fully functional (the cob froze before it could dry!) for a fair amount of the winter and the tipi was livable, but not comfy.

It could be that now a couple of alterations have been made, the experiment may be dubbed a success. I think tipi was chosen because he had some, and they are more local.

For the long term, the housing of choice at Wheaton Laboratories is the wofati.

the start of the earthworks workshop, with paul talking about where they think the water is most likely to be for collecting in a pond

an it might be "this big"

moving the dirt from the pond to the lemon tree site

david backing tim up to the dump site at the lemon tree area