Nobody ever said that it would be easy-report from the front lines.

Here I am sitting in a bunk bed at the place we are staying at in Northern Michigan. Three days ago, we set out on an unprecedented journey to build the largest Earth Shelter Project ever built. We started on the Friday after Thanksgiving and we have three of the five domes up. I am very happy with the progress, given the issues that we have had to deal with. Not sure exactly what date it is or day, but that doesnt matter to me right now.

My purpose in all I do with sustainable building is to try to get more people to build sustainably. I never want to come across as someone who bashs any one product or process. I came close today. I hate to say it, but there is still alot of monkey business going on out there that one needs to be careful of. For example, a smooth talker behind a phone can sell a building package to someone and then just drop a big pile of metal out in a field and say good luck. Not that that happened, but, well, anyway, I will continue.

The process so far has been fairly smooth considering the sorting we have had to do with the steel componants of this Earth Shelter project. Once we got the back side of the domes up, we went pretty quick. The generic manual they sent is definately generic. We found no help in that book, so we decided to do what we do best and figure this out ourselves. Once we stopped wishing that the company knew what they were doing, we started to get a good pace established.

I have a tough task alot of times, in picking what team members to bring to what job. This job, I decided that I was going to be the 'sky walker', uncle Rog was going to be the goto guy on the ground and that I would add a new person to this crew. His name is Dale and he is an equipment operator by trade. We also have use of a local equipment operator here in town. I figured that we need people that could drive heavy equipment through waist high farm field mud, while I was strapped into or on that equipment. These steel beams are heavy and the right team means the difference between injuries and not getting injured. At this point, in my expert opinion, I would not recomend a novice homeowner/builder putting up these domes. Only if you have the equipment we have, which are: sky track, excavator, and crane. These have saved a ton of time and back ache.

Today, I injured my lower bicep muscle on my right arm. I was holding this metal beam up with my right arm and things gave way. I stopped the beam from falling with my right arm and then after setting the beam, fell to the planks on the scaffolding that were 20 feet up in the air. I was yelling in pain. I never felt that much pain in my life, I could not lift my right arm! I tried and tried, but it would not move. I started yelling because I was very mad. I kept yelling "I don't care if it hurts, I need it to work". I picked the team and I was the skywalker, and now I was taken out. I was very mad. So, I gained my composure and climbed down off the scaffolding with my good arm and started pacing back and forth. I told myself that I needed my arm to work. Nothing happened, so I yelled again. We took a small break, and I went to my truck to grab some Aleve and to change clothes to something lighter. My heavy coat made my arm hurt, so I threw it on the ground. I started massaging my arm and decided that I would gut it out and do everything with my other arm because I was the only one out there that would work that high. At some point, my arm started working again and we were back on our efficient pace. Hmmm. As I write this, I have that arm wrapped up and plan on working tomorrow. It was a test of will, and I won this time. Be careful. I don't need a trophy for being a stubborn guy, but some ice would be handy.

I mention this, because, I have built more out of the ordinary places than most people. I have worked high in the air with steel before, and because of how awkward this process is, there is a lot of pressure on that steel and that is what causes the problems. We figured out what we needed to do, and everyone has a smile on their face now. Yay Earth Shelter.

I will get pictures posted and stay tuned for the video on Vimeo.com.

Just like the first time we set SIPs, we have had some issues. We will work through those and figure how to do this properly, then, let others know what is going on. I love the idea of the Earth Shelter house and I am even more fired up now that we have three domes up.