SCULPTOR ALMA ALLEN'S
ANTI-PREFAB IN JOSHUA TREE
DECEMBER 2006
The structural concrete walls are up and the building looks like a Costco right now - a temporary growing phase. We have been busy trying to get the building materials up to the building site since none of the large delivery trucks can make it up the driveway. While Alma was hauling the beams up the hill, the truck broke down and Alma had to fix it with his legs dangling over the edge of the truck. It also stranded us for three days since the driveway was blocked as we waited for the special-order banjo bolt. The driveway is particularly difficult to go up because we only paved two strips for the tires in case we needed to trench water or power in it.
The wood delivery was put in pallets too heavy for our little Bobcat to lift, so most of the wood had to be unloaded by hand - several tons of tongue & groove (that still sounds weird) and forty-two 24 foot long 4x12 and 8x14 beams.
We made every effort to use salvaged materials for this major wood purchase. Our first obstacle was the County. They will not accept salvaged/reclaimed wood for structural use. Our second obstacle was the cost. We have vigilantly scoured Craigslist, Ebay, the Penny Saver, local papers... to try and find reclaimed tongue & groove and beams at a reasonable price but it's always at least five times as much as the cost of new wood. The cabinets, doors and non-structural wood will all be salvaged.
Fritz Carraldo has removed the previously uploaded video for a re-edit. It is a bit tedious in its current state, a result of our laborious living conditions with hours spent getting basic needs met - not that there is ever an excuse for bad video.
DECEMBER 2006
DAY 445 IN THE TRAILER
I am beginning to wonder what it is that we are doing here. This is our second winter in the trailer and the building has been progressing slowly and with great stress. Although our days are consumed with the process of building a house and studio, the concept of actually living in it seems increasingly dim as daily claustrophobia and discomfort pervade our pyches. We don't even say "Are you okay?" anymore when someone hits their head.
It is so cold... "How cold is it?" It is so cold that the entire contents of our refrigerator froze. For some reason this kind of blew my mind. I guess I expected it to switch functions and insulate the contents to keep our beer from exploding. We have been commiserating with the guy at the propane station where we go to fill up our tanks, these days every other day. He also lives in a trailer and he constructed a barrier on the bottom to keep the cold air from flowing underneath. He felt this helped a great deal. The aluminum trailer is the exact counter-point to what we hope to achieve with the passive solar construction of the house.
DECEMBER 2006
Thanks to a high functioning JT/NYC resident, we are now running our fleet of vehicles, (Dodge truck, Mercedes SD and Bobcat), enitrely on biodiesel since September. We no longer have to raid the Costco and stalk the local restaurants for oil. We would have loved to filter & process it ourselves, (well maybe not "loved"), but there's so much to do right now. We are very grateful to be a part of this co-op. The before-mentioned person ordered up a 500 gallon tank and arranged biodiesel delivery and we just fill up, keep track of our use, and give him the money. The current price for biodiesel is less than regular diesel.
OCTOBER 2006
SLAB POUR
Woo-hoo!
SEPTEMBER 2006
GEO-THERMAL LOOP
In the hopes of avoiding annoying forced air -hot or cold - we've laid Pex pipe throughout the floor which will circulate through a geo-thermal loop buried 4 or 5 feet underground where the temperature is consistently 68 degrees. In the winter, the water will warm up to 68 degrees and circulate throughout the house and we can supplement it with a solar water heater. In the summer, the water will cool down to 68 degrees. This system works particularly well with our passive solar construction with large thermal mass walls. The only energy it requires is a small pump for the water. If we need to add coolness in the summer, we can get a "reefer chiller" (dude!) used for refrigerated trucks and hope Fritz's tongue doesn't stick to the floor.
We have all become masters of the zip ties used to hold the pipe to the rebar as the cement was poured. We cleared out the zip tie supplies in the greater Joshua Tree/Yucca Valley area.
NOTE: Our bio-diesel provider friend warns us that moisture is required to effectively transmit temperature to the geo-thermal loop. He therefore plans to do his loop in his septic tank leech field to utilize an effect he is naming Pee-O-Thermal Loop (All Rights Reserved). We plan to bury ours in a large wash that maintains an ambient soil moisture content good for temperature transfer, due to its being a large wash.
SEPTEMBER 2006
MEAN CHOLLA & THE NOBLE BEAST
Fritz has become pretty adept at avoiding cactus stickers. If he does get one, (usally cholla), he stops and patiently waits for us to remove the sticker from his conveniently uplifted paw. Unfortunately he learned the hard way that his mouth isn't the best tool for cholla removal and got one stuck in the roof of his mouth. Ouch!
AUGUST 2006
FOOTINGS, OR THE DOWNSIDE OF NOT HAVING YOUR HOUSE COLLAPSE IN AN EARTHQUAKE
With the forms and rebar in place, it was time to order up the cement. The trucks couldn't make it up our steep driveway, (as seen in FRITZ CARRALDO), so the cement had to be pumped about 200 feet up a cliff. The engineering was complicated and significant because of the 10 foot high, 125 feet long structural concrete and block walls in earthquake-prone California. In addition, the walls will have the extra weight of the rock cladding. You ever wonder why you don't see many straw bale or rammed earth houses here in California? (Not to mention masonry or brick.) It's because California earthquake building code requires a stick frame structure underneath the alternative building methods which kind of defeats the environmental, resource-saving purpose.
Thanks again to Sophie Smits and Patrick Bambrough in Venice, (310-306-5009 or smitsbambrough@hotmail.com) for the architectural plans and impressive engineering.
JULY 2006
BRINGING FUEL TO THE FIRE
Last week, Alma & Fritz and I escaped the desert heat to go
on a walnut run. (Damn these aluminum trailers get hot! Near Sacramento,
they were clearing hundreds of acres of a mature walnut orchard to build
a giant levee to prevent the area from flooding. The trip back was exciting.
We (stupidly) took the scenic route through Lake Tahoe and the Sierras
and discovered our truck brakes weren't quite up to the task. Alma pulled
over to let other cars pass and it was like that overplayed scene in a
movie where you just keep going and going and going and finally stopped
in the bushes right before a cliff! We managed to get down the mountain
but spent Saturday getting a brake job in Carson City. Fritz was a big
hit in the Les Schwab waiting area but rejected the stale popcorn that
other customers seemed to be enjoying.
JULY 2006 (continued)
We were going to spend the night at the Mt. Whitney portal in Lone Pine but on the way back a friend in Joshua Tree called to tell us a new fire was on the ridge directly behind us. She wanted to know if we wanted her to grab any valuables! We rushed home and discovered it was actually a couple ridges back. It was surreal driving into town at 3AM with the hills glowing red. Planes and helicopters passed overhead constantly and the fire was under control in a couple of days.
(The big Pioneertown/ Sawtooth Complex fire luckily did not threaten us. The cool folks who do the Joshua Tree Music festival are having an art auction and music festival in October. 100% of the profits will be donated to local fire disaster relief and wildlife conservancy organizations. www.joshuatreemusicfestival.com)
When we returned, the first rat (that I am aware of) entered the sanctuary of our trailer. It left piles of Fritz's dog food in various nooks of the trailer so it could snack wherever it happened to find itself during its nefarious activities. Not content to annoy with usual rat activities, it also left its calling card and chewed our copy of Thoreau's Walden. The obvious symbolism was not lost on us. That smug rat thinks it can disillusion us, but it's wrong.
JULY 2006
PATRIOTISM - HIGH DESERT STYLE!
A vendor at the Yucca Valley flea market catering to those who refuse to buy their teepees from messy smokers without grandkids in other countries.
JULY 2006
While having a drink at the local honky-tonk, we discovered the problem with bringing horses to bars...
JUNE 2006
SNAKES IN A JACK, THE SEQUEL
We had a flat tire on the truck, and when Alma went to put the repaired tire on, there was a rattlesnake under the truck. Wanting no more trouble from us than we wanted from it, the snake curled itself up inside the jack. This made it very hard to gently encourage the snake to find sandier pastures utilizing textbook measures for getting attacked: prodding it with a rake, spraying it with a hose, etc. We could practically hear the announcer's voice from "Max X" in the background. We called the local "Desert Pet" shop to see if we could get one of those snake picker-upper thingies to relocate it and were advised that they have to be special ordered and people don't usually spring for them because "they are much more expensive than a golf club." After an awkward minute of my trying to figure out how much a golf club costs, it dawned on me that the desert pet merchant had a more metaphorical definition of "sandy pastures" than I did and was not concerned with the snake's survival and role in the ecosytem. We did finally convince the snake to repose in the rock pile adjacent to the truck.
MAY 2006
Alma has graded the building site and dug the footings, and is now building the forms for the footings in preparation for the big cement pour.
The building will have two thick parallel, 9 foot high, 125 foot long walls to create a thermal mass for passive solar.
MAY 2006
We have started running a vegetable oil mix in our 1979 Mercedes SD, (the diesel version of the car J.R. Ewing drove!), and our diesel Dodge Cummins engine truck. We run a smaller percentage in the truck because it's a newer, more complicated engine. We're running a veggie oil/diesel mix without doing any conversion at all - 50/50 in the Mercedes and 40/60 in the truck. We just pour it straight in the tank. In the colder months, 50% might be too high a veggie oil mix, but we haven't had any problems so far. It's been 4-5 months.
Now that it's hotter, we're trying an even higher percentage of veggie oil in the Mercedes. We just put in about 80% veggie oil, 10% diesel, and 10% regular gas. It's running great! We'll keep you posted...
We buy the oil at Costco, (Soybean salad oil), or Smart & Final, and it's currently cheaper than regular diesel at the pump. If you're buying large quantities, be sure and use the pallet mover instead of a shopping cart or you might get scolded by staff. It's also hard to manuever 45 gallons of oil in a wobbly shopping cart. We're in the process of setting up a system to collect waste oil, and filter and clean it. Asian restaurants are supposed to be the best, but I haven't been able to talk any of the local Asian resturants out of their waste oil yet. It's an awkward conversation. A couple bottles of waste oil are pictured, which are from the local honkytonk and used for french fries and catfish. Not sure if it will work well since the fries have a high water content. We'd like to make biodiesel from the waste oil, which is supposed to better for the truck's more complicated engine. To make biodiesel, you have to add lye and methanol to the filtered oil, among other things...
We are by no means authorities on the subject, just looked things up online. We like this forum on veggie oil and biodiesel:
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/groupee
MAY 2006
All year round, you have to keep the hood up on your car or the desert pack rats will hang out in your engine and use your expensive wiring to beautify their nests. It's counter-intuitive, I know. You'd think they'd consider the open hood an invitation, but the rats are apparently very private, or are not properly medicated, and prefer breaking & entering, as well as dark seclusion. When we first moved here, I thought everyone in the neighborhood had car troubles because of the open hoods.
MAY 2006
Listen to a message left on Nancy's cell phone, illustrated by some desert locals.
PLEASE NOTE:
STRONG LANGUAGE
YOU LET YOUR MOM COME IN AND BURGLARIZE YOUR SITUATION
Quicktime, 4.1 MB
1 minute, 50 seconds
Read the transcript of the message here.
APRIL 2006
The rats in Joshua Tree have been preparing for an upcoming exhibition. They use whatever is available, so Alma's wood scraps or work gloves end up in their nests.
Preview the rat installation here.
MARCH 2006
It snowed! We are at about 3500 feet. The second photo with more snow was taken at around 5000 feet.
DECEMBER 2006
ALMA ALLEN'S WORKSHOP
Alma Allen, Nancy Pearce, and Fritz Carraldo are still living on the land while in contact with San Bernadino County to finalize plans for the house and studio.
Alma Allen has set up an outdoor workshop to mill salvaged wood and work on sculpture and furniture.
We are extremely thankful to the Venice architect and structural engineer duo, Sophie Smits & Patrick Bambrough, (SMITS-BAMBROUGH, 310-306-5009), for creating the archtitectural plans and engineering.
Quicktime, 5.4 MB
2 minutes, 30 seconds
(This film should have images - and sound. If you don't see images, please check your settings.)
OCTOBER 2005
FRITZ CARRALDO
Alma & Nancy have been abducted by a madman who dreams of building a Shangri-la in a barren desert. Whether the madman proves to be a genius, or just a tyrant, history will decide.
The building site borders a National Park and has major elevation changes, as well as coyotes, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, bobcats, and toe-biting ants. Alma's first assignment was to somehow carve out a steep road from a mass of granite in order to move two landships up to the future building site to serve as base of operations.
With the landships docked, Alma's attention is now focused on setting up a studio, so that he can continue making sculpture, stools, and furniture, as well as have a workshop for building the house. Now that Alma owns a Bobcat skidloader (as seen in FRITZ CARRALDO), to pick up giant rocks and logs, he will be able to do larger-scale sculpture and furniture pieces.
Watch the documentary here:
Quicktime, 6.1 MB
2 minutes, 54 seconds
(This is a sound film. If you don't hear sound, please turn up the volume on your computer, or check your settings.)