The permanent wood foundation was delivered this weekend. The pieces are premade and too big to fit into my trailer so we had to rent an all-terrain fork truck to ferry them up the driveway to the building site.

 The bearded guy is Jim Ashe who built the road and did the excavation. We’ll be seeing more of him whenever we need any big equipment.

The other guy hanging off the fork truck is Hugh Mayhew who owns Domes Northwest. They are the dealer for Natural Spaces Domes out here. He’s been a great help in putting all this together. Hugh will be here for 3 days during the dome raising weekend of the 21^st to make sure we don’t do anything stupid. It rained on and off in the morning while the “cargo” was being transferred to the top, but it cleared up around noon.

The dome site looks quite different from when we were here last week. Jim had cut down another dozen or so trees and cleared out the building site and septic area. The excavation was finished and gravel was spread as well.

Our first priority was to get the shed finished so we could store all of our tools. I brought a new sheet of exterior paneling and some 2x4s to patch up the door hole in back of the shed and to make a new door opening in front. We managed to get a nearly identical match on the paneling with what came with the kit. The kit had a pretty poor excuse for a lock so we put on a latch that I bought.

While I was finishing up the shed, Sara and Mike were moving all of the foundation panels and footer plates to their approximate location. It turns out the 360 degree laser level can’t be seen in full daylight from 20 feet away so we broke for lunch (backpacker’s macaroni and cheese and mixed nuts.) Once we could see the laser we started evening out the gravel around the edges where the foundation walls will be. It looks like there is a 1.5 inch deviation between the lowest and highest points. When it started to get dark we put away all the tools and made dinner (veggie burgers followed by rice pilaf.)

In the morning Mike (who wakes up first) did some trail clearing while the rest of us slept in. After that we spent a few hours fine tuning the placement of the foundation (lots and lots of measuring!) Once we were satisfied we leveled out the gravel, laid the first footer board, and setup the first foundation wall piece.  After we braced the first piece we then proceeded to tear it back down again since my measurements didn’t include the width of the plywood on the outside of the wall. Once that was figured out we put the first wall piece back up and the second followed suit an hour later. Before we could put up the third wall piece we had to do some digging to make sure we had room behind the wall for the drainage pipe and gravel backfill (it was a little tight on that side.) We left shortly after that so we could make it home at a decent hour. Since I was starting to fall asleep at the wheel, Sara drove us home.

Next weekend we will finish the foundation walls so that concrete can be poured during the week. I'm going to leave early from work on Friday to drive directly there to get a jump start on it. Mike and Sara will come on Saturday so that Sara doesn't have to miss any volunteer time at the pet shelter.

-N