Sucker Hole or not......get the roof up quick!

Finding good, used building supplies here on the Big Island is a real trick. Yes, there is a Craigslist here, but after repeatedly seeing ads offering water soaked offcuts and the type of items that you'd normally be pulling out of the dumpster, all at next-to-new prices….you get burned out after a while. I guess it's a natural result of needing to have everylastthing shipped in at great expense that makes people think that this stuff is made out of gold, but every now and then you find some deals.

One of the metal roofing companies not far down the road has occasional scratch and dent items, and if your stars are all in alignment, they might actually have something at the exact time you have need. Don't count on it. Steel roof at $2/linear foot doesn't last long, so when you see it, grab it. All of it. I did, about six months back, in anticipation of getting a real roof over our heads, and that time is now. One slight problem; the rain just won't give me a break.


A Sucker Hole, for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, is a break in the cloud cover that makes you think that it could turn into a decent day…...then as soon as you get started on something good, the clouds return, usually with a vengeance. Hahahahahaha…..SUCKER!


The Ace Hardware store here sells two different colors of large tarp; grey/brown and white. Both tarps are made by the same company, but the white tarps have proven VASTLY superior in both finish and durability. Despite the grey/brown tarp having a moderately reflective grey surface to minimize heat gain, the white colored tarps stay markedly cooler, like 30% cooler, so says my IR temperature gun. Go figure….in any event, relying on ANY tarp to keep you and yours dry is something all done on faith. We've been lucky, to say the least, but crossing your fingers for over a year in a climate as rainy as this one will test anyone's faith.

Now if only it would stay sunny for a few days…..

An actual bedroom, lucky kid.

I've been sitting on that decent sized pile of metal roof for months, and now that I've finally framed in Ellie's new addition, it's time to put it to use. The rain stopped, it's time to go for it!

And, the gods being fickle (at best!).....the clouds came back. In force.

Ahhhhh Hubris, you've gotten me again.


Actually, I got everything buttoned up, just in the nick of time, but only minutes away from a serious deluge. And only a couple of leaks, haha. It beats the tarp though. Next thing to do is gutters. At least now that it's raining again, I can get back to work on my fuigo.

It never ends, this building stuff.

Building inroads

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, this place in Hawaii where we have come to live started out as a blank slate for us. I mean, REALLY blank…..no buildings, no electricity, and no driveway (unless you count the well established pig trails).

Our first steps in making a survey of possible building sites necessitated cutting my way through the fern and guava tangle using that mainstay of all jungle explorers…..the machete. Next, pick a route, any route, make your best guess as to where you might end up, then cut down anything within reach of the chainsaw.  Now it's time to bring out the big guns….the backhoe.

Having a machine like the backhoe to do the heavy lifting (or digging, as it were) has been an immense time and labor saver, although all that easy access to dirt moving muscle makes it somewhat more likely to bite off more than you can chew. A backhoe is a sort of jack-of-all-trades, able to do many things, but it's not necessarily the perfect tool for the job. The smart people hire a bulldozer and get the job done in a few days rather than fiddle around for a month, picking along with the hoe. To use this one machine as the sole means of building a road or leveling a house pad is folly so, of course, that's exactly how I choose to go about the task. It works for me, but it's not what I recommend to others, haha.

Try to choose a path that will entail the least amount of material removal, then muck out as much as you can.

I filled the deepest holes with a combination of rocks and old tree stumps, but the style credit goes to Renee. Some sections of the drive remind me of the Inca trail, with carefully placed basaltic lava filling and leveling things out as much as possible.

Unfortunately, this is only a foundation course. The next step buries all that excellent rock work underneath a bed of red cinder, the go-to choice on a volcanic island with no gravel deposits.

The cinder is the highly aerated ash and molten rock that gets blasted out of a volcano during eruptions. It's lightweight and very friable, crushing down to fill in the nooks and crannies amongst the larger stones. It looks cool and comes in either red or black, although red is harder and is the more preferred for roads. Some of the black cinder is light enough to float on water and it makes a popular growing medium.

Red and green….looking a bit like Christmas last winter.



As we wander over the land, we are trying to maintain a particular vision in how we are altering the landscape. Ellie had her eye on this naturally wet spot as the perfect site for digging a pond.

And after a few hours of digging, she was finished.

Next comes rock work, plantings, and the addition of some mosquito fish to keep the biting insects in check.





After 500’ of road building fun, we reached to a tolerably level area, a good enough spot to build a quick and dirty shelter.

What's that? You hear banjos?



Building here has been a trial all my own. I've had such grand ideas and desires, clever solutions and design/build concepts to explore, none of which have happened yet. I'm embarrassed to say that expediency has been the primary motivator, just trying to get a better roof over our heads. This area was only intended to be a dry spot to work but, as these things tend to go, we've been living in this shed for over a year now. Time for a real roof, ya think?


Stay on the trail a bit longer and the guava eventually thins out, getting replaced by Uluhe ferns and sparsely placed native Ohia trees.

Some date palms, a few soon-to-be monster Albizia trees, Hapu'u tree ferns and sunshine.

The perfect place for another structure, lightly built and none too well at that (although I'm far from being finished). I lugged in every stick, on my shoulder the entire way, so some big concessions were made in material choices and dimensions.

This too was intended as a quickly built and dry place to work, the primary building site is even further down the trail. We'll see how that plays out. In the meantime, it's a nice place to string a hammock.

The sunny spots attract a different kind of wildlife.

I swear, most of what we are building here ends up being taken over by the critters.

Her favorite nesting spot.

Eggs and tools, two things that might be better off separated, but at least we are getting the eggs more often than the rats do. Finally, somebody is earning their keep!

Digging in the dirt — Feb and March 2016

 

We (Renee mostly, let's be honest here) have been doing a lot of digging since we bought this piece of land, but you know who's *REALLY* good at digging?

 

Pigs.

Wild pigs are in abundance, as I'm sure that I've mentioned a time or two, and the evidence of their passing through an area is hard to miss.

 

 

 

This area looks like it's been gone over with a rototiller. Maybe it would be a good spot for a new garden?

 

 

Unfortunately, they also found something interesting in Renee's shade garden.

 

 

Trampled and dug through but, as tasty forage is abundant and most of the plants are purely ornamental, the pigs left most of the plantings alone. We have been expecting this sort of thing to be a common occurrence, but nonetheless this serves as a good wakeup call, a thing to keep in mind for our edible endeavors.

 

 

Many families here keep a pig or two, and more and more it's feeling like a practical decision. We generate very little household waste, but despite a lifetime habit of composting vegetable matter and recycling what we can, there always remains the question of dealing with non-veg materials, meat scraps and the like. It's highly unlikely that we will go vegan anytime soon (like...never), and a pig is happy to turn that nasty garbage into protein and manure. Pen them into a restricted area and they will also do an admirably thorough job of tilling the soil, as we have been reminded.

 

Pigs....the garden tool that you eat.

 

 

 

While thinking of pens and enclosures, I started putting a bit of the rampant tangle of Guava to a more directed use. It's my intent to lay the guava as a hedge row in the English tradition, using its resilience and vigorous nature to help define the property boundaries, but this day was more of a fun start.

 

 

 

 

 

This area is the only level spot large enough to fit our two (small) cars and it's proximal to the road. After removing the guava, we'll actually have an area to park! First though, the stumps and roots must be removed.

 

 

A lashed-stick tripod and hand winch make the task a bit easier than tearing away with a pickaxe alone. I pull the root mass upward, then work around the perimeter, severing the remaining roots using a hatchet and knife until the clump is free. My saving grace is that the soil in this area is fairly thin with lava sheet below, and the guava is a shallow rooting plant, here at least. 30 minutes? Then on to the next.....and the next.....and.....

 

Every now and then our neighbor Robert Sr. drives by, giving us crazy haoles mildly incredulous looks and offering a tepid wave. After watching me take the better part of a week to clear a 10' x 20', he says he's had enough and that watching me work like this is making HIM tired. Crazy haoles! He fires up his old Case backhoe, then finishes stripping off our parking spot in about 15 minutes flat, haha.

 

 

After pulling out some of the loose lava for Renee to play with, we've got the beginnings of a parking lot. Thanks Robert!

 

Having neighbors like Robert Sr. is one of the reasons why I like this part of Hawaii. He's a grouchy old hawaiian dude and not overly friendly to strangers. Opposite his driveway is a derelict school bus of his that acts as a local landmark, and from what little bit of his property you can see from the road, it seems to consist of a couple of junk cars and an old shack, all of which is almost entirely hidden underneath 20 years of jungle growth. The cluttered mess and gruff demeanor are a front. He plants starfruit that are hugely prolific, right next to the road so that neighbors can share the bounty. He drives old cars because only fools drive new ones that are troublesome for the owner to fix. Likewise, his old backhoe gets worked one periodically by Robert himself, just enough to keep it functional. He saves his money, only spending when necessary. My kinda guy.

 

 

Well, a couple days later, what should I find but this?

 

 

Robert put Renee in the driver's seat, and told her to have fun. She did, and quickly roughed out another garden bed, then dug up more stone for the remaining wall.

 

 

 

 

Renee says "Wow! That was awesome! We should get one of these things!

 

Haha! Bingo! Just what I was waiting for! I had been following the Big Island backhoe and excavator market for the last 4 months, and it just so happened......

 

 

 

 

And Renee is right. Backhoe's ARE fun!

 

 

 

I must admit to feeling a bit conflicted in buying/using heavy equipment to aid us in our endeavors. Foolish perhaps, but.....

 

Clearing the land is a large undertaking. The general means of doing this is tohire a huge bulldozer to strip off every bit of living matter, then drag a 3' long tooth through the lava to break things up. The resultant rubble then gets driven over repeatedly until the stones crushed into an even size, then spread around to contour the site. Finally, it all gets covered up with imported topsoil so that stuff can grow, usually a grassy lawn. I think I could safely say that a lawn would be the LAST thing that we want to surround ourselves by, to look at every day.

 

 

 

 

We pass by this neighbor on our little side road, and we've been able to watch as he developes this property.

 

 

Not too bad, as these things go. He had a smaller bulldozer brought in to do the work, taking about one weeks time. He left some trees for visual interest (the permaculture guys here call this "native landscaping") and I'm sure that it will continue to improve in the coming years. Still, wherever the bulldozer goes, the soil disappears. That thin brown patch is all that's left of the soil, the rest of the place is bare, gray stone.

 

 

 

In some areas, the amount of topsoil is insignificant. This stretch of road I cut is 100' long and runs atop an old lava tube. Zero soil here.

 

 

 

Other spots however.....

 

Large areas of our place have these fields, full of climbing Aluhe fern.

 

 

The soil here is so deep, 4-wheel drive would've been a nice option for the backhoe. 2-3' deep with some chunks of old lava thrown into the mix, rich, black soil. At least with a backhoe, you never get stuck, haha.

 

 

 

 

So my quandary? Why would anyone NOT want to use bigger tools, get the work done with dramatically less effort? Back in the old days, a poor farmer would have to clear his entire field, carved from the forest itself, using only an axe, pick, and shovel. Of course, as soon as he could afford it, he bought a plow-horse, a team of oxen if he was doing really well. There is always work to do, and it's just natural to shift the burden to other things. God knows, I've got plenty of other things to occupy my time. The days are almost NEVER long enough, and none of us know how much time we really have.

 

My issue is with scale. Bigger tools mean bigger projects, more time, and more expense. When your tools are a shovel and a hatchet, you build within the inherent restraint of the tools. My original intent was to clear a small spot from the jungle, then build a quick shelter. My enthusiasm for digging stumps from the ground is not boundless, and at the rate I've been going, the time required to get to the back of our 1045' deep property would be likely measured in years. Renee is patient, but even she has limits. So yeah, the time thing is important too, but again, much of this is about scale of work.

 

Small. Small is good. Using just a shovel and pick, I can build a very cute and practical garden bed. Big gardens are a PITA, small pocket gardens are fun. I'd rather have 10 small gardens than one large one. Likewise, are homes. Small houses are great, cheap and funky. A big house (and mortgage!) is a quick route to an unhappy life. I'm usually more enchanted by a cute garden shed than a pole barn.

 

Enter Sjovel (he's not Swedish but, what the hell, it's a good name for a guy who digs holes). 10 days of digging has gotten me 1/3 of the way into the property and, while its far from being a road that you could actually drive on, at least it gives access. Another week of work should put me in the general vicinity of where we would like to begin building. Along the way, I've been collecting Ohia to use for future construction and a difficult proposition I had been dwelling on for ages, moving SUPER heavy logs, has been solved with the stroke of a pen. Making new garden spots will be a breeze.

 

The problem is that it's too easy. I need to reign myself in periodically, to remind myself that the trail should be as narrow as physically possible, to not dig up every rock I can find, and not pull up every guava within reach (and it's easy, let me tell you, ripping out the guava). See, every patch of Guava that gets torn out, every clump of Aluhe that I rip up, it all gets replaced by something else. All garden spots need a cover crop ASAP, otherwise there are a multitude of nasty weeds that will fill that void. This virgin land has very few weeds, so few that you can infer their introduction based on how far the new growth is from the parent stock next door. I think of tearing up the land as an obligation, like having children or adopting a pet. A lifetime contract of sorts. A cleared field needs to be worked, fed and nurtured, else it runs amuck and goes to hell.

 

And a bigger house would be nice, but a larger structure takes more time and money to build. A small house is efficient to build, easier keep warm or cool, and is more comfortable to be in. To keep things in perspective, 900 sq/ft is getting too big for our liking, so it's not like we are talking about building a mansion or anything, but....when the limiting function changes from what one man can lift and carry, into the monetary restrictions on buying big pieces of lumber, it's something to think about. How much of your life are you willing to trade for a larger house? Me? Not much.

 

The garden might get bigger though.

 

 

 

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Buying and building in Hawaii....I need your help!

 

 

I need your help. My Google-foo is weak in this....I need your thoughts.

For years, seriously...nearly 30 years now, I have been interested in building small living spaces. I love the sense of intimacy that I get from being in a room where I can touch at least two walls from where I sit. A large open room makes me feel exposed and emotionally cold. A small space feels warm, no matter the true temperature. I love boats.... hate stadiums.

Designing for small spaces, is about accommodating the individual. Primary needs are to be met with the greatest efficiency, and resources must be conserved. Everything is intent. It is difficult to be false in small design, flash is wasted. The McMansion aesthetic doesn't work. Small design is challenging because things need to be *right*, you know?

I need ideas for building small structures, homes really, but with some peculiar twists ( of course). What I have been working towards is design ideas that highlight the simple, clean, use of quality materials.....and a structure that is capable of being disassembled somewhere down the road. 1 year....20 years....400 years.....

The attraction that I have had for Japanese joinery is that many of the joints used have allowances made for being disassembled at some time in the future. If you go through the trouble of using a wonderful material, say the perfect piece of wood, you choose this for its qualities of strength and beauty. Along with this comes the acknowledgement that everything has its own life, and at some time that perfect wood will have become old and decayed. It will require replacement.

The study of Japanese joinery has exposed me to an incredible variety of ingenious ideas for attaching one piece of wood to another. In this, I see great potential.

Buying property, land, house, whatever, the situation here in Hawaii is a little bit peculiar. We are in the market for a house, but there are some unique and fundamental difficulties with how things get built on an island. My needs and desires are slightly out of the normal range, so here is what we have.

The situation:

• Property in Hawaii is expensive.
  
• Almost all of the construction is of house "kits". Kit houses use the cheapest, most economical and efficient material possible, but they also meet code requirements.
• Buying an already built, building code approved house, gives assurance to the lending bank. Banks loan money for crappy kit houses= crappy houses become expensive.
• The generic /poorly built/code approved structures are not what I want in my life. And they are expensive.
• Some of the super cool places that I am interested in are VERY well built, but banks are loath to loan on unpermitted structures.

So.

We can buy into what everyone is selling, take out yet another mortgage, and pay WAY too much money...and live in an environment that gives little joy. "We have everything that we want...except money!"

Just down the road from us is a 2 acre parcel with an attractive, contractor built home, for $270,000. The house looks just fine for what it is....just REALLY not what we are looking for.

 

Or...

We can ditch the idea of a re-sale price that just gets higher and higher as time goes. Buy cheap, build cheap, enjoy life. If down the road circumstances change, the house can come with us.

You can buy 3 acres of Hawaii, just down the road from where we are currently living, for $15,000.

Hmmmmm.

Being in debt is like being a slave to your desires, often to fulfill perceived needs that might not truly be important to you. You need to ask yourself these questions, at least I do. What do you want in exchange for your life ?

Me.....I don't want much. What life I have, I want to enjoy, not be forever working to pay for something that I actually couldn't afford. I love our old cars, and we paid cash. Not as nice as what many others might drive, but we have no monthly payments and insurance is cheaper, too. Parking lot dings don't leave me feeling angry, it's a car for God's sake.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah.....

Living in a debt free home would be one of the greatest freedoms imaginable.

Way back in the day, houses were for family. You were born there, raised there, and probably died there. When the kids grew older, perhaps you added on to the house to make room, but the assumption was that you would always be living with family. Houses and land were passed down, generation after generation. Kids didn't immediately sign themselves into a lifetime of slavery, all so that they could live in their own house.

Obviously times have changed. My "ancestral" home back in Minnesota holds fond memories, but I sure as hell don't want to live there. This is sad, but this is our reality. Our house that we recently left, back on the Oregon coast.... Great house, spent 10 years of my life fixing it.....now occupied by someone else. It's a REALLY cute house! I don't want to live there either.

Where I do want to live.......Ah yes, that's in Hawaii. I want to build a very nice, very small home, but a home that can be moved, relocated. Unfortunate though it seems, many of us have become virtual nomads. We are currently renting, and though our landlords are totally awesome, we need to build for OUR future. I need to begin building our Hawaiian home.

 

Good god! Enough with the preaching!

Help me with some ideas. References, pictures, websites, whatever....help me find some good ideas for building a solid, attractive structure that can be moved at some future time. Please, skip the trendy "Small houses" movement stuff. While cute, I'm not that interested in the "Mini-McMansion" movement.

I am looking more for solid joinery, solid materials, yet used in a simple manner. For the first time in my life, I actually don't need to worry about the potential for freezing to death, come winter. Open-air, year round living is a reality here. What I am envisioning is essentially a platform on short piers, then a minimal post -and -beam structure atop that. Joinery is to be de-mountable. Panel infill would be the finished surface, so natural materials would be desirable and I would like to avoid the use of plywood (though the temptation is great).

I am imagining a minimal structure built with sliding panels, solid panels for winter ( it does get cold here and we will be using a wood stove this year!), screened panels for summer. Sliding panels would be wonderful, because even in winter, as soon as the rain stops and the sun comes out....it gets warm. Each " panel" segment could similar to the sliding door of a cabinet, for instance. The panel could sit in a groove. To remove the panel, just lift, tilt and remove.

Beauty, strength, practical, and cheap.....I want it all. Any ideas?

I've looked, but not found much of interest. I have no doubt that many others share my desires, though our situations would be different. What has been done in the past, I wonder?

 

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Moving to Hawaii

OMG OMG OMG.......we are actual moving! In just another few days (like, 2 of them!), we are going to be on the big island..... Hawaii!

That we are moving to the Hilo area has been known for a while now, but what we haven't known was where we are actually going to be * living*. 

I like this place.....

..... But Renee said 👎. 

I don't see what her problem is, it kind of reminds me of the old farmhouse in "My neighbor Totoro"! 

Renee likes this place.....

...... And so do I , but it is an expensive vacation rental, not someplace that you'd actual be living in long-term. Super cute, though. The ability to live open air, like this, will be something new for me, and I'm still a bit sceptical, to say the least. I'm more used to thick insulation and woodstoves, myself.

So here it is, our new home.

Kind of a combination of the two, wouldn't you say? It helps if you use your imagination (as we are, haha!)

Looking for the ideal caretaker/tenant for a special property in Fern Acres. We have 4 acres with a long snaking driveway through 4 acres of lush Ohia forest. There are two large clearings near the back of the property, one is 75'x100' the other is 50'x50' and has a small cabin and many recently planted fruit trees. The ideal tenant would be someone who wants to build their own piece of paradise on a newly cleared and very private space. There are many rocks and trees and natural materials already available on the property as well as some building materials. The zinc corrugated roof is catchment ready and just needs a little time investment to set up. We are looking for someone who wants to live simply and enjoy gardening and building their own off-grid experience. The property is gated and locked and the cabin has excellent security (2 deadbolts and security shutters on the windows. The cabin has a skylight as well as two large (3'x3') windows and a large front door. The cabin is quaint and simple. The cabin is bare-bones and is able to be modified however you would like. The cabin has a front porch with a roof, providing shade and protection from the rain. What makes this rental experience so unique is that we encourage you to plant, grow, build, and do whatever you want. For the owners this property is a future fruit farm. The only thing we will be doing is periodically adding more fruit trees to the property. We will give you over 5,000 square feet to plant and landscape as you would like. We would love to find a long-term renter who will be willing to care for this beautiful piece of the 'aina like it is their own. The propery is a blank slate, come bring your vision to this peaceful spot. Put down a 400 dollar deposit, pay first and last months rent, sign the lease, and move in now.
If you have ever wanted to live on the land, build, farm and have your own property to do so, now you can. For only 400 a month you can have a 4 acre farm under your feet to live your Hawaiian dream. Located in Fern Acres 10 minutes from shops, 20 minutes from Hilo and 20 minutes to volcano. Lease term negotiable. Pets ok.


Yep. Our kind of place. The owners sound very nice (yes, we even talked to them on the phone. Hi Robin!).

So there you have it, you now know as much as we do, haha haha haha * insert hysterical laughter*...

We are getting a mobil hot-spot, so this blog "thing" will be continuing, but the focus will definitely be shifting a bit. Probably not as much tool fixing, but there will be more tool using. I can guarantee that there will be blacksmithing involved and, as there is no power source, everything will be hand powered. I'll try to remember to take lots of pictures.

This is going to be sooooooo fun!



You gotta love craigslist........ Surely one of the greatest means, of assisting fools with meeting their destiny.