Since late July, Beth and our daughter Serena have been working hard and doing a great job installing all the straw bale walls of the main house. They are true artists! Since the bales must be flush with both the outside and the inside toe-ups, they used an electric chainsaw to shape, cut and craft bales to fit around all the posts, squash blocks, cross-bracing, windows, inside wall connectors, etc. They also had to custom re-tie smaller bales to fit in all the non-standard locations as well as the last row right under the OSB forming the top of each wall. There was also the challenge of bales getting wet (tarps blew up during rain) and weeding out the bales that had absorbed too much moisture from the air. Special thanks goes to our 20-something Serena, who did all the grunting with a heavy tamper to make sure the bales were lined up correctly. Click here to see pictures of the walls being built.