Off the Ground

"If I was a gambler, tell you what I'd do. I'd quit all of my gamblin' and I'd work on a building, too. I'm a' working on a building..."

After four days at lower elevations, we reconvene at the home site at 1800 feet to build upwards. Our concrete footers are still fastened to the lava rock, and still level, so we may proceed. The first task is to place three 4 x 12 x 20 foot beams on top of 4 x 4 posts, standing on top of the concrete footers. This means that two people hold up a beam at level, and try not to have a hernia while the third measures and cuts posts.




Sadly, it's not possible for me to photograph many of the action shots of this project, because due to the limited workforce on-site, if it's an action-packed moment, I'm usually required to be part of it. So if anyone would like to come out and volunteer to be a full-time photographer, it would certainly increase they dynamic qualities of this blog. Until then, you'll have to settle for a lot of before-and-afters.
You'll just have to take my word for it, that with exceedingly great effort, we get the center beam up and level and brace it with boards stuck into the dirt and tacked to the beam.






My dad nails in hardware to secure the beam to the post. Once we have two beams up, we tack in a cross board to brace them together.




And then, we have all three beams up.




I don't know if I mentioned it, but it's really really wet on the Hilo side of Hawai'i. Especially when you're the one riding on the back of the truck.




The next day, we nail 2 x 6 x 10 foot boards together to make cross-beams (I'm sure I'm not using the proper carpentry lingo for any of these things, but nobody has told me the right ones). We place these "cross beams" atop the beams and lay strings to make sure the ends are even.




Repeat every sixteen inches. Look off into the distance every so often and think about things.




Sometimes a low-end digital camera will mess up and take really cool abstract pictures.







On Sunday Dan's friend Keko (Hawai'ian for monkey) came out to help.




Born and raised in Puna, Keko brings a salty sense of humor and a tremendous spark of energy, as well as a darling little bulldog puppy Bouncer, whose role is to guard the wood blocks. He's well-suited for the work, but has a tendency to sleep on the job.




Our mission is to put sixteen inch blocks inbetween the cross beams for support. One row in the center,






one along each of the beams, and two more inbetween.








Voila. Perty, ain't it?




Now, we nail down the floor. 3/4 inch sanded plywood.






Before we hammer in hundreds of nails, we must pause for a late lunch of roasted chicken and tamales, while Kiave seeks a path to mount the forbidden platform.




At the end of the day, consider and peruse the lovely floor.







Our work for the weekend is finished. We are five feet off the ground, and feeling pretty good about ourselves. What we have now would be a beautiful stage. Anyone want to mount a Hawai'ian jungle production of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Beginnings

In the middle of the vast blue Pacific, some 2000 miles southwest of California, just south of the Tropic of Cancer, you will come across a large expanse of land called the island of Hawai'i, but commonly referred to as "the Big Island". In the Puna district, located in the south-east of the island, not far from Kilauea, the active volcano, my brother Daniel has acquired some land, bordering on the Kapapala Forest Reserve.

To get there, you must drive four miles down a rough country road made of gravel, cinder and dirt. It is marked with car-eating potholes.


The road turns to cinder.

Keep going. Persevere. I know it's bumpy.

And after the road has turned to dirt and black lava rock and ends; at the place the locals call "the End of the World", this is where Dan is building his house. Looking back down the four miles:


This is Daniel, his driveway, and not-so-trusty Dodge 4 x 4.


The land is thick tropical forest. Tall Ohia trees and Tree Ferns.


When I arrived, Dan and his friend Keko had already spent a number of days clearing brush and cutting down trees for the homesite. The first thing to do is to lay down lines to make a square. Take that back. The first thing to do is to put up a tarp for shelter. It rains more than 130 inches a year in this area, and although we employ the philosophy of "when it rains...you get wet" it's crucial to have some shelter for tools, wood, and humans.


Alright. Let's lay down some strings to make a square. I love the fact that to build something, we have to consult with an ancient Greek algebra equation. If it's not a2 + b2 = c2, it's not square. This will take a little bit of adjusting.





After a great deal of furious math, adjustments and counteradjustments, we'd gotten an area of 400 (mostly) square feet squared within 1 1/8 inches. The square is in the background.


Kiave the dog is very excited about this momentous accomplishment, but she likes to remain calm and keep her emotions in check.


The next step is to dig down to the lava rock, and place concrete blocks along the lines as footers. The posts of the house will sit on these. We mix some fresh concrete to fasten the blocks to the bedrock, and make sure they're level.




Note the 4 x 12 x 20 foot beams. The house will sit on them. We carried these approx. 100 feet through uneven swampy jungle. I am afraid to know how much they weigh, but it took everything the three of us had to get them up to the site. This was what we got done on our first weekend of work. Beginnings are always slow starting out.