wholegrainsurf: The ultimate bread and water diet.

Christmas Eve 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:23:00 +0000

A bit blowy...
3 deg C [38 deg F] foggy and dismal in Philomath.

12 deg C [54 deg F] and brilliantly sunny at Newport, only 80 km away. Swell 10 ft @ 16 seconds.

Cedar

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:24:00 +0000

So we helped pull down this ceiling and reclaimed the tongue and groove cedar. This is about 1/2 done with the cedar panelling [background], there is as much over my head on this side.Later, cedar down, "just" all the nails and insulation to go. There was gyprock [drywall] between the cedar and the batts. took about 16 hours to get it done.

I can't believe how cold it is...

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:25:00 +0000

-13 deg C [9 deg F] again this morning.

Yesterday a.m.
It is even cold at the beach - right now 8:30 a.m. Thursday Dec 10 it's -3 deg C [27 deg F]
Maybe tomorrow it'll be beach weather [i.e. above 0 deg C]

And it just keeps coming...

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:34:00 +0000

Saturday:
What's wrong with this picture - the white frosting on the sand is just that - frost just before sun-up air about -2 deg C [28 deg F] and windy.Interestingly crowded with people - not sea-lions - considering the temperature, good waves though.Sunday
Colder, windier, still good, somewhere else nearby.

A surfeit of sea lions sing [bark] a soulful symphony

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Lots of sea-lions this fall

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2009/12/california-sea-lion-surplus-seen-on-oregon-coast.html

This bunch barked a baroque ballad at us for at least half and hour. At least they kept their distance, not like their 150 far more intimidating comrades one beach further south.
Doing the "flipper thing" where they just hang out with their flippers up in the sunshine.

Not building - surfing

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:43:00 +0000

Well not entirely not building - gathering more materials and doing things that can be done indoors.

But surfing is happening between storms. And sometimes it is BIG surf. Not me - somewhere close by.

Surfing på Norsk

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:42:00 +0000

To år siden. Min venn Ben Raymond.
Spenning og forventning!Surfing.
Og hans venn.
Også i norge, mann vente alltid på bølgene Men, "kommer noen bra sett nå snart, tror jeg, så kom, kom!"Fra SAS E-Magasinet "Les Sas Magasinet HER" click på link.

Bens venn Rune ble intervjuet av dette magasinet i sist måned.

Side shore

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:49:00 +0000

A few waves this weekend...

Somewhere nearby...

SUP lefts

Unknown surfer...
Me heading out.Photo attribution Elizabeth Thorpe.

Dust cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:18:00 +0000

From NASA's great Earth Observatory site.

Wednesday 23rd September 2009. Details here http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40274&src=eoa-iotd

the dust storm is probably more than 3000 km from north to south

Vacation time: surf, sun, sand, and, well, dust & lightning too.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Curious Aussie magpie: 30 deg C and sunny, small surf not worth showing the pics: remember you can see the pics larger if you click on themUp the coast: frothing 15 year olds surfing a protected peak

North Brother From Dunbogan
Dunbogan from North Brother
Who's this?
North Brother rainforest walk tree ferns and elkhorns

E has an affinity for purple flowers

And some others
Bangalow palms
A pea by any other name

North Brother in the distance
I finally got some quality surf, even if it was if small

The flooded gums near Buladelah - the same type as the flooring E got recently.
And also the tallest tree in New South Wales is a flooded gum [Eucalyptus grandis] all 72 meters of it [about 240 feet]
Decided surfing wasn't such a good idea right then.
Central coast rainforest walk

King parrot
Crimson rosella in flight
Confused kookaburra - not laughing
No color retouching - this is how the dust storm looked from the inside

The sunlight turned blue
Finally the real deal - quality surf - a favorite right hand point break

Me enjoying the conditions.
A few rocks
Nature's surfers
Perfect beach breaks & bowling lefts

Staining floors and starting formwork for the next floor

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:59:00 +0000

Spot the difference
Elizabeth's great idea to use ferrous sulphate fertilizer at $21 a bag as the staining agent for the floors.

However, a very large dollop of sweat equity for this item...
Lots of cleaning and scrubbing and recleaning - and now some further remedial work because of rain diluting some of the stain before it was sealed... large bummer

My bread gets a 1 millsecond spot on the the new oregon State TV ad

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:18:00 +0000

At about 17 secs, I prepped the dough that's there as well.

http://poweredbyorange.com/video/

It is the video with the wind generators at the start screen.

this that and the other...

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:01:00 +0000

A while of this that and the other since finishing the concreting. [That means E is doing all the other hard work of researching the fittings and construction techniques and ventilation and plumbing and roofing and skylights and flooring and and and and...]

Now back to the physical work of construction. The first things for going up another level, kitchen, lounge room front door etc.

Up with new door bucks and the first block for the next stage [all temporary installations at this point till they are plumbed and leveled].

Constructing door bucks.

Too hot...

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:26:00 +0000

Yesterday record high temperature for Corvallis of 108 deg F [42.2 deg C].

Think it was 39 or 40 deg C today.

Too hot to work outside.

A little cooler tomorrow and next week.

LINK: News story

Concrete & dust

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:11:00 +0000

After the concrete cured a bit we needed to cut the expansion joints to stop it cracking and the decorative cuts in the great room to make the finished concrete floor look like tiles.

It took a bit of doing. The concrete sawing is hard hot and dusty work. And in this room, as there were some cuts only 75 mm apart, the measurements need to be spot on so the lines were exactly parallel.Checking the guide board along the chalk line.
Dust dust dust.
The idea is to draw the eye to the big window in the 45 degree corner and the view of Mary's peak.

Bastille Day 2009 - We's got concrete

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:44:00 +0000

The day before - uncovered, approved by the county, and [almost] ready for the concreteThis years new crop of quail babies are now flying
but maybe not as stylishly as the adults
Bastille Day...

dawned bright and sunny. The lead-up was a succession of at least 14 h days on site, lots of heavy work for both of us, dealing with 35 deg C [95 F] temperatures or unexpected deluges [see previous post], and thankfully with a little help from our friends.

The day before Bastille Day we went from about 6 am to 11 pm and were back on site before the concretors, at about 5 am Tuesday - Bastille Day. We thought we could just sit back and watch the progress; the joke was on us. The immediate prelude to the concrete was a hectic flurry of last minute necessities, we did not seem to stop actually running from one task to the next.
The boss supervising
More running, the concrete pump operator stumbled ["multi tasking" on his cell phone - see photo above] and stepped between the styrofoam forms where there is no structure and fell through leaving a 6 foot by 1 foot hole. This is the emergency shoring we did to plug up the hole. It's the piece of plywood towards the back with the less-than-vertical bracing underneath. I won't go into the details.
Nearly finished.
Facing the porch
Watering down the setting concrete in the setting sun. Some of these floors are going to be finished concrete with a pattern of cuts. We elected to put in the control joints [cuts] ourselves. This meant we needed to keep the concrete wet until we cut them the next day to stop it from cracking. The next day [no pictures - too busy] we cut control joints with a circular saw and diamond blade [see http://wholegrainsurf.blogspot.com/2009/05/finally-some-shade-memorial-day-weekend.html ] for an idea.

Oh ! Lets build a concrete porch in our spare time.

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Porch beams almost in - finishing rebar mat on house so we can cover it to spare the PEX from UV while we finish the porch

Working late every night
Soon to be blackberry pie
Getting started on the porch formwork

Meanwhile, my baking class for high school science students diverts me from the house

Porch formwork well into the process

Building the rebar cages for the concrete beams - over-engineeered enough to hold a pugnacious pack of parading pachyderms
OH JOY - NOT !

And while we rush to get this all done by Tuesday 6 am - on SUnday we get the most rain ever seen here on July day - 0.6 inches official, we got an inch - turned everything back to mud but we had to keep going till 9:30 pm - back at it at 5:45 this morning. Turn on the sound to hear the rain. To make up for the dreary winters here in Western OR it is not supposed to rtain from May 30 to October 30, that's the deal - not this year.

Don't blink !

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:46:00 +0000

Seems that we work and not much seems to visibly change and suddenly -

A cow of a job !

Finally finish putting up the waterproofing - it's heavy, the weather was hot, it was hard to hang straight and to stick together, and we were teetering on ladders etc etc etc.

Then no sooner was it up than we covered it with filter mesh to protect it from the drain-rock.
A great day

We finally start to backfill over the perimeter drain... This is the very first drain-rock.
Seeing the last of the bottom of the trench we've been mucking out for @#$%^& months
And the cause of ALL the trouble,

old gopher holes - EVERY cave-in started at one of these
Pea gravel in front of the garage for drainage and to support the garage apron.
E's clever idea to hang the drain fabric separating soil from drain rock over a wall of plywood. Dirt one side rock the other, saved on buying more rock.
Voila !!!
Finished product (well for now - we can only backfill this high yet)
Don't blink.

So I go off to work for a few hours and come back to find a 40 meter by 1.2 meter by 1.2 meter (120 x 4 x 4 feet) trench in the front yard. E had a logistic problem with some deliveries and couldn't do what she'd planned. She had the excavator there and decided to get the utility trench dug.

And now for something completely different.

The rush to get the first floor slab poured is partly to get the PEX tubing out of the sun and UV as soon as possible.

And now it's pressure tested.
It never lets up.

We need to get the porch footings formed and poured as part of the logistics of the first floor slab pour.

So far we've had a string of 12 hour plus days of hard, hot, heavy, and dusty labor so digging the footing pads by hand (me) and setting the formwork (E) is pretty taxing. Thankfully we had some well received volunteer help today, as well as a paid crew.
The mad rush during the pour.
Columns for the porch to rest on.
More of our wildflowers

pex, pipes, and plumbing

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:48:00 +0000

The last of the underfloor heating tubes into the entryway.
Where the tubes gather...Warming up the waterproofing membrane while I take practical photos so we know where the tubes went if we need to know after slab is poured.Some more flowering plants I found.
May be Fool's onion Triteleia hyacinthina

Random...

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:23:00 +0000

Random early summer stuff - more tubing installed for the under-floor heating in the great room.Not the same ones, but a pack of orcas was through a week ago. Lots of sightings - including one of 2 orcas killing a full grown sealion in the surf zone not far north of here. (photo attribution - blog.oregonlive Associated Press/File)
And sights like this in a number of coves, injured sealions that didn't get eaten by the orcas and that hauled up to rest, only to die and become a feast for the carrion birds: crows, seagulls, and of course lots of well-fed...
turkey vultures.Summer: surf - small, but fun on a longboard.
Summer also means surfing schools. Goodness only knows why they try to learn here in the summery 50 deg F [10 deg C] water.
Our place has a new spectrum of flowers this week...
Large Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris)
Including a patch of striking Columbia lilies that I didn't mow so the can set and scatter seed so there's more next year.
Meanwhile back in the bakery, some fun with different bread styles.
Very striking and unusual [for western tastes] barbari bread that is a flat bread that can be successfully made with soft white wheat [SW].
And some product development for the food barley program - marvellous 50% barley pita bread. [HW = hard white wheat]

For James

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:34:00 +0000

a link to the jello ultra slow-mo on the other blog...

http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/deliciousnessw09/2009/05/11/the-most-amazing-footage-of-energy-storage-and-elasticity-in-jello/

Downpours, mudslides, and radiant floors...

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:05:00 +0000

Showing the line of thunderstorms that passed through OR, south to north on Thursday June 4th. The only time since we've been here that a storm through Benton county had an official National Weather Service severe thunderstorm warning. Another severe one did pass 20km to the east of us the day before as well. We got at least 2 inches (judging from the height of water in vertical walled containers) within about 1/2 an hour. This is EXTREMELY rare weather for these parts. The aftermath - more [expletive deleted] mud from the back wall. Grading from naught to about 300 mm thick, wet slimy, at least not hard packed, that flushed down from the same back wall.

A few muddy hours later...
Meanwhile up above, E was working with Josh Storer, of Barefoot Radiant Heating Corvallis OR, putting in the first of the pex tubing for the radiant floor heating of the main floor. This is the first time we can really make out the rooms. The tubing already laid down is in the kitchen floor.

E, I suspect, showing Josh the troubles were having setting grade around the step-down into the great room.
Getting it right.

Like a duck swimming...

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:57:00 +0000

... not much seems to be happening but there's a lot of action going on under the surface.

Bracing for the stair headerBracing for the little pieces used to make up the 45 degree corner under the great room.

Rebar for the beam under the garage.
The view from the top (great room view window goes here)
Waterproofing starts to go on

Rebar mat for the garage floor

Detail of rebar hooks connecting floor to walls.And up we go - the first increase in the height of the walls for a while.

finally some shade - Memorial Day weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:10:00 +0000

The panel deck form work for the basement ceilings/garage and house floors goes in [mostly]DAY 1 SATURDAY - sawing the patterns into the concrete floor in the basement bedroom.
Measuring it up.
The saw - with diamond tipped blade.
The saw couldn't quite get to the edges - needed an angle grinder with no guard and a diamond tipped blade - at 10000 rpm you can bet I was concentrating.
SUNDAY
Litterbugs - styrofam that needed to be removed for the basement ceiling slab.
First piece of the ceiling formwork
The first panel-deck pieces go in
Temporary shoring walls go in
More panel deck goes up

Bluejay
Plywood to protect the bedroom floor
MONDAY
Spring wildflowers on our place

Aquilegia formosa

Western columbine (Buttercup family)

Iris tenax

Sisyrinchium angustifolium Narrowleaf blue-eyed grass (Iris family) Sidalcea sp - mallows

Panel deck trapeze
Getting there
More goes into place over the laundry
Discussing the next bit
A [few] days work
WEDNESDAY - a mornings work for me

An irridescense of irises - on a big day

noreply@blogger.com (Philosurfer) — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:15:00 +0000

Iridescent irises invoking intimations of incomparably inviting summer daysGetting prepared in the frost of a clear late spring morning - just after 6:30 am.
Yet another concrete pump.
All that work to set the radiant floor tubing starts to disappear.
Getting it to grade.
More concrete.
Starting to smooth it out.
Into the middle room, covering the radiant artwork.
Fillin' up the garage basement,

Smoothing it out.
The extra concrete into some extra formwork - creating stepping stones and test squares for trying out different concrete stains.

Smoothing - with big floater kneepads.
Hand prints - ours
His helicopter won't fly.
Sawing the expansion joints.

Finished - just wetting it down to even out the cure.

Another job - cleaning the oxidized styrofoam so the waterproofing membrane will stick.
Our ever present friends on hot days - big turkey vultures.
First time we've seen that corner since mid-December thanks to E's hard and heavy shovelwork.