A very busy summer, indeed.

Slowly, but surely, the Dacha updates.

This summer has been a non-stop tornado of work and productivity. And what else might one expect while building a homestead? Here’s a little peek into our lives.

First, a short video that was made possible with some footage our friend Jon Karr managed to take with a tiny little camera.

[vimeo 5740959]

As far as the plastering goes – we are almost done with what was a much more difficult and involved project than we initially expected. Plastering is hard work, despite the forgiving medium.

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

Each new layer was its own learning experience, as we experimented with plasters of lime, clay and a combo of both.

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

I personally still love plastering, and prefer it to the less comforting dry wall option. It’s cozy in the straw bale shed, and it better be for how much time we all spent massaging that wall.

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

We recommend having a lot of friends come out and help! Here are our friends Emma and Tori getting into it all. Emma visitsTori on the job

Other great Dacha happenings:

The Generator:

After a lot of fiddling and fixin’ Joe got the generator to run! The Dacha has power – we can actually plug things in.

Joe Generating

Here our neighbor Sean helps out with this amazing machine. Now we can use more fun power tools. Eventually, we hope to have solar and wind power, but for now we can convert this baby to veggie oil and get a little juice.

Generator Doctors

Next, the Garden.

How incredibly sweet to harvest the delicious treats from our own land. Check these out:

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

Not bad for a first time garden, we think.

the garden greenDanila gives the garden some love

Marina in the garden

And finally, our biggest undertaking – our common house!

Yes, we need a place to live. After a lot of planning and graph paper, we were able to get our official building permit. We cleared the land, and I got to break ground.

breaking ground 2009Digging is the hardest part of doing anything on our land. We dug, we leveled , played with math – that dangerous toy – dug some more. The foundation is a crucial step, we know.

digging inThen on to building the forms for the footers. Here our friend Jeana helps us level – another important and difficult math problem.

Jeana helps level

It took us a while, but we got those things near perfection.

building forms

A little rebar, a little gravel and we were ready for cement.

down in the footer

danila in the house

During the cement pour, the truck accidentally hit one of the forms, a nightmare for footer day, but we managed to rebuild it. And then there was a sigh of relief, and ice cream and swimming for all.

Then everything started to move along a lot faster. We got some blocks, I got to use the sawzall to cut rebar, and before we knew it, the walls were rising up above us.

cutting rebar

photo by shira golding

photo by shira golding

munchkin on the wall

So now we have walls. And it’s incredibly exciting to be above ground.

above ground

That’s where we’re at. Walls coming up around us, plumbing just a day away, and all rolling along with many friends to support us. We are proud of ourselves, grateful to many, and seriously tired. But hey, it’s our home happening here.

As always, we welcome you if you want to come join us in the chaos. Got to run and get some cement, but I’ll try to keep us updating.

~ the Dacha 🙂