more cemetery work

The Hubbard Hill Cemetery was hit with wicked straight line winds during an isolated thunderstorm last Thursday PM. Neighbors say there has never been another wind like it. The poor oak trees around the house survived but a few were shredded to near stumps. The house escaped major damage because scaffolding surrounding the project caught all the flying branches before they got to any windows or restored wood. The old Hill's Prairie post office that the Sartains had just set on a new foundation was rudely shoved about 10' splitting the entire building open at the corners and tossing the porch another twenty feet further north. The trees on the place took the brunt of the damage though. Believe the trees may have been under stress from the drought and so were more vulnerable, the snapped branches looked an unhealthy dry yellow inside. A damned old mesquite in the cemetery shed a 6" thick branch that flew about knee high horizontally east until it met up with the freshly restored cast iron fence. Four headstones were mowed down along the way and one of the blessed little concrete finials was snapped off at the narrowest part of the base by a strategically flying branch. Two other headstones on the north side of the cemetery were blown over; they were the two tallest, flattest, and thinnest designs of the bunch. One of the headstones is of Damaris Pope and her infant child Willie, maybe the most poignant marker there. I had repaired hers for the second time just a few weeks ago after a possible unrepentant act of vandalism had knocked it over and broken it in several pieces. This time the wind blew it in the opposite direction and rebroke the epoxied fracture. Sigh. Another smaller marker of little Louie Hubbard simply toppled off the base at a weak mortar joint atop restored delaminated sandstone layers, a new dowel through the whole mess may be required to fix this one. Seems unfair somehow that the place was in such disrepair for decades and now just after a thorough restoration a freak windstorm comes along to show us who's really boss.

gazebo of junk (fun with links)

This place was ripe with trash when we started clearing nearly two years ago. The Muses had a real talent for trash generation, accumulation and redistribution. Their house had no indoor plumbing but we have discovered pieces of at least four toilets. Piles of metal roofing, all types of livestock fencing, jars and bottles of every description. Condiments and laundry products were abundant around Birdie's house. The house was waist deep in old furniture and bedsprings. Dozens of tires and unidentifiable car parts. Every place the under growth was the thickest was guaranteed to have a pile of old junk fully integrated into it acting as some kind of fertilizer. With plenty of acreage here we thought that possibly we could make some use of it all and avoid numerous trips to the landfill too. Zero waste stream responsibility - even if the waste is not ours (well ok. it is now). Since the majority of the junk is actually vintage from the 1890's up to the 1960's there is no pressing worry about sanitation, the concern is more of an aesthetic nature. However; art history shows us that any old crap in its own context can become a Nevelson, a Rauschenberg or a Duchamp. Our main inspiration is the incredible installation piece in Austin, the CATHEDRAL OF JUNK that we have visited several times. Vince Hannemann has built - over a period of more than 20 years - in his own backyard the Watts Towers equivalent of trash piles. There is no adequate explanation of how awesome it is, it must be seen to be understood. We picked a central location to the rear of the house site, a short walk from the camp site and along the perimeter trail. A grouping of mesquite trees gave us a backbone to start with. All the bedsprings from the house and miles of baling wire provided an easy to expand framework. With only the lowest-tech action of twisting wire together we have formed a three room, three door, nearly enclosed structure composed of nothing but junk. And, just like Vince told us would happen, it has morphed into a breathing organism. A truck load of additional stuff will now absorb into the density of the walls without notice. Several hundred jars and bottles, retired toys, wagon to car parts, bad ceramics, license plates, tvs, shoes, dead chainsaws, skulls and bones, lots of barbed wire and failed cemetery finials. There is a definite post-apocalyptic voodoo vibe about the place, especially the few nights we have sat inside by candle light around the dryer drum fire pit and watched the firelight flicker off of chrome, colored glass and broken mirrors.

Some strict rules have developed:

1. no imports - all that is there has come off of this place only. except for roadkill ( non-animal).

2. do not buy anything to put into the gazebo no matter how cool it would look. unless it is really cheap.

3. donations are accepted.

4. anything in the gazebo is fair game to be used in other places if a better use comes along.

5. for structural purposes, every new item added must be wired to at least two other things.

6. it will never be finished.

7. ignore rules 1 through 6 - there are no rules in art.

be it ever so humble...

Craigslist furnished our 1957 Mobile Scout home office / master bedroom suite. She was built in Arlington, Texas and it saw duty as a field office for the USDA Soil Conservation Service. We are gradually polishing the well oxidized aluminum to a semi-consistent shine but far short of an extremely labor intensive mirrored finish. Have gutted the interior (non-original particle board faux light oak garbage from the 80's) and finished it out with salvaged material from Birdie's house including bead board ceilings for the side walls, T&G fir flooring, a re-sized screen door, lots of salvaged wood and trim for bookshelves and rusted corrugated tin for the ceiling and curved end walls. Also replaced the exterior running lights, rewired for computers and satellite internet and installed new A/C on the back side. Have looked for replacement window cranks without much luck and half finished restoring other hardware but am still needing a few things. Cousin Terry, a recent overnight guest, furnished a fantastic CAD cut vinyl stencil from his Ft. Worth sign shop - Atlas Graphx - for replicating a convincingly distressed official Soil Conservation Service logo and shield on the side. I sent him art work in Illustrator that was based on the barely there ghost outlines of the original decals. Still have some painting of the tongue and frame to do outside and could use some more shade on the hot western exposure. Would like to replace the wheels with some plain painted steelies, better rubber, and half moon hubcaps. Very cozy sleeping. There have been many Netflix movie nights on the iMac, reading in the queen size bed plus me and Ian have spent (too) many hours at the computer desk in the old canned ham so she has really been a good investment.

more framing

So they say this is the hottest driest central Texas summer since the 1920's. Not that we would know any different since this is only our 2nd summer on the place so somewhat encouraging to think that maybe we haven't bought a slice of desert. Oh well; on the bright side there are no mosquitos. We have been sitting out on the floor deck after dark every night and enjoying the stars, watching for satellites, have seen the shuttle and ISS and a rare falling star all completely bug free. After huddling under the A/C until after supper we have been able to get more framing done in a couple of hours before dark. Have the south end bay window framed and started with the clerestory window across the front and a few rafters as I was anxious to see how the roof slope and overhangs will look in proportion to the rest of the house. Liking the forms, feeling the enclosed space and spotting the views out now. Joey likes to stand guard right in front of where the front sliding glass doors will be, can see now there will always be nose prints on the glass. Been fighting crooked lumber (just try and buy a decent 20' 2x8 these days without ordering $$$ no. 1 material) but with a lot more blocking and bridging plus the 1x4's across the roof it should all straighten up nicely. 

some walls are up / chicken bowling

Been triple digits over 30 days so far and not to August yet. Decked the floor framing with 3/4" T&G and quickly put down a coat of white primer to seal it up. Have started standing up 2x6 walls and are committed to generic rough openings for window and door sizes since we haven't bought the actual units yet. Will just count on having to modify a few openings depending on what we end up if it comes to that. Going as planned so far and sticking to the plans as drawn, take-offs have been mostly accurate and under budget so far; what a switch that is. As usual the bigger / smaller phenomenon has already occurred. I've noticed through the years on all construction sites that a project goes through a confusing modulating perceived sense of scale: A staked out building "feels" big. A poured slab feels small. A framed building feels big again. As drywall goes up rooms feel small but once they are floated and textured they seem big again. Finishes hopefully bring the perceived scale to the imagined design but of course any empty room with no furnishings seems big. The goal is to weather through the emotional roller coaster of questioning your sense of scale and once it is ready to move into it will feel just right. The foundation piers seemed like a bigger house was being built, the floor framing looked small but the decking painted white felt like I was building an aircraft carrier. Now that walls are going up and a vertical scale is established it is feeling cozy again, I think once the roof framing goes on it will seem big once again. It has a nice scale and presence among the trees right now though and the focused views out of window openings are nice to see.  

Joey has invented the new sport of chicken bowling. She favors the higher view that the floor deck provides her and her leaping agility gets her a running start at the chickens. When they gather into a tight feeding circle with their backs turned she goes for it full tilt, flying off the deck across the driveway to see just how hard and far she can scatter the 10 chicken pins squawking into the air. A strike every time.  

floor framing, a visitor

all blocked out and ready for decking

The house floor framing is ready to receive decking. Hot yet again; 100 in the shade. Had some friends from Houston stop by to view the place plus had an uninvited visitor early this morning.  Nearly stepped right on the well camoed fellow and had to nearly stick the dog's nose into it before she ever saw him. The pretty little hognose snake was quite the thespian: he coiled up, hissed, spit, flared his neck out like a cobra and when all hope was lost of running us off he flipped over on his back and writhed around in faux agony. I swear he even had one eye open to see if we were still around. After a performance like that we just let him be.

the colonel, earth oven pizza

104 again today, not too hot to enjoy a mesquite fired earth oven pizza though.

The Colonel takes over the adirondack chair.

Grandson Drake does a fire dance, thankfully there hasn't been a fire in there in a while. Now if we can get him to do a rain dance instead. ( Joey looks on from a safe distance.)

house progress

Managed to work around the ridiculous heat and have most of the floor framing done. Triple digits for two weeks and it's only the third week of June. We've lost all three of our turkey chicks and a chicken to the heat. The survivors seem to be doing good in the new chicken ark though. The footprint and scale of the house project has hit home and, although small, it is 4 times the size of the camper that we've lived in for a year now and looks plenty big enough for the three of us. The house will be less than 900 square feet of conditioned space. There will be an attached screened porch and front deck for extended living area and the vintage camper where I am now will still be serving permanent office and guest bedroom duties. There may be several outbuildings including the storage shed, a separate studio and shop, a storm shelter / root cellar, tree house, chicken coop, junk gazebo, etc. Anyways... The pix show a pretty straight forward frame of 2x8s and a triple 2x8 treated sill on the concrete piers. This will put the finish floor about 2 to 3 feet off the sloping ground. Floor areas are blocked out for recesses that will hold vintage bricks under the woodstove and a thicker mesquite tiled floor in the bathroom so they will be flush with all the other floors. The floor cantilevers 30" all around to a total width of 14' and about 4' out for two extended bays in the bedrooms at each end which required some perpendicular framing to handle the overhangs. The chickens and dog will have free rein of the shade under the house and the floor underside will be sealed from critters and insulated. The composting toilet system will tuck under the back side and a grey water tank, plumbing, and electrical risers will also be under there. We plan on plenty of native grasses and planting to help hide some of the foundation although the board formed concrete was an intentional added texture. I want the floating and cantilevered effect to denote how the house sits lightly on the site. Will start floor decking in a few days and may try and raise the walls and roof framing in the next couple of weeks with some bartered help.

chicken ark / coopdiminium

We've built a portable chicken tractor (I prefer the more commonly euro term chicken ark; tractor sounds a little too industrial) to house 12 chicks and 3 turkey chicks. They are about 4 weeks old and getting along smashingly. The ark is framed with 2x2's all ripped from various salvage 2x material and sheathed in salvaged corrugated tin. Our only material cost was new poultry wire and a few hinges; we had plenty of old rusty wire but this new stuff is vinyl coated in a nice dark green color that goes away visually and has fewer sharp points. Two vintage tricycle wheels

(borrowed from our junk gazebo) at one end and a handle to lift at the other provides portability. We scoot it around every other day or so once the chicks have cleaned and fertilized the 4' x 8' footprint of the enclosure. Unlike most other designs we've seen with a coop at one end, I built the coop all down one side and completely elevated to provide more ground area and plenty of shade from the central Texas sun. The ramp up the back side lets them access the coop at night. We've been having to encourage them up to the roost at sundown every night but they are catching on, and come daylight they all come parading down by themselves cheeping for food and water. A popular place seems to be the perch under the coop that also holds up the end of the ramp, they hang out up there under the shade of the house above and scope out the action below for grasshopper activity. A gate on the pen side near the coop door lets Jeree change the water and two large doors on the front gives easy access to 12 nests inside to harvest eggs once they start laying. We don't expect to keep all 12 full grown chickens as layers, they came unsexed so we're not sure yet just how many hens or roosters we've got. We'll deal with harvesting and thinning the flock in a couple of months but expect the place will be plenty big enough for 8 or so full grown birds. The turkeys are just in the ark for their protection now and will be free range soon enough, supposedly the turkeys will not tolerate the chickens when they get bigger. So far their personalities seem to be that the turkeys are more clever and adventurous than the chickens despite all the stories we hear about how stupid the turkeys are. The chickens will be free range when full grown too but just like Motel 6, we'll leave the door open for them to roost.

It's no accident that the design is very similar to our own house design with the pen on the back reflecting the screened in porch. The house shape was derived from vernacular sheds (and chicken coops) with a one way sloping roof to gather breezes and provide natural ventilation, provide shade where it is needed most and to harvest rainwater most efficiently with a single straight gutter along the back edge. 

finally: the finials

The Hubbard / Hill Cemetery project required replication of three missing headstone finials for the nearly identical headstones of Hubbard family members who died in 1880, 1881, and 1884. The original finials would of have been made of lathe turned white marble. No evidence of their design was available in photographs or fragments. The Texas Historic Commission warns against making assumptions when replicating missing elements unless there is strong historical evidence to back it up. After some discussion with the owners I felt further investigation might yield some clues and they were game to the idea. The nearby historic Old Red Rock cemetery on highway 821 south of present day Red Rock gave me a good answer. Identical headstones from the same era and of the same dimensions convinced me that the design was a standard monument company model of the period, but only one of the Red Rock headstones had it's finial. Cemetery bandits must love the fact that the tempting tidbit is at eye level and held in place by a single dowel. Unfortunately, over time, the steel or bronze dowel corrodes and becomes loose in it's packing, which may have been either oakum or poured molten sulfer, making the finial as easy to swipe as Jimmy Stewart's loose newel post knob in It's a Wonderful Life. 

The marble finial model was borrowed from it's hole only long enough to measure and photograph it, and then with Jeree's help I traced it's shadow profile (held at right angles to the afternoon sun above a note pad) back at the truck. He was then returned to his proper place - with a little prayer that it doesn't disappear to thieves too.

After having replicas priced by a local stone company (to the tune of nearly 600 dollars!) for the three I thought it was time to come up with our own version. The first step was to replicate the profile in a moldable material. I built a jig - type lathe out of plywood for my reversible drill and turned a replica profile out of dense floral foam to match the dimensions of my notes. The styrofoam was shaped easily to an acceptable facsimile using a small rasp, files, and sandpaper. So far, so good. The foam would disintegrate if sealed with spray polyurethane (discovered from previous experience unfortunately). The texture of the foam would also show up - or not release from a plaster mold - without sealing so I coated the foam with drywall compound, let it dry and turned it again in the lathe jig to a smooth shape with sandpaper. After drying and coating that with several coats of spray poly I made a two piece plaster mold for casting the finials in concrete. A good casting mix for concrete was researched, I tried a 3:2 sand to white portland cement and left it fairly stiff for strength.  The mold turned out fine and left a great reverse shape to receive the concrete but the first casting showed how absorbent the plaster was - sucking the moisture right out of the concrete mix like a dehydrator. The mold was sealed with multiple coats of polyurethane, dried overnight and then coated with a release layer of thinned vaseline. The second mix was made thinner to fill the mold shape easier and left for a good twelve hours to set. The thinnest neck near the base repeatedly broke while unmolding. Different combinations of concrete were tried for moldability, strength, color, and texture. No acceptable results and a table full of broken finals after nearly a week of effort required a different direction. Back to the foam model. Latex molding liquid was applied over several days to 10 layers thick obtaining a flexible rubber mold thick enough to hold up to repeated castings. The profile prevented stretching the mold enough to get a concrete out of the narrow neck so the latex had to be split up the side to peel it off. The latex was stitched back together with masking tape into a complete shape for casting. More concrete - after a day of drying the tape was removed and voila' - a complete finial. BUT, the rubber mold filled with heavy concrete had left the final casting bumpy and lumpy, okay for Claus Oldenberg but not for this project. The latex was taped around the foam model once again and an outer mold was made from plain sacrete just to hold it into shape while the inner castings set up. By this time the mix had evolved to a 1:1:1 mix of sacrete (screened to remove the largest aggregate) to white portland cement to sand and watered to the consistency of thick oatmeal. This allowed a drier mix for strength but still liquid enough to find the inner profile with tamping and tapping the outer mold after pouring. It took 12-14 failed castings to come up with three complete, but far from perfect finials. They were delivered and installed with Barre Pak epoxy onto the patiently waiting headstones. They are intended to represent the originals and they certainly add a tremendous amount of detail to the cemetery. The strong gothic obelisk shape of the headstones look almost art deco in design without them but appropriately Victorian when in place. 

The headstones missing their finial appear almost art deco in design.

From a few feet away it is hard to tell they are imposters. In true preservation form they are not intended to exactly replicate the missing forms but are there to just inform the viewer of the historic detail. Next time I have to do this it should be a cinch ... and now that I have the mold and the process down it is tempting to go on a guerrilla campaign to replace missing finals in other cemeteries; beware all you bastard grave robbers.