Piggy's BBQ

Located on East Bound Interstate 70 on the Left Side

at Mile Marker 199.6 

Traveling through St Louis area this week, we see this bill board on I-70 East. We've eaten there before, and Allison wants us to pick up some sweet sauce for home. We had the best slab of pork ribs I've ever tasted! Check it out sometime, if you're in the O'Fallon, MO area. Check out their site. [see links]

or click...

Piggy's BBQ

Post Footings

I have been working on finalizing the footing plans for the twenty posts we need to put up for our barn. I have a grave concern for rising damp. The antique wood we have, and the new posts we are making out of our felled poplar trees deserve to remain dry. I have seen the damage done to those components of the barn that were in contact with ground, and the amazing preservation afforded those posts held up off the ground by a simple rock footing. The rock, having been much denser than concrete, didn't exhibit the rising capillary action of water near as much.

This capture from SketchUp shows a compound footer made up of 12 inches of compacted stone and a 36"X36"X12" concrete filled FastBag from FabForm. We will dig out 20 holes, 12 inches deep, by 36 inches square, to hold the rock, [Thank goodness for the back hoe!], compact it with a hand tamper, and set the bags over the rock. That will give us effective 2 foot deep footers with half the concrete.The bag is waterproof, and will prevent ground moisture from entering the concrete. We will place a moisture barrier under each post, likely a square of EPDM, to serve as a backup.

New power lines

Here's the first new pole, line threaded through the insulators, but waiting tension.  The workmen reminded Susan not to mow over the power lines laying on the ground. I'm glad they mentioned that! Who knows what Susan may have done without that little warning.

This is a great example of a corner support for timberframe. I have so many nice corner pieces from the Johnson's barn, we should be able to use them in the stall areas. Our horizontal beam will be two 2x12's, with the corner brace sandwitched between them. The post attatchment will be let in somewhat like this picture. The strawbale wall will be outside the timbers, as seen here. I'm getting so anxious to start!