Straw Bale:

Must be something about ranchers' daughters and straw bale construction...

When I was in art school in Lincoln, Nebraska, my girlfriend had me come 
home with her, out west to the panhandle, near Chadron, over the holiday 
break for about 4 weeks. I stayed with the "hands" out in the bunk 
house, which was straw bale construction. I got to see "my" girl (who, 
back on the ranch, of course, was really her daddy's girl) every morning 
at breakfast and on Sunday afternoons. We both took a good-natured 
ribbing from the hands. Of course, I had to work for my keep during the 
day, and spent evenings with the hands out in the bunk house. They were 
a mix of old weathered fence posts and young flat-bellied 
whipper-snappers with shoulders three feet wide from tossing 90 pound 
hay bales all summer long since they were ten. In the evening the 
practice was homemade entertainment and everyone had to contribute. If 
you couldn't play an instrument, sing, or tell a good story, you BECAME 
the entertainment. Since I couldn't play or sing worth a hoot, and was 
way to young to have a good story, I thought I was just going to read 
the evenings away. The second night they grabbed me out of my bunk and 
played "blanket toss" with me while old Henry scratched out a tune on 
his fiddle. Henry fiddled faster and faster, I sailed higher and higher 
on each toss, loads of fun for everyone. Henry began sawin' on that 
fiddle frenetic-like, and I started touching then banging into the 
rafters. That seems to make them happy so they left me be. The next 
night there was no getting out of it--Blanket Toss was on the 
entertainment program. When they got to banging into them rafters real 
good I got my leg and arm into the trusses and just hung up there--well 
that brought the house down with a roar of laughs and har-harin' that 
seemed to satisfy them all for the rest of the evening. I got tangled up 
in those rafters and trusses more than once and learned, at eye-ball 
range, how they were constructed. The bottom cords were full-length 
Cottonwood logs, hewn flat on the sides. The webs were old weathered 
Osage Orange fence posts tenoned into the cords and saddle jointed into 
the top cords made of Cottonwood poles. Old Henry said the bearings were 
flat planks that laid on top of the straw bale walls. The walls were 
about 3 feet thick and the windows had a wide curved coving at the sides 
to let in more light. Interior walls were finished with T&G wood boards, 
exterior was finished with  stucco. Henry had helped build the bunk 
house in 1917, he said, during an odd early October snow storm. They 
just used what ever materials they could scrape up, hay, posts, and 
Cottonwoods that had been planted just 30 years before with the first 
land-grant settlement of the ranch. They got it up and finished in about 
a week, probably quicker than otherwise, Henry thought, since they 
needed a place to keep warm and the boss wanted them out of the house!
Anyway, by the third night I was getting pretty beat up banging into 
those Cottonwood trusses, and instead of reading, just happened to pull 
out my sketch book and pencils. Turns out it was real entertaining for 
them to watch me sketch in the evening. Then I got "easy duty" during 
the work day when they realized I could draw them working with the 
horses. Once I got to be friendly with those guys that bunk house seemed 
real warm and cozy, probably due more to those 3 foot thick straw wall. 
Even the boss let me in the big house on Saturday to draw a portrait of 
"his" daughter. He was real pleased with his daughter for bringing me, 
real pleased with the portrait, but as for me? Well, I could remain in 
the bunkhouse with the hands.  When it was time to go back to school 
every one of those hands had tacked a sketch of themselves up on the 
wall over their bunk. By spring "my" girl and I were hiking out along 
the edge of town on frequent "sketching trips."

John (artist as a young man) Leeke
1968, Dawes County, Nebraska



 >>version of a stack-log barn wall.<<

Stacked cord-wood walls is another vernacular building system. We build 
a rustic shelter out back every other year with our firewood. I'd take a 
picture of it for you, but this winter got an early cold start here in 
Maine, so we've already brought in and burned half of the shelter. You 
can get a glimpse of the shelter in the "Garden Peas" video, over here 
at the Front Portch:

http://www.historichomeworks.com/hhw/frontporch/front.htm#Peas

John

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>