The back mass wall is up to the 7th course of bags and another course of foam insulation is about to start. In the video I show how the geotextile is woven through the mass wall making it monolithic. This is an invention by Howard Switzer (the Architect on this project) and he calls it "continuous buttress earth-bag walls". This design eliminates the need for poured concrete buttresses and battering the walls (leaning them back) and allows for a cleaner looking straight walled interior. We have had 300% the normal rainfall this summer in TN and this has resulted in much less progess than was anticipated.

The pigs are doing well on very little feed and are grazing pasture and foraging in the forest. I move the pasture daily and the forest paddocks are rotated weekly. I have begun to open up one of the forest paddocks by cutting down the small, low quality, bent, or badly located trees. I want to let enough light in to get some grass growing to enlarge my grazing system into the forest without eliminating the browse or nut drop.

I thought about and researched what bag material would be the best to use and what would be the easiest way to fill it with minimal help. Most of what I saw on the internet for earthbag building was a large group of hippies with coffee cans filling earthbags (in my opinion) very slowly or people using various stands to hold open and fill individual bags and place them one at a time. Neither one of these options would work for me as I have only a few people helping me and the idea of lifting and placing individual bags for a wall that will be 130' long x 2' wide x 10' tall seemed impossible. I decided to go with woven polypropylene rolls which I got in four 1000' rolls. I had to make my own invention for loading up to 70' of tubing on, holding it up for filling and releasing the filled bag into a form. I will be a bit vague as to the exact specs for building the thing as I may offer a set of plans for sale if there is any interest.