Skywater

This round’s blog-off topic caught me a little off-guard. Well, they all do, which is the object of the game: a random question lobbed at you from the intertubes, requiring a reflexive response. It’s reminiscent of catching a glimpse of an approaching Frisbee in your periphery and either ducking the impending blow or rising to the moment by catching it and returning the volley as gracefully as possible. I tend to examine topics from an internalized, alternate perspective –  some might say “skewed” – but there are enough viewpoints which take the direct frontal approach that I don’t feel the need to follow suit; I go rambling off in another direction. Careening across a verbal landscape, I will remain true to form or freeform, as it were.

I have been an armchair traveler for the most part; I do have a long wish list of geographical desires which I would like to experience some day but for the most part it remains just that – a list. I read constantly about places and times, near and far, and travel through the words and images of others. There have been a few realized exceptions, but most of my life has been spent quite close to home (which happens to be in one of the most beautiful places I know: Vermont, an oasis of lasting simplicity). The lasting appeal of Vermont has made it a popular destination for visitors from the northeastern megalopolis and parts further flung; the tourists come to enjoy the quaint villages, the bucolic farms, the burbling brooks and thickly forested mountainsides. It truly is “picture postcard perfect”; some decide to move here or build a second home and hold on to the vision of pastoral bliss they have experienced. We have a saying here, among the local transplants – “Welcome to Vermont! We dare you make a living.” And there is more than a kernel of truth in that expression. While the quality of life here is hard to beat, the struggle to survive and eke out a living is equally difficult to understand. And so we work – and work – and try to enjoy ourselves with the simpler pleasures at hand.

welcome to my village

While I have spent many years here, struggling with the demands of life at hand and dreaming of other realities, sunnier climes and greener pastures, I have begun to learn the depth of experience available right under my gaze and indeed, inside my gaze. Rather than waiting for “some day”, I seek to discover what is inside of “this day”. It’s a lowering, not of aspiration, but of focus, to the essence of the moment. The smallest details expand to fill the grandest canvas. When one’s awareness is permitted to fly free, to gather in all the bits of life floating by in the present, there is no pressing need to escape, to get away from it all, to pay someone else to amuse, serve, pamper, or divert. There is a world of experience already nearby, if you look for it. And then allow it to reveal all of its facets and nuances, never repeating and always wondrous.

I began to understand this in a very small way when I was quite young, maybe ten or so; I made a vow to myself (actually more a statement of realization) that ‘I’ would never be bored. That endless complaint of the disenchanted and restless adolescent and their older variants, so often heard and futilely addressed, “I’m bored…” would not be upon my lips. And it hasn’t, to this day. I still look forward to sailing the seven seas and traipsing through the halls of kings and priests, wondering at great feats of architecture and vast sweeps of scenic grandeur. To make the Grand Tour. To walk where legends and civilizations were born; to see the green flash of a tropical sunset, the fiery, steaming bowels of the earth convulsing, the technicolor rush of hundreds of rainforest birds aloft. But I am not bored with the offerings of my days and nights closer to home, as I eat, work, play, and sleep…

Riverine Dreams

The weight of a late summer afternoon, pressing down on my body as I lay in the grass next to a lazy river, hawks wheeling slowly overhead as the towering mountain across the valley lifts its spruces into the piercing blue sky. The smell of fresh concrete as I peel the cradling formwork away from our latest studio commission, all the careful preparation and the rush of mixing and pouring now seized in solid immutable weight. The dawning of understanding and the smile that lifts the corners of my mouth when standing before another’s work, soaking it in and turning it over in my mind, letting the representation become an inspiration in reverse. All these small details, charting a macroscopic journey through “now”. I am still learning the signs – I stumble, I wander, I digress, I lose the horizon. But there is always a new day and a new view to quicken my step and draw my eye.

I was raised with the belief that heaven (and its counterpart, hell) was a place that came after this life, some otherworldly reward for eschewing the dangers and disgraces of a temporal existence. The creation was fallen, the shallow attractions of this mortal plane were deceptive and destructive. If one kept their eyes above and beyond these temptations, there would be a slice of heavenly cake waiting on the other side – your just desserts. But I have come to the more gratifying realization that you can have your cake and eat it too. I find my slice of heaven right here, right now, wherever I am. Often rather close by, sometimes farther afield but always where you might expect it least – not in the obvious guidebook or entrancing glossy magazine, the latest hotspot revealed or the last great unspoiled discovery. It’s right in front of my nose and well within my grasp. I turn to a fellow New Englander, once again, who said, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” (Henry David Thoreau) Watch your step and you will travel far.

Go here to see the full list of #letsblogoff participants; a panoply of polished perspectives!

We just received some pictures of a project in which we had a bit part awhile back. Working with Antoine Guerlain, a masonry heater craftsman, we created some custom formwork so that he could cast some integral parts for a masonry stove in Montpelier, Vermont. He forwarded some shots of the work underway; one of the bare bones core and another of the (nearly) completed installation. Nice work! These wood-fired traditional heaters are becoming more popular as the cost of fossil fuel rises and home owners are becoming more conscious of their energy consumption patterns. They provide a warm hearth for the modern home, restoring some of the soul and comfort so often lacking in  today’s residences. And showcase the work of a true artisan, working natural materials with hand and heart…

If you are intrigued, please contact Concrete Detail and we will put you in touch with Antoine and his fellows!

Basic ingredients of concrete

Cement is to concrete what flour is to bread – it’s the binder, the ingredient that holds it all together. The bits that are being held together – the aggregates, such as sand and gravel – are generally locally sourced and little processing is needed to render them suitable for use in the concrete mixture. But your typical cement is another story; very substantial amounts of energy are needed to fire the raw natural ingredients and convert them into the substance we call Portland cement. This is the aspect which remains to be dealt with, as far as sustainability and environmental impact. Through efforts to lessen this carbon footprint, the green appeal of concrete as a material choice can be expanded even further beyond its existing impressive credentials as a sustainable choice.

The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has published an article discussing some timely efforts in this regard. Other methods of dealing with this issue are being pursued as well, notably the actual displacement of part or all of the Portland cement ingredient with alternative cementitious materials. Some of these are recycled products, a double-benefit whammy, such as fly ash, blast furnace slag, VCAS, and silica fume. Some are alternative cements with an improved carbon footprint report card, such as the calcium sulfo-aluminate (CSA) cements. These options all hold great promise by increasing the intrinsic appeal of concrete further. Concrete Detail is active in exploring these exciting developments – we already use fly ash and VCAS as supplementary cementitious materials (SCM’s) in our artisan concrete countertops and other products, and we are beginning testing with slag  and CSA cements. Never a dull moment around here…

Vermont Business Magazine online just  ran an article which quotes a new report ranking Vermont as the greenest state in the country. This means we have a population more likely to exhibit green behavior as we go about our day-to-day lives in this fairest of states. Are we surprised? Not at all. We DO have the greenest state, in more ways than one; look at those mountains!

And concrete countertops  are a green, sustainable choice for your home or business on top of all that. As I like to say, “Choose concrete – It’s not hard!”

We had two very nice visitors this week at the shop. A LaFarge rep (NH) was in to talk and drop off some GGBFS – that’s ground granulated blast furnace slag to the uninitiated. I am looking forward to tinkering with it… yes, I actually find strange  powdery materials mildy exhilirating. Slag cement is  recycled from iron production andit is a portland cement replacement, so it helps reduce concrete’s carbon footprint and adds to sustainability.  It is off-white in color and actually enhances and improves the end product, so it is a win-win.

Likewise, the rep from Headwaters Resources  (MA) came by with fly ash today to replenish my dwindling supply. We are already using it in our regular pours. It has similar characteristics  to the slag, just a bit less reactive (it is actually pozzolanic; not self-cementitious) and a light grayish beige in color. Again, it is a recycled, re-used waste product (of power plants this time) that makes superior concrete. Win-win. We are winning so much around here, the lottery commission is investigating.

Oh yes…   btw, SCM = supplementary cementitious material. Good stuff.

At Concrete Detail, we are constantly researching means of improving our operations, with results which benefit everyone: the maker, the user, and the planet.  One of these initiatives is to lower the carbon footprint of the material we incorporate into our creations. Concrete is already considered one of the more sustainable choices that can be employed when making decisions about a building project. Deciding factors can include embodied energy costs, useful lifecycle, and effects on indoor air quality.

One of the methods which can be used to increase the green value of concrete is to replace some of the components with recycled and/or lower embodied energy materials. At Concrete Detail, we are working with several different interesting options. They include fly ash, slag cement, VCAS (a post-industrial fiberglass product),  silica fume, recycled bottle glass, and even recycled concrete. More info on these fascinating and beneficial developments will be posted soon; stay tuned as we blog on!