That's me posing with the first bale, with Matts in the background, checking out the stemwall. My hand is on a long rod of all-thread. This is fastened to the jbolts in the foundation, then sections are added as we build up and up. Eventually, it goes all the way through the top plate. Behind me are the large wooden bucks that we used to frame the windows and doors. There are ways to do this using less wood, but the Pima County straw bale building code requires these huge boxes. In later photos, you will see that I tiled around the outside of my windows by gluing the tile to these bucks.