Since the west gable of the house will get the hot afternoon sun, I decided to put in only a small stained glass window and surrounded it with a symbol made from foam strips covered with wire and stucco. This symbol is from the New Mexico flag and represents the four corners of the earth. To me, it looks like both the sun and the earth, symbolizing the harmony of man and nature in this house. Summer monsoons were approaching, so I filled in the gaps between the bales with a mixture of lime and earthen plasters. The house stayed unplastered for a year and the bales are just fine, thanks largely to our very dry climate.