Momentum!

It seems we are really hitting our stride! Msebesebe joined us this week, keeping the number at four, myself included. In the morning after trimming the excess off the walls, I put it on an extra tarp. That turned into tarp 3. Previously, we always mixed in pairs. With 3 tarps now, when someone has a free moment, they move the extra tarp onto the next stage. It has really increased the amount of cob we mix. About Tuesday we started on the center wall again, the massive one! We got two layers down each day from the top of the building to the bottom! It's too high now to hop over, we have to climb over or go around.

I spent a little time Wednesday morning setting up another clay pit on the other side of the house, actually closer to the “mine”. We had been hauling the clay around the house to the far side where the soaking pits are, then putting into buckets for the mix and carrying it back through the house. Been thinking to stock dirt and clay on both sides for when we start mixing for the outside walls. Streamlining . . . .

Also, we are having a work day Saturday, about 10 guys from the church will come out to help in the morning. Borrowing a couple wheelbarrows, the goal being to move lots and lots of dirt and clay from the mine to the house site. It's about 75 yards away. With at least 3, maybe 4 wheelbarrows, should be able to set ourselves up for 2-3 weeks. That will save lots of time, we can focus on cobbing.

I think a mouse tried to make a home in our house before us!
The hole is only a just past one knuckle of my finger.
(Inches on the ruler, not cm!)

Thought of the day

Wednesday night I was looking through the cob book again, and saw the section about using cord wood to build a wall with cob as the mortar. They said so far the prospects looked good. I was thinking that if we cut down some popular trees, we could put them in the center wall no problem. It started me thinking about other trees, and then it hit me! The blue gum eucalyptus is the number one invasive species here. Technically, everybody was suppose to have cut them down already. The wood is only good for burning, it can't be turned into planks because the grain is twisted . . . BUT it it were cut green, and dried, it would be hard and doesn't rot. Stick it in the wall, cob around it, and building could go quite fast and take less soil (and less work) and use up the unwanted trees! I love the idea, but Corné doesn't want to try it on our house, and I'm with here on that. Don't want to experiment on the place we plan to live for a long time. However, I want to try it out when we build the school shortly. If it works, it could go a long way to helping out the housing problem.

A little addition . . . this morning (Friday) we were five working, and that seems to be the number! We were just cruising along. Tseko was bringing me cob, I was building the walls, Lerato and Notsi were mixing, and Rasusu was the supplier-he was bringing the crusher dust or soil, refilling the water cans. He was nearly always on the move, which help the rest of us always be on the move! If Tseko and I caught up to the mixers, we would hop on a tarp and start getting it mixed. I was amazed at how much we mixed in just an 90 minutes. We are finding the “1%s”-little ways to gain here and there. Tseko also started delivering the cob with the 4 pronged garden fork. Much faster than bending over, pulling a carryable amount loose, and then picking it up. He would just fork it up and carry it over.

How to NOT have jellified cob

Progress wasn't as much this week as the last, but things are still coming along. We mixed cob Monday and Tuesday. We had been slapping the cob down and hearing a nice smacking sound. Seemed like it would help the new cob bond with the previous layer. Did notice, especially in areas of lots of cob, like where the four walls meet, that when wet and pressed on, say, the next day, the area nearby would rise up. I was just reading a bit in The Hand Sculpted House, and Ianto said that slapping would “jellify” the cob. Seemed that was what was happening. The next day, no slapping down, just working it all into the previous layer. This morning, no jelly, just soft cob that's still wet, but not moving the surronding cob when pressed on.

When we built the small storeroom, we only put in the adobe floor after the roof was on. It then took a couple weeks, even in late summer, for the floor to be firm enough to walk on. So now in the house, we were thinking of putting in the sub-floor (about 3in/7.5cm thick) now in the dry season and before the walls are too high and block much of the light and airflow. When it does get rainy, we'll put a single, large piece of black plastic that will rise up the sides to keep it dry. Wednesday we leveled our bedroom floor and guest room floor and put down about 3in/7.5cm of gravel as a moisture barrier, and then tamped that down. Going with less than what the books recommend, but our climate is much drier than Oregon or England (where my cob books originate). Our soil is also very dense, so no so easy for water to move through it. Also, traditional homes here have a earthen floor with no gravel under it. Friends of ours, familiar with cob, recommended no gravel, but since we had 2-3 cubes of it, decided to be safer than having to redo a floor later on!

The doorway to our bedroom taking shape!

Close-up of cob wall, after trimming.

Thursday the wind picked up, making working out in the open uncomfortable. So after lunch we cut some firewood, for the last time as a group, winter seems to be winding down already. Thank you Lord! Today, Friday, cancelled work as it was windy, cloudy, and cold with the wind chill. I went over for a couple hours and pulled weeds . . .