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.

Interior walls growing by leaps and bounds

It's been wonderful just doing cob all week, and seeing the bottom rooms taking shape.  The weather is mostly perfect, mid-60s F during the day, so the next morning the cob is moist and workable for mixing in the next layer, but still firm enough to keep on building on it.

Intersection of two walls.  The slowest drying part.  Wish I had started cob
at this point and worked outwards from it.

 Very happy with the mixture.  In this photo to the left, you can see we left a space between the wall and the higher floor next to it.  Then after the cob wall was up, we filled the gap with gravel for a moisture barrier.  However, I am less and less concerned about moisture coming up from under the house.  Friends of ours say there is a lady nearby that built a cob house and didn't put any gravel under the floors.  The traditional homes here also didn't have gravel under the floors . . .

 We quickly used up all the dirt dug up from leveling the floors, so we've had to go back to the mine for not just clay, but for building soil as well.  However, I bought a pick, and that has made it much easier than when we were digging soil for the storeroom with only shovels.  In 45 minutes we can dig enough for a couple days.  Today it was windy and going to be below freezing tonight, so instead of cobbing, we just got dirt ready.  So we are set for 3-4 days easily.

You can see that the wall on the right is almost up to the stem wall!!
It is just above my knee, and looking good!