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Saturday, Nov. 3, 2001. So much happened this weekend. First, we discovered that the test bricks Terri made the last weekend hardened very well, particularly those with 1:1 ratio. 3:2 actually had cracks in them and broke easily. This was surprising.
Then, we also were surprised to find big machines digging the middle of our land. Our neighbors Jim and Roni had asked before if they can scratch some top soil so that their land will drain better into our pond, and we had agreed that it was OK for them to do that (and in return Jim gave us the coarse sand). We told them that they could start any day, we didn't need to know when they were going to do this. But we were just surprised, because they really brought in huge construction vehicles for the job! We weren't worried at all, however, as they supervised the crew well and they really only scratched the surface on our property.
With the south wall pretty much done we stacked more rocks on the north wall. Then we also worked on clearing the floor one last time and putting stakes in to show the floor level. To do this, we used a cool water trick that Terri read in a book. You use a long, clear tube and fill most of it with water. Wherever you hold the two ends, the water will move to level the height of two ends. Using this trick, we can mark two stakes at the exact same height. I know it's hard to visualize this just from this explanation, but it was really cool to see this nature's law in action.
Right after that Jim and Roni came over to our building site. Ari was just about to start wheelbarrow-ing gravel to fill the floor space. They looked at us and said that'll take too long, and the next thing we know Jim drove in with his big construction vehicle, scooped up the gravel and dumped it in our floor. 4 scoops and it filled most of it! That was great, and it saved us hours of work. Again, it's really good to have good neighbors.
Finally, we made our first cob! Ari had gotten some straw bales during thw week, but we were worried that they might not be useable because the straws seemed to be cut pretty short (3-4 inches). It turns out that straws were longer inside the bales, and while some of them were indeed rotten and unuseable, we still found useable bit as well. Long, dry, strong straw, of 10-12 inches, are really the ideal kind to use in cobbing. So we made our first batch and started building the southern wall. You should have seen the grin on Terri's face!
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Another look at our foundation. It's pretty darn close to completion! |
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Ari holding the brick Terri made last week. This one we couldn't break at all. It's very strong. But for a cob wall we won't use these as bricks, we'll just slap them all together. |
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Here's the power of the modern construction technology! A few dumps of this thing filled up our floor area, which would have taken hours of work if we did it with wheelbarrows. Thanks Jim! |
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So the floor is filled with gravel, and Ari thinking "boy, I'm glad I got out of doing this by hand." |
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And on to some cobbing! Ari is proudly holding up the straw which he worked so hard to get. |
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Terri slappin on the very first loaf of cob onto the southern foundation. Our wall raising has begun! |