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Sunday, May 27th, 2001. More and more digging. Our clay pile is growing larger. The northern side of the house foundation, particularly the northwestern corner, is showing some weird soil content. After about a couple inches of clay, very light-colored silty sand layer showed up. In other spots there was no clay - just silty sand. Silty sand is easy to dig and is excellent for drain, but cannot be used for cob. Cob requires more coarse sand. Special thanks to Terri's mom, Darlene Finch - she was a real trooper!
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Because clay tends to be in big chunks, at first we tried mattocking and breaking up and then picking them up by hand. Terri and Darlene sitting and throwing chunks of clay into the wheelbarrows. |
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Terri working with the mattock. This is the northeastern corner of the foundation footprint, where our trench is the deepest. We've gotten to the point where we're not trying to keep the same 3-feet width - now we want to narrow the trench down so that water will collect in the middle of the trench. By the way, this is the third mattock we are using. The first two bent because the soil was so hard. We tried a different model and it seemed to work better. |
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Here's our pile of clay. Again notice the big chunks. We covered it up with tarps at the end of the day so that even if it rains during the week, the clay wouldn't run down. |
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At the end of the work day. Notice how deep the trench is where Terri is standing. |