Cobbing continues, and pergola goes up.

Once you begin building a cob wall, you can't stop for more than a few days, or the wall will begin to dry out, and you will have a hard time getting the "lifts" (as each new layer of mud is called), to merge into one cohesive cob wall. So, our life has begun to revolve around stomping straw into mud, and applying it to the ever growing walls.

Ali has even perfected the art of talking on his faithful phone while he stomps.






The walls are reinforced vertically by re-bar and horizontally by a black mesh which is added every 450mm. This mesh is kept straight and tight with steel bodkins threaded through the mesh.










We have found it best to have four people working on stomping, two on each tarp with a batch of mud. As the straw is added it is stomped and turned using the tarp.










Another batch of the clay / straw mix ready to apply to the walls.














Here Woofer Mel from Canada places a "brick" she has formed from the clay/straw mix and placed it on the wall forming part of the next lift.













We are using string lines to keep us building straight. The clay mix stays pliable for a few days so you can move it slightly if necessary.











The re-bar are joined as you move up the wall, at the top they are bolted into a big wooden beam which circles the room and holds everything in place.



















Before the re-bar were joined, the next two layers of mesh were put in place. Ali is holding them up with his hand as he works on the re-bar joiner.









As well as the cob walls going up, Richard and his men have been working on the pergola on the cob cottage also. Here Oyvind and Caleb carry the timbers needed for the work.









Richard prepares the telephone poles for their new role of holding up the pergola.














Caleb assists Jarred with placing each new piece of timber.












The pergola had been Jarred's project, and you can see the look of satisfaction in his eyes once it was all done.











As the hand made furniture for the Earth House has arrived from the joiner, Oyvind has faithfully oiled it, bringing it alive with colour and warmth. Here he is working on the shelf which will hold the television, and bedside tables. Even the toilet roll holder gets the royal treatment.

The cob begins with St Peters visit

We are very excited about the long awaited cob walls being started on the cottage. It was a big push to get all the services in place to get ready for the the big day, made even bigger by the fact that 20 students from St Peters school were coming along to give us a helping hand.

Wwoofer Oyvind from Norway paints the reinforcing rods with zinc rich paint in readiness for the earth walls. The base of the wall has been waterproofed with a bituminous paint over a base of concrete.








The plumber prepared all the pipework. Note the red and white underfloor heating pipes.



















Jim the electrician preparing the holes for the electrical cable. The easiest way to run cabling through cob walls is using electrical ducting.













With the tradesmen sorting out the technical side of things, we had to get the most important ingredient ready, the mud!
Here wwoofer Caleb from Canada mends the wooden mixing pad in readiness. We have not used this pad since we finished making the mortar for the bricks, and a few repairs are necessary.








Once the correct amounts of clay and sand have been loaded on the mixing pad with the digger bucket, the rotary hoe is used to mix the clay and sand together. Caleb picks up the larger rocks turned up by the rotary hoe.










Next water is added to the mix, and it is mixed until it is a "good mud pie" consistency. The mix is then covered with a tarp and left for a minimum of 12hours to allow the clay platelets to migrate through the mix and bind it all together. .




Next day the happy students from St Peters were on hand to help with the next stage of the process - adding the straw and stomping it into the clay. The straw adds strength and insulating properties to the earth, and we stomp in as much as possible.





Once the mix is loaded with well coated straw, we asked the kids to form balls ready to place on the wall base. This method is a traditional way, and often a human chain is formed and the clay balls passed from one to another making the transportation from clay pit to wall easier.








Some of the students found a very comfortable bed in the straw and enjoyed the afternoon making cob balls.









Peter Fulton-Bevis and Ali discussing the pros and cons of laying the first cob balls.








In the afternoon we stopped for a cake break, just what is needed to recharge after a morning of stomping mud.







Then it was back to the wall, placing the cob balls and massaging them together into one wall of cob. The students stuck at it, and helped us get our wall under way.






Ali cooked us a damper for dinner, to go with the sausages and sauce. We had all worked hard and it was great to finish the day with some good food. Thank you St Peters for all your help.

The Cob Cottage gets our attention, and a chilly reminder Winter is coming

Now that the Earth house is all but completed, (just waiting on the last pieces of furniture to be made and the final painting and oiling completed), we are turning our attention to our next project, the half completed Cob Cottage. This structure is earth and wood construction, the earth part being made up of cob walls. The earth mix for the cob is similar to the mix for the adobe bricks, but is much dryer, and has much more straw in it.

We are wanting to get the walls up before it gets too cold, as we have to "stomp" the straw into the earth mix, and it can be a real test for the feet on a cold morning.







Deb and Fernando, our resident happy painters went a long way to getting the Earth House Gibraltar board walls painted with a natural Bio paint. We chose a off white colour, and it looks fantastic.



















Jarred has made a fantastic toilet roll dispenser for the Earth House from Macrocarpa. We didn't want to put any more holes in our beautiful tiled walls than we needed to.













The doors all oiled and gorgeous, ready to be installed in the Cob Cottage.














Jarred and Harvey have also made some Macrocarpa shelving for my office and storeroom in our existing house. The smell of that timber now fills the house, and it is wonderful. Here Ali inspects the builders handy work before the shelves are moved into position.






We had a very timely reminder in the last weeks that Autumn is here, and Winter is definitely on the way! Poor Fernando and Deb needed to raid Ali's hat collection to keep the frost off their ears.









Even Jarred was trying to hide his gloves from Ali, 'cause we all know that real men don't wear gloves.