Wwoofers Caroline from Berlin and Jamie from Bristol have been with us for a week or two now, and have been a wonderful help with the vegetable gardens and planting native shrubs and trees in the gardens we are building around the property. They weeded the native grasses on the Earthouse roof on a very hot day, and installed a dripping watering system for us. Check out more photo's here.
Work continues on the Cob Cottage. Jarred and Richard have put up the gyb board ready for earthplastering, ably supported by Dave.
The builders also finished above the cob walls with tongue and groove timber. We are thrilled with the result.
Al's brother Leighton is a skilled plasterer, and has been helping us out with the earthplastering of the ceiling.
It has been a huge learning curve for us all, just getting the mix right so it would stick on the wall has been a real challenge, but after much trial and error, and a lot of mud falling on the floor and on Leighton, we have finally got it right.
We are applying two coats of plaster. The first coat is 2 and a half parts fine river sand to one of our adobe/cob clay with a small amount of flour paste and milk and a dash of olive oil. The first mix we made was far to wet, and we laid it out on plastic to dry out a bit over night.
We soak the clay and sand mix in water overnight, then next day mix it with a electric drill. It is then sieved through a 3mm screen and the flour paste, milk powder and oil are added just before application to the wall or ceiling.
