We're late! Rains are already upon us and our hands are becoming harder to keep warm as temperatures are rapidly falling. The ideal time for working with cob has already passed and we're just beginning. But we're not giving up! We will press on despite the adversity, and today we will share with you our progress with the mud we've been adding to our build these last week. This post has taken a long time to be produced since its really hard to pick up our phones while our hands are dripping mud all over the place.
First task was to dig out our "pool" where we would mix the mud with straw to create cob. The soil was the same we removed from where we are building which had a nice proportion of clay and sand since we are by a stream.
Once the pool is set, it's time to throw in the dirt. Though each territory has different kinds of clay and mixes usually vary, we tried copying the mixture used by the friends we helped out on their build recently which is 10 shovels of earth for one sack of straw. So far we've liked the results obtained with that mix.
Then the water which is never a specific amount. We pour it in, swirl it around with our feet, and check out how the mix feels which is probably the only way as the soil will always vary in it's moisture content.
The boots help us on cool days, but we reach the sunny days to mix with bare feet, we take advantage of a good exfoliation and a lot of dancing 🕺💃.
Final ingredient is the straw, which we have gotten from @fenngen 's uncle's leftovers from last year. We add this little by little, mixing in slowly as it's not convenient for big of clumps of the material to form. The tech is to throw some, step on it, mix it around until it's not very visible and then add more.
Our end result looks something like this. As you see, it's a lot more straw than mud and this is a technique known as "tierra alivianada" in Spanish, which translates to "lightened soil". It's a good way to get the structural part of the cob to stay in the walls as the straw acts as a binding fiber.
Time to get our hands dirty!! We are ready to start our first wall!
@choli putting the first clump of cob into the wall. We chose to start in the area where it receives less sunlight, since it will surely take longer to dry.
We use some bottles to fill up space and also for decoration, as well as allowing light to enter. Here is a picture once we had finished the first area and begin a new one:
Some light entry can be appreciated, though there are certain hours when most bottles light up and it looks beautiful. Hopefully there will be some day when our hands aren't full of mud and that happens so that we can show you.
Finally, the house as it looks today. We still have ways to go, but the weather has been very favorable so we might be able to pull it off.
Hope you enjoyed the progress, more coming in a while. Thanks for stopping by and supporting!