Goes Slower Without a Work Crew

It finally has cooled off enough to get a bit of work done.



Tomorrow, I hope to finish this wall... anybody want to bet as to whether this actually happens?

Hobbits Would Be Proud...

Joni cobbed above the picture window, in, what will be (someday...maybe in 2014) our bedroom.

And she added some mud to complete one wall. It rained while I was gone, and the mud held up well for a first coat...

A Mud Plaster Party!!

As I wrote on the other blog, we were blessed by 10 adults, 12 children (aged 9 months to 11 years of age) and 5 dogs who came over to help us get started with plastering the outside of the house with mud. Thanks to all who participated!

You gotta have some "before" pictures...

Before...

Kylie with her bunny, Dutch...before the mud...

Digging for clay. We just dug the clay up right behind the house. Here J. and J2. work hard to dig and sift the clay....J2 worked for six hours digging clay...making sure that we always had enough...

Women with Machetes. A frightening sight! They were happy to get off "machete" duty (cutting up the straw to mix with the mud) and actually put mud on the house. Everyone was so kind; they worked hard!!

Joni demonstrates how to mix the mud in a wheelbarrow. We had two wheelbarrows making mud for many hours of the day. Henry Ford never had an assembly line so efficient!

P. putting mud on the house. My thanks to P. for gathering our Saturday Morning Discussion Group to hep work on the house!

Joni, P and J3 putting mud on the house...

More mud work. It took us a couple of wheelbarrows full to get the right mixture of clay to sand. Turns out the right mixture was 1 bucket of clay to 1/2 bucket of sand. That made the mixture sticky enough to adhere to the straw bales.

J3 putting mud on the wall...."take some down and pass it around"...

Mudding a corner...

P, Joni. S and R applying more mud...

Joni sticking mud on the difficult to manage lip under the bales... Joni had the most talent at doing this difficult work. She earned the nickname: "Mud Whisperer"....

And what it looked like when finished...

Enough for today...time for a barbecue!

More...

How it looked this morning....


Thanks to all who came and helped out!! Joni and I are humbled by the generosity of the folks who worked so very hard on this "Mud Day". Thanks!!

The Chicks Are Alright...

Okay, I know nothing about chickens. The chicks have survived in our care for a few days now (amazing?). Fun little creatures; much more sociable than I would have expected.

While working the other day, they kept up quite a squawk. Cheep! Cheep! I figured out that if I turned the cage so that they could see where I was working, they stopped chirping. They like to watch.

Of course, we got the chickens to, hopefully, no longer participate in a food system that does this to chickens. Be warned, the link above is very graphic...