The return journey

Published
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Brian
on July 22, 2008
in Dancing Rabbit and Life
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Tomorrow I return to Dancing Rabbit via the train. Well, lemme correct that: tomorrow I leave for Dancing Rabbit, but I won’t get back until later the next day. It’s a day and a half trip by train. It’s pretty grueling, but I prefer it to flying, mostly for environmental purposes.

It feels strange to be away for so long in the middle of summer, when most of the action is happening. I haven’t seen my house in weeks, and I can’t wait to get back to work, although I know the heat is pretty intense by now. I anxiously await finishing the cob walls and getting that roof up. I feel like once the roof is up, it will be pretty smooth sailing. (Not that the work will be so quick after that, but at least more familiar to me: plastering, making a cob bed, the earthen floor, etc.)

Here we go!

_

Published
by
Brian
on July 14, 2008
in Photography
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beach

Published
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Brian
on July 14, 2008
in Photography
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shoulders

I went to the beach for the first time in two years. It was a pretty regular thing until I moved to Missouri (especially when I was younger), but now I’m nowhere near the ocean. You kinda take it for granted when it’s so close.

nyc

Published
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Brian
on July 12, 2008
in Photography
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A change of pace…

A hiatus

Published
by
Brian
on July 5, 2008
in Life
. 1 Comment

On Wednesday, I learned that my grandfather died, and before I knew it, I was on a car/train/subway/plane to New Jersey in order to make it for the funeral.

It was a dizzying experience learning about my grandfather’s unexpected death and then suddenly making new travel plans. (I originally planned to leave for a trip to New Jersey next week.) Needless to say, I won’t be working on my house for a few weeks.

Perhaps I will bury one of his possessions (maybe a watch or something - my grandfather loved to buy watches and clocks at the local flea market and then to hawk them to other people - ha!) in my cob wall as a memory. He will be missed. The more I think about it, the more I feel a certain connection to him and his personality. He grew up on a farm in Poland and eventually made to the US during World War II, settling in New Jersey. When he visited Dancing Rabbit with my parents last year, he was amazed by all of the open land and he insisted that he could be happy in the local area (which I didn’t doubt.) He never lost touch with his past and his rural roots.

Rest well, Chet.

A goal was set

Published
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Brian
on July 1, 2008
in Building a cob cottage
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I set a goal to finish the cob walls of my house before I left Dancing Rabbit for a visit to New Jersey come July 12. I thought this would be possible several weeks ago, when progress was very brisk, but with last week’s rain, I suffered a setback. Granted, there is absolutely no reason why I have to finish the walls before I leave… I have plenty of time to finish this house before late fall arrives, but I like to set markers. I get pretty crazy about wanting to get X number of batches by Y date, etc… but mostly it’s all in good fun and I don’t get that hung up on it.

I have some help coming in the form of visitors tomorrow and some guests over the weekend, so maybe I won’t be too far off from my original goal after all… we’ll see! These are exciting times.

A bit more rain…

Published
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Brian
on June 28, 2008
in Building a cob cottage
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I didn’t get a heck of a lot of time to work on the cob house since it was very wet and gray and rainy throughout much of the past six days. I must say that it’s a real drag constantly worrying about the weather and covering up the walls every night with tarps, and hoping that gusts of wind don’t come in and mess things up. (Usually, if it’s raining and not very windy, the building gets less wet than when it is both rainy/windy.) I frequently have a hard time sleeping when it’s thundering and storming at night because I worry about the condition of the building.

Of course, it’s my luck that I just so happen to be building a cob house during one of the wettest years on record. But I must say, the house is faring quite well despite the numerous flash floods and constant storming. The walls have gotten significantly wet in some spots a few times thus far, but the damage has been minimal. There has been nothing more than some minor runoff of material and the integrity of the walls has not been threatened in any way. Cob astounds me in that way — it’s simply strong and can take a beating.

I imagine once the walls are complete and the roof is up, this building is going to be standing for a long, long time…

Building a lean-to trestle

Published
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Brian
on June 24, 2008
in Building a cob cottage
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trestle00

Over the weekend, I built a lean-to trestle. The cob walls are getting too tall in some spots to work from the ground. I’ve been using a long bench that Thomas kindly lent to me, but I needed at least one other (and taller) option to reach high up.

I based this trestle off of a design in The Hand-Sculpted House, but I made it a bit more simplistic, since I didn’t need this trestle to be super-tall (and because my carpentry skills are pretty marginal). I used some old 2×4s and some 1x lumber. The trestle is about five feet wide and leans against the cob wall for support, and gives me an extra three feet to my standing height. It works just lovely.

Another cob house picture update

Published
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Brian
on June 23, 2008
in Building a cob cottage
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int-se00

angle-se01

The house is starting to feel much more like an actual house now that some of the walls are 6+ feet tall. Standing inside, it’s also easier to imagine what the final house will look like, where things will go, and how big the space feels.

Sculpting with cob

Published
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Brian
on June 22, 2008
in Building a cob cottage and Dancing Rabbit
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entry-shelf00

If there’s one thing you’ve probably heard/read about cob many times before, it’s probably the fact that cob is immensely sculptural.

Lately, I have been working at a much slower pace since I have been working on sculpting various cob book shelves and other little storage nooks into the walls of my house. The photo above is a small shelf immediately next to the entrance. When I look at it now, I think of the mouth of a snake or the jaw of some other creature.

bookshelf00

This wide bookshelf extends almost a foot from the wall, and is nearly 18″ at its peak height in the center. The shape is pretty strange and not exactly what I intended to sculpt, but I kinda like it now that it is done. (I can always do a little bit of carving with a machete if I decide to alter the appearance.) I will build a similarly-sized shelf right above this one.

mushroom-window-ext01 mushroom-window-int00

This mushroom-shaped window came to me in a something like a vision the morning before I started to work. I acted upon the impulse and stuck a piece of sheet glass in the wall and began to sculpt around the glass to make something roughly mushroom-like. I’m pretty satisfied with the end result. It will look much cleaner once the walls are plastered, I think.

coathooks00

I carved these coat hooks from some mulberry wood and planted them in some fresh cob this afternoon. I mostly just cut the wood to size, whittled it down a bit, and smoothed it out. These are located right near the entrance for jackets and other things for hanging. I hope these hooks give the effect that they growing out of the wall once it’s all said and done.

Summer solstice

Published
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Brian
on June 22, 2008
in Photography
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summersolstice

summer solstice at Red Earth Farms

Tiny House Blog

Published
by
Brian
on June 16, 2008
in Building a cob cottage
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Tiny House Blog is a website dedicated to featuring tiny houses (er, go figure), including both prefabs and natural building designs. Anyway, they just put up a link to my own cob cottage project.

Yea!

Meka’s cob cottage video

Published
by
Brian
on June 15, 2008
in Video
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Here’s a little video showing off a gorgeously designed cob cottage interior by Meka in southern Oregon. Beautiful curves, built-in shelves and furniture, and a wild staircase design are the highlights.

Three feet and rising

Published
by
Brian
on June 14, 2008
in Building a cob cottage and Dancing Rabbit
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cobhouse01

Ok, so my original estimate of 100 total batches of cob to complete the walls may have been off.

Eighty plus batches later, the walls stand at an average height of 3.5′ (not including the foundation), which is probably half the total amount of cob necessary. Some taller spots are now no longer workable without standing on a bench (as seen in the areas next to the south window in the photo above.)

Now begins the time when the actual cob application slows down, due to the extra step of having to stand on and move a bench or scaffolding (which I might just need to make soon…) to work the walls.

We didn’t get nearly the same amount of work done this week thanks the absurd amount of rain, but I guess a little break is an okay thing, too…

The cobbing workflow

Published
by
Brian
on June 10, 2008
in Building a cob cottage and Dancing Rabbit
. 1 Comment

I thought I might touch upon the actual cobbing process, since I haven’t really talked about that specific element of building very much. Over the past few weeks, we have developed a very efficient working system, allowing us to quickly stomp, loaf, and apply the cob to the walls.

burrito

It begins with a “burrito”, the final cob mix of sand, clay, and straw. (Once cob has reached its ideal mixed state, you can roll it and it keeps its shape, which is something like the shape of a burrito).

loafing

Once we are satisfied with the mix, we begin to make “cobs”, or little loafs of the material. It’s almost like kneading dough: grab a bunch of cob, and make a loaf that can easily be picked up without breaking. (Making each loaf should take no more than a few seconds.) We call the really big ones “wonderbreads”.

loaf-wall

We then carry these loaves to the wall (which is typically no more than a few feet from where we are mixing), and line them all up. (First we soak down the walls with some water so this newest layer gets worked in to the existing cob more easily.)

cobbing-thumb

Next we take cobbers thumbs and “stitch” the cobs together, making sure the straw gets worked well, and the individual cobs can no longer be distinguished. This newest layer should also get worked into the layer underneath. This is a quick and rough job that goes quickly. The main key is create a cohesive, monolithic wall.

cobbing-edge

Next, we work the wall with our hands, creating a clean, plumb edge. Viola!

Here are some different angles of the cob house in progress:

angle-se angle-ne

angle-n angle-sw