Cob oven workshop

We had a great workshop on building cob ovens here on Saturday.  We are very inspired by cob (and other natural building in general - read the 10 reasons why natural building can address climate change here), but we think that cob ovens are the perfect place to start when you want to learn to build with natural materials like clay, sand and straw.  Cob ovens take little time to go from start to finish, as an oven can be done in a few weekends time; building with cob requires only basic hand tools and no previous construction experience; cob ovens cost virtually nothing if you take time to source local and repurposed materials (cob ovens are often called "the $20 cob oven"); and cob ovens give you a wonderful finished project for baking beautiful breads and pizzas.  We love Kiko Denzer's book, Build your own Earth Oven, as a great primer for building your own cob oven.

Here are a few photos of our workshop - participants did not build an oven as this was just an overview workshop about the process, however they did get to mix and handle cob (clay-sand-straw), and eat freshly baked pizza!  Thanks to Natalie Nunn for the great photography from that day.

Cob Oven Workshop

We are back into the swing of workshops now that the garden has been planted.  Little City Farm hosts several workshops each month, Saturday afternoons, on the topics of sustainability, homesteading skills, permaculture, natural building, organic gardening and more...

This weekend's workshop was on the topic of building with cob, and more specifically building a cob oven.  We have a wonderful little cob oven in our backyard that is absolutely delightful for an aspiring or professional baker - especially if you like fires and working outdoors.  We usually bake twice a week here, once to make bread and once for pizzas.  The cob oven can also be used for baking all kinds of other things (cookies, pies, etc), plus roasting vegetables, drying herbs, making yogurt, and so on. 

Cob is a mixture of sand, clay and straw (aprox 9 parts sand : 1 part clay and a little straw chopped into the mix for insulation value on one of the layers of the cob oven).  Cob building is a very intuitive process and has been done in all parts of the world (i.e. earth building) in various forms - adobe, mud huts, cob cottages, and so on.  It's an ancient building technique that anyone can easily learn.  We like to recommend making cob bricks or balls before you start a project, in order to test your cob mix.  There are only a few technical details to consider - the ratio of oven base to oven height; and the ratio of oven door height to height of dome.  There are great books that walk you through the process step-by-step: books like Build your own Earth Oven by Kiko Denzer; The Cob Builder's Handbook by Becky Bee (a pdf version is here), The Hand-Sculpted House by Ianto Evans, and The Cobber's Companion by Michael Smith.

And for further inspiration, here's a slideshow we found online of handbuilt cob houses, cottages, garden walls, sheds, sauna, and several bake ovens...

Here are a few pictures from our cob oven workshop (with some participants getting muddier than others!), and baking pita in the oven:

This Moment

{This moment} - This moment - an end of week ritual, no words, just a special photo to remember, savour, enjoy. 

Cob oven workshop

A busy Saturday here at Little City Farm leading a cob oven building workshop.  We fired up the oven, demonstrated raking and soaking it in preparation for baking, mixed up a batch of cob, formed cob around a mini oven dome (sand form), tested cob bricks, and (of course) baked fresh bread that was ready for eating just as the workshop wrapped up!  Our ongoing theme with these cob workshops is to demystify building and inspire people to have the confidence to build an oven for themselves.  Cob is an age-old building material that anyone can learn to work with, and cob ovens do not require a high level of building experience to turn out beautifully.  Cob ovens are made with simple tools and materials (clay, sand, straw) that are affordable and can be locally sourced, and really just need a generous amount of labour, love and experimentation to build and learn to bake with. Kiko Denzer's book, Build your own earth oven, is our favourite resource on cob oven building - and we recommend this as a must-have book for anyone thinking of making a cob oven.

Documenting strawbale - Almost Final Plaster

We're nearing the end of the strawbale plastering - we are now on the final lime plaster, with two more walls to finish. Then come several coats of whitewash. We are also now into fall weather, which means that time is running short for this house project - if the weather drops to below freezing the lime will fail and we'll be at this again in the spring. Since the weather has been around 4-6 C at night lately (and feeling very chilly) there is a pretty big rush to get this done over the next week or two, although the coats need adequate drying time so can only go on so quickly. We've heard of many a strawbale house project that got into cold weather and had to either wrap the house until spring, or use tarps and heaters to finish the walls. I guess it's not unusual for this type of project to take longer than expected, especially when so much is being done by hand and is a learning experience for us. Some photos here show how the walls need to be scratched so that additional coats adhere; walls need to be continuously misted so they don't dry too quickly; the white lime colour which can be tinted to other shades (e.g. using pigment used for cement stucco). The lime we are using has been soaking in pails for over a year - we've heard of builders soaking lime for many years (the longer the better). It's also incredibly drying on the skin! Hard to believe we are this far on the house project - some days have seemed like we'd never get it done. It's been almost a year and a half since we started. Thanks again to all the hands that have helped out! There have been a few key invaluable people we can call on to help out for a few hours when we've gotten overwhelmed by this house task (there are days) - you know who you are.

Jan 18 - Moved into Strawbale! And Open House Celebration!

We've come a long way this past year since the strawbale project began, and now w've finally moved in! Many finishing touches are not done yet (bookshelving, plants in south window, wood trim, woodstove)... but the space is completely liveable and beautiful. We had a lovely open house celebration with many friends and volunteers who helped out on the project throughout the season. It was wonderful to have you all here - the new space feels properly "warmed" now.

More fun to be had in the spring, with exterior plastering, porches to be built, new front landscaping projects, and a living roof to design/plant.

Documenting Strawbale Addition - 10 Earthen Floor and Drywall

Last week Monday we had a BIG working day, as the entire earthen floor was completed in one go. We had a few friends who have experience with earthen floors here to help and we couldn't have done it without them! (if any of you are who were here are reading this, then a HUGE thank you for that day!)

One person was running the mixer and wheeling in the heavy loads of clay (4 parts concrete sand: 1 part clay to create a 1/2 inch base layer), then others troweling it on the floor, and then leveling and smoothing, packing it firm, and finally applying a clay-slip top coat (1 part clay slip: 2 parts very fine 50 mesh sand from pottery supply shop). It was a long working day but the end result completely satisfying. We didn't have champagne but did celebrate with locally made wine, as this really was a major accomplishment! The only issue now, 1.5 weeks later, is that with the cold weather this floor is taking quite a bit longer to dry. The final step is to apply a sodium-silicate sealer which protects and hardens the floor, but we will likely need to wait a few more days before we can do so.

Drywall in the vestibule, bathroom and new laundry has been put up. Taping and mudding to happen later this week, and then painting with natural paints. We bought the paint yesterday - and when you buy paint for any project it always signifies the end being in sight. I've bought enough paint to also redo the kitchen and new dining area, ambitious but I'm so excited about this non-toxic paint and the rooms do need new life. Due to slightly warmer weather outside we've also been finishing the final outdoor aspects of this project - roof vent pipe for composting toilet, heating ducts, yard clean-up, winterizing the new doors with weather stripping and so on. We still have someone coming to hook up the radiant floor heating pipes, and another person to install flashing on the roof edge to prevent water leakage - both key pre-winter jobs that should happen sooner than later. There are just so many details!

Documenting Strawbale Addition - 9

Time to write another quick update about the strawbale project. We feel the end is nearly in sight, and are still aiming to move in by Christmas. The pine ceiling tongue & groove boards have all been oiled (two coats of Ontario hemp oil) and are beautiful. The oil really brings out the grain in the wood. This week we worked at installing them, and were thankful we had purchased a nailgun (which more than doubly paid for itself compared to if we had rented it).

We experimented with lime washes on the walls, using natural pigments to come up with a wheat colour. There is quite a variation in colour from one wall section to the next, which may have to do with parts of the plaster varying in wetness under the lime wash. We are hopeful this will even out and will give it a few more days to dry/cure. Lime wash goes a long way - you do brush it on like paint, but it is made up to be a very watery consistencty so it doesn't cover the way paint does. It is more like it gets absorbed into the wall and blends or bonds with the plaster. This is why lime washes can help "heal" cracks and repairs later on in subsequent years. We also tried to use a paint roller too, but had limited success as the roller didn't work the wash into the plaster as well as the brushes did.

We've shovelled in more limestone screenings, and are currently tamping them down with an electric packer ("jumping jack"). This is hard physical work, but what step of this project hasn't been? We'll be happy to be able to put our feet up during the winter months and rest, while we dream of spring projects like the outdoor plaster, the living roof, and maybe a new cob solarium addition. We'd like to experiment with more earthen plasters/cob/adobe. A few nights ago we watched the "Garbage Warrior", a documentary about Michael Reynolds, an architect turned extreme eco-builder of "earthships" in Taos, New Mexico. After being inspired about building affordable homes completely out of garbage (tires, bottles, cans) combined with natural materials found on site (clay, sand, earth, stone), we would like to work at continuing to learn about creating buildings that are low impact and self-maintaining. Here's a short synopsis of the film (www.garbagewarrior.com):

The film - Garbage Warrior

What do beer cans, car tires and water bottles have in common? Not much unless you're renegade architect Michael Reynolds, in which case they are tools of choice for producing thermal mass and energy-independent housing. For 30 years New Mexico-based Reynolds and his green disciples have devoted their time to advancing the art of "Earthship Biotecture" by building self-sufficient, off-the-grid communities where design and function converge in eco-harmony. However, these experimental structures that defy state standards create conflict between Reynolds and the authorities, who are backed by big business. Frustrated by antiquated legislation, Reynolds lobbies for the right to create a sustainable living test site. While politicians hum and ha, Mother Nature strikes, leaving communities devastated by tsunamis and hurricanes. Reynolds and his crew seize the opportunity to lend their pioneering skills to those who need it most. Shot over three years and in four countries, Garbage Warrior is a timely portrait of a determined visionary, a hero of the 21st century.

Earthship n. 1. passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials 2. thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization. 3. renewable energy & integrated water systems make the Earthship an off-grid home with little to no utility bills.

Biotecture n. 1. the profession of designing buildings and environments with consideration for their sustainability. 2. A combination of biology and architecture.