get rad, repairing the slab, cob cooking compex expands, 7 day intensive building workshop in Durham!

Below are pictures from this past month's get rad skill share, where we made earthern floor mix to repair a broken slab, and smashed an old cob stove to build a new one! Interested in building? Keep your ears perked, here and Circle Acres we are planning a long weekend intensive building workshop where we will work on several different structures at different stages and learn a whole lot and have so much fun! We are looking at dates in late July to eary August.

Also, check out this awesome 7 day intensive cob and straw bale workshop being put on by our nearest and dearest cob maestroes Greg and Mike, Danielle and Julia.
See info here: http://cobworkshops.org/7-day-cob-and-strawbale-intensive-workshop/
also, here are more posts about the building by the builders:
http://cobandon.blogspot.com/
http://earthenacres.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/7-day-cob-and-straw-bale-workshop/
http://risingearthbuilding.blogspot.com/2012/02/cob-workshop-june-2012.html

Knowing how to use natural materials to provide safe, beautiful, healthy human habitat is priceless, and beyond that, this workshop is rediculously affordable if you want to learn how to build your own safe, beautiful, human habitat. Also, they are doing it to code....amazing!

covering every bit of sand in clay!

trivia: the more you mix cob, the better! these folks smashed our old cob stove and remixed it with a bit of water and more straw, and then built a new little rocket stove attatched to the big one in our evolving kitchen

these folks are mixing a floor mix: shooting for around 80 % sand, 20% clay. We used 3 buckets of masonry sand, one half bucket of thick slip, one half bucket of just moist excavated clay, and four big handfuls of horse manure that had been broken up through a 1/4" hardware cloth screen.

here we are spreading it out. This is a repair for a broken old slab in our recycled kitchen area, built on the ruins of an old house.

you can see to the left there is a form and underneath the floor mixture is a bed of compacted gravel(2-4"), underneath that is a bed of compacted other aggregate (broken bricks, stones, etc.) The aggregate breaks percolation so moisture does not wick up into the floor.

chicken of the woods!

feast, as ususal!

the old stove was reincarnated attatched to this larger cob stove. Remember to paint slip on all connecting surfaces!

The tamped floor surrounded by some barriers so folks will not step on it. It will take a few weeks to dry (much longer than a cob wall, it has less surface area exposed to the air for the amount of mass/moisture. Then, we will do a thin final coat, much like a plaster. It will cover up the paw prints of the dogs that break in a few days later...