Ten White Boys

Here is my class of Natural building students. Some of the brightest minds I have ever encountered! We come from all over the U.S. and Canada and England as well. We are all dirty and tired from a long day of Plastering! Our course instructor is in the yellow shirt in the center.

Earthen Plastering

Here I am plastering a wall. The plaster is called "Earthen Plaster" and has a similar composition as cob with different ratios of clay to sand, finely chopped straw (cob has full stalks of straw) and silica powder to help it bond better. It is Much more natural than drywall mud/plaster and it's prettier, too (I guess that's my opinion :). Plastering is hard work!

Here is where I am stayin' and learning at this Fall. Aprovecho is known around the world as one of the leaders in appropriate technology development and instruction, such as Rocket Stoves. The word "aprovecho" means "to make the best use of" in Spanish.

COB Wall

This is a cob wall our class helped built. Cob is just clay soil (10-20% clay soil is best), sand, straw, and water. We harvested all of our clay soil on-site and constructed this wall (still constructing) with mostly our bare hands (and feet to mix the ingredients together) and no power tools. This wall is super structurally strong and will get lime plaster and little roof to make it look nice and protect it from the Oregon rain. The best part is that is someone wants to re-use the cob 100 years from now all they have to do is re-wet it and it's good as new.

COB Oven

Here I am with Aprovecho's "Cob Oven." The traditional cob oven design where a wood fire is started in the back of the oven and then the food (I cooked some pita breads) is put on some fire bricks in the front and the air circulates through the opening in the front and becomes hot and heats up the bricks to cook the food! The key is that the cob has high thermal mass so once it is heated long and hot enough it stays very hot with little work. Great for cooking for a large crowd!

CHICKENS!

These gals make our breakfast.

Bamboo Rope

Bamboo has some of the strongest fibers of any plant, so I figured "why not make some rope with it?"