straw bale + clay building party

this past saturday, i started helping friends, elanor and jeff of persephone farm, start a straw bale + clay wall in the upstairs of this building which will serve as living quarters for their seasonal interns. you can see the completed section thus far in the top righthand side. slow going, but hopefully we can complete it by the end of May.




the process starts by finding soil with a high clay content. unfortunately, the best spot was across a small stream which required hand shoveling into a wheelbarrel, rather than just using the new tractor with front end loader...although we did use it for transport.

the clay was then placed into buckets, hauled upstairs, then mixed with water and borax (to prevent mold growth) into slip. all you potters out there know about this...

brooke loves getting muddy during the screening process, just before it's mixed with straw, then stored under plastic to keep it out of inevitable rain until placed into the wall.

finally, a 4" layer of the straw+clay mix is added to the wall formation and pounded down to a 1" layer. It takes two people about 15 minutes to compress a 10" wide x 4' long section, but obviously it's fun in the right company (note elanor's radiant smile!)

more to come in the near future....