Entertainment

I realize that almost everything I have written about has been work, and way more than that happens here. We spend lots of time talking about all sorts of stuff, we eat a lot, swim in the pond, there is music played, although a lot less since Diana left, she played piano at least once a day, there have been readings, animal watching, a few wonderful slide shows, some movie watching, Diana and Steph spun some fire a few times, we play lots of outdoor and indoor games, we had a backgammon tournament last week, it was single elimination starting with 8 people, Darryl won, and there was even some mud wrestling.

Pump House Update

On the last day of the apprentice they worked on the pump house, which was a project planned and built by three of the apprentices, Anastasia, Steph, and Steve. On Friday Anne and Justin helped out too and Michael and Darryl also helped out.

Most of the wood used was found in the forest, it had to be checked for rot before it was used, Anastasia and Michael were examining a piece she had just brought over.

























Steve spent quite a while making a tan oak branch fit just right between two other pieces of wood.















One of the things done on Friday was install the last of the rafters.



















































Some of the shakes we split are in the foreground on top of the trough that is being used to soak clay.

Flags

We fixed a part of the fence that was low where we had seen deer leave the garden, which we assumed they were using to get in too. We also noticed that they could jump above the gate so hung some goddess flags.

A Walk Down to Indian Creek

This afternoon Anastasia and I walked down to Indian Creek and went swimming. It is about an hour down and an hour back.

On the way we were scared by a rattle snake, it started shaking it's rattle at us, but it was on the bank above the road and we went to the other side and far enough away then watched it for a while, after a few minutes it slithered off up the hill.

Near the bottom of the walk there are a few falling down buildings.

At the bottom near the creek there are some beautiful large redwoods.

The water felt wonderful. I swam in a pool that in a few places I couldn't touch the bottom of, and in others there were large rocks I could sit on.

We saw a beautiful dragonfly down there too.

Rough Plaster on Strawberry House North Wall

Lyn, who is going to work trade here for two months, got here last weekend. She has done natural building before and likes to plaster. On Wednesday we worked on putting a rough plaster over the east end of the north side of the north wall, a strawbale wall, at strawberry house. At this point I like to apply rough plaster more than finish plaster, it dries more slowly so you have more time to smooth it and fix mistakes, and you don't have to worry as much about making it perfect.

We wet the wall where we were going to plaster, it had a thin coat of mud on it already, put a bunch of plaster (wet blended clay soil and chopped straw, about two to one) up on the wall with our hands and smoothed it out somewhat then use a pool float or trowel to smooth it out more. Since we wanted it a certain height we used little pieces of wood of a the correct height on top of the pins holding the strawbales tightly together, and smoothed the plaster to that height using boards and or a trowel. It is important to really make the plaster stick well to the wall under it so it doesn't flake off and stick it to itself so it doesn't crack.

Making Redwood Shakes

I learned how to make redwood shakes yesterday. It is fun. It only works using straight tight grained old growth wood, so it is mostly a lost artform. Here they harvest off old stumps. The first loggers left tall stumps since it was easier for them to cut trees higher up. Darryl cut up a few sections of a stump to be made into shakes for the pump house roof, then showed us how to make them. Steph and I tried, I took pictures of her so people can see how it is done. You use a froe and a sledge hammer and split across the grain. First you position the froe a shake's distance from the edge of the large piece of wood, then you hammer it down a bit, it is quite easy, then you pull the handle of the froe back towards you, or away, to split it farther and as needed push the froe down more. With really good wood the shake should pop off with little effort. If there are knots or twisted grain, or rotten parts the shakes don't split even and may have holes or break off before they split the length of the piece of wood.

They are easy and fun to make. It feels to me like asking the wood to do something it feels comfortable doing and it agreeing to do it, or not. So it is easy. You are not forcing it to do something, like if you try to cut a piece of wood, where you need do all the work. Shakes are also more rot resistant because the grains of the wood are not broken but brake along natural lines, between fibers so to speak.

(Shingles are used like shakes but are cut from wood instead of split so can be made from less high quality wood.)

Anastasia and the Lizard

Yesterday while working Anastasia rescued a lizard from pool of water being used to soak mud. It took to her, first staying on her arm then under her hat and in her hair. After quite a while it started nibbling on her ear and she took her hat off. The lizard stayed on her hair for a while then went around to her chest before running off. It even looked up and into the camera when I started taking pictures.

Pizza and Dessert Party

The last night of the apprenticeship, we had a pizza party. At Emerald Earth pizza parties the cooks light a fire in the cob oven a few hours before hand, get the toppings ready and make the dough, then people make small pizzas and putting whatever combination of toppings strike their fancy. Whoever is the baker at the time bakes them, it only takes about 5 minutes, and a few can fit in the oven at once. This time Darryl, Steph and Anne baked. They get put directly on the oven floor using a paddle, pans are only used to transport them during construction and while they wait to bake. When a pizza is done it gets cut up and eaten, often by a few people, so if you want to eat one you made you keep track.

Aria got into making cool shaped pizzas, she made a heart, pictured here, as well as a star.






















The apprentices and Aria also each made a dessert, and a few of us picked berries as dessert toppings. Mojo used the oven after it was done baking pizzas to bake a vegan fruit sweetened carrot cake. Anastasia made banana sorbet, putting frozen bananas through the champion juicer. Aria made an amazing looking chocolate layer cake with berries on top. Anne and Steph each baked a batch of cookies the evening before. Justin and Steve made vanilla ice cream, well they got everything ready, other people helped crank ice cream makers during the party.