Playing in the clay, duck eggs, and sprained ankles

10 September 2012
Week Six

Well, we finally did it. We went and got some soil to use for building the clay bread oven. I wish I had dancing smilies on her right now because I would be using them. I am so excited about this project. I've been planning it for so long now and we finally are at the moment of building it. Here's some of the pics from mixing test bricks, and testing the test bricks.

So, here is a mix of soil, water, and sand. We added different percentages of sand to the soil to make test bricks for our cob.

Here's the bricks that range in percentage of sand from 0% to 300%. After 300% the bricks just wouldn't hold together any more.

We left them to dry in the sun for two days, turning them over several times to make sure they dried evenly.

And here the bricks are dried for two days. If there ever is a next time we will let them dry for three days because a couple of the bricks weren't quite dry in the middle.

We took each brick and dropped it straight down. All but the last two, with the smallest amount of sand in them broke in some way, however, the first few actually crumbled when they hit and then the next two just broke cleanly.

We're going to use about a 25% mix of soil to sand for the inside layer of the oven to make sure it holds up to the heat. Then the outer layer(s) will be about 50% sand with straw added for strength. The very outer most layer will be straight clay as I plan on sculpting some decorations into the outside of this oven to make it mine and to make it something beautiful to look at. I can hardly wait to get to play in the mud!! My favorite thing ever!

And while the clay oven may be the most exciting thing to me that happened this week, it certainly wasn't all that happened. On Friday I sprained my ankle. Thankfully it wasn't too bad but it still required a little hobbling, ice packs, and rest before it started feeling better. The weather was just too beautiful though to pass by so I hobbled myself out to the garden and propped my foot up on a milk crate with lawn cushions and our kitten Monkey. (She is hands down THE friendliest cat in the world.)

We also got our first duck egg this week, and have had one every day since. We're not sure which duck is laying them but we're pretty sure both of our ducks eggs will be fertile once we decide to hatch them. That's a project for winter I think though when we're stuck inside twiddling our thumbs and dreaming about all the warm beautiful *cough cough* (read HOT and MUGGY) days of summer to come.