Cobbing with princess feet

After much fuss about the foundation, I finally got my first true cobbing experience. We shoveled some sub-soil onto a tarp, then shoveled on the right ratio of sand. We hosed it down, jumped on, and danced in it barefoot. I quickly discovered that, for me, it is not the easiest dance ever. I had to really push with my legs to mix and smear it and keep from falling over. Furthermore, my tender little feet felt an uncomfortable sensation--cross-between tickling and pain--from all the grit.

After you smear/dance the soil and sand, you grab the tarp on one side and walk it over to the other. This folds the mix over itself. You jump back on for more dancing. Fold, dance, repeat, until the stuff all sticks together in a nice, fatty mud burrito. Then you add straw. You want the straw going in all directions and coated in mud. This dance is more about working it in and not so much smearing.

I stepped hard on a couple rocks, and I was done. Brad, of course, has mighty man legs and hobbit feet so he finished the batch right up. From then on, I have been mixing while wearing rainboots.

When you've got it all mixed properly, you make "cobs" out of it. It's a really delicate procedure where you mush stuff together into mud snowballs. This is where cob building gets its name--"cob" is the old Welsh word for "loaf" (as in loaves of bread). So you take your mud snowball bread loaf things and chuck them to/at your partner who drops them on the wall. You can also just scoop the cob up with a pitchfork and dump it on the wall.

From here you try to smoosh it all together in a wall-like shape. You try to get few/no seams by smearing, poking, etc. I can't do much to describe it for you. It's something that has to be done by feel (a feel reminescent of making those ugly clay pots as a child that your mother loved). You can use a stick to kind of shove all the straw in and "tie it" together. The holes made by the stick help the wall dry out. You leave everything kind of rough so that tomorrow's batch has more surface area to stick to. All in all, it's a pretty straight-forward process that can be a lot of fun. True, the dancing isn't quite as easy as I had imagined. But whenever I get a rock in my foot, I'll think of the alternative--wood, saws, hammers, nails, safety goggles, right angles, MATH--and, well, I'll just grab my rainboots.

Earth oven progression

We're just about ready to add the dome!

Welcome to the natural building experience!

For having been in Texas for a month and a half, it doesn't look like we have accomplished much: a large, round hole in the ground filled with rocks and a garden hose laid out in a nearly rectangular fashion. Our adorable cob magic hut and earth oven are off to a slow start.

I'm guessing that if you are reading this, you know us, but if not, here's an intro: Break down "Bramber" and you get Brad, 28, handy guy with a large beard, and Amber, 24, not so handy and unbearded. Brad is likely to lead the building, while Amber (me) is probably going to do most of the writing.

We happen to be engaged and have recently relocated from Washington state to Texas to experiment with natural building, holistic living, and copious amounts of free time. We also have a dog-child monster named Oser.

Our plan is to build an earth-oven, suitable for baking bread, wood-firing pizzas, cooking casseroles and the like. It will have built-in counter space and a shed roof to protect it from rain. Next is a far more ambitious project: a one-room cob cottage.

We are building these structures on Brad's parents' land in a gated neighborhood. The parents already have a 3-bedroom home with several common areas: a living room, upstairs bonus room, a large backyard patio, and a separate studio (from which I am writing you). Our first challenge, then, was to define the purpose of building the cottage. No matter how green the building technique, it would be a waste of materials and unnecessary land disturbance if no one needs or uses it.

Our personal rationale is that this is the only free place we can find to experiment with natural building techniques. But the building will still be standing long after our learning experience is over (if we do it right!). At first we thought it could be a little guest bedroom, but quickly decided no one would choose to stay out there for long when there is space in the house with bathrooms. What could this place offer that a comfortable, modern home cannot? We have decided: magic.

Think tree house, clubhouse, sacred meditation nook, sanctuary. Bellinghamsters, envision a cob Jungle Hut. A place that's beautiful, a little wild, to bring pretty stones and bits of sea glass (ok, Hamsters, there's no beach here, but we brought a jar full of Locust treasures with us). We're going to have big windows, built-in benches, and a sculpted fireplace. I can imagine meditation, yoga, reading, drawing, writing and dreaming occurring here.

Sound too whimsically hippie-dippie? Well, one day, we hope to use these skills on a practical goal: housing the homeless and those living in inadequate shelter. But I've decided that not everything in life can be "practical" because then life is not worth living. So, for now, we get to be creative and not feel guilty about it, damn it!

We are sharing this learning experiment to encourage conscious decision-making about homes and daily life. Do you have to have a 30-year mortgage? How much square footage do you need? Is there a way to get around the toxins in modern building materials? How much money do you need to make to support yourself? Society gives us one set of answers (such as: yes, a lot, no, and a lot). But I am coming to believe that the ways we set up our homes and communities can be as varied and creative as we are. I hope to find juicy, vibrant new ways of experiencing the often neglected, mundane details of our busy lives: how we feed and shelter ourselves. Please feel free to follow along, ask questions, comment and critique!

Photo: A cob cottage named "Dawn" at the inspiring Cob Cottage Company in Oregon. Brad completed a workshop at Cob Co., and Brad and Amber visited it on their road trip from WA to TX.