a little late but...

Sorry folks, this was written a while back but not published.

We're off to a slow start because I was sick, then Brad threw his back out (major bummer!), and now it's raining. We also are learning where we can source materials. Brad has spent this week looking at every used pick-up truck in Central Texas (who would have thought that there are so many trucks in Texas?). After perusing thousands of trucks online, today he is finally buying a beautifully blue Ford Ranger. That should make hauling free materials much easier.

While it does not look astonishing, what we have accomplished so far actually took several steps. To date, we have:

1) Designed the structures and sketched elevations, footprints, floor plans, and so on

2) Tested the soil for clay, sand, and silt content

3) Mixed small batches of cob and created test bricks using subsoil from test holes at and near both potential sites

4) Created a variety of test mortars to use for the stove’s stone work

5) Dug the foundation hole for the earth oven and cob wall (for the counter), keeping the subsoil in a pile under a tarp to use later for making the cob

6) Dug a drainage ditch to “daylight," grading and tamping the foundation’s floor to provide a sturdy footing.

7) Gathered lots and lots and LOTS of rocks, sorted them by shape and size for the oven’s masonry base, and threw all the smaller irregular ones in the hole as rubble fill for a draining foundation (it took a lot of rocks to fill that hole!)

8) Spent a lot of time "siting" the cottage: simply going outside to observe how the sun, wind, and water affects the site where we want to build

I was surprised at the time spent on rock gathering, which has taken several full afternoons. You can't do it all day because of the strain of repetitive motion on your back and knees. Hopefully, with the new truck, we can just go get piles of rubble that others want to get rid of.

We had to move the site of the cottage due to some seriously well timed revelations concerning sub-surface water flows. Guess this town’s name--Dripping Springs--is more than just a funny sounding country western phrase. More on this to come.

Brad’s note: In reading this loose laundry list one doesn’t get a good impression of just how un-chore-like this time has felt. Getting to know a project through its ‘raw’ materials is three parts meditation for every one part action. Every day brings new interactions with the world out of which your vision is to be sculpted. Each of these in turn brings to light some new facet worthy of consideration. Places, spaces, and things have personalities all their own, and orchestrating the combination of these into a singular vision is a complex dance requiring imagination and lots of patience.

Really its more of a “re-combination”, as it is necessarily true that all the constituent parts and factors which go into building or ‘making’ anything exist in relation to one another well before the project is conceived. Typically we the ‘makers’ are far too dislocated from the source of a project’s materials to see our activities at a specific site as anything more than an addition. As if all the bits come from nowhere and the site is but a place to put some ‘thing’, a thing that will turn a nowhere into a somewhere. This can never be the case.

At least 95% of what goes into our oven will be found in a pre-existing condition within 100 yards of the final result. This gives an intimacy to our activities and inspires us to foster a relationship with the project as more than a set of means to an end, more than a list of steps taken in the construction of a thing, more than the inception and realization of an idea.

Like any good healthy relationship, these projects seem to gain momentum as proper care and due diligence are undertaken with love and joy. Every moment has been a valuable experiment, from hours spent tinkering barehanded with soil, sand, and water to mornings dominated by the posthole digger and pick axe. Though they may look like a hole filled with rocks and a hose on the ground surrounded by stakes, these two sites are much more. They represent a humbling education in the relational web of ties between two humans, an idea, a family, a community, a society, and a small hunk of our planet’s living skin. Every step has brought a deepening of both our awareness and understanding of these relationships.

These two projects are the beginning of a life’s worth of challenges and meaning-making for Amber and I. It is humbling and liberating and intimidating and exciting and confusing to confront the blurry fringes of our vision for a life worth living. As we attempt to embrace the uncertainty and steel ourselves for what lies ahead, we are especially grateful for the love and support of our friends and family. Thank you for your strength and inspiration. Thank you for keeping us grounded when we get flighty and setting us aflight when we feel stuck. This is just the beginning and there is much work ahead, but for the first time in my life I honestly feel that, as the oft quoted line from ‘The Prophet’ goes, “Work is love made manifest…”

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.