Ice cream, lake swimming and sunset

This morning, the sun came out while we were eating breakfast! It was such a welcome sight. Plus, we could see the ocean from the balcony of the common house. 

After breakfast, our instructors took time to answer questions and talk more about the cob building process. Spending so much time working on the house has helped us have more specific questions. Then, I returned to my duties of sifting manure, except today the request was for manure to be double sifting, which meant that I had to sift all the manure I'd already sifted through a finer screen. It was a very slow process. Manure sifting was now the bottleneck in making plaster, even though it was only 1 part compared to the 3 parts double sifted sand.

Another participant was keen to try out the local Ima's ice cream sandwiches at lunch, so, we hopped into her car and ran into town. Ima's is a coconut based ice cream with date cookies to make the sandwich. It was a little too coconuty for me.

After lunch, I helped clean up around the cobbed outhouse near the common house. Then, one of the instructors took us next door to another neighbor's cob house. She pointed out that the window cobbing was sloped down on the outside so that water would drip off. While on the inside of the glass, the owner had built a flat shelf for her plants. One of the panes of glass was cracked. We asked about how to replace it. It would involved scraping out cob around it, taking out the pieces of glass, then installing a smaller piece or glass. This makes me think that it would be better to install framed windows instead of sheets of glass, for easier replacement of broken panes.

Back at the job site, I went back to double sifting manure until our end of day at 5. At that point, a large group was going to Chicadee Lake; and, they invited me to join them. It had been so warm and sunny today that I'd taken off my leg warmers. It was really nice to wade in the lake and wash the manure off my legs. Everyone else jumped right into the cold water and swam out to a log in the lake. On the way home from the lake, we stopped at the free shed, where I found a CD of Big Band music.

We arrived back at the common house to find four different lasagnes: cheese, vegan and a special gluten and tomatoes free version. In addition, there was broccolini. I ate the cheese lasagne version, which was packed full of vegetables. 

After supper, our instructors started a slide show of other cob work that they'd done. Another participant and I wanted to see the sunset, so. we left about 10 minutes before 8; and, a few others joined us to walk up to the ridge. There were so many beautiful colors tonight!

After walking back, some were already in the sauna and others were joining them. Everyone raved so much about it, that I tried it out, although only for a few minutes. It was quite hot inside. Then, I walked to my tent and fell asleep rapidly.