Last day of cob workshop

This morning, we walked over to the host's mom's house. Originally when the host purchased the land, there was a large shed on the land. The host built on a small cob extension on one side, which is now her mom's sewing room. There is another cob extension on another side which is a kitchen. Only recently has the kitchen drain had a pipe hooked up, which runs the "grey water" out to the garden. Before that, there were buckets under the sink to collect drain water. The host's mom had really made the house her own with painted walls, a painted floor and bright rugs. She had healthy looking plants all around the house and a nice covered porch/living area out front. Even the ceiling had been plastered over; and, the host pointed out some stains where something had leaked in bad weather but then dried out again. The mosaics inlaid in the exterior cob were very nice.

Afterward, we took a group photo in front of the house we've been working on before snack time and then started work for the day. I returned to double sieving manure.

After another delicious lunch, some of the other participants and I drove into town for more ice cream. Today, I enjoyed a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream in hot chocolate. Delicious!

In the afternoon, I returned to sifting manure until I'd finished double sifting all of the manure that I'd first sifted. Now, I am officially retired from manure sifting! For the last hour of work day, I switched to shaving bark off cut trees so that they can dry out and be used for either this house or another structure. For this, we used a draw knife, which is a blade with a handle on each end. We'd straddle the log and draw the blade toward us to shave off the bark. It is harder than it looks, especially around the knobs where branches had been cut off.

We had early dinner tonight, since some participants had already left and others were leaving this evening. Tonight's delectable meal was shepherd's pie! I tried the vegetarian version. There were also beef and vegan options. In addition, there was a big greens salad and beet sauerkraut. 

One of the other participants invited me along to circle Denman Island this evening. First we went to the northernmost tip,  Morning Beach Park. The tide was too high to walk the land bridge out to Tree Island in the evening. It was still a great workout going up and down the 105 steps to the beach and trudging through the sand.

Then, we drove to the southernmost tip to Boyle Point Provincial Park. From the entrance, we hiked all the way to the tip where we could overlook the Chrome Island lighthouse. By now the sun had set; and, we could see the bats starting to flit around below us on the cliff. On our walk back to the car, a deer went crashing through the brush, probably wondering what two humans were doing out there at that time of night. A wonderful way to end my stay in Denman Island!