After another filling breakfast, we headed straight back to continue our work from yesterday. Our root cellar didn't need any more plaster, so, I returned to the manure pile and start sifting it into a wheelbarrow.
After adding a few wheelbarrow loads of sifted manure to the pile for mixing plaster, another participant and I shoveled a bunch of cob into the room behind the sliding glass door. We added about 1.5" total spread around the floor and attempted to tamp it down a bit with our boots.
I next moved to smooth plaster on the side of the house. Another participant put the plaster on with a trowel; and, I used a yogurt lid to smooth it out. We started with the rounded section near the sliding glass door. Then, we moved onto the flat wall. At this point, I switched to a plastic pointed trowel, which worked better for flat sections. It worked by slightly putting pressure on the edge opposite of the direction that the trowel was moving. It was actually a bit of improvement to the yogurt lid!
After a delicious lunch of greens salad, a chickpea and rice dish, and dark chocolate shaped like Rollos with a slight coconut flavor, we returned to our stations, although today several of us were a bit less enthusiastic to leave the warm common house. It's hovered at 60 F (15 C) all day, with rain off and on.
Eventually, our host took a group of us over to see her neighbors' timber and cob house. They had a pier and beam structure with an innovative combination of carpentry and cob. She had installed a set of old glass plates into the walls, as well as three glass lampshades installed with lights. She even built in a cat door! He is a carpenter and had framed the house and built all the wood features.
Outside, they had their two rain water collection barrels, which was water they use for everything but drinking. (They also only had an outhouse.) They had a beautiful garden with a watering tree: a cross beam that rotated the hose around the circular garden to water every section. And, they had a greenhouse that had their shower built in the back. It was all very inspiring!
Back at the job site, the host found a mini-tamper. Earlier in the morning where we'd shoveled in the cob now needed to be tamped down. There was a section with a low ceiling that only could be tamped by getting on my knees. So, I tamped away until we finished our day at 5, just as it started raining again.
For supper this evening a group of Environmental Studies students from University of Victoria served us a feast. There was pork roast, rice, roasted beets, roasted carrots, scones, watermelon salad (with mint), tofu, and apple blackberry crumble. It was all delicious!
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