Wattle and Daub - Slop Action on Bronze Age Reconstruction walls

This is not fully done - I did MORE slopping of daub. I found it was easier to throw the Daub as a slop onto the walls - so that it flies behind the wattle and onto the straw. Otherwise it's too difficult to push it far enough back behind the willow branch wattle.

So it got pretty thick - this batch was NOT thrown but instead massaged onto the wattle or straw.

It all depends on the water amount. Sometimes I got bored of adding more clay so I just used the slop. And the slop proved better for the above reasons. But for adding on top of the walls to the wall plate - then you want less slop. So I was reading up on Cob and wattle listserves - turns out there is a straw bale CODE that requires the clay as fire protection on top of the walls. So I just guessed to do that and I predicted the code properly!!

Yeah this is an "earlier" stage - I just kept making more batches of the slop. Each batch was about three to four buckets of horse manure (micro-fibers as a glue adhesive to stop crumbling) and clay. So I did one bucket of dried aged horse manure to three buckets of clay and then less then a full bucket of water. I was using 2 gallon buckets.

Wet clay is very heavy - so I just carried one bucket at a time and I hauled the water as one bucket from my drainage creek. That is what sold me on this land - it had WATER as a "creek" - and also was a mini-forest.

Inside slopping. Again this is not the final version. I stopped taking photos for obvious reasons. You get the idea. But it was FUN to throw the slop against the walls. Only it back-splattered a lot onto my glasses. So then I could not see since I can only clean my new glasses with that fancy super-soft-synthetic cloth or else they will scratch like my last pair of lenses. So I didn't want to deal with cleaning my glasses in the midst of slopping. I just looked out through the slop patches.

So then I got the loppers and trimmed off those end wattle branches - after the daub had dried a bit. It was not quite dry though as the Slop takes a while to dry.

And so I switched to hauling drinking well water for the mushroom tank - and the bucket got jammed in the water hole. Luckily it's the water hole that has the rocks in it - and so it doesn't get much water anyway. At first I thought it was suction from the mud at the bottom - the clay being in water. But then after I pulled it free - it jammed AGAIN. So it must be a rock.

So now I have to get another bucket and make another harness again. But my main water hole still works fine - with no jamming problems. So no rocks - and no noticeable suction. I got 12 gallons my first day but some of that was rain water that was on my mushroom tanks - the covers catches rain water. So then I got about 2 gallons a day otherwise - enough to live off. To get 12 gallons as build up is great to refill the mushroom tanks. Then when the clay in the water settles down - then I can use the Jerry Can to harvest that water for drinking water. The Jerry Can is the "lifesaver" filter. Then I pour that filtered water into the Berkey filter - which is a slow but very amazing purifier. So I end up getting really great tasting water.

So since I was not digging a water well - which is a serious work out - then I just fasted again and I lost 10 pounds in 3 days. So then I also did lots of full lotus meditation - from 2 hours up to 6 hours a day. Since it is getting more into Fall then the Yin energy is stronger and it is full Moon near the equinox. So it is really good meditation energy right now. As the yin energy gets stronger then it's better to meditate more.

I put up  the OSB I got - just on ONE wall and then threw some slop on it. The OSB is not at all "standardized" - as I have used no measurements. I had just hodge-podging the end walls and also still need to figure out the chimney-stove situation. So the hut already gets some sound protection and the insulated walls provide temperature also. But still a long ways to go.