fixing the gate, subtle and not so subtle

Oh, the fence...to keep the Possums out-
but the gate is beginning to wear,
swaying fiercely-
have started a ferrocement brace,
a sort of 'decorative buttress'
to extend it's life a little-
began by fixing the first step into the Garden
which was too short (ah, now i see the wisdom
 of the ratio of the rise to the tread on a step!)
i used cement/sawdust/clay mix and rocks

with a board by way of formwork

the bricks are where the step ended before-

 it were okay on the way up

but treacherous on the way down

(especially if carrying something and                                    

not able to see one's feet )

i am rather taken with it-

especially the colours

in that one trapezoidal stone.

Under the silver scrap of tarp at the left

is the foundation for the buttress

which doesn't look like anything yet...

but it is destined for great things-
a Gaudi-esque fantasy of a functional sort!

this is a flower that bloomed next to the steps-

now there is some fantastic 'biotecture'.

 Outside the fence, the native flowers are so tiny,

that you almost have to get on your hands and knees to see them-

they are as subtle as this one from a supermarket bulb is not.

Oil Pastel of a nearby

forest tree,

not particularly subtle either

but being the world's

tallest flowering plant

is hardly subtle!

                                                                         

thermal mass and other home improvements

Well, the fabulous subject of mud beautiful mud goes on and on...

here are before and after pictures of our Firebox at home-

it used to be quaint but guzzled wood, smoked like a bastard and

wasn't much good in a minus 4 degree winter!

Now it has improved efficiency and is elegantly useful -

the new 'skin' of thermal mass did the trick.

I left a 2 centimetre gap between the iron stove and the mud

which i filled with wood ash for insulation-

(Becky Bee said to do this and it seems to work

though i wasn't sure why exactly...)

Then i used a rough clay and sand mix for the first layer,
added sawdust to the mix for the second  layer
and a straw and mud mix (cob) for filling in at the back,

I set rocks in to hold more heat and used a final coat of sieved
sand/clay plaster with pussywillow fibres and the smallest amount
of aquadhere to keep it from being dusty (which worked!)

Here it is now-the center of our Winter World, heating water (and us!) drying tools, the laundry

and all the stuff that got soaked in the Big rains...

it even keeps our slippers warm and dry!

It has a seat built in next to it

(RHS just out of the frame, in use!)

that provides a warm backrest,

the perfect place to sit and read next to the window.

and the logs don't roll out onto the carpet anymore!

i love home improvements

                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                     

wet wet wet

Call it climate change (or whatever might be politically correct?) but here in Tasmania's Northeastern Highlands, we have been experiencing local weather patterns as they were 50 years ago -that is, rain, rain and more rain!

Once it was so dry that when the dogs ran past, there were little puffs of dust behind their paws, (just like in the cartoons). Then everything caught on fire and I said i would never complain about rain again...not that i am complaining but there is alot to learn when it rains constantly for 2 weeks !

the sound of the rain on the tin roof is a siege dinn, the house-site turns to a huge butterscotch mud pie, the driveway doesn't work anymore (oh, the slippery slope!), there are leaks where there never were, the spillways on the dams become small creeks, all the tanks overflow, the white gums turn from milk white to a spectrum of green and the land seeps water for 3 weeks after the rain stops. It is Frog Heaven.

We have many different sorts of rain in Tasmania- i wonder if the Original People had 47 different words for rain? The Scots call a species of small rain a 'Smirrrrrh" ( i am guessing at the spelling- imagine it said with a thick brogue!)

Amazing, beautiful clean water, catch it in by the bucket ( ten dollars worth

if i bought it at the shop and i would have to dispose of the packaging after!)

Mud Oven/waterheater

Oh, to bake the bread and have a bath...Stick Fired Mud Oven

and Hotwater Heater in progress..will it work? Is it too much to

ask to bake Bread AND have a Bath ?

Time will tell...we will never run out of sticks here so if this

works it will be a good prototype for The Real House

( and with any luck might keep us fed and clean during the

Mudworks involved in building The Real Thing!)



step 1. I started on the ground (after removing roots and

vegetative debris from the site) with a Tire* whumped full of

gravel ( lots of gravel, lots of whumping- an Earthship would require alot of this kind of stuff- my

limitations are becoming apparent...but part of the caper is Testing Procedures, well that's one

tested!) The piece of tin at the back will hold up the cob as it builds- it is secured to a huge fallen

log so it will need an insulating layer to make sure the wood can't heat up when the oven is fired.

*I know tires are flammable but this one will be well and truly encased in mud and, having faith

in the fact that heat rises, I fondly hope the tire will remain as cool as the proverbial cucumber

throughout the making and the baking.

Step 2. Using rocks that will take the heat ( not the Mathinna Mudstone which is native to my

bush block and explodes fiercely when heated) I built up a foundation for the cob walls of the

oven as well as supports for the 'found piece' which will make the oven (see picture) and to

hold the boiler for the hot water. ( temporary stand visible in the picture) I have used 'light

straw '( straw coated in clay slip) to insulate the floor of the fire box-I wonder if the straw

will stay good once the oven is fired? It is used as insulation on the outside of ovens in books and

i'm still a bit keen on insulating the tire from any heat that might forget to rise? There will be

additional layers of cob and mud plaster over it in any case...also a layer of fire ash between any

metal parts and the cob which as i understand will let the metal expand without cracking the

cob?

Design principle as i 'get it' (from books again) is to make sure the

firebox slopes uphill towards the flue and narrows in diameter

as it does so. I have mudded in a holey brick at each side of the

firebox to make sure the fire can draw. So far the path of the fire

does a 'dog leg' where the boiler is which is how a Russian Stove

works- utilizing almost all of the heat from the fire by virtue of it's

meandering path so that the flue (in a properly build example)

should be only warm- in this case i guess the proof will be in the

pudding- another mudmix curing for the next episode ( rather

like 'Wheelbarrow Pudding'- who said if you can cook you can

build?! Something else to Test as i can definitely cook- they don't call me 'The Pancake Queen'

for nothin...) I am using Becky Bee's Cob books as a guide here and my new hero is Nadir Kahlili!

Transition

                                        
     collage made with glue sticks and scissors
     during trip to Melbourne (it rained alot)

well, this is my 'new face' blog- startin' over again...i should be getting good at starting over by now one would think...i was going to call this "Battling in the Bush in Post Modernist Australia" but on reflexion decided ( what's in a word?) that i've struggled enough without much to show so the new approach is to find the easy way- like the Japanese Sculptor who meditates first and then takes away everything that isn't the form.. rather than 'temporary' i am calling it 'transitional ' and after Linnaeus' quote: "We all have the honour of being candles in God's palace' i will call the blog 'Bush Palace'. This is the beginning of the process of transition, building the real palace in place of the transitional (ex-temporary!) model- oh beautiful mud and gravel for the picking-the building of the 'mud hut to house the body' as spiritual process, the search for soul in all things!