Adobe Maker

July 7, 2024

Howdy folks,

Well, we have some big news for you.  Maybe not big news, but a long overdue update, if nothing else.  As some of you may have noticed, I've fallen way behind with my weekly updates.  Here it is now the beginning of July and I'm still trying to finish up the updates from March.  So, after Erin suggested as much, I've decided to skip ahead to the present to continue with our weekly dispatches and then, as time allows, I'll fill in the backlog of updates with pictures and stories as we go forward.  So, what have we been up to lately?  That's easy to describe...we've been working our tails off!  Erin keeps our herd of cats healthy, cleaned up after and fed in the mornings, as well as the house, in general,  and then cleans all afternoon for the boss everyday.  I feed the horses morning and night and then put a solid 8-hour day in in-between of anything from tractor work and running the backhoe to ditch-digging, fixing irrigation and spending countless hours pulling weeds.  The most fun thing, though, has been that I have now been making adobe mud.  To break it down, pure and simple, adobe mud is made up of dirt, horse manure and sand.  If you don't have horse manure, then you can use straw or some various other things.  The boss has this huge pile of bricks out in the horse pasture and she wanted me to make a series of four round, brick raised beds.  Last year we installed sod, but it didn't take very well and I ended up having to tear it back out.  So, the backyard has just been dirt and we've been trying to come up with ways to flesh it out a little more.  The boss has a nice stone fountain that I've moved a dozen times or more to just about every side of the house that there is, but, in the end, I had to move it back to its original position behind the house, like a central fountain surrounded by a monastery's cloister.  This was always my vision and analogy for the fountain, as I've seen many monasteries and cathedrals in Europe back in my youth, and the boss has half of the necessary square, internal courtyard already behind her house and I always thought it was a natural fit.  So, after many movings, it landed out back again and, at that point, the boss finally saw a potential layout that was beginning to speak to her.  So, for quite a few mornings, I'd fire the backhoe up and drive out into the horse pasture to collect the old bricks, then I'd bring them back and dump them in a huge pile just on the other side of the fence from the boss's backyard.  That part now being done, it was then time to start figuring out how to construct all of these brick raised beds...now, I just had to decide dry-stacking or using mud.

So, the boss wanted me to do these without any kind of mortar, and just use sand to try and keep everything level.  At this point, I had four sample circles rotating around the fountain and some days had to move them back and forth over and over to try and get them in just the right spot for the boss.  Then, after a week of this, she came up with the idea of actually mudding them and to then keep it as natural as possible.  Hence the adobe mud.  So, I'd drive the buggy out into the pasture to get buckets of dirt and buckets of manure, before bringing them all back to the earthen volcano that I made out of dirt in the ground.  You need a big area to mix this stuff up in and they always suggest digging a hole in the ground.  Well, I already had a huge pile of dirt that I had taken out of the backyard, so I used that to dig my hole into and ended up with the perfect set-up.  The ratio was one bucket of dirt to one bucket of horse manure to one bucket of sand.  Initially, you had to mix the sand and dirt together in the hole, then add the horse manure so that you had all of your dry ingredients mixed up well.  Then, the boots come off and you start wetting the mixture and then have to stomp, sift and work it with your bare feet, old-timey style!  So, the first batch was way too sandy, as I used two buckets of sand to one bucket of both dirt and manure.  That worked, but was very hard to stir well with my feet and I was left with a good inch or more of sand in the volcano.  Second time was better, with the 1 to 1 to 1 ratio and I started mixing it much better.  Til it was all said and done, I now feel very accomplished with my adobe abilities and ended up making four very nice-looking brick raised beds.  I started with a trowel, but almost immediately went to using my bare hands.  I had to poke and push and spread all the mud around and a trowel just wasn't cutting it.  I did keep seeing worms in the manure, though, and made damn sure that I brushed underneath my fingernails every night!

So, now time for some current and up-to-date pictures...from July even!  First up, a shot that Erin took while I was working my hand magic on the adobe mud.  Next, I will describe the whole process, picture by picture: first, the volcano dug into my dirt pile; then, tarped and ready for mixing; next, a series of three shots showing the dirt and sand together, then the manure added, then the final dry mix; then, the next three show me stomping my way to the finish line, with two action shots and then one of the final product; next, six shots showing me mudding the bricks and then also some finished bed shots; and, then, finally, a closeup of my handwork.  So, that's it for this week.  This time was only mud, but to make bricks, all you have to do is use the same mix and pour it into molds...oh, the things that we could build with these!  This will all come in handy when we get our own place again one of these days...

See you later.