Rustic Pony Wall Repair & Some Macro Fauna Assistance? Based on a series of Shorts for Youtube…hence the distinct sections.
Hareet/Hello
If anyone is interested in a how to, this is an attempt at just that! What you may need if you attempt this kind of thing, sort of thing! As an aside, you really should, it can be totally free (ing) and it’s much better for ye than watchin’ the telly! I’m no arrrteest and that wall is as about as straight as this recent visitor, Hissing Sid, but I do try to ‘keep on gannin‘!
Tools Required
- Hands and ideally feet for balance.
- Any old serviceable paintbrush.
- Any old wire brush like implement.
- A bucket or ‘bear nose-bag/bucket’ in this case.
- Mixing drill, optional.
Other Useful Things
- Clay or muck with a high clay content.
- Rocks, hewn or laying around as is, where is.
- Pigment or food colouring.
- Canola or Vegetable oil. Better than eating it, yes you bear!
- School Glue or PVA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_acetate
- Clay Test Youtube Short
Gather Thy Resources Peasants!
In this case, the rocks had been ‘collected‘ over the years from various digging projects. Of which, there have been a few so rocks were plentiful!
The clay and some honkin’ great rocks were taken from Casuis The Clay-Pit which was later updated and enlarged in our quest for water this drought-y summer. More diary notes and the drought special newsletter can be viewed below.
Bit o’ Background
The gallery shows the various states of construction. It was un-constructed last year when the temporary side roof failed in what I assume was a massive winter dump! Correction, second temporary roof!
Cob and or clay is a great natural and abundantly free resource that has been used for our entire recorded history. The overriding caveat being, you must keep it dry, water, is the arch enema (sic) of clay! Much like more expensive building materials that are also not totally weather resistant. The seed oil and PVA provide some weather resistance but there is nee substitute for a good canopy!
Did I say it was potentially free, for ever and has numerous other benefits. Not to mention, if you mess it up, just add water and the whole thing will reset into the ground! Below is a link to the old blog about cob for those interested. Cheers.
Some Handy Pointers!
- Have a waterproof canopy to avoid ‘hard resets’ on your work.
- Try not to let the clay dry and crack, do small patches or keep on top of it as excessive cracking is harder to work with and is more brittle.
- Some cracking is expected and totally fine, it is clay and did I say it was free!
- Use a stiff muck mix for moulding shaping and filling.
- Use the same or stiffer mix for laying stone and pointing.
- A thin almost runny ‘slip coat’ is a great crack filler and good for smoothing and freeing up dried clay or cob.
- Don’t feed the bears…sexy cocktails! See below! 🙂
Potential Hazards
Bears and other macro fauna (with or without big pointy teeth) are commonplace here and I/we are usually quite fastidious about food and food waste especially. We camped for many years while we cleared and built so it became routine to us… to try and not get eaten that is. We did tend to drink a little too much, it helped enormously to sleep through all the crashing around in the undergrowth that seemed omnipresent…and over amplified in the pitch black!
Anyway, not thinking anything earthly would enjoy a canola oil/’sexy purple’ pigment cocktail, I left the bucket out overnight. This chap however, didn’t get the wildlife memo about the, don’t drink the ‘Sexy Purple Cocktail‘ and subsequently did and roused us from our chair hammocks (it takes a lot) whilst doing it!
We both more or less, came to the conclusion ‘was the bear maybe high?’…from the cocktail. His behaviour was quite erratic and he completely lacked fear which, is unusual for a black bear as they are usually quite skittish!
I managed to get this shot before he decided he quite fancied a chair hammock too. It wasn’t too far (a few feet) to travel to get back in the cabin. Then I kinda growled and told him to buuugger-off in me finest Durham Pitmatic voice; a few door slams for good measure and he waddled off, crashing into the thickest undergrowth of the forest.
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