Toby laid down our first cordwood pieces today! Very Exciting!! Here he is, putting in the first piece!!
This is our friend Eden who has started helping us build. She is working with the mortar here. It is a mix hydrated lime, water, and sand, and should be a nice white once it is dry. That will help to brighten things up inside (as opposed to a dark gray mortar). this wall will be a part of the mechanical/mud/laundry room.
Here is the same wall from the outside.
I also ground down all the plants that I harvested a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know if it is worth the effort. The Lamb’s Quarters only made 6.5 ounces of flour, the Aster 5.5, and the Yellow Dock ~4.5 ounces. The Thistle I had to trash because I couldn’t grind it up fine enough and I was worried about getting little sharp thistle pieces in our food. So, for all the effort in gathering, drying, and grinding them, I think it may be a better idea to gather a little each year and use the wild green flours to supplement and increase the nutrients in the ones we buy.
Have I mentioned that Suki (the dog) and Sweetie (the Houdini chicken) have come to an agreement? I don’t know how or why it happened, but Sweetie, who continues to escape her coop, roams all around the yard and Suki doesn’t bother her. She hops back into the coop to lay her eggs and then gets out again! So, we decided to try to just open up the coop, during the day while we are here, and let all the chickens roam around. Suki seems to be fine with it. She will occasionally give chase to one of the chickens, but there have been no casualties and the chickens love it! In fact, when we don’t open the coop up early enough, all the chickens are trying (and often succeeding) to get out! They have even been going back to their boxes in their coop house to lay their eggs! Crazy chickens!
Maria, it looks fabulous already! I love seeing the progress y’all are making!
i guess the herbs were harvested daily and ground continuously to provide for a steady diet with them in mind for flours.
i love cord wood!
The cordwood looks awesome! I planned on using cordwood for some of the walls in our new barn/workshop/studio.
Hi Maria –
I love to use lam’bs quarters like spinach or any other cooked green, they might go further that way. I winder if you can dry them whole and reconstitute for soups? I am thinking of a sorrel soup recipe plus lamb’s quarters….now I’ll have to try that!
Saw your article in BackHome – looking forward to trying the Green and Good nettle recipe maybe this weekend at Land’s Sake – if the nettles aren’t too tough.
Let us know when you’re open for visitors to your house – we’d like to come see it in person!
I’m over from Peggy HiddenHaven.
My boys brought a load of larch the other night for us.
COULD YOU POST THE MORTAR MIX FORMULA YOU USED AND EXPLAIN HOW ITS HOLDING UP.
CORDWOODGUY
CG:
We are using Lime Putty mortar:
– 3 parts sand
– 1 part rehydrated lime (it has been mixed and stored wet for ~3 months)
The first test section we did not hold up well at all – the mortar crumbed to sand when touched after two weeks. The second test section has done well – a few small cracks, and very strong.
The issue with the first section is that the putty was too wet, and I tried to dry it out my adding sand. I suspect that the water volume plus the extra sand really skewed the lime/sand ratio, causing it to be very weak.