Tadelakt

Below are two photos of yesterdays work.  This finish is called

"Tadelakt" its an ancient Morrocan finish consisting of Lime and Marble.

Polished with river stones and hard steel.  With a natural blue pigment

shallot sprouts!

one week later after putting this yummy morsel in the dirt

cob house updates

below: Main room is painted with an "alis" made from imported white clay, local mica, whole milk powder, wheat paste and water. you can see the stairs leading up to the sleeping loft. the stairs are walnut, a neighbor cut her tree down and was using it for firewood, so i bought a few pieces from here.


below: view into bathroom, door to come


below: Bathroom. paint is called an "alis". made from locally harvested pink clay, ground mica that is from our valley, wheat paste and water

Month of May, various photos

below, ariel view from neighbors land


below: above brick house will be more house, we are building now


below: subsurface infiltrator of our laundry water, opened for inspection
working great after one year and perfectly clean, this means that the
avocado tree roots are eating all the linty junk!


below: new planting, the black circles are shallots. the round red
brick has ginger root planted it in. far right is a spaghetti squash


13 levels high now. it will be covered to be the garage.

Mothers day

apple dad, plum boy and an orange mom are sitting on a pineapple sofa with marshmallow cushions. A guava cat is sitting next the the chocolate rug with more marshmallow cushions thrown around them

above and below: garden is seeded

May 6. I seeded the garden. No transplants.

18 squares each divided into 4 parts.

There are still 21 one foot squares left open. ideas? missing links?

Lemon Basil
Cucumber
Various hot Peppers
Carrots
Arugula
Eggplant
Bell Peppers
Lettuces
White and purple onions
Beets
Tomatoes
Squash
Zucchini
Spinach
Watermelon
Turnip
Asparagus
Porro
Mint
Mustard greens
Marigold
Chrysanthemum
Nasturtium
Anise Hysop
Johnny Jump Up
Peppermint
Savory
Parsley
Bergamot
Fennel
Garlic Chives
Basil
Chives
Dill
Thyme
Spearmint
Chamomile

Walls and tires

this wall below has a tire foundation and is painted a light
pink/white, using lime, pink clay and water. little "jarrilla"
bushes are planted in a line in front. our property is to the
left


i can get almost 80 tires in my truck in one load....!

Recent construction

Garden

The start of the Permaculture Garden.
Our first and the source of much excitement here.

more updates

below is a window from a vw beetle. looking into the cob home


below: rare back side photo


below: front entrance. green edge on roof is the rainwater collection gutter, just put it
in yesterday. we cut a piece of 3" tubing lengthwise and slipped it around the roofing,
fast and easy and quite practical!

porch

below is the porch going up

floors

below, hard troweling the final layer of clay/sand with flecks of straw


below, stairs and up have the final layer, notice below, the sub floor
is cracked, this is on purpose to key in the final layer


below, painting a clay slip on the dry floor to adhere the finish coat better


below, final floor with oil and wax finish

Sunray Kelly, Bonnie and Eli makes a visitl

Sunray added the roof structure onto Gabriel's treehouse

(click here to see some of Sunray's past work)

Wall plastering part 2

Below, Edgar hard troweling on the lime/sand plaster

Plastering with lime and sand

below is clay/straw/sand plaster on left with rough coat of lime/sand on right


below is next step, rough sand/lime on left. on the right below is putting on
a really fine lime/sand finish


below is fine finish on right polished with a yogurt top


below is our finish plaster ready to be put on the wall