When Cob Won’t Work
If you’re looking for any more proof that raising chickens is the way to go, look no further than what I ate for dinner last night. An omelet? No, you can only eat so many eggs. A couple of months ago, I sent an email to my neighborhood’s listserv, asking if anyone wanted to barter their vegetables for my eggs. Chad and Lindsay, who live a five-minute walk away, responded by bringing over a satchel full of beautiful and tasty vegetables, which Lindsay got through a program at her office called Farm to Work. For $25 a week employees of the Texas Department of State Health Services get fresh vegetables delivered to them from Naegelin Farm, which is located just south of San Antonio. Yahoo Maps says that’s 103.67 miles away so if I were a hardcore locavore doing the 100-mile diet I guess I would have to abstain. But I’m not so I didn’t.
How could I pass up real lettuce that’s got actual texture and taste (as opposed to the limp bland stuff grocery stores dump on you) and kohlrabi? For those not hip to the latter vegetable (and I wasn’t until last night) kohlrabi is kind of a cross between cabbage and a turnip—in fact in German “kohl” means “cabbage” and “rube” means “turnip.” I ate half of it raw in a salad and the other half cooked a little with pasta and some other veggies, and as of now it might be my favorite vegetable.
I spent a little more time than usual working outside today. Just like a “real” farmer I tend to let the weather dictate the course of my day. It rained last night… hard. It rains almost as much in Austin as it does in Seattle; the difference is that in Seattle it sprinkles nearly every day of the winter and then gets bright and sunny during the summer while in Austin all our rain comes during about 15-20 storms spread throughout the year. It will be dry for weeks, and then suddenly in one night we’ll get two inches of rain, which is what happened just after midnight last night.
I woke to a soggy world this morning, which meant the soil in my backyard, a clay that dries as hard as cement, was nice and soft, perfect for digging. I’m embarrassed to say that for the past year and a half the entire bottom portion of the back side of my house has been exposed to the elements. The guys who fixed my foundation ripped it off, and, after paying them a ridiculous amount of money to bring my house to level, I wasn’t in the mood to pay them $750 more to fix the mess they’d made. Aspiring to be self-sufficient, I vowed I would do it myself. And then I never did.
You see, such a job requires traditional construction work, and ever since I discovered the wonders of natural building I’ve given up on the conventional way of doing things. The problem is that I couldn’t imagine any other way to do it. I’ve fallen in love with cob, but the most important thing with cob is protecting it from the elements, something I would not be able to do in this situation. I also considered using a lime plaster, which I’ve been teaching myself how to do, but from what I’ve read it too needs to be shielded from the rain. So I threw up my arms and went to get some stucco. This was a major violation of my building code of ethics—I try to avoid using cement at all costs. Cement plants account for 5 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, and its production requires a ridiculous amount of energy to boot. But what other material could I have used? That’s not a rhetorical question. Any feedback is welcomed.
I spent the entire afternoon digging a long trench, hammering pieces of wood to the beam running the length of the house, and stapling roofing felt (it also pained me to use this stuff because I have no idea what it’s made of) to the wood. I also added a nice little door that will allow me to get under the house to check the plumbing whenever that becomes necessary. By that point the sun was going down so I put off adding the wire mesh and the first layer of stucco. I’ll save that fun for later.
As I was cleaning up (you can see in the picture what a fine mess I made), I couldn’t stop finding new projects to do. This is what happens when you own a house and the weather is nice. So I added some mulch to the garden. I’ve got some cucumbers and pumpkins that just sprouted and I want to keep the soil around them moist and weed-free. The mulch was actually a box of shavings from a pecan tree that I debarked with a hatchet. I thought I’d use them in my earth oven but staring at the box I realized it would work better as mulch. This made me very happy as I’m trying to find a use for everything on this little farm so that nothing gets ever wasted. Today was trash day, and while I did take my garbage can out to the side of the road it hardly had anything in it. One of my main goals is for it to remain perpetually empty so I can give it back to the city.