Inner City Farmer

I’m pretty proud of myself. One of the most essential tools you need for plastering is a “hawk,” defined by my dictionary as “a small board or metal sheet with a handle on the underside used to hold mortar.” They sell them at Home Depot for about twenty bucks, but I made one for free out of a scrap piece of plywood and the end of a mop handle. All I did was drill a small hole in the center of the plywood, and then I jammed into that hole the part of the mop handle that screws into the mop head. I keep expecting it to break in two, but the darn thing refuses to die. I’ve used it about fifteen times now, and it’s in as good shape now as it was the day I made it. Another simple solution.

Just about every single thing I have made out of cob still needs to be plastered. Why has this taken me so long? What’s the delay? The truth is that I’m just not very good at plastering. Yet. Compared to the mindless ease of cobbing, plastering requires a certain finesse that doesn’t come naturally to me. One of the biggest problems I’ve experienced so far is that chunks of plaster that contain rocks or other large debris tend to immediately peel away from the cob. Hard-headed mule that I can be at times, it took me about five frustrating plastering experiences to figure out that I needed to sift all the large debris out of my sand before I added the lime to it. Duh.

The answer to my problem came to me as I stared at the pile of “junk” I recently removed from my garage. One of the items was a large screen window. I immediately recognized it as the perfect solution for the plastering problem. Now before I start plastering I spend about three or four minutes sifting random stuff out of my sand. The result is a perfectly smooth plaster that goes on without a struggle. Now I just need to figure out how to stop the plaster from cracking so badly. I’ve been spraying each coat with a mister, but it’s 95 degrees here and dry as a bone and the water nearly disappears before it hits the wall. I’m sure it will come to me with time and practice.

On Friday, Jen, creator of the Rutabaga blog (one of several blogs I’ve recently discovered and enjoy, the others being Garden Girl and Trailer Park Girl), made a comment noting the distinction between self-reliance and self-sufficiency. In case you missed it here’s what she had to say: “Self-reliance is exactly that. Relying on your skills, wits, knowledge, and savvy to get by, even when that includes banding together with other people. While self-sufficiency implies providing for every one of your needs with your very own two hands. Which is damn near impossible, if not isolating.”

Up to this point I have been all about self-sufficiency, but in my original vision of this urban farm project I was hoping to adopt something that more closely resembled self-reliance. This was my plan: while relying on some of the precepts of permaculture to turn my land into a self-sustaining forest that would feed me and my son in perpetuity, I would at the same time be expanding the habitable space on the lot using my skills at natural building. I aspire to build another house on the back side of the lot using straw bales or cob (I believe in urban infill; this land can certainly house more people), but because I’ve never built a house before I knew I needed to take it slow and practice making smaller buildings.

So I built the gazebo all by myself. Doing this I learned how to make footers and a (really basic) roof. The end result looks a little Gilligan’s Island-ish, but it’s functional. It works. It keep the rain off my earth oven and cob bench. It also gave me enough confidence working with cob that I could instruct others how to do it.

The next project I hope to embark upon is building a toolshed out of cob. It will vaguely resemble the gazebo, but it will be much larger and will have a “real” roof on it. To ensure that the reality matches my vision, I know that I’m going to have to recruit some outside help. To make that much cob, I’m going to need many extra hands, and to design and build a roof that will ensure rain never touches my tools I’m going to need the assistance of an experienced carpenter.

But, laughably, before I can even start building the toolshed I need to finish the Garage Project. After replacing its crappy old door with a cob wall, I am now trying to integrate the room into the house proper, which means I need to talk to an electrician and a plumber. These are skills I simply don’t have. And yet I’m not just going to get on the phone and call 1-800-P-L-U-M-B-E-R-S-B-U-T-T. I’m hoping to use either the Austin Time Exchange Network or Skillshare Austin, two organizations that champion the exchange of labor for labor instead of for money, to recruit some help. Or perhaps someone reading this will know someone in Austin who might be able to assist me in exchange for….?

People are always asking where I get the clay that I use to make cob.

The answer: From a pit I dug in my backyard.

The cost: Free.

The long-term goal: To transform the pit into a pond, complete with a “creek” circling my oak tree and, ideally, some fish and ducks to inhabit it.

The Kerrville Folk Festival ended yesterday. That’s right, it lasted 18 days, which is 11 days longer than the next longest music festival I’ve attended (the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival). Kerrville is also the only music festival I’ve been to that actively promotes permaculture. Sandwiched in between the booth where Clif bars were being given away and the music store where CDs were being sold was a booth (wo)manned at nearly all times by Jenny Nazak, the public-relations coordinator of the Austin Permaculture Guild.

The impact of all the permaculture and natural building workshops that have been held at the Quiet Valley Ranch (the festival’s home) over the years is immediately felt upon entering the front gate. The first structure you come to is made out of cob and locally harvested cedar. It is just one of the many buildings on the ranch made out of natural materials. The headquarters for the staff is a small house made of straw bales. And my personal favorite, the gazebo atop Chapel Hill created by Sun Ray Kelley, was made of wood found on the property. It has a living roof that was quite green the last time I saw it. Here’s a photograph of one section of the roof:

All around the ranch, trees have been planted and swales dug to direct ran water to them. The greening of the property will take some time as this is classic Hill Country land, dry, dusty, and rocky. As it is, Quiet Valley Ranch is an oasis of forward thinking in a part of the world that is often quite content with the status quo. I look forward to my next visit to this famed spot (perhaps as soon as October when an intensive Permaculture Design Workshop is being held there. Stay tuned to the Kerrmaculture website for more details….