Inner City Farmer

It’s hard to see ourselves for who we truly are. It must be some biological thing. When we sing in the shower, we think we sound great. When we have b.o., we never seem to think we smell as bad as we really do. I am no different. I think my house looks like the coolest place ever. I mean, I’ve got an arch for an entrance and I just increased the square footage of my house by like 30 percent, using mostly natural materials and doing all the work myself.

But then there are those days where I see the mess I’ve made and have yet to clean up–just look at all that sand! I see the junk I’ve stacked up along the side of my house, waiting for a use that will keep it out of the landfill. I smell the stink emanating from the sand pile in front of my house because my cats think it’s a giant litter box. These thoughts, this doubt, were racing through my mind as I went to introduce myself to Chris and Megan, who just moved in two doors down from me. “They must think I’m a real freak,” I was thinking as I said hello.

But instead of scorn or judgment this is what came out of Megan’s mouth instead: “Do you think you could teach me to do that sometime?” She was pointing at the front porch I made out of cob. You’ve got to love it when that happens.

“Sure,” I said. “I can teach you as soon as I start building a cob tool shed in my backyard.”

Now that I have have some help I am more excited than ever to start that project, but first I need to finish plastering the exterior of the wall of the room that was a garage and is now called The Man Cave. I put a second coat on today, this one sandier, smoother, less prone to cracking. It’s looks pretty damn good, but that opinion is based on my own vision and could be slightly prejudiced.

Almost finished the first layer of plaster on the Garage Wall Project. I am getting quicker and more proficient at slapping the stuff on. I did myself no favors when I made a wall with countless windows and an arch my first plastering project. I still haven’t finished that one, and what I have done isn’t very pretty. But my garage wall is looking good, at least to my forgiving eye. Yes, there are cracks but these will get buffed out once I apply the finishing coat, and, yes, the wall sports three different colors but this will be rectified when I paint the entire house (Project #89).

Like cobbing, the key to plastering seems to be figuring out the texture of the perfect mix. Too much sand and it doesn’t stick to the wall very well, too little and the resultant cracks (it’s nearly impossible to avoid them entirely) will be more pronounced. I know a batch is ready when it begins to resemble a Wendy’s Frosty and the color (at least with the sand I use) is nearly the same as well.

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….?

That’s all it took to transform my rodent-infested garage into a nearly habitable part of my house. I have never cobbed so quickly or with such determination. The dry heat that’s been sitting on top of Texas certainly helped. You can only cob so fast in the winter. Your hands hurt, your eyes water, and the cob dries so slowly that adding too many layers too quickly produces that great cobbing no-no, “splooging,” wherein the top layer bulges over the edges of the layer beneath it. But during the summer when it’s hot you can get in a nice rhythm and just fly.

I only slowed down when I was debating how to incorporate the window. A wiser man would have built a frame for the window to sit in, but I just went ahead and embedded it into the cob. I connected both sides of the window to the wall of the house with wire that used to hold some of my straw bales together. This idea was first suggested to me by a drunk passing on the street. I ignored him, but then Jenny mentioned the same idea and, because she was sober at the time, that was enough to convince me that the window needed some more support. To shore up the integrity of the cob wall, I placed some long pieces of metal in it to act as rebar and I connected the wall to the house by hammering a bunch of old rusted nails to the house’s wooden frame. The nails give something for the cob to hold onto.

The real fun began when I started making little niches on the inside of the wall. These spaces will be great places to stick candles or pictures. I also embedded some glass jars into the very top of the wall, which will allow light to pass through. This is an easy and beautiful way to inject some natural lighting into a room without adding any heat from the sun.

Yes, I still need to plaster the wall—sadly, I haven’t even finished plastering the arch on my front porch yet—but once I do the wall should blend in almost perfectly with the rest of the house.

For those interested in checking out more detailed pictures of the project, you can click on this link.

Despite appearances, this blog has inspired a slew of comments that have made the journey I’m on so much easier. Funny thing though, the majority of these comments have been sent to me via email. I’m not sure if this has been done out of modesty, fear, or laziness… but it must stop! The answer to many of the problems we face as a species can be found in our highly developed ability to communicate with each other, so, for christ’s sake, let’s start talking, even if it’s only to say: “You haven’t flushed your toilet in a week? That is so gross!”

The latest batch of comments to put a smile on my face was sent by a man living in one of the hotbeds of sustainability, good old Vermont. A woodworker and a musician, this man’s got serious skillz, whether he’s making a table or strumming a guitar. Here’s what he had to say:

Re: imperfect cob arches: It’s the unofficial motto of my woodworking biz, “Imperfections reveal and highlight the mysteries of the process.” Hell, yeah, a human made it, from natural materials that behave a little differently here and there. If you want uniformity go buy molded plastic, but if you value interacting with a formerly living, organic material then it’s going to have variations, texture, oddities, character!

Re: meeting the neighbors, egg swaps, sharing gardening tips, whatever: Nothing will be more important as we go than relearning how to give and take and share and trade and support the people we live next to and near. In the future our lives take place at home and in the neighborhood and at the village commons.

Re: okra: Pickled okra kicks ass.

Re: packaging: Packaging can go fuck itself.

Self-Sufficiency Meter: 30% (I lost a chick this weekend to the jaws of an opossum, which means there will be a slight drop in egg production in the future.)