Up-date on Evergreen Cob Project

The building continues and here are some photos to show you how far we have gotten. The cob bench is mostly finished and the strawbale playhouse is coming along.

The playhouse  has an urbanite foundation with a cob layer. Then the bales are stacked and "sculpted" to form window and door openings. There is a stick-built skeletal structure with a deep overhang on the roof to protect the cob and strawbales. The straw will eventually be covered with an earthen plaster.

Close-up of foundation layers.

Cob Bench. I know it looks like a little oven... but it is NOT... Cubby is for the "Observation Journal".

Close-up of Door on Cob Bench. There is a piece of wood with nails embedded in the cob structure that the door is tied into.

The brick patio between the cob bench and the strawbale playhouse.

Side-view of the new playarea. Roof space between the two structures is open as a pergola. It will be fun to see what we eventually plant in the space after the construction is complete!

Winter Garden Shots-November

Under plastic is carrot and beet seedbed planted last week. Patch of green is arugula planted in September. We are eating lots of Arugula. It will be fine throughout the winter without cover.

Another view of carrot/beet bed and arugula. Further down the row is plastic covered bed of Broccoli. I got the broccoli starts in late and am hoping that the plastic cover will give them a jump start. We'll see. So much of gardening is an experiment.

These covered beds  are more late starts. Broccoli, red cabbage and brussel sprouts. Again.. hoping for a jump start. By now these plants should be much bigger. If they don't get some growth going soon, I am guessing that come spring, they will take off!

Lettuces with open chenille row covers. These covers are awesome. I read about them in Elliot's "Four Season Harvest". The idea comes from France. These covers are SO easy to use and will keep the lettuce growing all winter. This photo shows the cover open. I'll need to take a photo of them closed. Watch for another post on how to build this row covers.

Baking Bread on a Rainy Day

I simply adore homemade bread.. who would not! Fresh out of the oven, hot and steamy, butter melting into the airy spaces. Yum! To me homemade bread is an expression of HOME...that warm, cozy place that lives inside each of us, filled with love.

As a child my Mom made bread for our family. I remember helping her knead and shape. What Fun! She let us kids each make our own loaf. We got to do the kneading of our own bread and shaping too... So exciting to watch it grow, punching it down and growing again! These little loaves where baked in custard cups. That evening, we would have our own loaf for dinner, hot with butter melting. Oh so proud to be eating something we had made ourselves!

When I went to college, I think that what I missed most was hot, homemade bread. The dining hall just couldn't even come close! After my first year, I moved off campus into a house with a kitchen and began the process of learning to make bread on my own. Mom always made it look easy.. but it took years to really get it right.. over the years housemates and friends have enjoyed my endeavors...

Between working and raising a kid, I got out of the habit of making bread. Too busy... but craving that homemade taste, I found bakery breads that came close.. our local healthy grocer bakes a Whole Wheat Walnut Bread that I LOVE! But the price is now well over $5/loaf. Well worth it but money is tight and I can make alot of bread with $5 worth of Organic Flours!

I made my first loaf 3 weeks ago and have make a loaf each week since. I pulled out an old recipe and have been working with it.. refining it to make a good loaf for sandwiches for Rebecca's lunch box.
Once you get a routine going.. it really is not time consuming to make your own bread. NO machine necessary. Last night I got the dough started just before I put dinner on the table. It did the first rise while we ate dinner. After the kitchen was cleaned up from dinner, I did the next step-shaping the loaf.  Set the timer for 15 minutes, put my feet up and relaxed. When the timer went off, I started the pre-heat for the oven and put my feet up again. When the oven signaled that it was at temperature, I put the loaf in and set the timer again... Relaxed some more, listened to the rain... and waited until the timer went off. Took the bread out and could not wait until it cooled... so I cut off a slab and spread it with butter... Yum, the best yet!
Last night's flour mix included wheat, flax meal, corn meal and millet flours with pecans.

Here is the recipe:

One Single Loaf 

Mix the following in a bowl.  

2 cups hot water

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 1/2 Teaspoons Salt

Sprinkle over the top of above mixture

 1 package of yeast 

Wait a few minutes to let the yeast proof. When the yeast is bubbly, add the following half a cup at a time and mix well. 

4 cups flour (mix of wheat, white and others)

1/3-2/3 cup of nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Mix in each half cup until most of the flour is in. It will become harder to mix with a spoon, time to knead in the last flour. Turn it out on a lightly floured board, or knead in your bowl until the dough is smooth and elastic and even a bit sticky. Do not work it until it is dry or you will have a very dense and crumbly loaf.

Work the dough into a ball, put back in the bowl and oil the ball. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until double (about 35 minutes). Punch down and knead again adding as little flour as possible. Place dough in greased loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise again for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, start to pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. When the oven is ready, remove the plastic wrap from your pan and bake for 40-45 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool on a cooling rack.

Give it a try... be amazed by your own homemade bread! Enjoy. 

Garlic and Onions in the Ground

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.  ~Andrew Wyeth

I love knowing that throughout the winter the onions and the garlic are gathering strength underground. I love to see the green tops pushing out through the snow, bright green on a field of white. 
I planted a few weeks ago now. Last year I tried a number of varieties of garlic and picked the most successful variety to plant this year. My choice was Music, a hard-neck variety. I have planted 5 pounds of it. This year's crop was beautiful, large and tasty cloves!
I have also planted another variety.. a later maturing California White, a soft-neck variety. This one is an experiment. I planted one pound. 
Onion sets went in about the same time, yellow and red varieties, about 5 pounds worth. 
My family uses lots of garlic and onions. Growing our own is easy and saves dollars at the grocery store! Freedom and Yum!

GF Ravioli Trials

My guy is gluten intolerant along with many other food allergies, so cooking around our house can be a bit of a challenge! Although, I've got to say that any cook loves a good challenge and I enjoy the constraints that David's diet put on my meal plans.  His allergies narrow down the endless possibilities and keep me in thinking mode.
I am Italian and David spent a year studying in Italy when he was in college... we LOVE Italian food in our house. Buying pasta can be tricky when one is gluten-free! We have found one that we all like, Bionaturae.. it is potato, soy and rice and comes pretty close to regular pasta... but they only make the most common shapes: spaghetti, elbows, fusilli, and penne... so if you want anything else, you are on your own!
I have been experimenting for a while with pasta.. without too much success. The ravioli came out pretty good... a bit dense and not at all like a gluten dough, but tasty nevertheless. 

I used an all-purpose mix of GF flours with some extra rice flour, eggs, and water. I mixed the dough in the food processor. Then rolled the dough out on a rice floured board until it was as thin as I dared.
The filling was made of fresh pesto from the garden, walnuts and Manchego Cheese (sheep milk cheese from Spain.. David is also allergic to cow dairy).

The tops were added after a thin film of water was painted around the edge to help make to two pieces of dough stick to each other when pressed gently together.
After the ravioli was cooked in boiling water briefly... we topped them with fresh from the garden tomato sauce with fresh herbs straight out of the garden (oregano, basil, garlic). A simple sauce to compliment the flavors of the filling which was very rich.

The finished product was a bit heavy, definitely filling, but really tasty.

After this ravioli project, I bought a pasta maker.  It did NOT make this GF pasta maker happy at all. It was SO much trouble, not at all helpful so I brought it back to the store the next day. Next time, I'll just do it myself!

I love that our garden provides us with such wonderful healthful food and as the economy continues to slide, I know that my family will be well-fed, both with produce straight out of the garden and with the foods that I have put up (canned, frozen and dried) for the winter. Knowing where our food comes from is important to me. Healthy food that comes with a story, our story.  Life really IS good! 

Brasstown Gardens

We took a trip to Brasstown, NC in early October. I was calling the evening contra dance at the John C Campbell Folk School during their Fall Festival. It was a beautiful day and we got there early enough to see lots of great crafts and listen to a big variety of folk music.
We had some time after the daytime festival and before the evening dance to kill... so before our picnic dinner on the porch at the Keith House Dance Hall, we checked out the Kitchen Garden at the Folk School. This garden provides food for the kitchen classes and dining hall at the school.
It was fun to see all the winter veggies in their long rows as well as the remnants of the summer crops... Beautiful handmade trellises.... and a living fence in the works... The fence is made of live trees woven and trained together to create a living growing fence that curves around a wooden rocking chair near the entrance to the garden.. Beautiful!

Next Installment on the Cob Bench Project

It has been a busy few weeks and these photos spent a long time in the camera! But here they are. Back in October, Tony's Cob Building Class at AB Tech did most of the earthen plaster work on our bench. But Tony and I put the final earthen plaster touches on our bench project one sunny afternoon.
The plaster is made of clay, sand and wheat paste. The mixture is smooth and thick and is applied by handfuls and then compressed and smoothed with a piece of plastic cut from a yogurt container. This plastic rib helps to make the edges nice and gives the plaster a smooth surface and a finished look.
The earthen plaster coats the entire bench and gives it a harder, smoother finish than just raw cob.
This bench was designed to have room for lots of kids to sit around it. The backside of the bench overlooks the woods, to one side are the raised garden beds and to the other side are bird feeders and a storm water garden.
The bench has a beehive theme complete with giant sculpted bees on the top surface. It is to be an observation station for wildlife watching at the school. The bench has a built-in place to store a notebook which will be used as a journal to record bird activity.
I love this detail of where the foundation meets the cob.
The opening now has a wooden door fitted for it, hinged to a piece of wood that was built into the cob structure. I'll need to get pictures of it to share.
Sammy the snake guards the opening. Not sure yet what we are doing to finish the snake.. right now, we left it in raw cob. I think Tony was talking about oiling it to preserve it and allow it to have a different look from the smooth plaster finish of the rest of the bench.

The whole project still has a way to go.. The AB Tech class continues the work on the strawbale playhouse that is located opposite of the bench. In this photo you can see the brick courtyard that has been started between the two structures.
More pictures to come. What a great way this has been for me to learn about cob building and help out and my daughter's school. I look forward to the day when I am ready to build something out of cob in my own backyard!

Cob Bench takes shape

Our Cob Bench project at Evergreen Community Charter is taking form! Rains over the last week or 2 seriously interrupted our progress but little by little is it getting there. This week I worked with Tony on some final shaping. The above picture is the before work started on Thursday picture.
Here a detail of the foundation made of brick and urbanite with the cob seating area and the central "back rest".
Another shot of the bench before we began our final shaping work. Sculpting. The idea is that the bench will be in the shape of a bee hive.. albeit a bit flattened to facilitate it's function as a back rest and to fit a maximum number of sitting kids. Built into the central core is an arched space with a wooden door to hold the garden journal that the kids will, as a community, keep notes on the garden (what's blooming, which birds, bees, animals, etc they see.. and other observations. There is a bird feeder nearby and the raised bed garden too. Pretty cool!
The sculpting consisted of adding and subtracting cob and rubbing and shaping with water. Slowly but surely it took shape as we worked.
The opening is guarded by Sammy the Snake, formed of cob, who is the keeper of the garden journal. After the plastering is done, some elements of the bench will be painted. Sammy will be more defined when he gets a paint job!

Next step is the process of plastering the cob structure. It will be an Earthen Plaster and will put a finishing coat over the entire bench. Stay tuned!

Ritual Mud Face Painting

Once the cobbing had begun in earnest with Rebecca's Third Grade Class, Tony got out a bucket of clay... Wouldn't you know it, Rebecca was the first in line to get her face painted!
They both look pretty pleased with the painting, I'd say!
It wasn't long before the kids were lining up to be next! They seemed both surprised and delighted that an adult was painting on their faces with mud!
Most of the children left their "cob paint" on for the rest of the day.. A badge of honor of sorts!


There is something magical about about working with the primordial materials of clay, sand and water.. The magic certainly was not lost on these kids as they took their turn to work together to MAKE a special place at their school to share with the whole community. I find myself wondering what impact will this project have on their choices.. what ripples this experience will stir in their lives further down the road...
And then I find myself with the lyrics of a song spinning in my head and heart.. while we are not working with clay as potters (a role I have had in my life...with my BFA in Ceramic Arts) we are working with this magical stuff, this creative force...
The words of the "Potters Wheel" always bring on a huge response from my heart. I was first introduced to this powerful song at a concert by my friend Freyda Epstein. She sang this song on one of her albums... she is gone now.. but her voice, singing this song haunts me still.. it is how I remember her!

Potter's Wheel

Words and Music by Bill Danoff

The world is fast becoming younger;
The news is all they've ever known.
They've seen the wars, the hurt, the hunger.
How will they choose when they are grown?

What do you tell forever's children
When it's their turn to hurt and heal?
Whatever spins a grim tornado
Can also turn a potters wheel.

Take a little clay, Put it on a wheel
Get a little hint how God must feel.
Give a little turn, Listen to a spin,
Make it into the shape you want it in.

Tell with your life the bloody story,
Teach to their dreams, not burning steel.
It's not in bombs where lies the glory,
But in what's shattered on the field.

The potters wheel takes love and caring,
Skill and patience fast and slow.
The works it makes are easily broken,
Once they survive the potters throw.

Take a little clay, put it on a wheel;
Get a little hint how God must feel.
Give a little turn, listen to it spin;
Make it into the shape you want it in.

Some day some children will be digging
In some long forgotten ground.
And they'll find our civilization
Or what's left of it to be found.

They'll find the weapons of destruction.
But buried deeper in the hole,
They'll find a message and a promise,
In the sand, the potters bowl.

Take a little clay, put it on a wheel,
Get a little hint how God must feel.
Give a little turn, listen to a spin,
Make it into the shape you want it in.

Earth and fire and wind conspire,
With human hands, and love, and fire.

Take a little clay, put it on a wheel,
Get a little hint how God must feel.
Give a little turn, listen to a spin,
Make it into the shape you want it in.

The children we are growing in our Evergreen Community are amazing beings, they give me hope for our future!

Evergreen Cob - Day 2

Day two of our Mud Fest was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot.. real nice. We started off the morning with a Third Grade class... my daughter Rebecca's class. They got an introduction from Tony, removed their shoes, rolled up long pants to the knees and were grouped into teams and sent off to a tarp to await further instruction.
Sand and clay were dumped on each tarp and the kids got to work. I had the pleasure of working with a group of girls that included Rebecca... they were SO funny.. all squeamish and giggly and shrieky! But after getting their feet used to the new sensations.. they joined hands and made up a mud dance.. circling left and right while jumping up and down.. I wish I had had my camera handy to capture that moment! We also worked with the two 5th Grade classes that day.

The older kids got to get in the tub of clay and mix it up with water and feet..
No hesitation here! Lots of squeals though! When the sand and clay were mixed it was time to add straw.. "sprinkle the cheese on the pizza"..Says Tony... now make it all dirty! The Cob is flipped in tarp several times to bring the bottom up to the top and facilitate a more through mix.
Now that our cob is mixed and ready, Tony demonstrates how to form a cob ball to carry to the bench.
Everyone joins in the fun of adding cob to the bench structure.. Still hard to tell how it will really look when it is all finished.. I keep telling the kids it is a "work in progress"!


At the end of Day 2... after 5 classes have added their touch... here is what the bench looks like.

Hummm... wonder how it will be in the end! Stay tuned...