Doin the Poo Dance

Monday we all had an exhausting but fulfilling day. In order to make the shed a more weather-proof place for seeding, Mark decided we should build adobe walls around the sides. Large windows would be left in the east and west facing walls so that sunlight could reach the seedlings that would be growing inside. Adobe construction uses all natural materials. First we dug up some rich soil and added leaves, water, hay, and oxen manure. In order to mix these ingredients together, Mark and I donned rubber boots and began stamping about in the mud. The proper name for the mixture is Cob. And the mixing process is called the Cob Jig. Or, as we oh-so-maturely preferred to call it, the Poo Dance. Mark and I would grab each others forearms, lean back so our heels were digging into the mud, and then swing each other around in a circle, stamping our feet into the mud and pulling them out again with a satisfying squelch as the liquid stuff trying to suck our boots from our feet. Once the cob was fully mixed we would collapse panting onto the nearest bench.

Where we wanted to build each wall we would first lay a rubble base made from stones, broken bricks, chunks of concrete, and broken ceramic scavenged from around the property. The base of rubble will allow water to pass under the wall without being soaked up through the adobe, which would weaken it. Once the rubble base was laid, we began to shovel handfuls of cob out of buckets and smack it down on top of the rubble. At first, digging our hands into poo-mud was gross, but it quickly became hilarious and fun instead. We shaped the wall with our hands, patting, squeezing, and knuckling it into compliance. The first wall rose amazingly quickly. We used glass bottles that Mark and Sol had been collecting in the wall as well.  The bottles allowed the wall to gain height more quickly, as well as making the wall more aesthetically pleasing.

Throughout the afternoon Mark and I repeated the Poo Dance more than a dozen times. By the end of the day we had brought the east-facing wall to window height, and had begun to raise two other walls as well. We were all exhausted.

Laura, working on the bottle wall in its early stages

Alix and Mark doin the poo dance

Everyone hard at work on the walls in various stages

Josh building up an adobe wall

Mark playing in the mud

Toby working on the wall

Alix getting her hands dirty

 

Toby and Laura finishing the bottle wall

New Faces, Old Materials

Greetings faithful and first-time readers! I'm Alix, a 22-year-old American currently volunteering at the farm. I guess this blog will host a long series of different authors since there's a pretty constant rotation hostel occupants. I'm here with my boyfriend, Josh, for 2 weeks. Also here are Laura, 26, from Holland, and Toby, 22, from Germany. Laura and Toby are planning to stay for a month. Josh and I have been here for a week already and we’ve really enjoyed the experience so far. Mark and Sol and their kids are all warm and welcoming, making us feel right at home, and more like guests than workers. Some days we work really hard all day, and some days are more relaxed. Rarely does everything work at once—a light bulb burns out just as the second toilet gets fixed, or a heater stops working just when we finally find the sweet spot that allows us to connect to the internet. But these little inconveniences keep life interesting, and there’s always a way to work around them.
Over the weekend we rebuilt the tool and seeding shed. We erected logs and salvaged metal poles as posts, digging into the ground to make them more stable and connecting them with bits of wire left over from some other project. We then attached mismatched corrugated metal sheeting overhead for the roof. At times the lack of proper materials and tools was frustrating, but ultimately, finding a way around these shortcomings was more rewarding. When the rusted hole in a sheet of metal lined up perfectly with the forked branch of a log, we celebrated the coincidence as an accomplishment. The whole thing was essentially improvised, but by the end we had a pretty decent-looking shed. 

This idea of working with what you have and using recycled materials instead of always yearning for perfection, to me, exemplifies what Family Farm Hostel is all about.

Alix

Josh

Laura

Toby

A Quaint Little Gate

We were building a little roof to go over the little pedestrian gate in front of the farm. Ian and I had lots of debates over what type of roof should preside: a conical dome-shaped mushroom? a thatched roof? a symmetrical one?

We finally decided on this one: a lopsided, simple triangular arrangement. It seemed to fit best with the current Hobbit theme of the farm. 

Ian had me stand beneath him and hold up the planks while he cut them to size. It was one of the scariest moments of my life, with my frail fingers just an inch away from a chainsaw. But it was also very fun. Life should be a little bit dangerous. 

Ian hammered in two planks on either side of the gate, and then the morning after we hammered small planks on top to finish the tiling. The wood we found from a local wood dump. After walking around for about 15 minutes, the perfect wood appeared before us. It was this beautiful, red-tinted decking that had been abandoned in a corner. The individual pieces were extremely well cut and smooth. And it was only 3 pesos.

In total the Little Roof took 2 days to build. By sunset, it was time to call it a day. We picked up the few tools we used--a hammer, some nails, and a chainsaw, and went back inside for tea break, cookies, and dinner.