building an oven

we have a couple of wonderful friends who run a small business in calgary called dirt craft natural building. ashley and heather offer hands-on natural building workshops, including earth ovens, rocket stoves, small structures and earth plasters. i have wanted to take a cob oven workshop with them for quite some time, and the first class i registered for i ended up coming down with the flu and had to miss - but yesterday was my day!! my friend paula and i finally got to join in and learn the in's and out's of building with cob - a 100% natural mixture of clay, sand, straw and water. We were able to help be a part of constructing a beautiful outdoor oven with our bare hands (and feet!) and learn a little bit more about sustainable and natural building techniques during the process. so incredible!

(thanks to paula for the first two pictures- you can follow her on instagram: @eco_bee)

mixing the cob up. feet work best. 

thermal cob balls 

paula working on the thermal cob layer

paula working the insulation - clay slip mixed with wood chips. 

cobby hands 

heather perfecting the insulation layer

the beautiful oven drying in the sunshine

pinwheels 

an honest days work