Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Fence for home on a farm update

Here is a photo of the fence that I wrote about last November. Most of it is done with the exception of gates. I am very pleased with the design as the fence went up pretty quick, even counting the phone and septic lines we managed to precisly locate with our auger.

In the photo is a small section of cob wall we have near our front gate. The cob is built using Oregon Cob, a new method based on a very old technique using clay, sand, and straw to build the wall. The straw acts like rebar, holding the whole mass together, while the clay holds the sand together, and the sand adds the mass. We have yet to put the outer coat on, which will be a clay-dung (yes, its dung-- we are going to use llama poop) mix and on top of that a linseed oil/ beeswax mix.