Reflections on May, 2018: That’s a WRAP

I used to stand outside the semi-trailer each evening while brushing my teeth, and look at our unfinished house with its partial walls and flapping tarps.  I would imagine how our lives would be once we moved in; comfortable, clean, and safe from the elements. Then I’d climb back up into that giant creaky box and try to sleep through its wind-thrashing rattling noises, and the smell of the mice and their nests.  I got through those nights of longing by reminding myself that it was only temporary.  I even made myself a visual reminder.

So many pieces of this house building project have been temporary.  We had a temporary roof made of tarp, fastened with staples.  That one didn’t last long.  We used the dreadful harsh glow of rope lights so we could see to cook supper for a while.  We constructed a platform for an exterior door to block off one room of the house to hunker down in for a winter.  And, we’ve applied several iterations of UV-protection to the exterior of the house; sand-paint, cob, latex paint and tarps.  Cob has been applied and removed by the rain more than once.  It feels so counterproductive to remove old cob, only to apply more.  But this time, this last last time, we’re cobbing again.

Chink, level, level some more, manure plaster, and then… we WRAP it!

WRAP is Water-Resistant Alis Paint.  I’m officially coining the term.  You heard it here first, folks.  We made an alis or aliz paint with wheat paste and subsoil for our interior walls.  See the March 2018 blog for more about using this sealer on our floors.  We wanted the same look and ease of application for the exterior but we needed a waterproofing agent.  Many natural buildings use lime plaster for this function, but Aaron wanted to experiment with other sealers.

After a few test runs with different amounts of siliconate, he came up with this formula.

Recipe for WRAP Water Resistant Alis Paint

• 1 cup PS 101 Concrete Sealer from Concrete Sealer USA
• 1 cup flour (Original post on Wheat Paste here)
• 2 #10 cans subsoil
• Add water to the consistency of sour cream

Instructions:

Add 1 cup water to 1 cup flour,  Stir.

Add flour paste to 2 cups boiling water. Stir thoroughly.

Simmer until opaque.

(You just made wheat paste).

Add water to subsoil until consistency of porridge.

Add sealer. Mix thoroughly.

Add wheat paste.  Mix thoroughly.

Add water to consistency of sour cream.

Apply immediately.  Do not store.

This makes about 1/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of WRAP which covers about a 100 square foot area.  We did some measuring and some math to find out the total exterior wall area, but for some reason none of us wrote it down or have the recollection of what that number was, but…  We figured we’ll be able to sufficiently cover the whole house with one application of WRAP, using less than one container.  The 5 gallon container cost $180.

It has rained several times, including one with driving rain that washed off some of the plain cob.  The WRAP wasn’t phased by these rains.  This is exciting!  This picture shows all the phases of exterior earthen plaster finish: bare bags, chinked cob, leveled cob and manure plaster with WRAP finish.

Of course I’ll let you know how it holds up after a year and then 2 and 5 and so on.  For now, we’re feeling pretty confident about the protection this system will offer.

One summer, perhaps it was the summer of 2016, we cobbed with fervor, almost covering the entire envelope.  It looks like that’s going to be the mission again in 2018.  If you ever feel like a heady organic foot and hand exfoliation therapy session, come on out and sling some mud on the walls.  We had a little cob-slinging workshop with some friends this month and got some serious coverage.  We are truly blessed to have such motivated friends to help.

I was averaging one batch of cob a day, so I figured with the help of our friends at our workshop, if we got 3 done, that would be fantastic.  But our friends were highly motivated, the kids were busy, and the weather was great so we managed 11 batches of cob!  We chinked from the large window on the left, all the way to the first pillar on the right.

In other news, we purchased a water heater!  After finishing the plaster job in the kitchen pantry, we got a good start on installing the “dumb” water heater.  Aaron calls it dumb because it doesn’t have any high-tech or fancy gadgets to tell it when to turn off or on.  This means that he can wire the solar modules directly to the heater, without batteries, and we’ll have hot water.  Do you realize what a huge leap in comfort this will be?  I cannot wait to tell you all about my first hot shower!

Speaking of showers, we’ve had just enough to make our garden happy and healthy.  We’ve harvested lots of Pak Choy, spinach, and turnip greens for salads.  Our tomatoes, (grown from seed!) are looking fabulous, as are our strawberries.  You know who else loves the garden?  Our chickens.  Our moveable fence only keeps them out some of the time.  They sneak through holes and sometimes fly over the lower hanging parts.  So, we’re building the first installment of our permanent fence paddocks.

We’re using 50 T posts, and 300 feet of 2×4 “no-climb” 13 gauge fencing.  Perhaps this fence can double as a food-growing trellis?

One particular chicken, Jessabelle, (no chicken has the same name for longer than 24 hours), was incessantly finding her way into the garden.  On top of that, she got a taste for cactus!  We might as well be called a cactus farm, for all that we have around here.  We decided to butcher.  The boys got to experience the whole ordeal of scalding, defeathering, butchering, and eating.  This bird was bred for eggs, not meat.  She was small and tough.  Good experience.  Excited for meat birds.

For Mother’s Day, we got my guitar fixed.  I’m super happy about that because I have so much time on my hands that I need to pick up some of my old hobbies, you know?  It needed the action adjusted; I could get it in tune on the lower frets, but not the high frets.  As with all the work orders at Jerry’s Music Emporium, they clean up the neck with linseed oil and replace the strings.  It is easier to play than ever before!

From the Homeschool Desk

May has been exceptionally fun in the educational fore.  The Renaissance festival at the Castle of Muskogee called to us and said, “Huzzah! You are studying the Renaissance.  Why not come and see a jousting tournament, real-live blacksmiths, magicians, Scottish dancers, and bagpipes?”  The weather was perfect, the beers were many, and the experience was unforgettable.

Additionally, I instituted Monday movie night (on the laptop, as long as we’ve had enough sun to power the batteries).  We have watched the following “educational” movies:  A Knight’s Tale, The Da Vinci Code, Aladdin, and The Physician.  We watch a family friendly movie first, and then the more adult films after the littles go to bed.  I’m on the hunt for movies about Shakespeare, Galileo, and early Spanish explorers.

As part of Morning Time, I read aloud Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid and then we went to see the ballet.  Surprisingly, it was the Disney version, so the boys were utterly confused by the Sebastion and Scuttle characters.  But the sea witch’s performance was phenomenal!  The ballet used music from the Disney movie, some classical pieces, and some modern hip-hop with lots of bass.  It changed my perception of what ballet really is.

Books of the Month

Julius: Genius by Leopoldo Gout, Falcon in the Glass by Susan Fletcher, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Book 1: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood, as well as finishing his third round of the Harry Potter series.

Mason: All the usual picture books.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Lots of Suess and Sendak.

Aaron: I’ll just look at the 14 tabs he has open on the computer.  Looks like Scientific papers and journals about microaeration, HHO generator plans and schematics, cell biocathodes, Orion BMS operational guides, and, this one is fun: “Anaerobic Digestion and Electromethanogenic Microbial Electrolysis Cell Integrated System.” He also picked up Genius by Leopoldo Gout and finished it in 2 days.  Nothing too heavy or serious, you see.

Me: I’m trying desperately to get through the book Julius recommended to me.  The Apothecary by Maile Meloy.  I get in about 2 pages before I fall asleep.  It’s a great book, but not great enough to fight my exhaustion at the end of each day.

Next month we’ll be busy with digging out our cooling tubes in preparation for what appears to be a very hot summer.  If only there were a DC air conditioner that could handle the dump load from our solar array…  I’ll open a tab for hubby right now.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms who are reading this!  And happy homesteading!