READERS QUESTIONS ANSWERED

My day almost always begins with a cup of tea and a peek at the internet for email and a weather report. Today I found two comments on yesterday's blog posting, both with questions, and decided to answer them while I wait for the sun to warm things up a bit (like get above freezing!).

From Donna:
I have never been quite sure where exactly the fire is. Is it inside the oven and then you bake after it's burned itself out? Or is it underneath the oven and you have to keep it going while you bake?

Answer:
It is difficult to picture a clay oven, especially in the building stages, if you haven't seen one before, isn't it? Yes, the fire burns inside the oven (in the void created when we remove the sand) for 3-4 hours. When the oven is sufficiently heated, the fire is allowed to burn out, the ashes are removed, the door is placed in the opening, and the oven "soaks" - not in water, but in heat - for 30 minutes so hot spots cool and cool spots warm. By the time the food goes into the oven, the floor and the clay shell will be evenly heated.

From Strawboss:
The manure will also make the clay very adhesive and workable. Mix it the day before and let it sit just like you did before, you'll love it. Are you going to put some sort of "roof" over your oven? I didn't and was sorry but was moving anyway.

Answer:
We aren't going to build a roof. When we began experimenting with our mud, we made a very small mud dome, quite compacted, about 3 inches thick. When it was completely dry, it was the texture of a rock - solid and HARD. We put it on the ground and ran a hose over it for a couple minutes, attempting to mimic a monsoon rain. The clay dome absorbed absolutely ZERO moisture. Not a scientific test, I know - but we were impressed.

Have you seen old abode ruins in the southwest, on state or federal lands, that are being protected from further erosion? A "sacrifice" layer of mud, clay, or abode is applied to the top of the adobe ruin annually, with the intention that the newly applied mud will be sacrificed to erosion, protecting the ancient adobe.

That is our intention with the "insulation" layer - it will not only insulate the oven to help retain heat, but can also be sacrificed to the monsoons, easily replaced as needed. That's our plan; we'll see how it works in "real life".

Strawboss, I have searched your blog for a way to contact you directly. If you would like to get in touch, my email address is linked to our profile. Click on "View My Complete Profile" in the left hand column, then on "Email". Thanks for your input so far!

At 8:30 am, it is sunny, COLD and the winds are still very gusty. We feel we can begin on the oven as late in the day as noon and have time to complete it before nightfall. I wonder what the weather has in store for us today?

OVEN BUILDING - DAY SIX (OR 5 AND 1/2?)

Though the wind was calm when we awoke this morning, a high wind warning was posted and we didn't want to take any chances that our careful work would be undone. Rather than begin on the oven, we each worked on an experiment:













Our first step in oven building is to create a large sand dome, a hemisphere 16 inches high and 27 inches in diameter. The clay will be molded around the sand dome; when the clay dries and we remove the sand, we will have a domed void inside the clay oven. Odel's project was to determine the sand-to-water ratio for our sand form. Too much water and the sand will slump; too little water and the sand will collapse.

The result? He worked out the correct ratio, and built a little model which we visited from time to time throughout the day to see how quickly the sand dried. We're ready to tackle the real thing!



The oven will be heated with fire. It occured to us that many cultures use dried animal dung as fuel, and Rosanna has an unlimited supply here on the ranch! Rosanna's project was to see whether dried horse manure would really burn, and whether it could make a contribution to heating the oven.

This is a fire of both wood and manure. The manure burned well, but burned quickly, and we aren't sure whether it burned hot enough to be much help. The jury is still out on that one.















The manure had another potential contribution to make, though, and I worked on that. When the clay oven is completely dry, we intend to add a layer of "insulation" that will help both to retain heat and to protect the clay during the summer monsoons. The insulation is a mixture of clay and a dry, lightweight material. We used clay mixed with sawdust for the insulation below the oven floor, but I wanted to experiment with something potentially lighter.

A visit to the horse corral and I was all set. The clay/manure mixture was a great success. Once I had it mixed, Rosanna and I slapped some on the vertical side of our concrete block foundation to see whether it would stick and how long it would take to dry, and we are pleased with the preliminary results: light, stiff, and airy, excellent insulation.

By the time we were done with our experiments, the wind was starting to gust and we were glad we hadn't let our impatience to built the oven get the best of us. We're hoping tomorrow's weather will be calmer.

OVEN BUILDING - DAY FIVE

This has turned out to be quite a project. We have been here for a week now and have only moved our Jeep once - every other day we have been conpletely focused on our oven.

This morning we laid the firebrick on the top of the foundation, forming the floor and hearth of the oven. We are thrilled with the results - flat and level in all directions; the joints between the bricks are almost unnoticeable. We could hardly tear ourselves away - we are all so amazed!

I said yesterday that today would be MUD day, and it was. Once the bricks were in place, we turned our efforts to the huge pile of clay we had collected. One 5-gallon bucket load at a time, we mixed the clay with water in a wheelbarrow, stirring and squishing it with our hands to find and remove all the lumps and rocks.


Here is my cousin, "Dances in Mud". After we have finished 13 wheelbarrow loads (we made one extra "just in case"), Rosanna put on her boots to stomp all the separate batches into one big blob of clay. Well, her 100 pounds were no match for the stickiness of our clay - Odel and I had to pull her out, one leg at a time!

Finally, here is our worksite at the end of Day 5. The mud is completed and securely wrapped in the silver tarp in the foreground. The hearth and foundation are covered with a vinyl tablecloth. There were kitty pawprints all over the top sand layer of the foundation this morning; between animals and the breeze that started today, we didn't want to take any chances.

We are now READY TO BUILD. Stiff winds are forecast for tomorrow, however, so we may need to wait for an improvement in the weather... I feel like NASA trying to get the shuttle off the ground! Stay tuned.