Found the perfect hangover cure at last!

After a cracking family party Friday night and feeling a tad battered and bruised, I arrived at Rais late morning on Saturday, armed with a second bale of sawdust from the country store in Handcross and the determination to get Cassius' insulation layer on before I left - hangover or not, it was the goal for the weekend and so I had to just get on with it, and get on with it we did. Despite the late start we worked tirelessly til 930pm, by which point it was getting dark but we had successfully mixed and made 300 clay/sawdust bricks!

A lovely stir-fry, followed by some fireside relaxation, washed down with a few glasses of red and we were tucked up in bed by 1130pm; Me in my hammock and Flee and Tracey tenting it on Fox ridge as usual. Happy, but seriously knackered.

half way through adding the insulation layer

Sunday 
Not a bad night's sleep, but thoughts of the build kept waking me up... we had a figure of at least 500 bricks in mind for completing the insulation layer and I was concerned we would run out of time with just the two of us at it, as Flee was heading off to work first thing. I needn't have worried.... Tracey and I worked like troopers all morning, stopping only to refuel on pain-au-chocolat and more tea. By lunchtime we had almost 400 bricks and we were just considering the plan for the afternoon when the cavalry arrived and life got a little easier. Ant made light work of filing down Cassius' entrance and chimney to improve the smoke egress and Tracey encouraged me to get started on actually laying the bricks while she continued mixing and moulding.
I believe I'm only alive this evening because I took her advice; had we continued to make 500 bricks together before getting started on the laying, she would most definitely be up for murder right now.... turns out we only needed 350 bricks to cover Cassius in a double layer of insulation material! oops.

Hairline cracks repaired with fire cement

It was hot, hard, achy work, laying the bricks in such a cramped space, and I managed to add to my mounting injuries by stabbing my backside on the hurdle fencing, ripping a hole in my trousers at the same time - but I have to say it was all worth it, Cassius looks awesome, and I cannot wait until we finish. Only one final clay layer to go and we can relax.
We have given ourselves next weekend off to spend with the lovely Sarah and my godson Charlie. This will also give the insulation layer time to dry more naturally, so it's going to be a good two weeks at least before Cassius' "christening" and probably a good few more before my nails, muscles, and joints recover. I will certainly be pleased to get rid of all the buckets, trugs and plastic sand bags floating about - The Yardarm was starting to look like a seriously bad building site at times. In preparation for our toddler visitor next weekend, we did have a bit of a clean up, sorted out the wood pile, put a some things away and used up all the remaining bricks and slip on levelling the work surface which looks so much better.

Gall mites on the Alder

Whilst wandering back and forth putting bedding and such away, I spotted some deformities on the leaves of a few of our Alder trees. After some googling, I have discovered they are caused by gall mites, specifically the Aceria nalepai species. The bobbles or "galls" are filled with russet hairs which the mites live in, and these hairs have, in many cases, projected through to the underside of the leaf to form triangular, pale yellow patches.  Thankfully these mites rarely cause stress or injury to an affected tree, so the Alders are simply playing host to the little buggers, who will in turn feed other creatures higher up the food chain.
Another find today was this gorgeous white wildflower. Growing in the south west camping corner between mine and Tracey's beds.
A common-spotted orchid, which apparently likes wet meadows and damp woodland. Very pleased to have it at Rais, particularly as the area we found it in was covered in nothing but Rhododendrons 2 years ago.

Common-Spotted Orchid

sawdust and sawn nails

clay and sawdust mix

Finally feel like we broke the back of the prep this weekend. Can almost see the light at the end of the clay tunnel.
With only 41 days to go til our trip to Africa, Tracey and I wanted to get everything ready to lay the second layer next weekend. The all-important insulation layer. With an oven the size of Cassius, we need to be sure he will stay hot for many hours or we will be forever feeding him with logs.

Cassius' entrance drying out

So we spent today mixing up the clay slip and sawdust into batches ready for brick-making. Did quite well, and managed to deplete half a bale of sawdust and 3 trugs of slip. to create enough mix to make 300 or so bricks. Giving ourselves a pretty good head start for next weekend. Cassius has been drying out nicely all the while and with a couple of layers of slip wash is also now void of cracks which is promising.
We have some more filing to do around the chimney/doorway as the smoke level is still a little high, but he's looking in pretty good shape.
We, however, are not! Both Tracey and I have no nails left, aching joints and severely clay-logged skin and clothes.

making trugs of clay slip

Sausage count hits double figures...

Still a long way to go, but at least the sausage counter is nearly where it needs to be. We think we need 16 eventually and we now have 13 thanks to Tracey's endless puddling.

making a trial batch of insulating bricks

After a trial run at making insulating bricks (clay slip and sawdust), we have a much better idea of the numbers required for the next 10cm layer;

1. Two jugs of slip to eight jugs of sawdust makes 7 "bricks" 
2. With the planned width we need approximately 250 bricks to cover it once (5cms deep)
3. Then to cover again will take another 280 bricks as by then it will be almost 120cms wide!
4. One trug of slip we now know makes roughly 12 mixes (84 bricks)
5. So we need five and a half trugs of slip to make a decent insulating layer.

It might not be such great news for our hands, but it certainly makes me feel a lot more comfortable with the amount of clay we will have available. Such a thick insulating layer also means we only need a single outer layer of clay (290 bricks).
Since we plan on starting with 13 sausages, we need to get at least 35 bricks out of each sausage. Sounds reasonable. Any spare can then be used for repairing cracks and moulding the oven into the work surface and rest of the kitchen.

Of course whilst Cassius is coming to life, so is the rest of Rais, and more worryingly... the bracken - it's rampant. The areas we pulled last year have thankfully only come back at probably 50% the volume they were before, so it's important we keep on top of it, else all that hard work will have been for nothing. Simon kindly spent the best part of a day hand-pulling throughout the way-leave to get rid of it before it sets spores and we are back to square one. A back-breaking job, but very rewarding, as large areas can be covered relatively quickly.

I did another one just for you Tracey!

Weekend 3 : Weary and worried

Cassius has been drying out all week, aided by small fires every night in the form of disposable BBQs. Easy to get going and easy to pull in and out when it looks like the fire is being starved of oxygen.
The drier Cassius got, the easier it was to keep the fire going. At times it was too hot to hold a hand on the top of the clay and so we know it will work well as an oven once it's all done. Worryingly though, there was smoke also escaping from cracks all the way round as the last lower 6 inches dried out. We have since filled them with fire cement and also raised the opening an inch or so to meet the level of the smoke ceiling in the oven. We don't want to start on the next layer (the flammable layer!) until we are 100% certain no more cracks will form and the existing crack repairs are solid.
This expected setback didn't stop us of course and we spent the weekend building the entrance way and continuing with the sausage-making in preparation for the third layer when we get there.
We are on schedule at the minute with 7 sausages ready, 7 buckets waiting to be puddled and a trug full of slip, We still need 2 more buckets of clay, 9 sausages and another trug of slip but the end of the prep is in sight and it should get easier from here on in.... although having said that we have done some calculations to work out roughly how many bricks we need for each of the next stages and it's going to take a while! We think 200 bricks of insulating material and 550 bricks for the final clay layer. We don't yet know how many bricks per sausage so it's all still a bit of a guess... but the oven is currently 106cms in diameter, if all goes to plan with the rest of the build, Cassius will be 140cms wide when finished, which is quite large!
The brick entrance arch/tunnel wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be, but thankfully I was alone during the build and so no-one had to suffer my foul-mouthed-headless-chicken impression. It took about an hour, an entire sausage, a terracotta flower pot and half a bag of sand (as well as the log template of course) to complete. The sheer size of it has actually made the oven dome itself look tiny all of sudden, but I know it will swing back the other way when the final layers are on. Now starts the drying out process yet again and with fingers crossed I am off to Wales for a couple of days, so we shall see how successful it's been when I get back and remove the log template currently holding it up.

How to tackle the woodland flying, biting insects

Darter

I suffer horrendously with insect bites, always have done, so before any trip to the jungle, I typically spend some time reading up on the latest mosquito research to see if anything new has come to light which might help me. Given that more than a million people are killed from mosquito bites every year, there's usually quite a lot of new stuff to read.
Last year I watched an experiment on the internet that involved a number of volunteers and some sweaty socks - the experiment proved that certain people are massively more attractive to mosquitoes than others and that it was something to do with the pheromones they give off when they sweat. A chemical spray is in trial at the moment to disguise or neutralise these pheromones making people "invisible" to biting insects. But it's a long way from hitting our high streets.  This year I've learnt that it's not just pheromones, but that they feed on the bacteria that is present on your skin and in your sweat. Over time, bacteria multiplies of course which is why mossies are particularly fond of stale sweat; the stuff that bacteria has had a chance to work on. Guess I'm going to need to change the socks more often at the wood!

my first Dragonfly in flight! very frustrating shoot

I've also learnt that it's best to avoid bananas, because something about how they are metabolised seems to attract mosquitoes too.

My itchy, frustrated side wants to squash every mosquito on sight, but my Druidic side is keen to encourage natural predators at the wood to get the problem under control. This means installing plenty of bat boxes and ensuring dragonflies (who consume almost as many mossies, midges and gnats as bats do) have a perfect place to live. This is of course under way with the construction of the dam to create a sunny pond, but if I was a dragonfly, what would I be looking for as the perfect environment to breed? Apparently the list looks a bit like this;

1. Pond in full sun no less than 2 feet deep
2. Rotting logs at the edge of the water to lay their eggs in
3. Marginal plants for the larvae to crawl up when they emerge from the water
4. Some large rocks in full sun for them to bask on and dry out their new wings

I don't think that's too much to ask and I think the pond we have in mind will easily meet these requirements.  It seems crazy to put in water when we know that's what attracts mossies, but I would rather they were over by the pond instead of piercing my skin at the Yardarm.

In terms of plant life there don't appear to be too many that are native to this country that would help around the Yardarm. But given that a child dies from malaria every 30 seconds, there will thankfully always be more research going on.

Click here if you'd like to give a mosquito net to the people of Zambia.

Weekend 2 : The birth of the new Cassius Clay

tealights to start drying out the inside

Saturday
First job on the list was to remove the sand. Unfortunately my arm only reached halfway back into the oven, so after filling 8 bags with ballast I had to wait for the mighty Flee to turn up with his super long arms.
Of course the bags of ballast all then had to be sieved again to remove the stones as we needed the sand for the next set of sausages. The fire pit lid once again became the perfect sieve.
After Flee and Tracey left about 5pm, I lit some tea lights inside the oven to help start the drying process now that the sand was out and no longer holding in the moisture. A slight crack had appeared on the inside above the door opening, but nothing serious. The front had sunken in on itself slightly - like it had been leant on, so I put the log back in to hold it up which of course starved the candles of oxygen. There was nothing to do except wait until morning.
Tracey returned at 11:30pm and found me fast asleep by the fire! the crack had got a fair bit bigger, so we polished off a few glasses of the red stuff and retired to bed - me in my hammock in its' new location and Tracey on a camp-bed in front of the fire. Nothing to do in the dark but sleep.

Sunday
I slept brilliantly and woke at 9am to the sun shining in my face. Tracey didn't sleep quite so well fireside as the sun hits there much earlier and was pretty hot from the start.
We started by making a repair to the crack in the front and agreed to let it dry for 4 hours with the log in situ and the sun on it before attempting to light a proper fire in it for the first time. It didn't appear to be drying out much at all.

frying pan coal fire

Ant arrived mid-morning to join our little band of clay-makers, and we spent the day, puddling, pounding, digging and sculpting. I added more of a worktop around the oven as I will need something to stand on to build it as the thing grows in size with more layers. I also clad the hurdle wall behind it with clay because that will actually form part of the oven too when we get to the final layer.
At 2pm we lit a small fire inside the oven on a cast iron frying pan so we could slide it in and out easily and kept it topped up with wood and coal until we left soon after 5pm - shattered. Before leaving though we did name the oven "Cassius". He will hopefully survive the night and dry out some more before out next visit.

As it stands at the end of weekend 2, we have;

• 4 sausages ready to build with
• 3 buckets of clay ready to puddle into sausages
• 1 trug of slip ready to make the insulation layer (our trial of 1 jug of slip to 4 jugs of sawdust seemed to be workable)

We think we need 16 sausages in total at least to finish, so next weekend we hope to complete another 6 sausages as well as get the chimney and entrance built. With any luck the oven will have fully dried out by then and so it shouldn't be too difficult, (famous last words!).