What did we learn during the week of July 9th?

1. Friends are wonderful.  We were joined this week not only by the lovely and energetic former intern from Dublin, Leila, but also by Jo and Paddy's friends from the UK, Mark and Jo.  With this new mix of folks, stimulating conversation, laughter, and work progress abounded, as did confusion over which Jo(e) one meant when speaking. Epithets such as "Man Joe" and "New Jo" were born and made us giggle.

2. Light straw clay is remarkable.  Our main task this week was filling the timber wall forms in the workshop with this amazingly simple material to make beautiful, insulating walls. The process was fun and a nice change of pace from cobbing.  We began by separating the strands of straw in a single bale on a raised mixing station made of scaffolding and tarps.  Then, over the straw, we poured two small buckets of clay slip, which was 2/3 clay from our site and 1/3 pure grey clay from Paul's potter friend Pat, mixed with an industrial mixer not unlike a giant eggbeater.  Next, we went to work tossing the straw with the clay slip so that each strand got a nice coating.  It felt like tossing a giant dish of pasta with a creamy, muddy sauce.  Yum!  To make the light straw clay walls, we began by building up, from the floor of the workshop, about 3-4 inches of cob to make a nice strong base.  Then, we worked away, stuffing and tamping in the light straw clay mix.  We worked in about one foot sections, held in by plywood that we then unscrewed and raised up as the wall material dried. It was miraculous to see how solid these two seemingly wimpy materials became when brought together with a little bit of elbow grease and effort.

3. Cob and wood go well together.  While half of us worked on the light straw walls in the workshop, the other half continued to work inside the house, inching up the formed and free-form cob walls and fitting a few lovely lintels above two of the kitchen and one of the bedroom windows.  The effect of wood and cob together is gorgeous, warm, and fuzzy.

4. Dialect is the spice of language.  Our new friend Mark gave us some new words and expressions for our speech arsenals...
    --lush (adj.): exceedingly delicious, pleasing, or delightful (e.g. craft beer or dark chocolate with sea salt)
    --get on (imperative verb): 1. do it; go for it  2. you're kidding!
    --ace (adj.): see lush

5. Traditional music night at Rohan's is entertaining (and dangerous).  Many of us were brought to tears by the sweet sounds of traditional Irish ballads and reels that came sweeping into the night at Rohan's on Wednesday. We're blaming the clock behind the bar, (which we later came to realize is perpetually stuck at 12:30) for staying out until 3:00 in the morning.  However, we have no one but ourselves (and one too many pints of Guin-dog) to blame for the wretched way we felt onsite the next morning.

Lessons learned.  Peace, love, and mud!