1. oven sand core
2. the "cob dance"
3. the thermal layer
4. making insulation
5. the insulation layer
6. the creative layer
July 2001 – Building "Toasty" our wood-fired oven
(excerpted from our newsletter, week 14, 2001) (pictures below)
No Loafing Around: A great crew gathered this past weekend, and now there’s
a fabulous wood-fired bread oven on the farm, made by many hands out of natural
materials. It’s almost done -- it just needs a little time to dry out and
cure, and then get ready for some great breads and pizza!
How will it work? You build a fire in the oven, to heat it up. Then you scoop
the fire out and put your bread inside, and close the door. The oven’s
innermost layer holds the heat and humidity at the perfect levels for baking
(and there’s a smoky twang too!).
When the crew arrived Saturday morning, they found a pedestal for the oven all
ready, built out of "urbanite" (concrete debris) by our guide Charles
and Tom’s nephews from Germany. Charles had also formed an arched door
and a baking floor out of brick. The crew molded the oven’s inside space
out of sand; then they mixed natural clay and sand to form the inside thermal
shell of the oven, and packed it over the sand mold; then they took handfuls
of rice straw, soaked them in clay slurry, and covered the inside shell with
a thick insulating layer. Then, on the next day, the crew used "peanut
butter" (an adobe composed of clay, sand, and aged manure from Peanut,
the farm pony) to top the straw layer with a protective shell, and added a decorative
lizardy creature to be the oven’s happy guardian.
If you were there, then you remember digging sand out of the old paddock, and
clay out of the hillside, and pushing the cart to fetch manure and straw. And
measuring out shovelfuls onto an old tarp, and adding water, and people rushing
in to dance this mess around. Then everyone scooping up handfuls, and squishing
it among their fingers, and loving the feel of it. And people and kids scooping
the mix into buckets, and scooping it out again onto the oven’s sides and
top, and gently patting it into place, and running their hands to make it as
smooth as Buddha’s belly. And people laughing and talking, kids running
here and there, dogs barking, and the joyful fulfillment of the work of hands.
(Click on each thumbnail below for full picture!)
|
1. oven sand core |
2. the "cob dance" |
3. the thermal layer |
|
4. making insulation |
5. the insulation layer |
6. the creative layer |
"Toasty" in action
(Click on each thumbnail below for full picture!)
 fire in the belly! |
 making pizza |
 fresh from the oven |