Last post I told of how I had to face a pretty cold day and that some windows are yet to be placed, with only plastic covering the spaces for the moment, which means poor insulation.
I would probably be in the still situation i hadn't seen a video of a man living in the woods of Siberia, where temperatures can drop as low as -70° C, recommended by my friend @sempervirens.
His daily routine consisted mainly in gathering firewood as he needs to keep the fire going at all times. The worst part was that he had poor insulation as instead of windows, he had cellophane.
Obviously, I could somewhat relate to the situation as my daily routine also involves looking for firewood and keeping the house warm, though not as extreme as our guy in Siberia. But what made me react the most was that I had every possibility to improve my insulation and wasn't doing it because of prioritizing other things, when this could be drastically reducing my need for firewood.
This is how the places that still lack windows are in my house. I've been wanting to change this for a while but there is always so much to do that i kept pushing it away.
I had begun weaving the structure that would hold the cob in place with willow some time ago, but left it there due to cold weather
So today I got up early and made insulation my priority. To be honest, i didn't even worry about making a proper cob mix... This is survival dammit!! Hahaha, it's just that I don't do as much as cob work as I should because I'm always thinking I should "do it right", which is hard for me because people who use the "correct" formulas often have a lot more resources and buy a lot of straw, as well as tools to make short work of processing the materials.
This leads me to think that sometimes permaculture is portrayed as something for the elites who have the wallet to make it happen. They show these beautiful houses and gardens, making it look super easy, because obviously they had a lot of money to do it. But for us common folk, we gotta look around and see what's available and forget about the social media standards of how things should look and be done. Well, I don't mean to sound bitter, they're stuff is great, but I think there's a need for a truly organic way of building that can be practiced by anyone, regardless of social and economic condition. I find that this knowledge can be found thoroughly in primitive technology and bushcraft videos.
The important thing was that I managed to make a mix despite the cold and having little straw to use. I actually mixed in the flexible tips of willow branches in the mud to give it more structure. It was, as usual, so much fun and a great therapy to do this.
I also took the chance to use some of the plastic garbage people like throwing in the forest... At least it feels good to transmute some of societies shit and turn it into something useful.
It actually looks pretty nice 🙂
You can feel how things are warmer now as that particular space allowed a lot of cold air to flow into the house. Now all that's left are these...
It's a lot, but today I got some nice confidence on what I can do. I had never placed a window alone, they were all done when choli was around and since she left I hadn't been able to give myself the courage to do one alone, but it's totally possible which is great :D
Thanks for stopping by 🙏