Cob a cob code mission for all cobbers day

[Otherfish at aol.com]

greetings fellow cobbers - I envision you all around the night fire - the dark
night sky free of city lights - so many stars !  - I'm with you in spirit.

the mission
to me - in my limited way of thinking - the most important thing that we can
do for cob is to SET IT FREE
never loose sight of the fact that the world is a mad place - you see it how
you see it & I see it how I see it and we and everbody else in the world acts
from this personalcentric motivation. - cob is not exempt from this maddness
as lovers of this mud and what it can give - we MUST do all we can to get it
into the world - our world - the world we live in now - not some idealized
world as we might like it to be
each of us has our gifts - what we do best - that where we find peace - DO
THIS - do it with cob - do it as a gift - without bounds - without placing any
requirement upon the receiver
build -learn & teach
for me this takes the specific form of making a building code for cob - so
that anybody who wants to can walk into their local building department and
get a permit for a cob safe building  - no hassle - no questions - pay your
bucks & out the door - when that becomes possible cob is going to take off
like a rocket - until then we're just pissing in the wind - don't get me wrong
- pissing in the wind can be fun & sure feels good if thats what you really
need to do -  but its just that the wind of the prevalent culture/economy is a
whole lot bigger than our personal good feeling cob pee - 
one of the biggest stumbling blocks that I see for cob is that we don't really
know its structural limits - this stuff NEEDS to be tested - so that we can
know (not just pretend/hope) what it is capable of - there are physical
realities to everything - we can push the limits of cob or build
conservatively - but until we really know - its all just guess work &
supposition - sooner or later someone is going to push the limits a bit too
far & someone wil be hurt, injured or worse- I personally don't want that to
happen - it will be a setback cob does'nt need !  we can build conservatively
to avoid this possibility - but why do that if we don't need to - let's find
cob's limits on a realistic level - based on what cob's actual properties are
- and built to those limits - then we can build with confidence - knowing that
our buildings are not going to come down & kill sombody when an earthquake
does its thing -  
this is possible - it just need the efforts of a dedicated group - like this
group -
make this happen !!!!!
just imagine the possibility
little houses on the  hillside - little houses made of sticky cob - little
houses - little houses - & they all look just so fine - there's a round one ,
and a short one, and a tall one, and a wavey one - little houses made of
sticky cob & they all look just so fine

be fine

cob on
john fordice 
otherfish at aol.com