FW: Re: [Cob] east coast and samples

[Amanda Peck]

This may have gotten sent just to me.  Hope the pictures show up.
Jill:
     I start the birdhouse with a piece of plywood or  any scrap of free 
wood.
I drill 7 holes in the plywood around a 5 inch circle. I  take an 8 inch
piece of bamboo from a grove of invasive bamboo near my  house and split it 
into
strips that I can pound into the 7 holes. You then have  7 bamboo dowels
projecting up from a base. This is provided as the starting  point for the 
class
along with lots of invasive non-native English Ivy or  honeysuckle or any 
vine
that can be bent to weave in and out around the dowels.
     I also provide lots of earth plaster.  Traditional earth plaster is cow
or horse dung mixed with clay, but parents feel  a little odd about having
their kids play with dung so I substitute shredded  government documents.
something we have a lot of lately. The less earth plaster  you use the 
better. Some
kids and parents are able to weave wattle so tight that  you probably do not
have to use any daub. I usually pull the vine apart to form  the opening and
sometimes I have rings of bamboo or plastic to limit the size of  the 
opening.
That is very important because if the opening is too large big  birds will 
attack
the mother and babies in the nest.
Ed




This is a children's  playhouse made of cob. I do not seem to be able to
delete this. The  pictures you want are below.







This is from a Mali  village class that I conducted with 60 kids and 20
projects. It is  very similar to the birdhouse class the difference being 
that you
need to make the dimensions of the birdhouse fit a particular  species of
bird.