[Cob] Wood-Fired Cob Oven Building workshop with Paul Swenson at Fairview Gardens, Goleta, CA May 24-25

[Quail Springs Permaculture]

Wood-Fired Cob Oven Building Workshop

May 24-25, 2014
Saturday and Sunday, 9am – 5pm

Hosted and Sponsored by Fairview Gardens, Sub-Urban Homesteading Series, in Goleta, CA (just north of Santa Barbara, CA)
Co-sponsored by Quail Springs Permaculture

Do you love real wood-fired pizza?  What could be better than having your friends over for a pizza party around an oven you built yourself at very little cost with earthen materials?

Join us for an intensive, two-day, hands-on, wood-fired cob oven building workshop where you will dive right into building an oven! You will learn how to make cob – an versatile earthen building material comprised of clay, sand, and straw. You will learn how to sculpt and plaster the oven itself. We will go over the steps of building the foundation, considerations for siting, design, and accessing materials.

We will explore the ins and outs of baking in a cob oven. Cob baking ovens provide a great way to bake and cook a wide variety of foods using the residual heat of the fire held within the earthen walls of the oven. Pizza, bread, a pot of beans, casserole, cookies, granola – so much can be done.

Last, but certainly not least, on Sunday afternoon, we will have a wood-fired pizza feast! (We will use a previously constructed oven.)

You will come away from this weekend with the basic skills to step out into your own cob oven building journey. Before you know it, you’ll be rallying your friends and family to do the cob dance with you, with many pizza parties and assorted baked goodies to come, all out of your own cob oven!
 
Paul Swenson is a founding team member with Quail Springs Permaculture where he has helped develop the site, community and its offerings for over eight years. He discovered the beauty, function, and joy of natural building in 2005 while building the foundation and wall system of a cob house at Quail Springs, with the guidance of Betty Seaman of Spirit Pine Sanctuary. He has intensively studied strawbale construction, earthen ovens, earthen floors, and earthen plasters with Justin Kirmse. He has been building and baking with earthen materials ever since. Paul’s teaching style is empowering and puts people at ease, with an emphasis on self-discovery, enjoyment, creating community. Watch out, his enthusiasm for wood-fired baking is catching!

Hands-on workshop limited to 10 participants.  Early registration advised!

Early bird cost is $135, by May 1, 2014.  $155 thereafter.

Visit for more info and to register:  http://www.fairviewgardens.org/2014/01/20/wood-fired-cob-oven-building-workshop-may-24-25/