There’s nothing quite like sinking your toes into cob for the first time in the summer (or the first time in your life!).

There’s something about cob that draws people to it like insects to glowing lamp lights.  We hover around it, watch it with amazement, and can’t help ourselves but to dive right in.

Maybe it’s the rhythmic dancing that occurs on its surface, feet drumming with the pulse of Earth.

Maybe it’s the sheer simplicity of the whole process: soak clay, mix with sand, stomp.

Or maybe at our core we all just like to get a little uninhibited and muddy.

Whatever it is, there’s no denying that making cob is one of life’s simple pleasures and is also an immensely useful skill to learn.

One little girl saw the initial mixing of the cob and exclaimed many times over:

“I DO NOT like mud. This is awful. I will never touch mud. I do not go near mud. I HATE mud.  Mud is disgusting!”

I looked at her and smiled, knowing that she too would soon succumb to the glowing light that is cob.

It only took a minute.

We had to leave a little early because Baby LF has a very precise rhythm to her days (usually) and we needed to go start our bedtime routine, but this cob helped set the foundation for a garden wall/bench that will be part of Maggie’s Farm’s newest plot of land.

If you’re interested in natural building, consider joining the Facebook group Natural Building NEO for more information about natural building and projects going on in our area.

Also see some of my previous posts about Natural Building:

Adventures in Natural Building: Strawbale Studio (lots of photos of lovely natural buildings)

Experimental Earthen Painting (you can paint non-toxic and naturally, too!)

Straw Bale House in the City (a lovely house that you’d never know was made of straw bales in a wealthy neighborhood)

Permaculture Design Course Completion (my first time making cob)

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