Biochar plaster

I fell in love with earthen plasters during my cob course. It is nice to have a building material that you can wash out on the ground right next to your garden. It is nice to know what is in your home is not toxic to anyone, and the production of it is not creating any toxins elsewhere in the world.

It is nice to be able to source materials locally, to dig up my materials from the ground. This is much more affordable as well.

I have worked with clay based plasters and lime based plasters, and recently was introduced to biochar plaster. At the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in TN, Albert is the biochar man. I have to admit a little skepticism when first introduced to the concept of biochar, but there are so many people who report amazing results that I am sold. 

Recently the permaculture apprentices at the Ecovillage Training Center applied some clay based biochar plaster in The Prancing Poet (event space).  Albert mentioned that the biochar blocks electromagnetic radiation such as those that come from computers, microwaves etc. I was curious so I looked around and found a very interesting article on biochar plaster. 

Biochar as Building Material for Optimal Indoor Climate

by Hans-Peter Schmidt

The article mentions that biochar plaster is being used to restore old wine cellars. It regulates humidity for the wine, helps stabilize the temperature, and filters the air. 

I had yet to complete a final plaster coat on the cob bench around our woodburning stove, so I decided to do my own experiment.

I chose to use a 50/50 lime and masonry sand mix. with at least 20% biochar. The biochar was beautiful when wet, bluish-black. As lime plaster does, the biochar mix still smoothed into a nice finish after burnishing, looking almost like stone. 

I did have to baby the plaster a bit because humidity was low in the cold air, and I wanted to keep the cob at an ideal temperature for lime plaster curing so that I did not get large cracks (the last lime plaster I did was in ideal humidity and temperature and did not require water spritzing regularly as this mix did).

The plaster turned out great. I head to leave and come back to the Ecovillage Training Center, so I asked my husband to continue to spritz it for a week and keep an eye on it, then slowly decrease frequency of spritzing while it cured the our cold temperature with the stove running. I am very curious of the effect of the humidity regulating biochar on the lime plaster, but would need to try the plaster in different conditions to know that the change was related to the biochar in particular. 

I hear it is doing great and am looking forward to further biochar plaster on the walls. I will be keeping an eye on summer humidity in our home. I am looking forward to some changes in this!

Next time: More fibers, try a natural tint, do this plaster when it is warmer out!

Food Forest in Quad Cities is started! - one tree at a time

In January of this year, about 40 people from around the Quad Cities and the outlying areas gathered together at the Eastern Davenport Library to share a common vision. Food security and food and nature education were high on the list. The organizers had a vision of a public Food Forest where anyone could harvest naturally grown local food in a safe environment.

Food forests are perennial systems that consist of fruit and nut bearing trees, along with understory perennial and annual plants, such as blueberries and wild raspberries. When completed, the food forest would be free and open to the public, where all would be welcome to come learn about native plants and pick local pesticide-free food.

On Saturday, October 25th, about 100 volunteers and local government representatives took steps to make the vision a reality by planting the first 80 trees, including  pawpaw, persimmon, chestnut, and pecan. After an opening ceremony, Davenport City Arborist, Chris Johnson, demonstrated his method for planting trees. Volunteers planted, watered, mulched and added wire cages to protect the trees from rabbits this winter.

The land for the Food Forest is adjacent to an already established community park and gardens owned by the City of Davenport and will be developed under a no fee agreement between the City of Davenport and the Quad City Food Forest.

For more opportunities and pictures, visit the Quad City Food Forest Facebook Page 
 

The Farm Ecovillage

I first became interested in The Farm Community when I googled "ecovillage training". What I ran across was The Farm Ecovillage Training Center. I was nearby last year for my cob building course and stopped through to visit.

Last October on my brief visit I ran into Jason the Resourcerer.  I shared with him what we are working on at moonCat and my search for more ecofriendly transportation. Mostly this includes biodiesel with the Mercedes Benz 300D and the custom converted Mazda that Bud Wren had made an electric vehicle out of and was sitting in my garage waiting to be fixed up and back on the road again.

Jason said he could help me fix up the Mazda and get it going more efficiently and teach me even more about biofuels. Last April I apprenticed with him in biofuels and helped to support the permaculture apprentice program at the Ecovillage Training Center.

I really enjoyed all of the natural building and permaculture going on and felt there was a lot to learn from the community.  My home-schooled daughter Phoenix stayed with me for the last week and attended The Farm School. She loved it.

Largely on a journey of wanting community, but it not happening quite yet at moonCat, finding a way for Phoenix to thrive with other kids and a school that shares my vision of  what education should be, and an opportunity falling into my lap at the right moment . . . I found myself back at The Farm this September.  Helping at the Ecohostel, Ecovillage Training Center, and Farm School is teaching me many new things that I am excited to bring back to those interested back in Illinois.

Phoenix and I are now traveling back and forth each month between The Farm and moonCat, sharing knowledge, skills, love and much gratitude.  I am also really enjoying Nashville and the great natural building and farm/nature/music network there.

I will be sharing more on the blog about what I am learning and enjoying as we thrive among like minded individuals.

underwear from old Tshirts

Most of our clothing items I buy at the thrift store.  The best finds are usually in the city and we find comfortable, cute, and good quality clothes for just a few dollars. I know the clothing industry contributes a lot of pollution, and where do the discarded clothes go other than to the landfill (ok some really creative places sometimes, but not on the whole yet)? In my opinion it is just smart to get the items I can at the thrift store.

Some clothing items like good shoes, boots, and underwear I usually do not get at thrift stores. Boots, sometimes. Underwear, never.  Leggings, hard to find at a thrift store.  So I found that my last pair of leggings had worn out and Phoenix was outgrowing her underwear . . . aaaaaand I really did not want to go to the department store to buy these things, or to spend a lot of money online buying them from far away companies that specially made what I am looking for.  I thought that maybe instead of cutting up our tattered Tshirts into rags this time I could try to make our underwear from them. I also secretly hoped that I could cut up some of Jerome's college Tshirts and get him some nicer ones if I had a purpose to do so.

Underwear:

Tshirt jersey style material worked best. I made a pattern from an existing pair. This meant cutting at the seams and tracing onto the new material with chalk.  Eventually I traced the cut fabric pattern onto some cardboard form a cereal box and cut it out. The cardboard stays straight and cuts more quickly. I sewed elastic onto the top only and it worked well.

One pair I used non-stretch material for the front and stretch (Tshirt) material for the back. Phoenix thought this was so comfortable she would not let me put elastic on, and they stayed up well.  An overlock machine makes things go so quickly!

Leggings:

I have bought stretch material to experiment, but will soon be switching to bamboo fabric to be more suStainable. I watched a tutorial online that showed me how to cut the center seam, from one ankle, up and back down to the other ankle as one cut.  Then fold the fabric in half so the cut seams form the two edges and use as a simple and quick pattern.  I think I made my first pair with a perfect fit in thirty minutes. Each successive pair was much faster and I'm really looking forward to working with the bamboo.

Dresses:

I find for travel it helps to pack my seven-year-old dresses. This saves space and washes when I have one clothing item to pack instead of two (a top and a bottom).  Pants can be added or not and we're ok.  So recently I have been letting her pick scraps of fabric that she likes and sewing them onto some of her Tshirts to make dresses. She adores this and feels pride in helping create her own clothing, also, my travel packing is simplified.

Pictures and links to come soon!

Feeling blessed to be alive.

to work with sunrise behind me and purple clouds west

What a beginning to fall. I'm loving the change in weather. New tasks, new foods, new colors. Windy. I like the wind. Makes you feel alive when it flies in my face.

Oyster Mushrooms - second flush from store-bought box.

The mushrooms we tried at home worked pretty well. We started this box way back in August when Zoe and Ivy were visiting for the summer, but under non-ideal conditions and with traveling, we didn't get the first fruits until a month later. Not knowing exactly how or when to harvest, I think we cut the first few caps a little early. Then the rest of the fruit started to shrink so we ate it. But so far we've gotten 2 full flushes and a third, extra flush from more holes that I poked in the side that wasn't meant to be opened. Thanks Phoenix for keeping an eye on it for me in Tennessee.

Turkey for dinner!

When the ladies came back from Tennessee last time, I cooked up some turkey from the freezer. (Thanks Darrell). This bird was a good size! A breast and a thigh each went into the slow cooker and oven roaster. I tried the typical rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley in the roaster and new spicy Asian-style in the slow cooker with basil, ginger, garlic, onion, and cayenne. Both turned out great, but I especially liked the drippings from the new one!

Silver Maple (Acer saccharninum)

It's got a red stem, but it's not a sugar maple! The sinuses (indents) are deep and the lobes (points) are pretty pronounced. Silver maple! We welcome a million little seedlings as one of the great shade trees in our front yard has reached old age and has started dropping branches. The wood peckers are a sign that there's not much time left and luckily they're not too close to the house. Silver maples also turn yellow in fall while other maples (sugar, red) turn different hues of red. I guess the silvers are like the cottonwoods in that they like the bottom lands, feet a little wet, drop leaves early and turn yellow in fall.

Smiley Building getting a new (used) metal roof

The yellow barn, orange corn crib, or smiley building (so called because there's a smiley drawn on the side) had half metal and half old, rotting shake roof when we came to moonCat. Earlier this year and last year, we patched the Wick building roof that had fiberglass pieces blowing off.  I acquired a bunch of used metal siding from a co-worker a couple years back and it has worked great so far. Krystal, Darrell and I all pitched in for a little roof repair this fall. Here we're half done, but Krystal finished the last 3 or so sheets by herself! Also to our benefit, the existing screw holes lined up well with boards underneath this time, even if some of the old boards did need to be replaced.

While hauling metal around the farm, I stopped to say hi and welcome to this monarch. Not so much loving the thistle, but that's a worry for another day when the butterflies play.

Monarch  (Danaus plexippus) on Thistle - probably Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)

And who should we find when re-doing the roof?! A gray tree frog. Funny story about them. They have two color phases - gray as seen here and green. Sort of like a redneck chameleon. Story: so we heard a raccoon on the roof of the house when we first moved in. Several nights they screeched right outside our window. But we never heard anything on the roof and never saw anything when we went out to investigate. But we did find tree frogs! Turns out they screech like raccoons, or so we think. Ever since we've enjoyed watching them catch bugs on the kitchen window and chill in the gutters and rain barrel. Ask Phoenix some time how she gives them water slide rides.

Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor)

And no, I don't know the Latin for everything off the top of my head :) It's looked up for my education and included here for your pleasure! Cheers and happy fall.

Monmoth Food Forest Tour

This posting is mostly to keep my own notes, but why not share what I learned on a tour of a Food Forest? Enjoy and ask questions!

Gary Fernald started planting trees near Monmoth, IL in 1967. He was inspired by Pecans and they've become his expertise. He found there was a need to establish or re-establish locally verdant groves to nourish and thrill people. So he went looking.

Hazelnuts in the husk

Northern Pecans can be massive trees. Some were found on Adams Island near Clinton, IA. Also along Rock Creek and Pleasant Creek. These areas are closed in the fall (Sept. 15 to Jan) for waterfowl, but Gary was able to get a permit from Army Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife to gather nuts to plant groves elsewhere in order to preserve and breed pecans. He planted groves north of Chestnut Mountain and by Muscatine, just by the lock and dam below the Gorham residence.

Gary has bred many trees and there are even some cultivars named after him for sale from tree catalogs. Two that we saw on our tour were Hark and Lucas.

Japanese Heartnut - this nut can be shelled whole.

More Notes:

The Hican (sp?) A cross between a hickory and pecan can occur naturally. Some pecans bear hickory (shagbark) traits. Not as productive as pecan, but can be more flavourful.

English Walnut

Regarding English Walnuts, they are hard to do. Some produce OK. They are also different (bearing) year to year. English walnuts are easier to crack and will fall out of husk onto ground. Chris Knows a tree that drops nuts onto a sidewalk in the Quad Cities and they just pop out of the shell! I should ask him for a graft...

Chestnut trees with their prickly husks.

Mulberry: Illinois ever-bearing might be one of the best species of mulberry – I need to graft this onto existing trees on the farm!

Pawpaw - unfortunately not ripe in time this year

Grafting: Keep grafts at 80F to “callous” use ~6” of scion (fruiting stock) with buds onto rootstock. Use a sharp knife or bench tool. Bench graft with pencil-sized stock. Bark graft several pencil-sized sticks into side of bark of 3-6” branch, trimmed of growth just above graft. Wrap with just about anything, electrical tape works well. Grafted (any) can produce in 3-5 years (walnut, pecan, etc.) Practice to get good at these techniques and let someone show you that knows what they are doing. Gary may have a workshop coming up! Butternut and English walnut can be grafted onto Black walnut!

Mosaic story floors

I started tiling last year when Sarah Haas came through and showed me what she leaned with Dan Phillips, other tilers, and then through trial and error of her own professional tiling efforts. She showed me how to tile with commercial thin-set mortar and grout with scrap tile. I decided that I wanted to complete the stairs with scrap tile and bottle caps. 

This year I started a new project involving bottle bottoms. I cut the bottom off of beer bottles with a tile saw and mortared them in.  To strengthen the bottoms (even though they are pretty flat) I filled them in with mortar as I set them. 

As always I had to try new things. I started with the thin-set mortar for tiles, but remembered how easily some of the tiles on the stairs had popped out pre grout. Instead, I grabbed a bag of premixed brick style mortar.  Once dry these tiles were not going anywhere. Thin-set mortar allows future changes if you may want to scrape everything up and try again, but after this much work with mosaic, I can't imagine wanting to redo the floor. 

I then mixed my own mortar for a bit, with local masonry sand from the quarry and a bag of portland cement. I found with this that sometimes there were still small pebbles that would make an uneven setting for the tiles and they would pop out. Next time I use this sand I will pre-screen.  Darrell, a contractor staying at moonCat right now, brought a bucket of fine sand scooped from a local property. Even though this contained a small amount of silt the mix held great, and this was my absolute favorite, until the cats found the bucket and made it into a litter box.

I did consider using an earthen plaster of clay, sand, starch, matrix material (such as straw, manure, etc.) and water. I decided against this because the house is in the ground. If by chance flooding occurred, I would need to redo the natural plaster and tile. With the amount of time I put into mosaic work, I think I will seek sustainability by using materials that will not need to be continually consumed, but will last for a long time (use of portland cement instead of natural plaster).

I did start with commercial grout, and decided to end with commercial grout, but recently spoke with a friend about mixing my own. My friend Michael (that I met at Earthships) recommended a fine sand mix very similar to the actual mortar I was making. He said mixing in the structural poly fibers used for cement may help prevent cracking. I may play with adding lime to the grout as well. At The Farm Ecovillage Training Center I had seen that the home Albert Bates was staying in had bottle caps laid in a lime plaster, but it did not hold well. Perhaps a mix of some portland and lime . . . and a little soaked sawdust?

I prefer to use natural or "waste" materials when possible. With this floor I used scrap tile from a mix of other contractors, the Habitat For Humanity Re-Store, and bottles and bottle caps that were being thrown away from local bars. I will admit that on one dark and frustrating night I decided to "Just finish it quickly!" by laying actual square tile bought from a store and did buy a couple of boxes of cheap tile.

I have come to realize that my tiling values include local material sourcing and waste/recycled materials as much as possible, but also there is a measure for my time and effort. I wanted to make the tree much larger with the bottle bottoms, but this is very time intensive.  I pushed myself for long days to complete the mosaic tile quickly and used all of my great TFH kinesiology pain releasing techniques to support days of statically bending over and mortaring in bottle caps and bottle bottoms. The tile portions go very quickly and are not quite so static. 

I can thank craigslist, local bars, and local flooring contractors for most of my tiling material! Thanks to Phoenix for all of her help placing bottle caps, and WWOOFer Chris Burke for hours of helping me to cut bottle bottoms.

I really enjoyed this project and have found it very rewarding. I am looking forward to more! As little girls at moonCat plot about who will own the house when I die I feel that my mosaic story floors can promote inspiration, creativity, culture beyond my lifetime. 

Farm Tour

This past Saturday we hosted a farm tour at moonCatlife. Jerome showed everyone around our beginning food forest and I took a turn showing building and retrofit projects. Phoenix showed everyone the kittens. I enjoyed making some new friends in the area. 

I have been hoping to project some movies in the barn and one of our visitors just so happened to have an old screen lying around. After connecting with a belly dancing instructor I am hoping to get some lessons going here along with yoga and meditation.                                   

We walked on our new paths that Darrell spent so much time mulching and looked at the new apple trees. The apple area also has a mix of herbs and some transplanted gooseberry bushes and wild grapes. I wanted to try a couple of hardier pecan and almond trees in this area as well so we planted them here.

The apples were planted next to a group of trees that grew over a large strawberry patch. There are mulberries, more wild grapes, rye, and some asparagus as well as other wild edibles of the area such as wood sorrel, lambs quarters, and milk weed (pods).  Clover and medic are growing throughout fixing nitrogen, drawing bees, and smelling wonderful.

This year Jerome has added a couple of pigs to our permaculture system and they are clearing the land for planting in our "pig tractor".  I added some swales for redirecting rain water.  We planted larger willows to boarder the farm that should have more stamina than smaller starts from the past. A path is in progress next to the willows now.

We enjoyed sharing knowledge and learning more tid bits about wild edibles and other natural ways of living from those who came.

 Here's to friends, nature, and innumerable possibilities.

welcoming friends

I love community and working with a group with shared passions. Being in Illinois doing sustainability and community felt a little lonely for a while. We had plenty of people coming through, but for short periods of time.

This year Meghan Hollister contacted me saying she was interested in learning more about our CSA. I asked her to take on a position organizing it this year while we teach her the ropes. She accepted excitedly and began work just as I left for a month in Tennessee for my apprenticeship in biofuels at The Farm Ecovillage Training Center. At that time I had someone else interested in learning about TFH Kinesiology and natural building and willing to be at moonCat regularly to help with building WWOOFers. A few others contacted us to share in our work in sustainability on a more regular basis.

Right before I left for TN my friend Ariel contacted me. I met Ariel in Taos, NM. When I interned at Earthship headquarters she worked there. Ariel and her new roommate had been looking at pictures of a cob build when they realized we were all connected. I met Andy Sahn at Christina Ott, Deanne Bednar, and Chris Mcclellan's two week cob building workshop last October in TN. Andy had apprenticed with the Cob Cottage Company and traveled around to work and learn with other Cob Cottage builders.  Andy and Ariel skyped with me one week before I was traveling back to TN to apprentice at The Farm Ecovillage Training Center and I got to spend time with them in Nashville and see what they were doing.

Andy's Gazebo build

While visiting everyone I found out both Ariel and Andy had been working with Marcus Sisk. I met Marcus in Guatemala at an Earthship build. He came back to the states and completed the Earthship Academy and started his own Earthship in TN. A couple of years ago I traveled out there to visit him and helped to pound his first row of tires. This time I got to see how much he has gotten done and was amazed.

Marcus' Earthship

At The Farm Ecovillage Training Center I learned that the Jason Deptula, whom I was apprenticing with, had lived at the same small yoga community that I had studied yoga at. It was fun sharing stories of magical experiences and interpersonal journeys of awareness.

 Jason at the house he is building

Leaving TN I felt loved and connected, not to mention all of the great new ideas I brought back from those sharing my passions.

Coming back to moonCatlife I met some of Meghan's friends who share our vision for a resilient and sustainable community. I look forward to growing and building visions with like-minded people who can transcend small differences personal dramas to create a more beautiful world.

The Farm

When I took my cob course in Tennessee this past October I noticed that an eco-village training center I had seen online was a close drive.  We had one day off in the middle of our course and a couple of my fellow eco-geek girls came along to check out The Farm with me.

Now, as much as I am interested in intentional community and eco-villages I get a little uncomfortable with words like commune and fascism. Though, realistically if you dive into philosophy of fascism versus what has actually played out it really is full on interesting concepts, and really, what was Marx actually saying? Fun debates.

 I want to live somewhere that people share because they choose to, where independence is valued, but community flows freely as choice.  Somewhere that people are valued and supported to realize their full creative potential by rising above the rat race and ensuring basic needs are met; these are the strengths I see in a sharing community. These are things I have gained from intentional communities in the past, though I have never been a member of a common purse. And while I'm on a role, I think that it is more important to realize my own equality and see what flows from there than to assume "the man" owes me equality.  I do, however, have respect for those that strive for equality and create communes that work and create conscious change, but have seen a lack of individual "ownership" transfer to a lack of respect for property, and sometimes scarcity. This is where my mind flows when I think of "communes".

 Stained glass dome at The Farm

 


I am intrigued by the story of The Farm as it morphed from commune, to intentional community to become self-supporting. Googling for more precise definitions I found this fun link to explore the definitions at planetfriendly.net

The eco-village training center at The Farm has a number of natural building projects going. I bumped into Jason "the green resourcerer" and he explained one of the eco-village projects to me that included fun building techniques I am interested in like straw slip, in-floor heating, more cob, bamboo, cordwood, and sawdust for insulation.  They were using cordwood to tie together two layers of cob with a space in the middle filled with sawdust for insulation.

Lion sculpted out of cob

The Farm has so much interesting history to share with anyone interested in different forms of sharing economies from co-housing to full blown communes. Now it has a midwifery center (that I did not get to visit yet) and the visitor's center is full of interesting resources . . . I just wanted to take pictures of the bookshelves and start googling subjects & authors . . .and a bookstore where I got one of my new favorite books Ecocities, rebuilding cities in balance with nature by Richard Register. 

 Slip straw I have been told works well as insulation

Cob sculpted fireplace 

Compost toilets & solar shower with Dawn

I would love to go back and experience more of their eco-village training center, natural building, vehicle conversion, and midwifery clinic.

heated Cob bench & thermal mass

I am really really starting to love the concept of thermal mass. The first time I heard about thermal mass was from Earthships. The tires and the berm around an Earthship provide thermal mass that acts as a temperature battery storing the heat or cold that you expose it to (integrating passive solar/south facing windows etc. to heat it up in cold times).

Deanne introduced me to a rocket stove DVD with Ernie & Erica Wisner and Paul Wheaton. It is expensive, but is a 4 DVD set with lots of information. In the DVD they discuss all sorts of good stuff relating to heat, fire, thermal mass, convection/conduction/radiation, and efficient heating. I went in with a friend to get the DVD and feel it was very worth it. I have started to think of heating homes differently.

I used to be one of those people who felt slightly frozen in the winter because heated air just didn't seem like enough to me. I felt I needed to soak in warm water or touch something warm to really soak in the heat (or gather my ambition for some kundalini yoga). Now I have learned that heating the air (convection) is likely the least efficient form of heating. Then we seal up houses to keep the warm air in and end up with stale allergen populated air.  No wonder everyone has allergies.

Heating thermal mass, which slowly releases the heat is heating by radiation and is very efficient. My body really likes this. Who doesn't like sitting on a warm bench in the winter . . . not counting menopausal women. Also, the heat is more regulated.  In the DVD someone mentions a house in Norway or Sweden that is heated with a masonry heater (using the concept of thermal mass & heating with radiation) and has free airflow to the outside just below the roof, staying plenty warm.  There are all sorts of ways to heat thermal mass from fire, to passive solar & glycol panels with in floor heating, and even in floor electrical heating mats (ease of installation & use but less efficient).   There are varying densities of thermal mass, from cement slab, even tile, to cob, and stone .  . . and so much more.

This all works up to: we are working on a heated cob bench, or two. The cob and stone help to store heat inside the house so it is not whisked out of the house if the door is opened or windows are not perfectly sealed.  The more thermal mass you have the more your desired temperature wants to stick to your living space.

One is in the entry room/inner almost-soon-to-be greenhouse.
The thermal mass is made of local limestone from a quarry and cob (also a nice sand & clay mix from a local quarry).

 Top picture is what we started with. We decided to take out the closet & table (doors are already off of the closet).

Everything is out. We tiled the walls. The bench goes in in a "U" shape.

Beginnings of a bench. We are having a cob mixing party tomorrow to bulk this up before sculpting and putting on a finish plaster coat. I'm not completely sure we will have enough materials to finish right now. The local quarries said that their stone is not accessible because it was frozen solid . . . our weather station said it was -17 degrees out this morning (without windchill factored in)! I hear this will be over soon though and I can access materials again.

The window between the bathroom and the entry room. I found these used glass floor tiles at the Habitat for Humanity Restore and knew they would fit the empty window frame perfectly; I just mortared them in. I thought about using bottle bricks but the frame is only about 1 1/2-2 in and the outsides slope. This was quick, easy, and fun. I like how it looks.

I will post a follow-up when the bench is finished!

tiling in retrofit

This past summer we had someone come to visit who is interested in intentional community. She stayed with us for a couple of weeks and we discussed community and our experiences with it and shared knowledge. While she was here Sarah Haas shared her tiling knowledge with us.

Sarah is a dancer who decided that she wanted to build her own home and performance structure that could go with her as she traveled the states.  When she told me she had interned with Dan Phillips I was excited to pick her brain because I had found his TED talk very inspiring. Dan Phillips gave a talk on building creatively with reclaimed materials in Texas.  While there Sarah gained a foundation of tiling knowledge and then expanded her knowledge to do some tiling professionally.

The first project we worked on was a small table. Sarah cut cement backer board and we used Versabond thin set mortar to set the prearranged (largely by Phoenix) scrap tile pieces in place. I know that when working with plasters and cement the right mix means lasting work. Knowing this is a good brand and how particular Sarah is about work that will last I will probably stick with this unless I hear otherwise.

The line of blue dragons' tears down the center Phoenix collected somewhere random.

Once the mortar had been given enough time to set (about a day or check label) we squished in a reddish grout. Sarah was a little nervous about staining the tile with a darker grout but Phoenix picked red and we decided to go with it. Once applied we sponged it off the tile within 2-3 minutes and then wiped any remaining grout off the tiles with a cleanish rag. There was very little staining. A couple of the white tiles had the tiniest amount of color change.  After grouting we used a water sealant, and quickly scrubbed it off the tiles before it could dry on them and make them look foggy. 

I showed a friend later how to tile a coffee table. It was much easier to grout when we were able to keep the tile pieces level by varying the amount of mortar on the individual pieces of tile. When using scrap tile the pieces have different thickness and keeping the pieces level not only makes grouting easier but minimizes sharp edges that could stick out. 

The table turned out amazing! Second project: stairs. We have a few stairs leading down to the kitchen that are made of wood. Each stair had a small lip that stuck out. Jerome said that this is because of a visual effect and how our brains interpret depth. People are more likely to trip without that extra lip, but it would be really hard to tile. So I got out the sawzall and butchered the stairs as I cut off the lip. Then we laid cement backer board to support the tile and create and even surface to prevent future cracking. 

The tile we used came partially from what Sarah brought that people had given her as scrap and what a friend had given us from someone else's left over tile. I decided I wanted to get creative and use our collection of bottle caps that Phoenix had claimed. This was fun but did take a little longer to lay the bottle caps. We cut tile for the step edges to that there would be not sharp edges.  This was the first time I actually used my tile saw for tile. Previously I had used it to cut glass for bottle bricks. 

 I took the most time on the top stair. At first I really got intricate and took my time . . . then I decided the stairs needed to get finished more quickly because they were being walked on and pieces were getting knocked off and sideways. . . so a number of people chipped in to make our small community stair mosaic.

 Phoenix designed the center that looks like a ship anchor/bird and Jerome finished it by grouting her creation. Before she left Sarah designed the golden cap portion near at the right that looks like a sun and the trees on the side. Phoenix and our WWOOFer Sam from Utah designed the sides of the top two stairs. A WWOOFer couple from Ohio helped to grout and water seal a couple of the stairs. Our neighbor Donna contributed clear marbles left over from tiling her coffee table (I love how these feel on my bare feet).

When applying the water sealant I used two different brands. The brand "Miracle" that Sarah recommended seemed to soak into the grout much better. The cheap brand kind of rolled around on the surface a lot and needed a lot more work to apply. 

I love sharing knowledge and stories. It is fun to read the stories in our mosaic. The point beer caps are from every time Jerome's family visits from Wisconsin. The bird tile is a hot pad I found at a local thrift store and grabbed because I wanted to copy the bird for a sketch. Gluten free cider caps tell their own story. Some of the scrap tile came from a CSA member who snatched up a bunch of tile a friend was going to throw away and shared with us.  Jerome probably knows more about the other beer caps, and maybe which WOOFers drank each. . . or maybe not, but I really like the bottle caps and would like to do more with them. 

I can claim that the tiling fits in with sustainability because we are repurposing scraps and "trash".  Done right tile can last a long time, which also is a form of sustainability.  A lot of floors include poly something or other, and maybe some of my materials do;  I think it is minimized.  There is a bit of a trade-off in the use of mortar and grout with embodied energy, but creating a creative and lasting mosaic is worth it to me.

Tile can also be laid in an earthen plaster, but our home is in the midwest and partially in the ground so I want to avoid possible moisture issues by going with more traditional tile methods on the existing cement floor.