Blog 26: Mud glorious Mud

Plastering is underway, everything up to now has been preparation from Pat’s viewpoint… to get into the main event of plastering, he loves the mud :-)

We kicked off plastering by applying a lime plaster to the exposed perimeter of the concrete slab.

Aless and I had sealed and prepared it several weeks back by painting on a waterproofing coat called Tank-it that has grit in it as a key for the plaster finish. We put the lime plaster on in two coats, the base coat with a matrix troweled in by Pat, and then Aless and I did a stipple finish coat using Pat’s tirol plaster machine - it has metal fingers that splatter the plaster onto the surface as you wind the organ handle, very manual, old school and a lot of fun.  This was followed by a few days baby-sitting the lime plaster, misting it with water from a backpack sprayer and covering it with damp drop sheets and tarps for sun protection in the initial curing.

There was also a lot of work needed to prepare the straw walls for clay plaster, tying off the straw bales within and across the panels, and then using a grass trimer to clean up loose straw hanging out of the walls.  We also started using some clay that Pat had been brewing for a year, a bit ripe but good... to make a clay/straw mix.  The mixing was done by treading the clay slurry into the loose cut straw (it’s a bit like treading grapes) and then using the coated straw to fill void’s in the walls…  The electrical switches and power point flush boxes also needed to be fitted into the straw walls in their final positions, using ply offcuts, long U shaped wire pins and clay straw.

Our first load of clay was delivered this week from Kahuraniki Road, Pat’s next door neighbour wanted a small hill flattened, and the clay is good up there.. but there is more to this story…

Nine years ago Alessandra met a guy from New Zealand on a flight across USA to an Avatar® course, they chatted about life and Avatar.. and had stayed in touch occasionally in the years since.. In their last contact a few years back he mentioned that he was planning to move from Wellington to Hawkes Bay and Aless shared that we were also planning to move to Hawkes Bay, and so they agreed to get in touch when we were all in the Bay.  Guess who is the next-door neighbour of our builder Pat, and is the source of our clay… amazing!

Pat also bought his mud mixer/pump “Matilda” on-site this week, and we already had a load of sand and a bale of wood pulp, so with all the equipment and ingredients we needed to brew our first batch on-site we could get going pumping it onto the walls, …

There is quite a lot of heavy lifting to mix the clay into a slurry with water, the clay needs to be screened so no over-size objects, sticks from the dog.., stones, lost children etc.. make it into and block Matilda our plaster pump.

After preparing our first batch of clay plaster we ran up Matilda and started pumping and spraying the base coat onto the top of our walls, inside the ceiling cavity, as a trial run of the raw materials, recipe and equipment as every plastering job is unique, and so far so good…

There is plenty more plastering to come over the coming weeks, and for those reading this that want to get muddy you are welcome to come out and pitch in, but do note that its physical work, we have got to keep mixing that mud and flowing it through the pump, and after its sprayed onto the walls rub it in by hand - like finger painting but using your body weight lol…

Please do let us know if you are planning to come out to Nga Kereru and help, wearing rough clothes, or even better overalls, is highly recommended.