Bring on the pizza!

Tracey rowing with pizza paddles

Sorry for the delayed write up - had to fit in a quick trip to Africa!....
But the weekend before we left, Tracey and I managed to complete Cassius and were able to provide Flee with his first woodland pizza, as requested all those months ago.
Armed with not one, but two pizza paddles, made in two different materials by two different people, we set off for the wood, laden with pizza bases (yes, I know, pre-bought, but we all have to start somewhere) and a huge selection of toppings (think I might have overdone it a bit!).

The make-your-own selection platter

After a few hours firing, Cassius' thermometer was swinging between 170 and 200 and so we shoved in a cheap and cheerful, cheese and tomato mini to test him out with....We were expecting a black bottom, and possibly soot on top as the smoke level is quite low, but the sacrificial pizza looked so good we ate it! Cassius was roaring and so were we. The sense of achievement was immense; digging clay from the pond and turning it into something usable and "free" was fantastic. We now had the means to make roasties and bread, cakes and casseroles. So excited. But today's task was pizza for eight people. It was dark by the time the gang were all assembled, but with our solar lighting in the Yardarm it wasn't long before Cassius was in full swing and pizza after perfect pizza came out. The wooden paddle was great for getting them in and the metal one made light work of retrieving them - we didn't lose a single slice.

the first sacrificial mini

Everyone knows you can't have pizza without a movie, so we pegged out a pillow case over the woodpile to make a movie screen and all sat round the fire to watch "The making of Cassius" sent from a handheld projector mounted on a tripod - magic.
The journey has been longer than anticipated, and harder work than we could ever have imagined, but Cassius is a fully functioning thing of beauty and the aches and pains are now long forgotten.
We laughed, we worried, then we laughed some more. A massive thank you to everyone who made it possible, you're amazing.

PS: Flee, you can now have your pond back. We are well and truly done with clay.

final set of repairs and they were major!!!

I was supposed to be having a weekend off from Rais and getting some gardening done at home, the back garden is looking horrendous at the moment and the Bay tree has gone completely mad, so if anyone knows a friendly, knowledgeable gardener with some time on their hands to help me tame it, please get in touch. I managed to mow the front lawn, cut the edges and plant up the few cuttings I had on my kitchen window sill, but by 430pm I simply had to get to Rais and check on Cassius, I could bear it no longer.. when I got there the shrinkage was soul-destroying. The soggy clay really was way too water-logged and cracked beyond belief... but thankfully we still have quite a lot of spare clay to make repairs and go again. It took longer than expected to fill the cracks and make good, but by 8pm I was packed and ready to get home again; bath calling me.

I was up again this morning and back with Cassius by half nine. I repaired the new hairline cracks and re-did the chimney after a dodgy attempt at making a snake coiled around it that looked more like a giant turd.
We only have one weekend left before Tracey and I set off for Zambia, so the pizza fest is going to be next weekend... ready or not... we have to have a rest at some point and with any luck it will come next weekend with pizza, wine, and good friends to help christen Cassius properly.
I also have to mention Simon in this blog, who has had his hard work on the bracken overshadowed by Cassius in the past few weeks. The whole time we have been puddling, mashing, mixing, brick-making, and modelling, Simon has been pulling endless amounts of bracken out by hand, which seems to grow a foot or so a week and appears to grow back within days, so it's a pretty thankless and back-breaking job. Sterling work Sewell, thank you so much for rescuing our efforts and ensuring next years growth is hugely reduced.  

Final layer - yay!

300 bricks, made in clay so soggy we couldn't stack them meant we were very lucky it didn't rain all weekend. I think I can safely say Tracey and I have seriously had enough of clay now! NEVER doing this again; the life of an oven at Rais will be the life of Cassius... and that's IT!
We rewarded ourselves with a few glasses of the red stuff of course, well chuffed that we had gotten it all done on the Saturday and could afford a lie in and a leisurely Sunday. More importantly, Tracey would get to watch Andy Murray in the Wimbledon final.
I tried out my new camp bed in the blue tent and slept like a log - so much so that I didn't get up until 10:30am, the best nights sleep I've had up there... ever. :-)
We decided to head over to see the neighbours on Sunday, but unfortunately Bob and Rita were not in, so we continued on to see John at his bird haven in Millers Wood. What a difference some light makes, his woodland is very open in comparison to Rais. He has thinned his trees quite a bit at the Eastern edge of his wood and worked incredibly hard to get a number of hides in situ already, including an impressive drinking hide which I'm keen to have a go in. John has an Alaskan chainsaw mill which gives the ability to turn felled trees into planks... incredibly useful when you want to build solid hides, and flat benches but don't have the need or space for a permanent saw mill. As a result there are benches dotted around to enjoy the peace and watch the birds.  I was particularly impressed with how close the birds were coming in to his feeders, even with us standing not too far away. Then to see the juvenile woodpeckers come in almost immediately after we got seated inside - particularly as we were not even being quiet!  John is renting his hides, and offers photography workshops from his wood so check out his website... http://www.johnstantonphotography.co.uk/
He has sown a lot of wildflower seeds and planted a number of natives around the site which will be stunning in a few seasons time when it all takes hold. I'm also looking forward to seeing how his pond turns out, as he has opted for a man made version with pond liner whereas we are attempting to dam our stream again using the clay instead of liner. I'm intrigued to see if there is a difference in the time they take to establish.
Going to be an exciting summer / autumn.

Found the perfect hangover cure at last!

After a cracking family party Friday night and feeling a tad battered and bruised, I arrived at Rais late morning on Saturday, armed with a second bale of sawdust from the country store in Handcross and the determination to get Cassius' insulation layer on before I left - hangover or not, it was the goal for the weekend and so I had to just get on with it, and get on with it we did. Despite the late start we worked tirelessly til 930pm, by which point it was getting dark but we had successfully mixed and made 300 clay/sawdust bricks!

A lovely stir-fry, followed by some fireside relaxation, washed down with a few glasses of red and we were tucked up in bed by 1130pm; Me in my hammock and Flee and Tracey tenting it on Fox ridge as usual. Happy, but seriously knackered.

half way through adding the insulation layer

Sunday 
Not a bad night's sleep, but thoughts of the build kept waking me up... we had a figure of at least 500 bricks in mind for completing the insulation layer and I was concerned we would run out of time with just the two of us at it, as Flee was heading off to work first thing. I needn't have worried.... Tracey and I worked like troopers all morning, stopping only to refuel on pain-au-chocolat and more tea. By lunchtime we had almost 400 bricks and we were just considering the plan for the afternoon when the cavalry arrived and life got a little easier. Ant made light work of filing down Cassius' entrance and chimney to improve the smoke egress and Tracey encouraged me to get started on actually laying the bricks while she continued mixing and moulding.
I believe I'm only alive this evening because I took her advice; had we continued to make 500 bricks together before getting started on the laying, she would most definitely be up for murder right now.... turns out we only needed 350 bricks to cover Cassius in a double layer of insulation material! oops.

Hairline cracks repaired with fire cement

It was hot, hard, achy work, laying the bricks in such a cramped space, and I managed to add to my mounting injuries by stabbing my backside on the hurdle fencing, ripping a hole in my trousers at the same time - but I have to say it was all worth it, Cassius looks awesome, and I cannot wait until we finish. Only one final clay layer to go and we can relax.
We have given ourselves next weekend off to spend with the lovely Sarah and my godson Charlie. This will also give the insulation layer time to dry more naturally, so it's going to be a good two weeks at least before Cassius' "christening" and probably a good few more before my nails, muscles, and joints recover. I will certainly be pleased to get rid of all the buckets, trugs and plastic sand bags floating about - The Yardarm was starting to look like a seriously bad building site at times. In preparation for our toddler visitor next weekend, we did have a bit of a clean up, sorted out the wood pile, put a some things away and used up all the remaining bricks and slip on levelling the work surface which looks so much better.

Gall mites on the Alder

Whilst wandering back and forth putting bedding and such away, I spotted some deformities on the leaves of a few of our Alder trees. After some googling, I have discovered they are caused by gall mites, specifically the Aceria nalepai species. The bobbles or "galls" are filled with russet hairs which the mites live in, and these hairs have, in many cases, projected through to the underside of the leaf to form triangular, pale yellow patches.  Thankfully these mites rarely cause stress or injury to an affected tree, so the Alders are simply playing host to the little buggers, who will in turn feed other creatures higher up the food chain.
Another find today was this gorgeous white wildflower. Growing in the south west camping corner between mine and Tracey's beds.
A common-spotted orchid, which apparently likes wet meadows and damp woodland. Very pleased to have it at Rais, particularly as the area we found it in was covered in nothing but Rhododendrons 2 years ago.

Common-Spotted Orchid

sawdust and sawn nails

clay and sawdust mix

Finally feel like we broke the back of the prep this weekend. Can almost see the light at the end of the clay tunnel.
With only 41 days to go til our trip to Africa, Tracey and I wanted to get everything ready to lay the second layer next weekend. The all-important insulation layer. With an oven the size of Cassius, we need to be sure he will stay hot for many hours or we will be forever feeding him with logs.

Cassius' entrance drying out

So we spent today mixing up the clay slip and sawdust into batches ready for brick-making. Did quite well, and managed to deplete half a bale of sawdust and 3 trugs of slip. to create enough mix to make 300 or so bricks. Giving ourselves a pretty good head start for next weekend. Cassius has been drying out nicely all the while and with a couple of layers of slip wash is also now void of cracks which is promising.
We have some more filing to do around the chimney/doorway as the smoke level is still a little high, but he's looking in pretty good shape.
We, however, are not! Both Tracey and I have no nails left, aching joints and severely clay-logged skin and clothes.

making trugs of clay slip