Hallo! And some oven adventures...

I'm sitting at home in Pruszowice and it's so windyyy outside. I just ate my favorite 'bob'-a type of seasonal bean that makes me happy ;-)

I decided to write the blog to have chance to put many pictures online and reach people that are interested in eco-updates from Poland and other little stories of my life.

Our recent building activity is an outdoor baking oven at the ecological farm of my friends. We started to build it during the local festival called Regional Eco-development Workshops, http://ekopaczka.pl/. Ashley (GA!) came to visit me and she was a great help in the workshop. I felt the GA spirit again :O)

When we arrived at the place they asked us to help built the yurt, traditional Mongolian circle tent. It came all the long way from Kirgistan to Germany and than Poland. We had two
instructors from Kazakhstan and some travelers who visted Mongolia. Nobody really knew how to put it together. In the end we set up the wooden structure just before dark.



We started to build the oven next morning. It was just a big improvisation as non of us ever made one like this. It was really good to feel that you can experiment with mud and it will always forgive you if you make a mistake.

We could see what happens if you don't make good shoes and a good hat. The old oven standing there was rotten- penetrated by bugs, ants and roots of the grass. So we built good fundation first!

Hemp is good 2

Some were hungry

We used wet earth to build the frame (because of lack of sand). And we added dry hemp to
the final coat and it was really nice to work with the smell of hemp.

An experiment was to put all the layers without really waiting to dry that and especially as the oven stands in quite shady place under the trees.

I thought that we could build bigger oven but with time we realized that we wouldn't have enough materials and hands to do such a big oven. So the result is that it has a big bottom and a smaller top. It’s original though. We called her 'Buka' (Polish) and
'Morran'(Swedish). It's a name of a creature from a fairy tale 'The Mumins'. When Morran comes everything freezes because no one loves her. The oven looks like Morran with its shape but it gives heat so therie is a small paradox with that name.

Morran vel Buka

A Swedish girl, Hilda made interesting decoration from the glass

The building crew: Ash, Kret, Ewa, Hilda, Basia, Jagoda & O.G.

This picture is of Jurek, our host house. It's an old brick cottage with traditional wood oven in the middle of the house. He put some mud addition around the windows and cobbed it all from the inside so it's very cozy like a little cave. I recommend such additions to any house.

I left Buka drying for 2 weeks. When we came she was still wet but soild enough to dig out the inside frame.

We discovered that some of the hemp seeds sprouted up on our oven. But they do it only one time in their life.

We fired Buka for the first time!!! She dried immieditely after that.

We decided to put another layer of cob to make thicker the thermal mass. And we made beautiful wooden doors.

Next step now will be oiling her, building the roof above, firing and firing and finally baking bread, pizza and other yammi food. I'll let you know if Morran decided to heat it up and bake us some food...