Our friend Newt is preparing for surgery so his doctor took him off his prescribed blood thinner.  It has a fancy name coined by the pharmaceutical company, but pragmatically speaking it is rat poison.  That handy pill taken by many heart patients has the same active ingredient to make rats bleed to death.  It’s all in the name and the package it comes in. 

For example, Rusty went to the local lumber store and bought linseed oil this week for his earth building project.  After reading the label he discovered it is the same oil from the flax seed he eats every morning.  When he smelled the nutty aroma, it reminded him of the Omega-3 additive he puts in the boys’ fruit smoothies.  The linseed oil was a lot cheaper than the pricey flax seed oil sold at health food stores. 

Continuing to make earthen bricks, the Quiet Creek crew came across another name discrepancy.   As they split open a bale of straw, they compared what a straw chunk may be called in different parts of the country.  Kevin, apprentice from Tennessee, said definitely a “flake.”  Rusty said farmers from Erie call it a “plate.”  A visiting pastor overlooking the mud and straw project said he always referred to it as “a hand of straw.”  How funny to think something so simple could hold so many names.

So back to Newt -- he went off his blood thinner.  He is now taking a fancy named drug with a lengthy booklet.  After reading the many fine-print pages, he wishes he would not have.  The two ingredients included in the medication are saline solution and porcupine intestinal mucus.  There’s nothing like doctoring with salty porcupine guts. 

Hopefully after his surgery, our buddy can get pack to his rat poison, eat some flax oil, and spread a chunk of straw on his newly planted grass seed. 

A few weeks ago Quiet Creek offered an earthen construction class to introduce folks to the marvelous world of mud. The project for that day and for weeks to come is to create a circle of benches surrounding a fire ring. 

One participant in the class, Christopher, commented that he hadn’t for the past forty years intentionally put his feet into mud.  This fellow and his mudding friends rediscovered the fantastic fun of pushing soft clay up between their toes.  Not only is it enjoyable, but mentally and physically therapeutic. 

Bare feet are massaged in the clay, sand, and straw opening up blood, nerve, and energy flow to vital organs throughout the body.  Many workshop attendees commented on how relaxing it was to shape and sculpt in this stress-free environment. 

Before construction, Rusty and Claire surveyed the perfect spot -- a  grove of Frazier firs.  They cleared the area of branches and stumps and then placed field stone and feed sacks of gravel for the bench bases. 

On mudding day the crew mixed equal proportions of clay and sand with straw and water.  This sticky cob was tossed from hand to hand where mudders shaped the bench seats and backs.  As the sculptures grew, individuals added their unique ideas creating beautiful outdoor furniture. 

The final layer will consist of clay and sand (no straw) and will be allowed to completely dry.  It will be topped off with a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine to seal and harden the earthen plaster.  The final linseed oil and beeswax will keep the seats weather proof. 

How wonderful to see “kids” of all ages getting down and dirty.  Come on out and mud with us to enjoy this community space for years to come. 

Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer in the Floor  - As a tea totaller since birth, Rusty isn’t known to “slam down the brew.”  Humbly he lives by the mantra “you can’t take your second drink, if you don’t take your first.”  However since Thanksgiving, he has been frequenting the bar weekly and dreaming of empty beer bottles nightly.

 His obsession coincides with Quiet Creek’s latest construction project – a yurt.  This Mongolian tent structure will be used as a classroom and bunk space for our valued students and interns.  Typically, the nomads move a yurt from place to place so the floor is built on a plywood platform elevated by poles.  After much research, Rusty and the crew decided Quiet Creek’s yurt floor should be much earthier, literally.

First they leveled the ground, dug a rubble trench, encircled it with gravel bags, capped it with mortar and slate, and then placed the lattice yurt walls on top.  The thirty foot diameter donut was then filled with shale and packed down with Jimmy’s tamper leveling to six inches from the top of the ring.  Next the earthen floor crew placed a thin layer of sand, ready for beer bottles. The bottles (filled with air and not beer) will offer four inches of insulation to the floor.  This thermal break will keep the cold temperature from migrating into the learning space of the yurt.

The work crew was excited about this thermodynamic discovery, but where would the beer bottles come from to complete the project?  A few volunteers pledged to help with this dilemma. Thankfully, once we realized we needed 5000 beer bottles, we met John from William’s Sanitation Company.  He offered his stockpile of bottles from his Punxsutawney recycling pick-up.  When we tapped that resource dry, we discovered the Hourglass Bar.  The owners, Tracey and Bud Miller, willingly saved their “empties” for us.

The “green” generosity of these two businesses resulted in a glistening glass sphere too pretty to cover up.  Sadly, we found treading on glass falls just short of walking on eggshells, so we have begun the process of packing in the bottles with sand.

This spring we’ll finish the earthen floor with clay and sand once it is warm enough to mix it up with our bare feet and apply it by hand trowels.  Then a layer of linseed oil and beeswax will make it as tough as linoleum.   We’ll leave a small window in the floor to remind us of Rusty’s addiction and the friends that helped make this unique recycling project come to life.