THE CRAFT OF FIRE

With the base stable and solid, we set about building the form with found cinder blocks. They are kind of ugly, but we figured we'd cement over them later and decorate the base - maybe even make a mosaic on it - later. Once the form was built, I started filling it up with all the rubble in the garage, collected over months. And then some gravel and sand to make it level about 10 inches from the top. The base has a circumference of 45 inches, and the oven interior itself will be about half that. Next we made a layer of insulation so as to keep the energy of the oven inside of it. This layer is made up of beer bottles (glass retains heat fairly well as does the air trapped within it), encased in a mix of slip and sawdust. (Slip is basically a liquid clay-mud, of the consistency of heavy cream. You fill up a bucket with clay-mud and add water, let it sit overnight, and then stir it up evenly.) The added sawdust acts as an insulant, and over time it will get burned out, leaving ...

The biggest issue with the mud oven so far has been how to construct its base. Ideally you want the oven door near your waist, for easy loading and unloading, but how do you build a platform solid enough and insulated enough to do that? (And cheaply enough, I might add.) The Mud Oven builder's bible suggests making a form and filling it up with broken concrete, and that's what we plan to do. Philip and Danny came over to help dig a spot for it in early July. We had to dig down about 3 feet to pull out an old antenna which was sitting in the perfect spot for our oven, and then we filled up much of that hole with gravel. Next we laid out paving stones that I'd collected to make a firm, flat base. We let that sit for a week or so and in that time had the biggest rainstorm in Toronto's history , and I'm happy to report that everything stayed level, nothing sank. Which means our eventual oven should stay nice and level over the years, too. (We hope.) The pr...

It's been a great big long while since I've posted anything, and that's partly because it's been a while since I've done much in terms of the Craft. But on the other hand, much of what I have been doing hasn't really lent itself to photos and reports. To wit: for many months I've been scavenging around my neighbourhood, locating material for our current project - a mud oven. Within 10 blocks in any direction from my house, I could tell you who has recently redone their patio or dug up their sidewalk, who has left over paving stones piled up in their backyard, and who has piles of gravel or brick sitting beside their laneway garage. On walks with my dog, I would hear a jack-hammer and smile happily, knowing that a great source of broken up concrete awaited, if only I could borrow a car and get it in time.   While all this scavenging was going on, in June, Philip, his son, and I got together to make some test mud ovens, just to get the feel for the sand-m...