Wheaton Labs is a very cool place. The cool people that run this place are committed to calculated experimentation. Here is a story of one experiment to gather
water, and how it turned into so much more....a bread warmer, to be exact (or...almost, a bread warmer)...
The story:
Sepp Holzer, who is loved dearly by folks around here, innovated a new way to gather water. He called this innovation a 'spring terrace'. Sepp chose a hillside in his mountainous
land, and discovered that if he dug into the ground, he found a non-permeable sub-layer --- water which had filtered into the ground, would glide across this non permeable layer, instead of filtering deeper. He dug down into the ground to this non permeable layer, at the bottom of the hillside, and installed a perforated pipe. The water collected in this pipe, and the flowed down the pipe which was installed in a trench perpendicular to the hillside, and was laid on a decline. The water collected at the end of a pipe, and voila, 400+ gallons of water a day for
Sepp Holzer. Paul Wheaton wanted to see if a similar
project could be installed at the lab. There are more details to the 'spring terrace' design, which you can view here:
https://permies.com/wiki/177668/permaculture-projects/Sepp-Holzer-Style-Spring-Terrace#1406025.
A few weeks ago, I posted a few photos of Jim and
Alan looking for places in the meadow (on the lab), where we might dig and find over-saturated clay or other sublayers, or even a water seep.
Alan taught us to observe the ground and the landscape, and look for water pooling
underground indicators. We noticed things like...the ground was more crunchy underfoot, and then became less crunchy and more moist. We noticed grasses growing taller, and reflecting a deeper shade of green, than others. We noticed willows and other water-loving plants growing more densely in some places, rather than others. We looked at the hillsides converging into the flat meadow, and thought - "where might the water converge the most?"
We dug a a few test holes to see if we had guessed correctly, about where the water might be flowing and pooling in the sublayers. However, we did not find any overly saturated soil or clay, nor did we find a water seep (which is a little trickle of water in a sublayer).
So, we tried dousing instead. Jim taught us how to do so, and many of us tried it ourselves. It is not a requirement to beLIEVE in dousing....you only must try. And as we tried, we discovered that our dousing rods pointed to the same spots in the landscapes. Some of spots loosely followed
deer trails which cut along the hillside at an angle (not exactly on contour). We dug more test holes. We found overly saturated grey clay in our last hole and felt a rush of excitement! The water on the grey clay glistened in the sun and wet our hands.
We doused further, and set stakes in the ground marking the spots that we would like to dig into with the excavator the next day.
Alan taught us about safety regarding excavators, and when a trench is too deep to get into - we do not want anyone to be buried by collapsing soil! I felt so happy that Alan could share his beautiful insights with us, but still keep everyone alert and aware, so we could have the maximum fun.
As we dug test trenches with the arthritic excavator, we felt a bit sad as we did not find any more of the wet clay, or a water seep. We tried a few times, but the sublayers appeared
dryer and dryer. It took some time for Chase to dig the trench with the excavator, and in the meantime, as we waited a safe distance away, I somehow instigated a King of the Log competition, on a big log that happened to be the perfect size. Seize every opportunity...that's what I think...
We decided to change
course and close the pit and not pursue a spring terrace, but, in the meantime, we harvested a lot of amazing clay from the trench!!! We made balls and patties with the slightly moist and dense clay. We made little snakes, and unfortunately, or fortunately, some of us smeared it on each other, and someone stuck some in my armpit, lol.
Story, part 2:
We carried lumps of the clay with us to the van and back to basecamp, where we showed it to master potter, Lisa Orr. I asked her how we can use this clay, and she said "get to work".
First, I broke the clay into smaller lumps to dry in the sun on a tarp. It was easy to do when the clay was still slightly moist. Lisa said the clumps were too large, so I broke them into smaller pieces when it dried more, and let it dry allll the way. Fred got into the action, and became my clay processing partner at this point, helping me check the progress of our steps each day, and helping me with the remaining steps.
I didn't know what I was going to make yet with the clay, but I knew that when the time was right, the right idea would flash into my mind.
Then, I poured the lumps into a plastic
bucket, and filled the bucket with water. This is called "slaking". I waited 24 hours so that the clay felt slipper and slurrified.
Then, we mixed the slurry with a drill mixer (I don't have a photo of this), and poured it into the mesh filtering screen (I don't know what size mesh). We scraped and pushed the clay through the mesh with old hotel room plastic key
cards. The slurry went through the mesh, but the debris (pebbles and grasses, etc). stayed above the mesh.
We then scraped the bottom of the mesh to get every last bit.
We poured the slurry we had collected in the wheel barrow, and poured it into a white "plaster bat", which Lis a brought for us to use. I have a photo of the plaster bat, but not with the slurry drying inside of it. I was told that the plaster wicks water away from the slurry and helps the slurry desiccate faster. It is surprising how fast it dries in the bat and in the sun, and wish I had taken photos of the drying process.
How do you know when it has dried
enough in the plaster bat? Stick your fingers in it from time to time, and you will know. When it is ready, it will feel lik clay that is ready to use, which we used in our pottery classes in school.
Peel the clay away and out of the plaster bat --- roll it up like a tootsie roll, put it in a bucket, cover it with plastic, and a lid, and set it in your shop, for when you ready to make your wares.
It was around this time, when the holy spirit gave me the flash, and BREAD WARMERS danced in my head.
Does everyone know what a bread warmer is? You warm it in the
oven, and then place it in a basket, on a towel, put your bread or tortillas on top, and then wrap the towel around it all. Pass the bread basket around the table, and everyone can have warm and moist bread during dinner.
By this time, Lisa Orr had left the event, but we had to keep going. We kneaded the clay, rolled it to a bit more than 1/2" thick and 11" diameter, penciled our shape, cut it out, and wrapped the edges with tin foil so that the edges would not dry out before the middle, risking cracking.
We dried one in the sun, and another in the rocket
solar dehydrator for a short time. The one that dried in the dehydrator may have dried too fast, and became concave :(
We fired the
rocket kiln up at the end of the week, and unfortunately, the bread warmer became a nice shattered soil amendment, as the kiln was fired too hot, too quickly, and most of the pieces inside shattered or melted into each other.
So, we do not have bread warmers, but, we can try again in the future. Thanks Lisa and Fred for allowing me to discover something I have always wondered about as I walked through museums oggling at primitive pieces of pottery. .....how to make pottery from a hillside.
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