GETTING READY TO REINFORCE THE OVEN

Last night at the informal gathering of "Boomers" one of the guys told me about a quarry near us that has a layer of clay exposed. So this morning on a bike ride we found the quarry.

Marlene and I went back a little later with the Jeep and a couple of buckets and we loaded up enough dry clay to add another layer to the oven.We had to fill the buckets and carry them about 100 yards back to the Jeep. The quarry is on BLM land, but it has not been used in years and there is a gate that keeps vehicles from driving into the quarry itself.
We made 3 trips with two buckets each and dumped the dry clay into the back of the Jeep on a plastic tarp.

Later, Marlene began to gather the straw (dried tops of sage brush). This will act as a binder in the clay and make it stronger. The straw acts like reinforcing steel in concrete.Now we have all the material assembleed and tomorrow we will mix water with the clay and turn it into a "cob" mixture. This is the same as the adobe that the native americans used in building houses and ovens.

On the way back from getting our clay we stopped to admire a saguaro cactus. These desert plants develope arms only after they have been growing for more than 100 years.