Sherwood Forest Faire 2011 Update

Well, the second year of Sherwood Forest has come and gone. We had a great time. If you've been following this blog for long you know about our booth and what we were vending there. 


It was a great second year. Turnout was good, and overall our sales were above the first year's. 


An interesting note, it seemed like about one out of 3 or 4 of the patrons who came to our booth wanted to talk about the construction of said booth as much as they did the art work. And a significant number of them came mainly just to see the booth. The most common comment was along the lines of, "this is the most unique structure at the Faire!" 


In my previous posts you can see that we had to stop construction before the Faire opened because of weather and the burn ban that hampered making the clay. We came to two conclusions very soon during the actual Faire. We have decided against the original idea of adding a loft above part of the space, because we and most of the patrons agreed that all enjoyed the openness of the design. Secondly, we decided that we liked the airiness and natural light provided by the open areas left at the tops of the walls, so we plan to leave a couple of feet open all around below the roof. It was nice to have the cross ventilation, get the sunlight, and see the trees around us. We had a few days near 90 degrees F and almost everyone commented that the inside of our booth was nearly ten degrees cooler than outside on the grounds. 


So, soon we will re-start construction and new pictures will be forthcoming!
Onward!

Building the Magnificent Cat Dancing Creations Vendor Booth! Part 6

     Several folks are following the growth of our Sherwood Forest Faire booth. This last weekend was the 2011 opening for the Faire. Here is where we are:
    As we were getting near the end of our light straw and clay wall construction we ran up against a county-wide, darn near state-wide, fire ban. Daily temps were getting colder and it had become necessary to heat our water over a fire to mix the clay. Each morning we found the soaked clay from the day before resting at a temp near 40 degrees F or colder. This was nearly impossible to mix, the best temp for mixing the clay and straw is at least 60 degrees F. A couple of buckets each of near boiling water added to each barrel of mud pretty much did the trick. However, no fire, no hot water and no mixing. Fortunately, most of our walls were high enough for Faire purposes, namely giving wind shelter, a place to display art, and concealing the back stage area. It was only necessary to add some of the form wood to one bay of the back wall for concealment purposes.

This pic is an interior shot of that bay. If you look closely, above the wall hanging you can see the form boards, below the hanging you can see the clay/straw wall. As time got short, we called a halt for the season on our construction work.

The underside of the metal roofing was concealed by burlap with lace panels at the skylights. The purpose for this is to give a more period look to the ceiling, and to comply with Faire requirements.

The back door was constructed and mounted, along with the front window shutters and doors. The hinges were made by Earthen Metals, one of the local blacksmiths for the Faire.

So, here is how the booth looked for opening day, 2011. Hark, yon patrons approach!

To be greeted by Milady Cat Dancing, Artist in Residence! We needed store counter space, and we needed to store our remaining straw bales out of the weather. Solution! We made the counter out of the straw bales, topped by wood and draped with cloth.

Intarsia and stained glass boxes against the back wall of the booth.

Intarsia on the south end wall. Notice the RainCrow-designed/built light fixture above the art.

Display of RainCrow made Sylph-Song Flutes against the back wall. Some have dragons. A mix of pentatonic and Spanish Gypsy tunings.

Wall hanging and intarsia inside the front wall. Along with Sir Silas of Bryan.

Our booth was fortunate to obtain a Charter Vendor banner. Last year, the Faire's first year,  we vended off our porch as shown in my previous posts. All in all we received almost as many questions and compliments on our booth construction as for our wonderful art!

Looking out at the Faire through a front window. The wind chimes are new this year. We are carrying them for friend Lynn Kirby at Splendor in the Glass.

A look from outside the same window. Stained glass, wind chimes, our custom logo, and a bench by local artisan Black Wolf are visible. You can just see the window shutters and the extents of the clay above the porch roof.

Opposite end of porch with remaining stained glass , shutters, and top portion of waterfall shown.

Waterfall and flower garden. The primroses are gorgeous!

Gina and her pet rooster Friar Tuck are loved by the children at the Faire. She commissioned a pet portrait from Cat Dancing last year. She was ecstatic at the result! See for yourself!

Sir Silas is modeling his new Captain's Coat from Two Spools at the Faire. Wake and Stacy do wonderful work!

 Sir William of RainCrow must needs have new attire of his own. A new custom-made cloak from Two Spools fits the bill, or the Bill.

Of course, Sir Michael got his own cloak as well. Two Spools once again provided. Michael is taking the afternoon off from working at the King's Swing attraction at the Faire.


It was a beautiful opening weekend for Sherwood Forest Faire. We have lots of weekends to go yet. Come see us! I'll also be posting more pics from the Faire soon!

Building the Magnificent Cat Dancing Creations Vendor Booth! Part 5

Plugging along with the booth construction. I thought I would post a few pics of the straw/mud process, as well as where we're at, now that the blog is finally up to date. 

 Here's the back wall with bamboo up several more feet and the wall filled about halfway up the doorway.

 The South end wall, about half done.

 Inside, looking out through the front door and windows. Wall is filled up to the porch roof level. You can see that the upper part is still damp.

Outside view of the front wall. See the booth number?















 
Looking up at the South end back corner. The triangular space will be a window. Staining is not quite done. Still have some bamboo to finish it out as well.

 The North end wall. Some of the rock stem wall is visible here as well.

 A close-up of some of the joinery of yours truly. Leaves make some of it look a bit strange.

 A shot from inside the rear wall. You'll see Cat stuffing some of it in a bit. The 2X4s serve a dual purpose, or maybe triple. They will be supports to hang art from on the finished wall. They also give points to tie the bamboo too, as well as lateral stabilization for the walls.

 Another close look at the inside of the South end wall. The front of the booth is to the left of the picture.

 A closer look at the wall. Kind of hairy looking, isn't it?

An even closer look at the packed straw/clay mixture.We're even getting a few green sprouts.

Here's the good stuff!

And here's where it starts. As mentioned before, the clay is mixed with water. We use both a garden fork and a paddle till it reaches this consistency, a bit like a not too thick chocolate shake.

Silas row the boat ashore! However, shore never seems to get any closer!

 Loosened straw is mixed in and left to soak for forty-five minutes or so.

There it is. Al dente! Sort of.

 The fork transfers the mix to the wheelbarrow.

Wheel it where it is needed, grab a handful.

Stuff it in the forms. Muddy hands are GOOD for you!

 Keep going till the forms are full. If you look closely you can see the bamboo sitting on the nails that hold the bases in place. A vertical 16d nail serves to hold them in place, while smaller nails are used to attach them to the horizontals and top pieces.

Holes and depressions are inevitable. You can go back and fill them in as you go. The clay also shrinks a bit, it pulls away from the wood above it and to the side, so that needs filling later as well.

 Back to tools. Here are our professional looking mixing barrels.

 These are the buckets we soak extra clay in for mixing. Also professional. Can you tell what they held originally?

 The screen. Made from half inch hardware cloth and 2x4s. At times a finer one would help, quarter inch, perhaps.

Wheelbarrows and, hey, remember that Flintstone roller? The iron barrow at bottom is the really old one. The narrow steel wheel is a problem sometimes, but it is never flat! It also doesn't flex like the plastic barrow.

 Another fun part of the project is the flower spiral garden out front by the ramp.

 A lavender plant tops the spiral, the rest is planted with snapdragons, dianthus, and alyssum. Most of the plants came from the nice folks at Bastrop Organic Gardens, along with good advice on planting. The spiral was planted on the day before the full moon while the moon was in Scorpio. We got Microbial Extract and Castings from Microbial Earth to fertilize it and get it started right. 

There it is! The spiral garden, more specifically used as an herb spiral, was a concept I learned in my Permaculture Design class. 


Work continues!

Building the Magnificent Cat Dancing Creations Vendor Booth! Part 4

After the 2010 Faire season concluded, they kicked everyone out for awhile for cleanup, etc. It was a mixed blessing. The weather was very nice and would have been great for working, but on the other hand, we all needed a break after many weeks of spending weekends at the Faire following many more weeks building. We had to pass up a few chances at free rocks, etc. because we had no place to put it. Once the grounds opened up again, we started back in. We took down the plywood and started hauling in rocks and fill again. Silas got right back onto shoveling, raking, and rolling dirt. We obtained a couple of loads of packing sand from Fenske's, a local dirt supplier near Elgin. He suggested the red sand as being very "packable", which we needed for the packed earth floors. 

Here you can see the new dirt being shoveled onto the floor. The plywood has also been removed and returned to the theater!

Lots and lots of red sand. It actually did pack really well!

More of the new pack sand was added to the porch and ramp as well as re-doing the rock edging. 

Here the floor is filled and ready for final finishing, but that must wait till the walls are done! We're going to be kicking it around for awhile till that is done. At least the extra traffic will pack it down further. Kudos to Silas for spearheading this part of the job especially. He and Michael did the bulk of the floor work you see. The corner you see on the upper left has been filled with dirt and rock over three feet deep to level it out!

At this point I went for a couple of changes. Originally intending wattle and daub walls, I had the idea of going to light straw and clay. I had learned the method in my class for Permaculture Design recently and it seemed a bit less labor intensive, while giving the same visible result. 

The following explanation comes from  http://www.strawbalecentral.com/techniques3.html

Light Straw-Clay (Leichtlehm)
Leichtlehm (literally "light-loam") is a German technique of ramming loose straw coated with a clay slip into forms as an infill for timber frame structures. This technique has been popularly reintroduced to North America by Robert Laporte who teaches natural building courses nationwide. He has been joined recently by Frank Andresen, a builder with extensive natural building experience in his native Germany.

The technique consists of surrounding a frame structure with a thick infill of the straw-clay mixture. The frame is usually fully expressed on the interior of the building to take advantage of the beauty of the timber frame joinery. A lighter frame of wood is built on the eventual outside face of the building as an anchoring system for the straw-clay walls.

Loose straw and a clay slurry are tossed with pitchforks or mixed mechanically, then allowed to age for up to several days in order to allow the straw to absorb the extra moisture and thus create a stickier and more easily tamped mixture. For higher insulation values less clay can be used. Slip forms are set up between the framing members, and the straw clay mixture is tamped by hand in two-foot layers.

Occasional horizontal members spanning between the exterior frame are placed in order to "lock in" the straw-clay mass. Frank Andresen places the ends of these horizontal members at the upper ends of vertical slots in the frame in order to allow for shrinkage of the straw-clay as it dries. Once each layer is complete, the slip form is moved up and the next layer is tamped until the wall is complete. The walls are allowed to dry before final plastering occurs. Any shrinkage is taken up by stuffing more of the mixture into the cracks.

--- end of quote

The material requirements were about the same, but wattle and daub requires both the vertical members I'd already started installing and woven horizontal members to form a mat that the straw-clay mixture would be plastered onto. Light clay and straw is not so old a method, but it was adapted from wattle and daub and looks about the same in the end. 

I made a few of my own adaptations to the style. I retained the verticals to act as reinforcing inside the walls. This was something I hadn't seen done before, but it made sense. I did stop using the saplings, as I found several sources of local bamboo, which is certainly a sustainable material, and tends to be much straighter!

Luckily, we found a local source for the straw. Acceptable straw for use in alternative construction is often hard to find locally. We happened to find someone who had built their own straw bale house and had over thirty bales of good straw left over in storage. We quickly purchased it from him. It is very close to the right amount required for the project. 

Once again, Fenske's came through for us. Here is a load of clay we got from them (separated from some of the red sand by a tarp). 

We shoveled the clay into the buckets shown and soaked it. We added four more of the half barrels and a lot more of the smaller buckets. We've found it helps to soak the clay overnight. Already soaked clay is added from the smaller buckets as the mix in the barrels used up. At end of day, we shovel in more clay and let it soak for the next day. At start of day, we stir the clay and water, adding whatever is needed of each until the consistency is that of heavy paint or a good milkshake before adding straw. As  much loose straw is stirred into the barrel until no more will fit and be covered by clay.

As mentioned in the quote up above, some builders soak the straw in the clay for a day or more. I found that others don't think that makes a difference. We found that soaking for forty-five minutes or so is enough. When the straw begins to become soft and a handful of straw retains the mud on it then it is ready. 

Here is a shot showing a row of mud already set and drying, another form filled on top of it, and vertical bamboo pieces ready to go. We went with twelve inch forms, as anything deeper was hard to pack mud into well using hands. You can see a lot of the straw in the mud here, as well as our stockpile of straw bales under the roof. The poles are getting the bark peeled off before they get mud also.

Here's one of the front walls under a window. A bit closer showing a couple of runs of straw and clay, as well as some of the short forms. You can see the difference between the previous saplings and the newer bamboo.

 Another shot of the front walls and ongoing forming. 

Here is a shot of another new development on the front wall. The framing just visible that somewhat resembles a rainbow will be filled with stained glass ultimately.

Guess what? This blog is nearly up to date now. Next time we'll have current pictures of where we're at and more details. Enjoy!