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Cob Oven & Benches & Work Table at the Muddy Mule Farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains
April 25, 2021 - May 2, 2021
$700
*This is organized as a 7-day workshop, but we are accepting part-time participation for 4, 5 & 6 days*
HOST & LOCATION & PROJECT
Dave & Lindsey and their tribe will be our hosts for this week-long traditional wood-fired Cob Oven, Benches & Work Table workshop, in the mountains of Santa Cruz. In their words:
Our family is living the Big Foot life with a small footprint in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains. Other than our family yurt, we spend our time outside and off-grid under the majestic redwoods. Our family of 6 is beyond excited to share our forest home offering a true camping experience. We love the life outdoors and invite you to come stay with us and help us create our first COB project!
You will get to meet the resident farm animals (mules, Nigerian goats, & chickens), the home-schooled Big Foot Tribe and enjoy the nightly campfires. Bring long layers for cool, shady evenings, some possible mosquitoes and a good headlamp! We are excited to meet you!
SCHEDULE
The workshop will begin on Sunday afternoon at 4pm with an Opening Circle and an Orientation to the Site followed by a yummy Welcome Dinner. Then we will have an Introduction to the Workshop before retiring. Monday morning we will begin the hands-on building & learning day at 9am after breakfast, which will be served from 7:30-8:30am. We will have class every day until 1pm, followed by lunch and rest until 2:30pm. The afternoon session will begin with a Lecture at 2:30 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday followed by more building and learning until 5:30pm. Students will have downtime until 7pm, when dinner will be served. We will have two nights of slides and videos and other evenings may include extracurricular & spontaneous fun activities including fire circles, dancing and music. Please bring a musical instrument(s) and your favorite playlists. The final dinner on Saturday night will be a Celebration that may include use of the Oven, depending on whether the Oven is ready to use.
The daily schedule looks like this:
6:30-7:30 Yoga/Meditation (optional)
7:30-8:30 Breakfast
8:30 Morning Circle
9:00-1:00 Building
1:00-2:30 Lunch & Rest
2:30-3:30 Lecture
3:30-5:30 Building
5:30-7:00 Downtime
7:00-8:00 Dinner
8:00-9:00 Slides/Videos/Other Activities
The week-long schedule looks like this:
Day 1: Oven Insulation, Pad, Floor, Sand Form, Inner Shell
Day 2: Bench Foundations, Work Table Foundation, Making Cob, First Layer of Benches & Work Table
Day 3: Removing Sand Form, Continuing Benches & Table, Making Slip
Day 4: Oven Insulation, Continuing Benches & Table
Day 5: Oven Sculpting Cob Layer, Sculpting Oven & Benches
Day 6: Plaster/Burnishing
Day 7: Oiling
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
Students will learn all the steps to building a Cob Oven and Benches. Students will also learn from lectures and discussion and a few slide show nights. Evenings will be open for freestyle activities including music, dance, campfires, etc.
For the Oven:
Under-oven insulation layers
Oven pad
Bricks
Sand Dome Mold
Inner Oven Shell
Insulation Layer
Outer Oven Sculpted Layer
Plaster
and For the Benches…
Stone Foundation
Making Cob
Building with Cob
Sculpting
Plaster
WORKSHOP REQUIREMENTS & IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Students will need to come to workshop and class/building site prepared.
This includes:
Work clothes
Work boots or other closed-toe shoes for foundation days
Flip-flops for cobbing days
Work Gloves for rocks
Good Moisturizer
Hat
Sunglasses
Rounded triangular metal trowel
Water Bottle
Notebook/Pen/Camera
Sample of Your Soil (Optional)
Personal music playlists for working
Also, if you haven’t already, reading “The Hand-Sculpted House” by Ianto Evans, Linda Smiley and Michael Smith, or something equivalent, like “The Cobber’s Companion” by Becky Bee, or “House of Earth” by Conrad Rogue beforehand, will benefit you greatly. Also please read Kiko Denzer’s “Build Your Own Earth Oven”. We encourage you to bring your natural building books with you!
GETTING THERE
Once students are registered more specific directions will be provided as well as carpooling information. Students who fly in should fly to San Jose Airport (SJC) and there are trains and buses to get you closer. Feel free to ask Claudine for more info.
MEALS & ACCOMMODATIONS
Students will receive snacks and 3 delicious healthy vegetarian meals a day prepared by cooks and with alot of fresh, organic bounty from the local Farms of course. If there are meat-eaters, we can offer some meat options. We will ask about allergies and restrictions in our Welcome email before the workshop. If you have favorite food snacks and needs you can’t live without, please bring them. Expect a healthy, balanced menu. Local students can choose to only have lunch and join for dinner on slide night and the final Celebration Dinner.
There is ample land to camp on or car camp. Students wanting indoor accomodations can check airbnbs or talk to Hosts.
INSTRUCTOR
Claudine Désirée is the original “Cob Queen” of Santa Cruz, where she founded the original “Sunflower Cob Building” which quickly morphed into the California-based “Cruzin’ Cob”, the cob workshop and building business that evolved over a decade. Once her three sons were “out of the house”, she went for her dream of traveling around the world on a bike teaching cob workshops everywhere every few months to continue supporting herself by offering up what she loves in the countries and languages she is passionate about. To work internationally with no home base required a new name and a website, hence CruzinCobGlobal was born naturally and appropriately and, after 5 years on the road, Claudine has finally planted roots again. On the island of São Miguel in the Azores (where are the Azores?) she has started building an Eco-Homestead for family and friends called “Quinta da Vida Beleza” for chillin’, playing music, dancing and communing!!!! CruzinCobGlobal will continue to do the important work of building the best houses and best communities ever of course… with more new Teachers hitting the Cob road in 2021 as CCG-trained students begin leading workshops and builds around the world. Claudine will also keep teaching in her favorite places and spreading the Cob everywhere, with more focus on the Azores land and project now, but also very interested in working in Africa and Asia. California, however, will always be one of those favorite places, her and her children’s home for 20 years. And the demand to learn Cob in California is always growing with the fires and earthquakes threatening conventional houses. And the best part is we have a “legal” Cob Code to use anywhere in the world thanks to the CRI architects’ and engineers’ hard work and focus!
REGISTRATION & PAYMENT
The fee for the 7-day Cob Oven & Benches workshop is $700, which includes tuition, 2 snacks & 3 meals/day and camping. Normally we don’t accept part-time students, meaning less than the full duration of the workshop. However in this case, because it is a last-minute workshop, we are open to accepting students for 4, 5 or 6 days as well. The rate will be pro-rated at $100/day.
There is a maximum limit of 10 students.
To register please contact claudine@cruzincobglobal.org to receive application forms and payment information. To hold your spot you will need to pay the full amount by April 24th, 2021
We always offer work trades in our workshops depending on size of workshop. Here we will offer 2 work trades, one in the kitchen (making breakfast) and one onsite helping prep before breakfast. These work trades are for one hour per day of work in exchange for a $10 discount per workshop day. In this case work trader would receive $70 off. Please inquire asap because these spots go first.
You can also contact Claudine by Whatsapp at +18312127225 for questions and registration.
SEE YOU IN THE MUD!!!!!
