We FINALLY Found the Right Adobe Mix - Then This Happened

We really screwed up this mix. Who's irritated? Me. Repeat after me. Today is a new day. I think we might have figured it out. Over the last several weeks, we've been testing with different clay and sand mixes to find the best one. Today, we're making a final decision on our adobe block mix so we can go into full production. But just when we think we've got it nailed down, monsoons and issues with scaling up the mixing process slow us down. We've lost our, like, our mix, our mix is gone. We don't even know at this point. So this has been the second time in the last couple of days where we've had these really weird little pop-up storms that aren't on any of the, like, weather apps. We don't get any notifications. Like, it's just lightning, thunder, dump, and then it's done. And then lightning, thunder, and dump is done. So we've already had two this afternoon, and I can hear the wash running again, so I'm going to run over there and check it out. I guess maybe I should clarify. We have about 20 acres of property. We're building on six. That's what's—actually, it's about nine that's fenced in now. Over on the other, like, eight acres, there's a pretty large wash that runs through it, but it hardly ever flows because it has to hit, like, at a certain point on the mountains back there, and there's a ranch back there that has a big water dam, right? And so most of the time when it rains, it just goes into their trough for their cattle, and we never get to see it. But sometimes when it hits in just the right spot and it overflows, that's when our wash runs. And I can hear it. It's running again. So it's always fun when it does because we hardly ever see it. Like, it might happen once or twice a year. This is the second time it's been running, so—ooh, it's really running. Check this out. Okay, yesterday was pretty crazy. We made 30 bricks, and then Ashley was like, I need a personal daze. She went to Tucson, and I stayed here to work on some things, and it was supposed to be sunny all day. And, like, that's the reason that we made these bricks in the morning because it looked like we were finally past the monsoon rain, right? The weather app said sunny the whole rest of the day, so we left them out. They were drying really nice, and then we had, like, two pop-up monsoons. We got about a half an inch of rain. The wash started running again. It was dumping everywhere. Thankfully, we had gotten a tarp, and so we were able to cover up. But you should have seen me yesterday. I was, like, covering it and uncovering it and covering it and uncovering it. I was, like, trying to get as much sun on them as I could. Anyway, they are still covered. We're going to uncover them this morning. It's probably going to be more of the same. I feel like we're in that time of year where these monsoons just kind of pop up unexpectedly, and so we just have to keep an eye on things. I can already tell the difference, even though these have only been out a day. I can tell the difference in how well they're curing, so I think we've got our mix right. And really, I mean, the more I think about it, I feel like we just spent a lot of time trying to reinvent adobe when that's not necessary. Adobe's been around a long time. It's clay. It's sand. It's straw. But really, at the end of the day, the first mix has still been the best mix. So that's what we're going to go with. We're going to keep making bricks. We're going to keep laying bricks, and we're going to get this done. There's a lot more condensation on the bottom side of the tarp than I liked, but it's okay. It's just sort of surface level water. It's much better than getting pounded by water from the monsoon. So yeah, we're going to keep these uncovered as much as we can over the next couple of days, and hopefully we can get these dried out so that we can get ahead of making bricks and keep working on the walls. Okay, scratch what I said earlier. We don't have enough clay to make more blocks. So what we're going to do is we're going to pivot, and we're going to work on laying the rest of those bricks that we brought over from Awareness Ranch last time, because we do have enough to do that, and because we cleaned out our big metal tank, it means we get to use our big paddle mixer to mix the mortar. So I'm excited to finally get to try that and not have to do it by hand. All right, I think we finally decided we're just going to stick with the washed clay, the concrete sand, and straw. We're not going to overthink it. We're not going to overcomplicate it. These bricks have turned out really, really good, the ones that we made the other morning. We're going to move these, though, because we really need to ramp up production on the bricks here, because they need to cure in time before we lay them. So we're going to start moving this out. We're probably going to take this whole Lava Crete situation down and combine the piles, and we've got to make room to make lots and lots of bricks. So anyway, we're going to turn these up on their side so they can keep drying, get them moved out of the way, and get ready for more. So you might remember, it's been several months ago, we had all this Lava Crete, scorious sand material that was here from our Lava Crete Utility Lodge and our garden bed projects, and our dog, specifically Trona, really loved playing in this material, and it was really bothering her, right? Like it was causing her eyes to get really irritated, and sometimes she would even, like her stomach would get upset. And so we tried a bunch of different ways covering this, and eventually I landed on this big tarp situation with these little, like, mini augers that I put in the ground. So some of you have been wondering how this held up. As far as the wind goes, these augers actually held it down perfectly. However, the tarp was pretty much crap. It was supposed to have some sort of steel reinforcement around all the edges, and it's definitely broken in a ton of places, and there is no steel inside it, other than like the really thin metal in the grommets itself. It's like some sort of braided rope around the edges, definitely not metal. This morning, we have the tractor from our friends, as you can see, so what I'm going to do is undo all these augers, pull them up out of the ground, and we're going to take this whole tarp up, and we're going to look at our Lava Crete situation. I think we're just going to mix the two together. Like right now, we need a staging area more than we need to worry about this little bit of material left over. We're going to be bringing more material in for our Lava Crete projects later this year. What was that? You were wondering what those Lava Crete events were this fall? Well, I'm glad you asked. First is the Lava Crete Accent Wall Workshop. This is in October. We'll be building a small-to-medium-sized Lava Crete wall inside the HyperAdobe Roundhouse. It'll be a great opportunity to learn formwork and how to do three-dimensional aspects and even conduit and electrical. It shouldn't be a ton of physical labor, but like I said, good hands-on experience, and Paul Schwamm and Guru Das are both going to be here, and then we also have the HyperAdobe and Lava Crete Workshop in November. We'll be building a HyperAdobe retaining wall around the Lava Crete utility lodge and then cladding it with Lava Crete, and Paul and Guru Das will be back for that too. You can camp here for both of those. We'll have delicious food, breakfast and lunch will be provided, and it'll just be a really great opportunity to get hands-on with all this stuff and have people like Paul and Guru Das on site to answer any questions you have about your particular build. Or if you don't want to do all that work, we do have a Homestead Tour we're still taking signers for in October. This is a great chance to see HyperAdobe buildings, Lava Crete, SuperAdobe, Berms and Soils, Solar, Rainwater Catchment, all that stuff in one place. Eat delicious food, hang out with cool people. All three of these events can be found at tinyshinyhome.com slash events. There's tons of details and information and you can sign up there and hopefully we will see you then. Now, let's get back to it. So for now, we just need to get this sort of push together up out of the way so that we can stage a huge Adobe brick area here. Anyway, let's pull this stuff up. Let's get it done. Okay, I think we've finally figured out our brick situation. So as you saw the other day, we kind of cleaned all this up. We did get some more clay. So we're going to move the big trough back over. We have a process that Guru Das told us would work. He said, fill up to the first line with water, then add in your clay and sand. So it's two parts clay to one part sand, kind of like gently shovel it in there evenly. Don't like mix it up. We're not going to spend a bunch of time. He's like, just shovel it in there until you can't see the water anymore. Then put straw on the rest of it and then cover it and let it sit overnight and then come back the next day, chop it all in and make your bricks. So we're here tonight. We're going to do the first part and we're gonna come back in the morning and do the second part. So we're going a little loosey goosey. Jonathan had a great idea of cutting out the bucket situation. So since this is like right in between the clay and the sand, we're just going to shovel it directly into the trough. Yeah, I mean, that was really, it was Guru Das's idea, technically. With the shovel? Yeah, but like we were thinking, well, we'll do our thing where we put in the bucket, we'll fill it right at the top of the bucket, then we'll dump in. But that's just one extra step, guys. And we placed this all right here. So I think this will work. The trick is when we shovel it in, we don't just want to dump it in the middle. We want to kind of like, like let it come off evenly. So we're filling that, that evenly. That's the goal. So that's the goal. We've experimented up to this point. Let's just experiment a little bit more. I think we need to put horse manure in it. And I think that will be my next experiment. Well the other experiment that you had a good idea was to put this leftover lava sand instead of our washed concrete sand. Maybe we should just try something. The problem is, is like, we got a lot of bricks to make and we have to wait like almost a week for it to cure to know if it's going to work. So it's like, how much time do we want to spend experimenting? Or do we want to just go into production and make some bricks? I'll just do it your way. Maybe we'll experiment later. I mean, if you want to experiment, we can. No, let's just go. Okay, so we're almost to the first line. How many gallons do you think that is? So we followed the instructions. I think we might just need to not do so much water. It definitely looks too seepy right now, but we can let this sit overnight and then just pull the water off, like the extra water off in the morning. So I don't think it's a huge deal, but you know, we're just learning. This is all learning. It's hard to go from small batch to big batch. It's also just hard to get a whole new process down from something that you've never done. How long did it take us to learn Hyper Adobe? Like, you know, it took us years to get our good process down. We don't have years to get a good process down with this. We literally have days. So hopefully we can figure it out this week and really nail it down. Because 1300 bricks aren't going to make themselves. As you can see, we've got quite a bit of standing water on here. So this morning, I'm just going to take all this extra water off, save it, of course, we'll use it in the next batch. And then we'll mix this up and see if we can make some bricks. And the next time we do this, we will not use as much water. If we had more time, we could just let this sit and let the water evaporate. But we don't have more time. So we are going to get some of this out, put it in here, add what we need to make it the right consistency. Probably just another two scoops of clay and one scoop of sand. Mix that up again. This is where this is supposed to be easier. But because we added too much water, we're making more work for ourselves by having to mix it in the wheelbarrow. So fun times. All right. It's been almost three hours and we've only done 25 blocks. So who's irritated? Me? Just me. OK, well, we are going to continue getting mix out of this way too soupy trough and adding a lot of sand and maybe some straw in it and make as many bricks as we can. And then we're going to do it a different way next time. We need to use a drill. Hey, friends, desert greeting cards are back. This time around, though, Jax is using colored markers and Ada is using colored pencils. So the kids draw these by hand from scratch. They're so artistic. Like, look how cool this is. And that's just one of them. Like, each card is different, right? Every single one is a little bit different. You don't know what you're going to get. And each pack of five is always going to be a little bit different, too. It's not like they have the same thing that they do for every set. Like, if you buy four sets, you get 20 different cards. These are great for birthdays, for Christmas, for saying thanks for anything that you want. It's cool to see how each kid has their own style, too. Ada's are just they're very different. Like, she's using colored pencils. She draws a little bit smaller and more precise. She's adding some animals into hers, like this little quail. And her signature is the skull, of course. Jax has this really clean, colorful and simple illustrative style. So from what I understand, Jax is trying to save money for a car. And Ada has a new horse, as you might have heard. Horses are expensive, so she's trying to earn some money to make sure that she has what she needs to help take care of Ford while he's here. And you know what? We're just really proud of our kids. They're awesome. And so we wanted to give them a platform to be able to sell these things. So if you head over to tinyshinyhome.com slash cards, choose Jax's or Ada's, and you will get one pack of five for each order. Order as many packs as you like. We will ship them out to you, and you will love them. I promise. Now, let's get back to the video. All right, guys. So here's the deal. We really screwed up this mix. We put way too much water in it. And then we put the straw in it. And now the issue is to get it back to the right consistency. Because it's still fixable. Don't get me wrong. Like, these are turning out great. But it means that for every batch that we make, we have to add more sand or clay back in. And then if you ever tried to mix anything with non-chopped straw, it is awful. It's just so difficult to do. And I noticed a lot of you asked in the last video why we didn't just use our cement mixers. Well, this is not cement. This is a fully earthen material. It's not mortar-like. It's not cement-like. It is full of clay. And clay is sticky and suction-y. And it would just not work in the barrel mixer. And then you add the straw on top of it. And it compounds it even further. Everything would just be stuck to the side. And we'd be fighting with it the whole time. So the problem is we have a full trough of this junk. Almost said a bad word. And we have to fix it. And it's going to take us forever. And we're super annoyed and frustrated. So we're just going to go through it one by one. And the next time around, we're going to fix the problems. We're going to fix them. Okay, we're taking a short little detour. Because Rue and Ford are out in the pasture for the first time together. So let's go see how they're doing. Okay, friends. Repeat after me. Today is a new day. We're going to do better with the bricks today. Everything will be fine. All right, we just have a little bit of this mix left. We're almost through it. I can smell it. We're getting close. So we're going to finish making these bricks. We're going to empty that big trough. And then we're going to try our new mix. Well, it's the same mix. It's just done in a smarter, more efficient way. That won't make it so difficult for us. Anyway, we got to get through these bricks first. Got to get through it. All right, so here's my theory of what happened. Gerdas's mix is already pre-mixed. Like the wash just brings his clay down and sand. And it's already pre-mixed by the actual wash. So he didn't have to worry about this step that we're going to do. So we're going to mix our clay and sand. We're going to add not nearly as much water. And we're going to use the paddle mixer and get that all nice and mixed together. Yeah, we were having a lot of... Like the clay got soft, but the big chunks didn't dissolve. Right, we thought they would dissolve. It would all just like goop together, but it did not. And so, yeah, so we're going to try this. And just the big thing is not as much water. Not as much water. There's way too much water. And we're not putting straw in until last minute. We're going to get this mix almost like a really dry mortar. Almost perfect. Then we'll add the straw. And then if we need to, we'll add a little more water then. That's the goal. Yeah, this isn't a how-to. This is a we're learning how to do it. Yeah. Maybe one day it'll be a how-to, but not right now. Honestly, I feel like after these bricks are made, I'm never going to want to make another adobe. Or maybe we'll just get so good at it, you'll love it. I don't feel like that's going to happen. We think we have a good mix. It feels really nice, like I would use this for mortar. You can feel the sand in it. So I think what we're going to do is get a layer of straw on top and only do like this half trough and make the bricks tonight. And then see how it turns out. So we'll let the straw kind of soak on it. I think we should push it down. Yeah, we can chop it. I think we should push it into it and then come back tonight and do the bricks. We're calling them bricks or blocks. I feel like we say both and I don't know which one it is. I think either name. We're going to make the adobes tonight. Okay. Okay, guys, we made it through the day, through the morning. We got our new mix in here. We put two whole flakes of straw. We're about two thirds full. We're just going to leave it. Just, we're just going to leave it. Yeah, I think it needs more water. But we're not going to add water until we're making blocks if it needs it. Yes, we can add just to sprinkle. We just don't want to get in the same situation. Right. And then there's also the situation of it kind of feels like there may not be enough sand in it. But that might be okay. We've lost our, like our mix, our mix is gone. We don't even know at this point. We did, we were supposed to do two to one, two clays to one sand. For this, we did one to one and it felt like there was less sand. Yeah. I don't know what's happening. So we put more sand in, but we didn't measure. We just did it to feel. So this is an experiment again. I feel like we just keep doing it. But like, we know what it feels like. I wonder if we need to go back to bucket measuring. I feel like maybe the inconsistency in shovels. I think that it doesn't really matter. People weren't using buckets and shovels to like make their mix. You know, maybe the ratio isn't to what it feels, feels right. Okay. So anyway, guys, it feels like the never ending brick story and we're getting a little bit. Annoyed. Annoyed, bogged down, depressed. And we're going to let this sit this morning. We're going to cover it. We're going to come back to it this afternoon and see where we're at and see what, see if it's a, an acceptable mix to just take it from here straight into the form. Like that is the goal, right? We don't want to mess with this when we take it out. We want it to go straight into the form is as few times as we can touch this stuff, the better. Yeah. I think I didn't realize how hard it would be to get this material out of here. Like it's so heavy and so suctioning and so sticky. Like, is it really physically hard? It creates a vacuum. Like even when you put the shovel in, I, if I use the full like weight of the shovel against this to try to pull it up, like I feel like I'm going to snap the fiberglass shovel. Yeah. It's crazy. It's really hard to get out of here. But if we could just like take a handful and plop it right in a form. Yeah. That would be ideal. Anyway, uh, listen, I think we're almost there. Just give us a little more time. How much time do we need? Just a little more time. Looks like a trash heap again. So we had big plans to make more Adobe blocks yesterday. And we had some crazy weather that looked like it was going to come in, but it actually didn't really hit us. It hammered everywhere else around us. So we did get our big delivery of clay from Alcox Rock and Sand. We just uncovered this because we had to cover it up last night. Cause I thought it was going to rain. And let's look at our mix. Our mix is definitely not too wet, but I don't think it's wet enough. But I feel like we don't have to do much to it. We're just going to throw it in the forms. Guys, I think, I think we're almost there. I think we might've figured it out.