Cooking with mud

The good news is the washer works again. But for how long? How long?

The bad news is I've got ovenlust. I've run hot and cold on solar ovens for a while now. The appeal of clean, free cooking fuel and a cool kitchen is always offset by the flimsy appearance of the ovens themselves. A cooker made of a jar, cardboard and foil may be a model of thrift and ingenuity, but thrift and ingenuity don't stand a chance against big, hyperactive dogs and the children who love them. The shallow-box-with-glass-lid style doesn't appeal, either. The risk of total oven destruction, to say nothing of cuts and burns, seems too high.

Then I found this: Oriol Balliu's cob-construction solar cooker with a stone foundation to raise it up off the ground. What is cob? Mud and straw. The step-by-step photos are so clear they make it look easy. I'm sure it's not, especially for someone with my limited building skillz. But if I could build this, I don't think anyone -- not even both dogs and both boys together -- could knock it over.

Wouldn't you cook outside all the time with this?

I did a little research and it turns out that what little soil we have in Central Texas is pretty good for cob building. And because making cob involves mashing straw into a ball of mud with one's feet, the kids would get to help build it. Think of it -- I could essentially make an oven out of my yard. Even I'm getting a little woo-woo buzz at the thought of it.

If there's any way to make a water-efficient washing machine out of mud, I'll build that, too.