My girlfriend and I spent the Fall of 2020 on a small farm outside of Selma, Oregon, about a 30 minute drive from the California border. For two months, we split firewood, laid irrigation pipe, and planted greenhouse seedlings. We worked closely with Curtis, one of our hosts. Among a million other things, Curtis taught us cob construction, building enduring structures out of mud and straw.

The cob mixture can be finicky, and it behaves differently depending on moisture content and the mud-straw ratio. It was challenging, and a ton of fun. A big thanks to Curtis and Patricia for sharing their knowledge and their home.