Window Win, Render Fail

BEFORE ...

... AFTER! FEATURING HIGH TECH WINDOW SURROUNDS SHAPING TOOL

In order to distract you from the fact that I haven't taken photos of the verandah we've been working on for two weekends*, I present classic before and after shots, beloved cliche of home renovation shows.

I've also been experimenting with mud render. 

I've made mud render before, but I can't get one of the ingredients in the old recipe - fresh cow manure.

My friend Ric has selfishly stopped raising Murray Grey cattle. Following his beasts around at dawn scooping up fresh cow pats before they harden was one of the best things about the Very Small Shed project.  Then when I added the cow poo to the render mix (at about 1 scoop of poo for say 8 scoops of mud, but who's counting) it worked some strange magic. The render stuck to the wall, it was easy to work with and it dried to a lovely waterproof finish. 

Once you recover from the ick factor, fresh cow manure is pleasant to work with and the very mild composty smell goes away when it dries. 

Ric used to say that Murray Grey were very special creatures.  He said their poo was probably a very superior product.  But that didn't stop him retiring.  Selfish octogenarian.

I figure cow manure is basically very finely chopped grass fibre, plus some enzymes.  I can't replace the enzymes, but I thought paper pulp might be a good source of fine fibres.

Soaked paper pulp in cement mixer

I munched up shredded paper in the cement mixer, then added the paper pulp and some chaff (straw chopped up small) to a mud slurry, plus some psyllium husk (you know, the soluble fibre people eat because they don't eat vegetables) and some linseed oil (for waterproofing).

Render recipe number one test patch fail

It didn't even come close to working.  I could hardly make it stick to the wall.  Back to the drawing board.

There's a dairy down the road.  I'm a bit shy of new people, but I'm thinking of summoning up the nerve to go introduce myself and ask them for some poo.

* By "we" I mean TJ.  I was busy making chile jam. These six jars took me pretty well the only free hours I had that weekend.  At the end, I was looking at those jars thinking they're really pretty, but I could have made a lot of wall in that time.  Which was probably the point of it. 

Chile Jam Wall Building Procrastination Project