building an horno

Driving through northern NM, one sees hornos (bread ovens) pretty much everywhere. They are especially common in the Pueblos, but are found in the backyards of many older homes. An excellent way to bake breads (and meat) in the summer, the ‘modern’ hornos are based on Spanish/Moorish designs brought over back in the 1500's. Built from adobe, all they require is the right mix of soils, water, and an afternoon. Unlike modern adobe bricks which contain additives to make them water resistant, adobes for ovens must be totally additive free - this makes the project even more do-able for the beginner - and are simple to make at home.

Recently, my family got together to help my father build an horno.  He has built with adobe for over 40 years and founded a school to help people build their own homes.

The base of this horno is dry stacked concrete blocks and adobes. The cooking surface is a single layer of redbrick. For this morning’s work (about 2 hours), four of us were able to mix mud, trim adobes and set 4 layers of bricks. The entire project could easily be finished in a day; add another day for a layer of mud plaster.

The first step is adding a layer of mud onto the bricks.

The interior diameter is sketched onto the bricks and the adobes added on top. Both sides should be level. The mud joints are smoothed with a spoon.

The doorway is made from redbricks set in mud. Each course starts with the door bricks and then follows around with adobe.  

Bricks are cut to size by chopping off chunks. Precision is not important because spaces can be filled with mud.

After the 2nd course, the bricks start to angle up on the exterior side.  Mud is added as before, but now more is added on the exterior edge than the interior one.

The process from now on creates a 2-d roman arch. The only technological assistant is a piece of rebar and flat stick with a line drawn to mark the interior diameter of the horno.

The adobes are placed on the mud, matching the interior edge with the line on the stick.  

Instead of checking level from side to side, the adobes must be level with the flat edge of the stick to achiive the proper angle for the next course.

 

And so it goes, course by course.  At the top the adobes will be nearly vertical and are held in place by friction with the mud.  Believe me, it works.  Once the last adobe is placed in, the ring locks into place and becomes very strong.  This is the process by which elegant adobe buildings were built throughout the middle east (and in some places sill are).

This is the process by which elegant adobe buildings were built throughout the middle east (and in some places sill are).  Shown here is a building in progress with a double roman arch doorway set into an adobe dome.  As lovely as it is outside, it is quite impressive inside looking up. 

Adventures in Shelving

Work in the kitchen is almost complete.  One of the last steps is installation of shelving.  Because the room is so small and relatively dark, I decided against upper cabinets and chose to have a single row of shelves across the wall.  I have to wait until the on-demand water heater is installed to put in the long shelf, but recently, Paul was able to work on the shorter shelf.

All walls in the cabin are solid adobe, but the south wall (along which the plumbing runs) has drywall covering the bricks.  This was the simplest way to deal with covering pipes and had the added benefit of creating a plumb surface along which the lower cabinets could run and providing an easier material into which shelves could be installed.

I don’t like the look of thick supports under shelves, but thought that something would be needed for support.  These shelves will hold all the dishes, so there is potential for a heavy load.  I bought some lovely cast iron brackets (see my Pinterest page for a link), but was still concerned that more support would be needed.  Better to go overboard, than have all my bowls crash down.

After consulting various online sources, Paul and I designed a variation of a torsion shelf based on two websites, one from popular mechanics and the second from a blog.

The first step was creating the hollow shelf.  A frame was made from scrap 1x2's, screwed and glued securely (you can see some finger wipes in the photo).   A skin of 1/4" plywood was glued on the top and bottom.  I wasn’t concerned about perfect alignment (although Paul was) of the various parts because I wanted to face the edges of the shelf with a strip of aged wood (see previous posts about the sunroom).  The aged wood would visually create a thick board, match the vigas, other finishes in the cabin, and just add to that casual, ‘rusticity’ that you see in old adobe homes.

A cleat was screwed into the studs on the wall.  As with the frame, the cleat was scrap wood.  It fits inside the torsion shelf and doesn’t show, so it doesn’t have to be attractive.  It does have to fit snugly, so Paul spent some time sanding to get the shelf well seated on the cleat.

The shelf is then slid onto the cleat and securely screwed onto it. This photo shows the prefitting, before the aged wood was added to the edges.  Interestingly, the adobe wall to the left is so out of plumb that when the shelf was level, it looked decidedly unlevel. We had to fiddle with it a bit to make it look good to the eye.   Ahhh, the joys of working in an adobe home.

Most torsion shelves are sanded and painted before the final install.  Visually the shelves appear to float and have a very modern look.  We installed cast iron brackets before adding the aged wood to the sides.  A side benefit of the torsion shelf is that we didn’t have to worry about the brackets not being screwed into a stud.  We did use expansion bolts (just in case) and the result is a very sturdy shelf.

What a nice shelf! Of course, it would be even better without the junk on the counter and through the house.

Out of the frying pan, into the ... flood

View from the cabin: ash blowing off the burnt mountain

As of today, the Whitewater Baldy Fire is 87% contained.  I went to NM last week to check the cabin and view the awfulness for myself.  As much as one mentally knows about the damage, seeing it in person takes the situation to another level.  This fire is bad, very bad.  Areas that burnt in the past 10 years and were beginning to recover, burned again.  Photos from the Forest Service show upper elevation areas of the Gila appearing like the Mt. St. Helens eruption - nothing but grey ash and black, flattened trees.  Entire watersheds have been destroyed, including the Whitewater, where the cabin is located.


Now the big concern is flooding.  There is nothing to absorb or hold back any rainfall and the Forest Service is calling for massive floods in many drainages.  The situation is considered an imminent emergency. Monsoon rains will start soon, and for the first time I can think of, most people are hoping for light rains; keep in mind that we have been in a drought for years.


What can one do but carry on?  It will take decades for the watersheds to recover, so surviving the upcoming rainy season does nothing to guarantee a lack of flood events next spring or summer, or after that.  So, work on the cabin continues, hoping for the best.  Thankfully, various government organizations are doing their part to mitigate damage through town.  I'm being sarcastic.

When I was a little girl, Whitewater creek was lovely.  After a series of big floods every decade or so, the Corps of Engineers channelized the creek in the 80's.  So now, it looks like what you see here.  No riparian zone to speak of, and nothing to slow down or divert water.  Basically a dead zone, a chute designed to move water at an impressive, high velocity.  And yes indeed, each successive flood was worse than the last.  This view is from my neighbor's property looking south (no fire in that direction); about 100 yards from my cabin.  She had previously planted a line of willows to help hold the berm in place for smaller floods.  

While I was visiting, teams of bulldozers deepened and widened the channel and increased the height of the berm.  They worked 7am to 7pm, Sat and Sun, too.  The process was amazing, if horrible and noisy.  It is difficult to tell from this image, but the channel is now about 15 feet deep.  Previously, about 5 feet tall, the berm is now over ten and perhaps as wide.  I feel there is zero protection from this structure because it is not held in place by anything, so any water will swish all the cobble away to grind into the houses downstream.  In fact, I think the entire enterprise will likely make any flood devastating for anyone downstream.  

So I sign off, hoping for the best.  I just want to finish the cabin and have one good, comfortable year.  Is that too much to ask?  Perhaps so.

The Whitewater Baldy Fire

The rising smoke plume; from the Christian Science Monitor

Perhaps you have heard of the wildfire currently burning in the Gila – likely not.  It is amazing to me that this fire is not receiving the national press that AZ’s Wallow fire received, or any fire in CA for that matter.  The Wallow fire last spring was about 30 miles (as the raven flies) from my cabin.  The Whitewater Baldy fire is about five miles away as of this morning.  Just on the other side of the mountain (the one you see in my header, the view from my living room).  Very, very close.  It is now the largest fire in recorded NM history, over 170,000 acres.  It is growing fast, with ZERO containment.  Unlike last year’s fire in northern NM, there are no nuclear reactors nearby, no tourist hotspots, no highly visited national or state parks, not many houses, not many people for that matter; apparently not much of what usually concerns the general American public.

There is however, tremendous value here.  Beyond price.  The region containing the Gila (NM), Apache/Sitgreaves (AZ), and Coronado (AZ) National Forests (and the Gila (NM) and Blue Range (AZ) Wilderness  Areas within them) are some of the most biologically diverse forests in the United States.  The Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts meet here, combining with a strong influence from Mexico’s Sierra Madre. The terrain is rugged, shaped by an eons long wrestling match between tectonic activity and the Gila River.  Elevational changes can be extreme; one can go from desert scrub and grassland at 3000’ to mature Ponderosa forests over 10,000’ in just a few miles.  Like a giant, biological Venn diagram, everything meets here, the floral and faunal melting pot of North American.  This region hosts the greatest diversity of many insects, birds and plants in North America.  Very few people (even the locals) know this. 

The Apaches lived in the region for centuries, then about 100 years ago, settlers moved in and began mining.  They continued on with ranching.  Compared to other parts of AZ and NM, this area is the most recently ‘settled.’  A youngster compared to the rest of the west, and certainly an infant compared to the thick human history of northern NM.  Even in affluent times, it is hard to made a living here and the human population has never been large.  Numbers have dwindled over the past 25 years and Catron County is now one of the least populated in the nation.

The community here is composed of treeroot tough ranching families, hardy retirees who long for isolation and beauty, and environmentally oriented individuals who bask in what can only be described as the stunning glory of desert riparian zones.  Add a dose of ecotourists and you have a feel for the human mix.  Often the basic philosophies of these groups clash.  The mental shaking of fists and occasional dark glances are taken in stride (and with genuine humor) because there is space here – generous room for every single person to live as he or she chooses.  The cattle and elk may glare at each other over the barbed wire fence (and then the elk bounce over), the wolves (yes! wolves, in the Blue Range) and coyotes may harass the livestock (but truly, less than Fido and Spot), but not too much changes over the years.  Everyone manages to scrape by because really, that’s all you can do.  Nature has the upper hand here.

Living in the West, one becomes inured to the vagaries of the elements.  Much mental and emotional activity is dedicated to the timing and distribution of precipitation.  There is the eternal prayer for rain, which rarely comes, and sporadically even then.

Occasionally, there are floods.  The Corps of Engineers has just about given up on many of the populated watersheds and told residents that the Corps will no longer ‘manage’ streambeds.  Flood waters do what they will – human concerns or no.  No dam, channel or diversion will ever change that.  Most people don’t see it this way, but floods are actually cleansing and positive.  Biological recovery is lively and diverse.

Often there are droughts.  Often.  Of course we have the seasonal dry, but longterm drought happens more and more regularly. Everything just slows.  The grasshoppers walk, trees shrink inward, grasses rustle more quietly.  Last year was a drought year.  Such times are difficult for humans (we like to be well hydrated and water fat), but the natives do fine in the end.  This is their land after all, and they know the language of the climate far better than we ever will.  As soon as moisture arrives, recovery is instant.

A view of the fire from NASA

In the face of fire, the situation changes.  Everyone, every thing is brought to its metaphorical knees in the face of a wildfire.  When scrublands, pinyon/juniper and dry ponderosa forests burn there is nothing left.  NO thing left.  When these forests burn, they will not recover within our lifetimes.  Recovery depends on rainfall, and there just isn’t much, never enough, nor at the right time.

I’m here in IL and mourning those mountains and hills.  I love that country.  I can see there; the sky is high elevation blue -and clear- like nothing else, the clouds sharp against that sky.  I can breathe and breathe and breathe.  Every six weeks, mountain peak by mountain peak, I mark my 250 mile commute from Albuquerque to the Gila.  Four hours of open, clean, beautiful desert, the rest of my life dropping away to blissful nothing.  

Now, I sit here in Illinois, very sad.  Certainly sad for my cabin and for my beloved Ghost Dog buried there.  But more so for the javalina that ate all my pumpkins just as they were ripe; the herd of deer that browse my apple trees then pop over the fence; the ravens that complete a flyover every morning with the whhoom, whhoom, whhoom of their wings; the majestic flock of turkey vultures that shrug into their roosting sycamore every evening; the multiplicity of hummingbirds with all their commentary; the zillions of grasshoppers that buzz and clatter through the weeds; the lizards winking and slipping through my fingers; the scorpions every March like clockwork, the ants, the jumping spiders, the fungus beetles (so blue!), and many others.  So many. 

I think of and ache for the water borne with nowhere and no way to go.  Silver bright minnows, Agosia – tougher than dirt, their gills choked with grey powder ash turned to sludge in the water; toads like handfuls of pebbles in my palm; Belostomatid gentlemen, their backs adorned with the pearls of their offspring; bubbles of Nostoc algae nodding between stones; notonectids that won’t bite me anymore and all those waterscorpians with raptorial arms always praying for the death to come.  It is coming.

When the fires come there is nothing anyone can do.  It will come and it will be gone.  There will be nothing left but dust and ash. We will not see green again for decades.  It will never be close to what it was before.