Rammed earth wall - days 5&6

Nick managed to dislocate his finger at football!! What terrible timing. Luckily he gave it a pull and it went back into place almost straight away so it's a bit swollen, bruised and sore but he's able to move it about ok. He's fashioned a tube like splint and has managed to carry on shoveling and helping on site. No ramming or heavy lifting for the moment.

Yesterday went well. With Nick on light duties I was in the mix a bit more and got to man the rammer for a bit. It's not at all easy and takes quite a lot of muscle to maneuver it around although there's definitely a technique to it. We had a couple of breaks during the day to build up the shuttering.

Today I had to go into the office so missed out on the action. More breaks to sort shuttering and extend the lift and then re-gig the lift. We're finding these breaks eating into the ramming time so we haven't quite managed a metre on either day. Progress has felt a little slow but we are now over half way.

View from the top of the lift. You can see the two colours of earth we have behind the mixer.

Proof I've done my bit!

Nick on the mix. The earth has the right moisture content when you can squash it into a tennis ball sized blob and then when you drop it from hip height onto a hard surface it should break into several large pieces. Too dry disintegrates totally, too wet splats or doesn't break. 

Stelios sending up earth. The shuttering ends you can see here are 500mm short of the final height. This section now has sides and the earth lift has been extended up to the next level of scaffolding.