Digging drainage trench for hut
Building up floor area
Chopping wood for posts
Fresh water creek
A crab
Today I learned crabs live in fresh water
Back to work
Hatchet and timber
Hammering low side posts (75 cm high) to form a 2.5 x 2.5 m square
Making a post hole
Central post (2 m high)
Climbing fern used as lashing
Ridge line (about 3 m long, extends out past the front and back of the hut forming eves)
Side beam the same as ridge beam
Rafters (about 2 m long)
More posts to stabilize structure
Thunder foreshadows lots of rain later
Battons to hold grass thatch
More stabilizing posts
Stone blade
Cutting grass
Grass only grows high in the mountain, an hour round trip to get a bundle of thatch
Thatching batons
Overlapping thatch helps shed rain
Trimming eves for neatness and extra grass
Covering ridgeline to keep out rain by lifting grass on with pole
Gaps filled
Thatching took 36 hours
Cutting wattles
weave in and out between posts
Rain
Last of the wattles
Grey mud from nearby clearing (about 20 m away)
Plastering wall with mud
Mud stays on provided the roof keeps the rain off. Luckily, there is little wind blown (horizontal) rain in the forest.
Creek swollen from heavy rain
Getting wall finished in the rain
Each pannel takes about 15 minutes to plaster including fetching the mud
Miserable conditions
Plastering floor
Optimistic fire making attempt. Standing dead wood is selected for fuel
Fire sticks kept dry by hut. Tinder is dry candle nut leaves
Smoke appears, a good sign
Easy to do once you know how
Glowing ember is actually powder from fire sticks (punk), the aim is to ignite the tinder with it
Transferring tinder bundle to fire wood
Adding small twigs (kindling) to raise the flames
This took about 20 minutes from starting the fire sticks to this stage
Fire will dry out the mud and the thatch. Smoke deters bugs.
Stone Yam mound progress (45 days approximately)
I trained the vine around a dead vine to spread it to the canopy for more light
And here trained on a horizontal stick
Grass thatched mud hut