Well today was pretty cool, and I think demonstrated why the building of an oven is not something that can easily be done by a book or written instruction manual. It's a craft, and there are so many tiny steps and choices that it would take a long time to write down in any coherent structure. So, instead, we get the teaching method that has been used for thousands of years: "Here, let me show you how to do it."
There's so much power in that. We live in a world where we are constantly told what to do, but the people doing the telling rarely show you how it's done. It's the teacher living out the concepts that they are teaching, rather than just standing at the front of a classroom or on high.
With that, we had our fearless teacher, Mike, showing us how to do it....and we did it! After a wooden half circle form was built, the crew began laying the arches for our beautiful and quite big cooking chamber.
Here you can see that two arches have been built, and the form has been pulled forward for the third arch as we work toward the front of the cooking chamber. You have to get the arch just right, so there aren't wide gaps and it lines up with the arches behind it.
When each arch is done, then the inside needs to be cleaned with a wet sponge before the mortar dries.
Then you do it, again and again, until you are to the front of the cooking chamber.
And eventually the final scrub. This thing is solid. It is now apparent that if there is a tornado, I might be taking refuge in the brick oven.
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