lots of mud

Today we started covering the inner walls of our straw house with clay. There will be three layers in total, and the first rough layer is meant to cover the straw with structure, so that the following plastering layer holds well. The process and material are, once again, wonderfully easy, clean and freely available.
We got the clay from a gravel pit where they produce sand. The rich clay is a by-product of sand cleaning and the site doesn't need it. We drive over for about 20 minutes, load the trailer with clay, say thank you and drive back. Free, aside from transportation.
The clay was stuck into a bathtub with water as it apparently changes its structure when it's left for a few days to soak. And then, off we started massaging our straw walls with the mud and lovingly sticking a mix of straw and mud into holes and dents. The mix of straw and mud is very similar to some of the walls in the Brittany house, and I'm starting to have an idea how they were done. (I'm really sad that we built this cement wall there last year where a clay and stone wall used to stand.) We worked with bare hands and feeling the rich, creamy smooth clay is gorgeous - although leaving it to dry on the skin is a bad idea, as it dries it up. It can be used as a beauty mask if put on very thickly, though... Which I would definitely not advise to do with conventional building material.
The second layer will have cow poo, not horse poo after all, mixed in it. I'm / hm / curious to see how that will be.