This is a better view of the front door. The pile of slats on the left is used for building, heating, and chasing chickens out of the house. The cement mixer on the right is an electric mixer and I am currently using it to make cob. Since I work a bit now a bit latter, I've come up with a method to make cob that keeps a batch on standby and I use it has time allows.

I have assigned my son the job of keeping a child's swimming pool filled with a mixture of mud made in the cement mixer. My job is to empty it. It's a bit wet for regular cob. This pool of mud or soon to be cob has been left for up to a week or more (covered). When I am actually going to build, I pull up the wheel barrel and lay a layer of mud then a layer of straw. Mix by hand, and then repeat a layer of mud and a layer of straw. I continue until the wheel barrel is full of mixed cob. I put enough straw in the mixture to thicken it.

I've found I can't quite make the 12 inches up a time, as my mixture is not quite stout enough to make 12 inches. Instead I build up about 8 inches each timeas I work on an area. I've got enough house where that has never been a problem.

I don't mix the straw in right way as if the cob sits for a couple of days covered and it has straw in it, then the straw starts to get a bit smelly. Fermenting I would guess. The pool holds about 5 wheel barrels of cob. It doesn't take too long to empty the pool, however I haven't time it yet. I guess I'll do that next time.