Splooty mortar, and the cordwood learning curve

You can read all you want about something---and trust me, we have---and you can try to learn from the example of others---we took Rob Roy's cordwood course---but nothing can prepare you for actually doing something, other than . . . DOING it.

We have opted to use lime-putty mortar rather than a Portland cement mix. It is time-tested (the Romans used it) and doesn't have the embodied energy of Portland (cement manufacture produces huge amounts of carbon dioxide). So last week we cracked open some of the 100 bags of Type S builders lime we'd purchased, and hydrated it to make a lime putty, using a recipe from New York cordwood builders extraordinaire Bruce and Nancy: 13.5 gallons of water, 3 50-lb bags of lime, and 1/2 cup of dish soap. This mixture is WORK to mix, even with a paddle mixer attached to a power drill. We covered the putty with a film of water and plastic, and let it sit for a bit more than the required 3 days.

Yesterday we tried our first mortar mix: 2 1/2 parts sand to one part lime putty. However, here in Maine we have had a freakishly wet spring---we had five inches of rain just between June 19 and 21, and it's been raining all month---and our sand, despite our best efforts, is pretty moist.

The resulting mortar was overly moist. Cordwood guru Rob Roy says that a ball of mortar, when tossed three feet in the air, should NOT go "sploot" when it lands. All I can say is that ours was pretty splooty.

We tried laying up our first bit of cordwood with our too-wet mortar, rolling up one of our tarp "walls," but the rain and wind began again as soon as the tarp was up. We were forced to give up after half a batch of mortar, which is probably just as well. We were in a hurry to lay our first cordwood after all of the preparation, and forgot everything we'd read about technique and "mortar, insulation, wood" cadence. Looks like we'll need to wait out the weather, settle down, and try again.

"Pretty splooty"