con amore!... part 2

The family fun continues....

This past weekend, regular commentor on the blog -- older-sister-of-my-man -- and her man, joined us at the cabin for one last work bee on the now-infamous pizza oven.

And now we're DONE! Sort of... for now, anyway....

This time around we got to explore our inner child -- starting with mud pie construction:

a little sand and straw

a little clay

and a furry contribution from the dog for good measure (!)

 got stomped around till it was a thick, strong, goopy slop!

We applied it by the handful, and (apparently) pounded it in place until there was a 4-inch coating all around. We'll likely need to add more at a later date, but this was all the supplies and physical labour resources could manage on this trip!

Next was the dig out! Remember the sand mold? Now was the time to remove it all -- took me back to my sandbox days!

At this point, the excitement was starting to build. We could see the newspaper lining (between the sand mold and the clay layer), which made me think of papier-mache.

It's starting to look like a pizza oven, isn't it?

Finally! Ready for the first fire!

And who doesn't love playing with fire?

Admittedly, the last photo here should be of a pizza, but the actual pizza making was late at night and, well, not terribly successful. Let's just say we're counting on a few pizza-professionals (namely a couple of pizza-slinging sons) to help perfect our technique. There's nothing quite like a smokey apple muffin the morning after a day of playing in the mud and sand though.

A huge thank you to all who helped with planning, sourcing and construction! Let the pizza-making (and bread baking and... and....) begin!