30th Jan.

Next stop, Cob Cottage Company, at Coquille, about 16 miles inland.  The side road turned into a small road, which turned into a steep gravel track through the forest I had to push my bike along, which turned into a tiny path through the trees, and eventually, little cob houses! 

Home of Ianto and Linda, co-authors of 'The Hand-Sculpted House', a comprehensive guide to the practicalities and philosophy of cob building, based on their own buildings.  I came across their book two winters ago on a farm, which made such an impression on me, I took myself off to Ireland for a cob course the next summer, and here I am, staying in a cob cottage, just having had dinner with them. 

I left Tammy's with a letter for Ianto, and a bag of frozen salmon carcasses.  Fulfilling my ambition to be a bike messenger, I just didn't foresee it beginning in rural America, with fish carcasses.

It's so magical here, a village pretty much, of little cob dwellings, roofed cob garden walls, an outside kitchen area. vegetable-growing spaces, trees, and a large, deafening frog population.  A lot has been achieved in the 13 years they've lived here - many workshops, courses, apprenticeships and volunteers, many vegetable seeds saved, ideas tested and roofs raised.  Ianto says that he manages to achieve a lot because he gets up early and doesn't have a TV or computer, he does things.  There are not many people who fully live out their beliefs, myself definitely included, but Ianto is one of them.  Originally from Wales, trained as an architect, for some of the time in Edinburgh, he has made Oregon his home, and moved to America originally to get close to the corporate-driven consumerism that he wanted to oppose so strongly. 

Sleeping on a raised wooden bed platform in a cosy cob cottage!