WITH NETTLE - IN THE WALLS

In 2018 I learned how to make nettle yarn in the Facebook group Nettles for textiles, and like most people there I stripped the fiber from one plant at a time. Eventually I got a decent collection of cut NETTLE WOOD. I have taken care of this wood, because my goal has been to use absolutely everything on the plant.

The other day I discovered that there was still a lot of fiber in the old pieces of wood. Whether this is due to carelessness when I stripped the plants, or whether there are other reasons why the fiber is now visible, I don't know. In any case, there was still a lot of "spine muscles" in the pieces of wood. So they were used as sealing material in the house wall!

"20 years ago, my husband and I saved an old train station from certain death in a fire drill. One by one, planks were picked down and moved to our garden where the train steamed in the old days. This was actually the second time that the building had been moved. The last time was in 1936, when it came from Skjeggerud station to Sylling. During the demolition in 2001, we discovered something strange;

The house had been sealed with linseed oil putty and old rags. Based on what we could "read" from the different coats of paint, the sealing work must have been done in 1936. And the linseed oil putty was still soft!

Now, as I write this, I'm thinking that raw linseed oil was probably raw and not boiled, and the putty was probably far more saturated with linseed oil than is usual when you putty windows.

Anyway! Without any plan to seal the large cracks, we removed the linseed oil and the rags when we moved house in 2001. This year is the year of the train station, (kidding!) and thus we have scraped the house free of "modern" paint coats and are caring for the old materials like a lost lover.

Maybe we did something stupid, or maybe we did something clever; We sealed the big cracks with nettles and linseed oil putty. First we let the nettles soak up the linseed oil, then we wrapped them in linseed oil putty and stuffed these fat "baby chicks" into the cracks. And the paint was, of course, linseed oil paint.

Now I have no idea how this type of insulation will work, it remains to be seen in the long term. But stay tuned, and I'll update you in 50 years!