El Horno: Pix

About El Horno

The original El Horno page was created in 1999, and sported "Designed on Amiga" and "Made with Amiga" badges. Pictures were shot on film and scanned with a hand-held scanner and the nerve of a surgeon. The same scanner was used to scan pictures off books, and some scans had to be spliced together.

A lot has changed since then. The husband I had then decided to not be my husband any more about five years ago, the child in the pictures is now taller than his father, I moved out of my 12-acre property and back to Melbourne, my hair is long, neither Commodore or Amiga exist, and I'm typing this on my iMac. I have, however, decided to keep the text as originally written. At least, almost: a lot of the links are now dead, and some of the information is now irrelevant.

What hasn't changed is that I am still planning another oven, albeit a smaller one in my suburban backyard. People are also still interested in building and using a backyard oven. Now that "sustainability" has become the buzzword of the decade, an adobe oven comes into its own: as Kiko Denzer's second book shows, ovens can and should be built from second-hand and readily available and renewable materials. An adobe oven is also eminently doable. Where a brick oven takes a sizeable chunk of time and money to make, an adobe one can cost nothing and a few hours to make.

So warm yourself beside el horno. Dream the dream of having your own, as I am dreaming once again, perhaps with my new husband, now grown children - and attendant partners - and step-children to help.