Also I'm much less suspicious of cobb houses now, my goodness that stuff was durable.

this actually made me laugh aloud. cobb & adobe are so durable that there are Pueblo villages here built of adobe in the 1300s that are still inhabited today - all of Sky City in Acoma Pueblo specifically, and instances of it in other places. adobe is a way to make a rock on purpose. the central room of our community house is an adobe that was built in the 1890s. it's cool and quiet and when we bought the place, it was in better structural condition than the cinderblock wings added on in 1947.