No life can be called complete until you have built your own home with your own hands and nothing could be simpler than building a home made of adobe. It’s one of mankind’s oldest construction methods, developed before the backhoe or D-9 Cat — indeed before the human brain reached its present size — so requires almost no thought or planning. Think of the adobe brick as a stackable mud pie and you have a clear picture of the ease — and fun — of building your own home in New Mexico.

And what a home it will be: thick adobe walls create a "soft" acoustic tone, perfect for four-channel stereo, to enhance the sound of your historic collection of Pink Floyd CDs. An added benefit: the mass of the adobe walls will absorb heat from daytime winter sun and radiate it back into the house at night. In the summer the converse is true. This means that the temperature inside an adobe home, day or night, winter or summer, varies little — it’s always slightly uncomfortable, which builds character and keeps us in touch with our roots.

The first step: buy an old pickup, preferably a mid-60s model Ford Ranger with a badly slipped clutch and a U-joint held in place by baling wire. You will need a dog as well. Truck-and-dog will identify you as a local who is entitled to receive any advice you may need not already covered by this pamphlet.

Next, drive around in your pickup until you find some land you like, preferably with views of the Sangre de Cristos or Jemez Mountains. No need to actually purchase acreage here, as might be required in other parts of the country. You may "open" escrow if you like, but it will never "close." No one in New Mexico has ever cleared title to property because the original deeds were written in illegible seventeenth-century Spanish on decaying, mouse-bitten parchment, then lost in a leather trunk in the sealed-off attic of the Santa Fe County Assessor’s office. All subsequent land transactions have been conducted by simple theft, first from the original owners by in-laws, then by Anglo traders from Missouri and Texas who looked much like Victor Jory.

The locals know this history well and no one will bother a stranger about a simple thing like putting up a house unless your pickup has California plates or your land has water within 5,000 feet of the earth’s surface. Once you have selected your own patch of New Mexico dirt, the real excitement begins. Choose your building site on high ground: avoid building in an arroyo, the Spanish word for "deceptively dry creek bed subject to biblical flooding when all six inches of annual rainfall descend on a single afternoon in July." Using a machete, cut back some piñon trees to clear a space for your new home. Save the piñon for later and make some adobe.

Simply throw into a tin bucket, in rough proportions of 4 to 2 to 1, some calliche clay, sand, and straw cut in 2" to 3" pieces. Tap into a neighbor’s irrigation ditch to provide a reliable source of water. Add just enough to the adobe mixture, stirring vigorously with an old wooden spoon, to achieve a consistency halfway between old shaving cream and wet spackle. To create a simple 10" x 14" form or mold, cut away and discard the missing-child side of two milk cartons, then measure and tape the containers together. Pour in the mixture and voilà. After just four weeks of curing time, you’ll have your first adobe brick.

If after tipping it out from the mold your first brick sags like a Dali clock, you may have used too much water. Or, if it crumbles between palm and forefinger, too much sand. Remember that no two adobe bricks are exactly alike — and getting them just right takes practice and patience! Because the weight of an adobe home is greater than that of a conventional balloon-frame house, you will need to compress as well as clear the ground before the foundation is laid in order to prevent cracks from developing in the walls at some later time.

Tear off a piñon branch and use its tip to outline your new home in the dirt. Adobe building is not an exact science but be sure to allow plenty of room — don’t forget space for a kitchen, guest bedroom, and a nice workshop area off the garage. To compress the ground, wear heavy boots and stomp on the back of a shovel throughout the outlined area until the earth feels firm. Now use the blade of the shovel to dig a footing two feet below grade and well below frost level. Stomp around once more, lay the first brick, then make another. You may wish now to make several bricks at once, as you’ll need 2,000 to 3,000 altogether; each takes a month to properly cure.

Foundation’s done. Whew! Pop open a beer, guzzle it, and toss the crushed can into the bed of the pickup. You are now ready to lay the first layer or "course" of bricks for your walls. Do so only in warm weather, because the mud used as mortar could freeze. For mortar of perfect consistency, with neither too much sand nor clay, use dirt from your neighbor’s ditch bank. Apply with a shovel and trowel, then add a second course, and a third. Be sure to leave room for windows and doors — doors should be raised slightly above ground level to avoid flooding in heavy rainfall. Also, don’t forget to place lintels, or wood beams supported by sculpted corbels at the top of window and door spaces. Extend the lintels into the adjoining wall on both sides to prevent sagging, then carve them with elaborate decorations resembling seventeenth-century Spanish title deeds.

Once you have built the walls, you will need to walk onto a neighbor’s property and cut a spruce timber thick enough to be used both as bond beams to tie the walls together and vigas that comprise the ceiling. Over the vigas, lay at 90-degree angle latillas, the piñon branches you reserved for this occasion. If inadvertently you have misplaced them, you may use aspen branches culled from a neighbor’s property. In the roof itself, install a canale every 10 feet or so to ensure proper drainage from the flat, pueblo-style surface during heavy storms. Smear the outside walls with mud from a neighbor’s ditch bank, then coat with a layer of white lime plaster made from baked seashells. To plaster interior walls, mix colored sand from one neighbor’s land with sifted clay from another neighbor’s, plus chopped straw. Apply three coats, and rub the last with sheepskin to a beautiful sheen.

All this work has been fun but a bit lonely, especially since you lost your dog to a nest of rattlesnakes while you were overly absorbed in lintel carving. You may wish to work quickly through the remaining interior construction of corner fireplaces, of bancos, adobe benches cut into the walls, of a few trasteros, or built-in cupboards with intricately carved doors, and a nicho or two. (Nichos are nooks to place santos, or wooden carvings of saints.) When done, pop open a celebratory beer, and toss the crushed can into the bed of your pickup truck. Time now to invite the neighbors over, as their participation could prove helpful during the next phase of construction.

Traditional adobe floors are quite simple: lay a packed-dirt subfloor, then an overlayer of sifted earth. This is where the neighbors can help. Stir a large pot of green chile stew as you admire their work: as on their knees, they laugh and talk and knead the sifted earth. As they sprinkle on water, then tamp the surface with their feet. You may notice, however, as the day wears on, a certain dampening of the atmosphere after the neighbor who has discovered your bootlegged connection to his ditch bank talks things over with the neighbor whose aspens you have cut for latillas. Don’t worry; friendly gossip is the way of the Southwest.

The traditional surfactant, or process for hardening the surface of adobe floors, is the blood of an ox. Your neighbors, with the possible exception of the beast’s owner, should be able help you lure an ox indoors. You should leave its yoke in place unless you have trouble getting through the door. Once you are both inside, you must gore the ox.

This is most easily accomplished by climbing onto his back. After making a deft, subcutaneous incision, immediately grab both ends of the yoke and hold on; you may come into, then lose, contact with the ox’s back several times so be sure dress beforehand in multiple clothing layers to prevent skin chafing. If possible, steer the enraged ox over the entire surface area of the floor in a steady, outside-circle-in motion. If you have built a second story, you will have to repeat the procedure, possibly with a second ox. You may substitute a cow.

Wait several days after your release from the hospital. The surface of the floor will have hardened: polish it with a sheepskin to achieve a nice red orange sheen. You may have to do this alone, if your neighbors have ceased to speak or make eye contact with you. You may also find, in preparing a fresh pot of green chile stew for yourself, that your source of water has been cut off. That’s okay. You have gin. You hear thunder in the distance, a storm on its way. Time now to sit on a banco by a crackling fire, rest from your labors, and enjoy the rain and a dry habañero martini.

After the rain has begun to fall and your second martini has been poured, you may notice that the surface of your floor is no longer dry. This does not mean that it has not been properly surfacted. Perhaps the lowest courses of adobe bricks have become soaked or the mortar you mixed on a too chilly afternoon has become unstable. Assess the situation carefully as rain continues to fall. When you can no longer stand, dogpaddle from one end of your adobe home to the other. A substantial diagonal crack may now have appeared in one of the walls. This could have been caused by wearing overly light boots as you compressed the foundation. Or perhaps insects have consumed the straw in the walls and destabilized them. Carefully note the location of the crack.

At this time, the canales that ordinarily drain rainwater from the roof may cease to adequately function. You may notice small cracks in the ceiling with water seeping, at first, then a ceiling-to-floor waterfall in front of the corner fireplace. Locate the tin buckets you used to initially mix your adobe, and buoy them under the approximate location of the ceiling leaks in order to forestall drowning.

An adobe home will not dissolve until the vigas separate from the bond beams that tie the walls together. When this occurs, it is vitally important that you reach your pickup while you can still cross the now-raging arroyo. Swim through a window, taking care not to be crushed by a collapsing carved lintel. You may be tempted to retrieve your buckets in order to save rainwater for future use during the 364-day dry season, but speed is now of the essence.

Hop into the truck. By popping the clutch directly into third, you should be able to evade the posse of neighbors now chasing you down the blacktop. Reach Santa Fe. Check into La Posada, and think back on the extraordinary experience of building your own adobe home. When you have fully gained perspective, you may wish either to return to your land to rebuild — or to set off on an entirely new adventure.

Also of possible interest ... How to Build a Rock Wall in New Mexico