Well it would be as easy as the aforementioned pie if we actually sat down and read the book properly (the earth oven bible that is). Instead we took the attitude that one shouldn’t actually open to the pertinent page until a few minutes before getting started. Without fail we would discover that we didn’t have the right materials, tools or would need to let things soak or dry overnight or perhaps for a week, in light of this the only reasonable course of action remaining was to take a siesta or perhaps go fishing instead. This is perhaps not the most efficient way to get things done, but far less stressful.
We are now about 3/4 done on the oven and now that we know what to do, having more or less skimmed the relevant diagrams, I can promise you someone more prepared than us could easily knock this over in a week, with 5 out of the 7 days set aside for the oven to have some quality alone time to dry.
I encourage you to buy the book, but as a summary here are the first steps, with more to come (I promise, dear reader, that I won’t be as cavalier with my blog updates as my construction).