I spent the day out at the bale house. So far I’ve learned about drain tiling and conduit wiring and two methods of wall construction (stud and bamboo, stud and string lattice) and practiced one of the methods on my own, the latter, in which you pack the bales overtight then lattice them into place then cut the cords and they expand the one inch or so to make a solid wall. And I learned how they make the rounded windowsills, which involves lathe around a curved particleboard frame stuffed with clay-tossed straw (I finished off three of those today). I’m starting to think of keeping closer track of all these details and if I wind up actually building one of these at some point some kinda way, or something something, I could add up the route I took and write about it.

So far two main things stand out about this experience: 1. the environmentalism implicit in every choice that would result in the construction methods, including the aspect of communal labor and 2. the communal aspect of communal labor. Social situations are not my strength. The only thing I’m good for in a social situation is observation. If what you want is an outsider on your insides, I’m your girl. Otherwise, the smallest exchanges can fill me with unease, and I mix my animal metaphors, and wind up looking like this right before I head for cover. But if there’s a TASK involved, that helps a lot, and if the task is PURPOSEFUL that’s even better. Plus this is a church not a bar we’re talking about, Church of Christ Something Liberal, and definitely NOT into proselytizing about anything other than environmental and social issues. They quietly added me to the “many hands make light labor” email list and left it at that. That all suits me very well. It’s like an Amish barn raising (ish).

[I like quiet work.]





Then it was Halloween of course. There was only one punkin, so the compromise was three eyes and two mouths.