Just about to say our goodbyes at Emerald Earth, it feels like we've been here a lot longer than 2 weeks. I'm quite sad to be leaving, I've had the most amazingly grounding experiences, that have fuelled my dreams and excited my fantasies. Is it strange to have fantasies about building mud huts?
And it was my birthday on Thursday, Lisa made a fabulous morell mushroom risotto for dinner, just like I wanted, and stuffed squashes to boot. And the birthday cake was an Eve Special - bananas, brandy-soaked raisins, chocolate. Mmmmmm Mmmmmn.
So I explained a bit about the setup in my previous post. That was quite broad, so I'll say a bit more about the details, from my perspective anyhows. The 2 weeks here were also cut in half by going to the Handcar Regatta to help out our "Producer" friend who "organises festivals". Maybe I'll start with that.
So we arrived in Santa Rosa on Saturday, the day before the Regatta, to help out with what I assumed would be a busy day for him. Well, nobody on site seemed to know who he was, nor could be discover his whereabouts. Hmmm. We headed back to Sebastopol, and collected our post - the new car stereo and rear speakers. A couple of hours and twizzles of wire later and we could now play whatever music we want as mp3s via a USB stick. Nice.
Well, it turns out we were not needed until Sunday actually after all, which is a little disappointing because we left Emerald Earth, missing the earthen oven making workshop which I was rather looking forward to. The photos show the development of the oven in preparation before the workshops, and after. The seduction of glamour can be deceiving (of helping our 'Producer' friend that is). No matter, the Regatta sounded exciting, and furthermore, Aubergine, the huge vintage clothing store in Sebastopol, was having a party to celebrate opening a bar/cafe in the back of the building - a huge wooden structured warehouse. With free food - my favourite kind of party.
Well, the party was OK, the sound system was a couple of regular Mackie speakers that simply couldn't quite fill the space. The band were good, but perhaps better on a CD than live. The bassist was a good craic to watch tho - the most energetic of them all, bashing out a smooth reggae bottom line. If I had a slightly larger wallet and wardrobe, I would be more interested in all the fantastic vintage wear, but alas I have neither so I tried to restrain my visual appetite.
The Regatta on Sunday was a blast. The dress code appeared to be 1920s inventor with a good dose of playa chic. Ideal for the old red braces and dress shirt get-up, with a marker-pen handle-bar moustache. We personned one of the info booths, selling T-shirts and jute bags and pointing to the food ticket booth a lot. And as for our Producer friend, Joseph is actually a friend of one of the Producers - with a slightly overinflated sense of importance, bordering on the delusional. But a lovely chap nonetheless. And despite his adamance in advance to the contrary, there was no afterparty.
looking at the old cob earth oven mid-destruction
So on Monday we trekked back to Emerald Earth, via a couple of stops to run errands, picking up some Hardy frame templates for the foundation of the new Common House. It's being made up to California Code specifications: an interesting pragmatic choice sewing a gap between visionary utopianism and the 'default' world.
laying the foundation for the new earthen oven
So in the 2 weeks I was there, I dabbled in a plethora of different tasks around the place. Trench digging had to be the toughest - good to get the blood flowing. Hauling, stacking and chopping firewood was fun. Fence bracing - for the new deer fence around the new Common House site - was fairly laborious but a useful skill. Clay waddling the new chicken coop was great - a timeless technique - I think I need more practice, as mine sagged a fair bit. Working in the garden, I moved 17 wheelbarrows of horse manure, and got a good sweat on. I cooked another meal, lunch this time, onion soup with polenta. And I helped out with the child care. The nice thing here is that everyone has a go at helping with childcare, including non-parents.
laying the sand/clay/straw mix for the oven base over the wood-store form
The sauna went on a couple of times over the weeks, a nice end to the day. When the hot tub's leaks are fixed it would be great as a cold plunge bath. The shower suffices for now though. At the end of a day up at the foundation in full sun all day, it's a welcome treat for the muscles. I spent a few days dogsbodying up at the foundation, helping out when I could. In that time, I had a good think about a lot of stuff, and one of those things was about 'skilled' labour. At the moment, there's one or two skilled workers working on the common house. A lot of stress is placed on those shoulders. If one of those got ill, it would set the whole thing back a lot.
laying the oven base
The problem is that most people are unskilled in this line of work. You can't just tell someone to go get on with that portion of the foundation. This interrelated to another problem, which is that one person is the site manager (as well as the main worker!)- that is the person overseeing the whole operation, and knows exactly what's going on everywhere on the site. So he's got to set people up with mini-projects, oversee them to make sure they are accurate and precise, while getting on with stuff himself, figuring out what needs doing in what order, the next task for helpers, etc. A mammoth task, undertaken admirably.
making the door arch
So there are the inter-related problems of skill more generally, and specific expertise on the section that needs work. Now what got me thinking is how do you gauge someone's skill? There is the underlying factor that work on the foundation needs to be very accurate - as it's holding up a building, hopefully to be able to withstand an earthquake, being that we're not that far from the San Andreas fault. I guess it's a process of building a picture - from experience of using particular tools (or at least how they work), and accuracy and precision. The more experience, the less mistakes, the less questions and the faster the work gets done.
completed earth oven
Anyway, these were some of the thoughts that drifted through my head as I dug into (admittedly soft) rock with a pick and a rock bar. And some questions - am I a skilled worker? Does that fact that I know how to use a bunch of tools and I have a good dose of common sense and got top marks in my physics A-Level assessed practicals make me skilled? Probably not. Does the fact that I don't know that the rafter goes from eave to ridge (and then the purlins go on top horizontally) make me unskilled? Probably.
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