When is a worker a skilled worker?

Friday 3rd October, noon

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.

Decompression II - Sebastopol

Friday 20th September 2008, 1.30pm

Another week gone, I've fully decompressed now. Currently writing this in Sebastopol library, with a crowded booksale going on behind me. I just overheard the most comical argument about a 6-inch squared tabletop space. They really get into their booksales here.

So last Saturday I drove all the way back down to Sebastopol from the Redwoods, a good 7 hour drive. We imagined it to take a little less, and had hoped to get back in time for a beer festival that our Burning Man friend, Michael, was working at, for Ace Cider. We missed it, and hit Ace's pub. Later, we checked out the later-drinking establishment, The Underwood, as Ace's closes at 9pm on weekdays and 10 at the weekend. Jeffry, the slightly eccentric English landlord has trouble with the neighbours - a story not dissimilar to our local haunt at home, The Cadbury. However, it does mean that people can get up in the morning, and there's always the Underwood.

Bar bacchi is the American bowls. Played on sand, on a shorter pitch. Lots of fun. My bar will have one. Better than skittles. Afterwards, we headed to a house party. At last, what I had been waiting for. It happened to be that a load of 'Burners' were involved, and full playa regalia was called for. As if I need an excuse to dress up. And, in the DIY nature of it all, there was a great bar outside, serving tequila that took with it the end of my memory that night. I awoke in Michael's living room, and sprung up to find a fry-up. Which, they do here (The Apple Tree in Sebastopol - and the US in general) in style. Full English, plus pancakes. Mmmm Mmmmn.

Sunday through Tuesday nights we parked up at the local campsite. A nice, friendly place, warm showers, $20, fairly standard fayre. Ordered a new car stereo, with an aux in at the front, and a USB slot. Perfect, with a USB stick we have all the tunes we need. And, for good measure, some new speakers for the back...

Wednesday night we moved to a friend of Michael's with a nice place, with a cracking orchard, on the outskirts of Sebastopol. He also happens to be a festival Producer, and has just got back from Earthdance, one that he worked on. He's asked us for help at his next, The Handcar Regatta, in Santa Rosa on the 28th. Handcars are railbound human-powered contraptions that look like a lot of fun. Sounds like a gas.

Yesterday, the lethargy of inaction began to take its toll. So, we checked out some WOOFing in the local area, and came across Emerald Earth via a bulletin board for Mendocino and Sonoma Counties in California called WaccoBB.net. It's an intentional community, in Mendocino County. They have 200 acres and the land has been owned by a non-profit corporation (which I guess is a similar legal structure to a co-operative in the UK) since 1989. They just emailed back saying that they're having a 'work party' this weekend, for which we are welcome to come and join. We want to stay for a couple of weeks, which without the work party would be tricky, but they can get to know us then, and then we'll know if they want our help for the next 2 weeks.

I'm intrigued by this place. Although we'd set out to help on a farm somewhere, it seems this will be a great opportunity to see an intentional community at work, and get some experience in natural building techniques, which this place is quite famous for. They run regular workshops, training in a variety to techniques, such as cob-oven making, timber framing, clay waddle and straw bale walling and organic gardening. It sounds like a fascinating opportunity to watch a community in action and learn from them. One small step to helping my dream of setting up such a community back home become more real. We leave in an hour. I'm excited.