Build Day. Moab, UT
Today was probably the best build day yet. We were working with a local organization called community rebuilds that achieves affordablity through Natural Building. Natural building refers to making homes out of materials like straw bales, earthbags, sod, and mud plaster. The builder Donny was apparently really big in the natural building world and knew his stuff so well as he explained to us the history and philosophy behind the whole movement. I loved him because he was so scraggly, rebelious, and out there, but at the same time his geology background really shone through and you can tell he was genuinely intelligent and knowledgeable about his trade. I love that emotionally chill but intellectually fierce combination in people. Hearing him talk was great, but i would've preferred to not have to use sunglasses to cover my uncontrollable morning sleepiness.
We were rebuilding a wall at a community garden using plaster, meaning the whole day was basically a huge fun mudfight. One team of us mixed the sand, clay and straw in exact ratios to create the plaster while the rest applied it onto and built up the wall. My job was to throw chunks of the plaster from the wheelbarrow to the appliers, in otherwords a mudslinger. The best part was not getting blamed when a chunk of mud accidentally hit the persons face instead of their hands...
It was such a refresher from the other habitat sites and most importantly it was so eye opening to see how feasible natural building is. It's incredibly cheap, sustainable, and looks really great. There was something really spiritual about building that structure with your bare hands and the earth and i can see how one can really take ownership that way. I would love love love to live in a naturallly built home one day, not to mention one i built with my bare hands.
After the horrendous ride into Moab, i decided it was time for a new leaf and bought some super tough Armadillo tires at the bike shop for a decent discount. May all budding flats tremble in fear at the sight of these new treads. It kind of bothered me a little bit to think how even on our time off the road we still need to be running around to bike shops and scrambling to do maintenance on our bikes. As if 75 miles a day wasn't consuming enough.
After a pretty lengthy and potentially more efficient town hall I, as usual by now, ended it with a fun new group activity called Moo. Steven as the farmer definitely afforded the group a great laugh on this one.
Did some bike maintainance at night. Still need to do more but still really need sleep. This whole crazy lack of time for essential things just really eats me up sometimes but i think I've realized its inevitability by now and learned to just take a deep breath and roll with it. Hmm, Perhaps thats something worth trying in real life as well..
No comments:
Post a Comment