Life 'Round These Parts

We've now finished four (!) weeks of this program, and the amount of information my mind has absorbed in that time is hardly quantifiable. I'm still trying to figure out exactly where my skills fit best in in this small community and lifestyle, but I'm starting to realize that I have a lot of skills that have gone largely unused. I really enjoyed working with timber framing, round poles, straw clay insulation, and this morning, I actually dabbled in pottery for the first time since high school. Of course there's still the musician in there that really enjoys belting it out and thrashing, but I've really enjoyed getting my hands dirty (quite literally in most cases) on some other projects. The only problem is that I kinda want to pursue all of them, and I hate knowing that eventually I'm going to have to narrow my focus.

I thought I'd give a brief tour of some places around here, just to give you an idea of where I am. You've already seen the project site plenty of times.

This old rundown structure is what used to be one the main buildings on the campus here. The original cob house stood adjacent to it, and you can see the outline of its former shell on the siding. This building is currently unused except for storage, but one of our participants has decided to set up her massage table as you can see, and THAT has been of great value to most everyone here.

In the middle ground is our dormitory/kitchen/common building. The community meeting hall is just behind it. They have everything but toilets, which are outside and I didn't feel warranted a picture. You've all seen an outhouse before, right?

This is one of the previous shelter workshop buildings, affectionately known as the playhouse. Stone foundation, timber framed structure, straw bale and straw clay walls, finished with an earthen/linseed oil plaster and metal and living roofs.

The playhouse to the left with water catchment tanks and "The Boathouse" to the right.

And finally, a vegan breakfast I made myself this morning, including tempeh, tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes and a bunch of other small ingredients. If I were better at painting, I would turn this into a still life project.

The owners of our project site are throwing a party tonight, and we're all invited! Cheers!

A Month? That's It?

Sometimes it's tough for me to believe I've only been away from home for just a little over a month. With all I've seen and experienced recently, I feel like I'm a world away at times. Even more mind-blowing to me is that it's only been a little over 2 months since I left my "corporate" work life behind to attempt something new. Excuse me while I wax nostalgic...

Has it been worth it? Shit yea. It's been just what I needed. I'm writing music again. I'm meeting new people seemingly every day. I'm learning (and all of that seemingly useless calculus and geometry I learned years ago has suddenly come in very handy). I still don't know what's going to happen in 3 1/2 weeks when this thing ends, but I already feel that I have a ton of options right in front of me, and that's a really good feeling.

Anyway, some more pics. Some of these are Instagram duplicates for those of you who don't have that or Facebook.

A friend of ours has a band. They were on tour and ended up all the way out here! Small world, right?

We worked on a yurt for a couple days last week, which was a very inspiring experience. It began with a group sitting in a circle brainstorming, and then all of a sudden we had walls and roof rafters. It wasn't ALL that simple, but the point is, it just sort of happened out of an organic human experience. Great stuff.

A frequent swimming spot.

I've never eaten so many blackberries in my life. These things are EVERYWHERE. And they're delicious.

Front roof rafters are in place, as well as a cob bond beam on top of our stone stem wall. Surprisingly, cob is pretty sturdy stuff for being made of clay, sand and straw. Just keep it dry...

Some roof rafter (roofters) detail.

A beautiful, powerful moon shining over our dormitory.

Another view of the cob bond beam, and our doggie friend Friga in the background.

Putting straw bales in place for the north wall, which will be covered with plaster (similar to a stucco) this week.

And with that, it's off to another beautiful day at the job site. Cheers!

Lessons From Open Mic Night

Yesterday was an adventure. Actually, every day here seems to be a bit of an adventure. What seems to be a recurring theme here is that at the end of the day when I reflect on what happened, I always have something positive to think about.

After "class," we took a drive down to the river (not in a van) to go swimming. We found a place that had a small ledge that reminded me of jumping into quarries back home (Which is a really bad idea. Don't ever do that.). I probably could have stayed longer in retrospect, but it was a beautiful experience with some wonderful new friends nonetheless. Having been outside in the heat most of the day, I was feeling a little tired at this point, and for a second I contemplated not going to the Open Mic Night I had been looking forward to for several days now. Then my "fuck it" reflex kicked in and I went anyway...

I was a little discouraged once I got there. The signup sheet was already filled up until 10, and they were running behind schedule, as these things usually do. This is the point where the uptight person inside of me started to get very anxious, because everyone performing didn't seem in any hurry to get off the stage, the MC drawled on in between every performance, and based on this and the style of music, I got the sense that I really didn't belong in this bar. I was thinking about how late I was going to be there IF I stayed and how awful I might feel the next day.

I turned to my friend who had tagged along with me and asked him if he wanted to stay. He said "I don't have shit else to do, dude. We might as well." I also remembered what someone had said earlier at the river, "Today is today until I go to sleep, and I can't think about what I'm doing tomorrow yet. Today is today." And so we stayed. In the end, I'm glad we did.

The "highlight" of the evening (at least for all of the members of the Methodist church that came out to the bar) was a bell ringer, who, although talented, played over her allotted time by at least 15 minutes, if not more. Again, I was starting to get a little bit annoyed that this was somehow alright with everyone. I felt it was disrespectful to the other musicians. Sour grapes, I suppose.

There were a couple more singer/songwriter duos and trios, nothing spectacular really, but there was an older gentleman who sang solo to old big band music and Sinatra. He had a wonderful voice (the man, not Sinatra, though he did too). I could see from his body language and hear it in the sound that he was having the time of his life up there on the stage, and that's what it's all about. THAT was probably the most inspiring performance I saw all night. I wish I had told him that.

By the time I got up there to play, the crowd had dwindled. What else do you expect when the schedule runs over an hour behind on a Tuesday night? It didn't matter to me at that point. Something that's become increasingly evident to me in recent months is that even if no one is out there listening, and even if whoever is listening doesn't care, it doesn't matter to me. I just love to play music. I become a completely different person when I do. I wonder if the older gentleman who sang earlier in the evening experiences the same thing. Everything else in the world disappears from my mind when I strap on my guitar and sing, and in that moment, I am truly happy.

Progress Report

Two weeks into the program and our group has made considerable progress, as you'll see below. I'd also like to get on my soap box, but that's for later. Time for a few pics yo!

This is after only 5 days of work! We're building a small office for a farm down the road from us. Obviously, because all of the participants in this workshop are inexperienced, it's not perfect. That's what gives it so much character. A lot of learning has gone into this product. Anyway...

The stone is Columbia basalt, which I'm told is actually very difficult to work with. We did some minor shaping here and there, but most of these stones you see were laid in place as is. The bottom section of the wall (not visible, obviously) is entirely dry stone, incredibly stable and well-laid, if I do say so myself. Of course, our best work won't be seen. Haha...once we got past that layer, unfortunately time constraints forced us to move a little faster and I feel that sometimes our fits weren't the best because of that. We also started using a lime/clay mortar mixture to fill in the cracks instead of smaller dry stones, which, although faster, isn't nearly as stable as dry stones. It works, though, and it was fun to play with it. The corners are set with a natural hydraulic lime mortar and topped with a 16-inch sandstone that we manually shaped and set. That was fun. The best part is that a week later, it was still standing, and appears to be rock solid. See what I did there?

A brief aside: one thing that has made this program rewarding has been the instructors, both of whom are masters in their trade. I think even more valuable than their wealth of knowledge has been their attitude and personalities. Last week, our master stone mason showed us his mandolin skills, came out and shared dinner and drinks with us, waltzed with my girlfriend at lunch (Aarghhhhh...just kidding. It's cool). This week, our master timber framer showed us how to play a game called stump, where you try to hammer in everyone else's nail before your own gets stumped. I happened to grab an amazing action photo:

Basically, they've been a whole lot of fun to be around, and that made learning from them that much easier and rewarding.

Now, after two weeks, we have something that really resembles a building. Take a look below!

Absolutely NO NAILS were used, and most of that frame was shaped by us, the students using mostly hand tools. Again, time constraints forced us to speed up the process just a little, but overall the result looks fantastic. Don'tcha think?

And now I'm jumping on the soap box. Over the past two weeks, I've experienced everything from frustration to joy, aches and soreness to relief, hunger to satiety, and the list goes on. When I look outside of myself, it's really amazing to see this thing coming together, and this experience has just been so awe-inspiring I struggle to find words most of the time. What I felt yesterday when the 15 or so of us raised this frame was absolutely incredible, and after pushing myself to the limit and being left slightly short of breath, all I could do was stand back and smile from ear to ear. I couldn't explain why, nor did I want to. What happened yesterday and what has been happening here is unquestionably spiritual in nature on a much deeper level than just what you see in the picture. I'm not calling it a religious experience, but you could liken it to that, I suppose. That's what I think confuses a lot of people. Just because you're not religious doesn't mean you're not spiritual. This has been an enlightening spiritual experience, and even though we're not serving a God, we're serving other people and in turn serving ourselves. There's something very peaceful about that. At least that's how I feel.

For The Social Media Impared

I know there are a select few of you who are following this blog who don't subscribe to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (good for you). The following is a set of pics I haven't uploaded to this blog because of my aforementioned smartphone discrepancy with this site.

Badlands, great views.

I had lunch with George in South Dakota.

Yuengling National Park.

Not sure which looks better...

Entering Oregon!

MANdolin. This awesome fella was our master stone mason instructor last week.

We're working with timber framing this week, which is super awesome. I (don't) apologize for the lack of pictures because honestly, I've been having too much fun!

Lotsa love and happy hump day to y'all!

Just Not Enough Time in a Day...

I've been out here for a week and it feels strange to say that, because it feels like a lot longer (in a good way). I've experienced the gamut (or gauntlet, maybe) of emotions in a short span of time. I've learned a whole crap ton of new things. I've encountered a wide array of personalities. I've pooped in a bucket and showered outside. It's been an adjustment. Life has been hectic in a good way.

We were working with stone last week, and going in, I didn't think it was my thing. I'm still not sure I could work with it after I leave here, but after getting my hands dirty and getting over the frustrations of working in a small space with so many people, I really started to enjoy it, so much so that when given the option to work on the project a little more, I took it. I've spent the majority of the last week on site where the house we eventually build will be standing, moving stones into place, waking up sore the next morning and strangely feeling good about it. Soreness = progress, right?

Tonight is my group's night to cook dinner for the ENTIRE campus, which will occupy most of my evening and is definitely going to test my patience, but in the end, it will be rewarding. I could go off on a tangent about how delicious a self-cooked meal tastes, but I won't.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I've been finding (or trying to find) the time I need to relax and participate in some leisure activities whenever possible. For example: walks in the woods, drinks with the building crew, swimming, campfire jam sessions, etc...there is a plethora of things going on around here.

Which brings me to why I started writing this post. I've realized over the past week that I still don't have a whole lot of time to dedicate to this blog, social networking, phone calls and text messages (which I don't receive regularly because I have shitty reception here). I don't even really feel like it, and again, I'm strangely alright with that. In trying to keep my focus here on what I'm doing and what I can eventually do with what I learn and the people I've met, it seems like too much of a chore to keep up with on a regular basis. Basically, if you've contacted me in the last few weeks, I'm sorry for largely ignoring you, save for a terse response here or there. I will get back in touch with you...eventually.

Until next time, I just want to let y'all know I'm safe, happy, healthy and enjoying every moment of life on this planet, and I hope you are too. Happy Monday!

Some pics from the last day of our road trip:

I thought that Wyoming and Idaho had some desolate spots, but Eastern Oregon might "win" that battle.

Seriously. Nothing but sand and small bushes for hundreds of miles. No semblance of civilization. This is one of the few times I've actually felt slightly afraid on this trip.

Road-weary toes...

I'm not sure what these were but my windshield thought they were delicious.

Hey! Scenery! Finally! The Cascade Mountains.

Not a speed limit. Just speed.

A Vain Attempt to "Catch Up" Part 8: Enter Idaho

This is going to be quite the lengthy post...

Visiting the Grand Tetons was an additional stop we threw in on a whim just because we were curious. Beautiful stuff, and not as many tourists! We had just enough time to set up camp, camp, break down camp in the morning, and stop a couple places along the way to take it in. I definitely want to go back. Oh, and Yellowstone, too.

During breakfast, these two little buddies came to visit us:

We took a walk around the campground and saw this mountain of stuff from one of the larger groups. Can you even consider it camping when you bring all this shit?

One more little guy:

I've still been unable to tell what kind of birds these are. Anyone?

The penultimate stop on our journey was a small town in Idaho. My girlfriend had friends there, so she knew what to expect, and she was actually pretty excited to go back there. Like most of you back home, I was thinking to myself "What the hell could possibly be worthwhile in Idaho?" I was pleasantly surprised by the end of our stay.

Seeing these lava formations kinda reminded me of home.

A blurry view of the Snake River as taken from the car.

She's a butte! See what I did there?

Freaking windmills off in the distance. They couldn't come up with a better looking design for these things?

I used to crush boxes and bale them when I worked at a grocery store way back in the day and until last week I had no idea where they went afterward. Apparently they go to Idaho:

And in "I geek out over the weirdest shit" category, this triple tandem trailer that I'd only seen in Matchbox car form:

A dude riding a motorcycle while wearing a helmet but no shirt. Because that makes sense:

Nearing our destination, we traveled through this gorgeous ravine:

That opened up to this view:

And the sunsets, well...

And one more buddy:

Yea, I liked it there...

I feel like I'll be doing a great dis-service to our gracious hosts, because I can't say enough how thankful I am that they took us into their home for a few days and treated us very much like family. Unfortunately, I'm at a loss for words right now. I probably should have written while the thoughts were fresh in my mind. Basically the whole experience was uplifting (I even had a chance to entertain some of their friends and family) and leaving was much more difficult than I imagined it would be. Maybe we can go back some day?

On to Oregon...