A Baptism of Butterscotch Brownies, a Barbecue, and Level Love

Concerning the Brownies

When I first bought the Sky Bus in the spring of 2011, I immediately started searching for an RV or camping oven on Craigslist for it, but it wasn't until a couple of months ago that I actually found one, and at the right price.  Last summer, I used a two-burner Coleman stove, which was fine, but a) I went through those tiny little propane canisters in a way that felt truly wasteful, and b) I missed being able to bake.

My new oven is a Flamineta, which is a Mexican brand.  Everything is in Spanish, including the instructions that came with it and all the text on the oven itself.

It's adorable, and that little sucker can put out some serious heat.  There are no numbers telling what degrees it is, so I had to buy an oven thermometer.  Turns out on "high" it will go up to almost 600 degrees, and you have to turn it practically off to get it to 350.  Not that I'm complaining; I'm thrilled with my new oven, and baptized it by making butterscotch brownies, like so:

Concerning the Barbecue

My dear and lovely friend Nicole, who is also co-owner of Serendipity, came to visit at the end of last month, so naturally, I threw a party.  I was a little nervous about having so many people out on the land, but it went swimmingly, and as they say, a great time was had by all.  I loved getting my neighbors together, some of whom didn't know each other very well before the party.  I love that I like my neighbors enough to invite them to (and enjoy their company at) a party!

Here are some photos Nicole took:

deepening the fire pit that Graeme created last summer

Can I Marry My Level?

I'm still digging my foundation trench, slowly but surely.  This summer (in fact, this whole year) has been full of detours, distractions, crises, and various other surprises, so progress is slow, but I'm fine with that.  I dig when I can, and I enjoy it immensely.  At the beginning of the summer I bought a new level that is 18 inches long, which is how wide and how deep the trench should be, so it's a very useful little tool.  (I have to admit that the first night I had it, I was very tempted to sleep with it like a teddy bear.)  Before I started building this house, I didn't even know what a level was.  I had no idea what I was missing out on.  I mean, is there really anything in life more satisfying than seeing that little bubble in the center of the window?

Leveled

Rainbow over the building site

In the earthbag house plans I bought from Owen Geiger, it says, "First, clear and level the building site."  That one sentence, those seven little words, became my entire summer.  And this, initially was for two main reasons:  1) I didn't have enough money to hire a guy with a backhoe, and 2) because of having to work, I could only work on the site an hour or two a day, and not even every day.  Compounding these were the intense smoke from the Las Conchas fire through most of June and July, and the intense heat during the middle of the day.

I had this idea starting out that I could get the house finished before winter, and if I had hired a guy with a backhoe, maybe I would have.  But after I realized that this simply wasn't going to happen, something very cool happened.  I gave myself over to the work; I allowed myself to fall into its rhythm. I began to look forward to moving my daily inch of earth, just as I looked forward to other little daily tasks unique to my new living situation.  It's all just part of this life, I now understood, each task as significant and ultimately meaningless as any action in life.

I came to look forward to rising at dawn and brewing coffee on my Coleman stove, writing in my journal, then going out with the mattock to chop grassy lumps, and eventually with a shovel, a rake, and a wheelbarrow to move dirt around to level the site.  I didn't care how long it took anymore or how hard it was or how dirty and imprecise. 

I realized I didn't actually want a guy with a backhoe to do it for me, even if I could afford it.  One day it struck me that the process I was involved in was much like giving birth at home - it was MY work, my transformation.  I was about halfway through the leveling process at that point; I was leveling the earth as it was leveling me.

My handheld tools powered by my lifeforce and gravity will have provided the foundation my house will rest upon until it is not more.  And that could be a very long time, far longer than the life of the body responsible for it.  Because it is not in fact the body that does this work, but the spirit does it through the body.  The body is just another tool.

In the Earthbag Building book, Kaki and Donald say, "Action dispels doubt," and that has become sort of a mantra for me.  Every time I've felt overwhelmed by the scope of the task, not having a clue what I'm doing, I've simply gone out there and started, and something in me has known what to do.  It's as though the earth in my bones is listening to the earth beneath my feet; it's an intuition deeper than than an idea.

When I first realized how hard and time-consuming it was going to be to level the pad by hand, I started looking for shortcuts.  I thought, Hmm, it's really only the rubble trench foundation that needs to be level, so I'll just start digging from the highest point and measure the 18 inches from there, and then level the trench with rubble later.  And then the floor can be leveled with scoria much later.

I could have done that, but that intuitive earth in me wouldn't let me.  On the practical level (no pun intended), I realized that I'd end up spending more on scoria down the line, but deeper and more primary than that was the need to become intimate with every inch of this project, this land.  The need to do it completely, to inhabit it.

And the joy of seeing that little bubble in the center of the level window is so worth it.  The joy of raking earth into spirals starting from the center of each dome circle and working my way out.  The joy of standing on the ground of my one-day house and seeing it now flat and round, looking like Owen's construction drawings.