My
left leg has gone limp.......as in I am limping on my left leg. It has never
been so sore and I cannot fathom why every time I take a step forward a feel a
tinge of pain. It was not like this yesterday. The group has come to the
consensus that I strained a muscle while earth building. But how that happened,
I have no idea. I probably squat in some awkward position and am just now
feelings the repercussions of it. Mother was right – I desperately need to work
on my strength training. Too bad she isn’t here to drag me along to all those
Jazzercise classes she attends. Not that I dislike Jazzercise – I actually
really like it. But in no way, shape or form does it compare to earth building.
Especially when you have absolutely no muscle tone like I do. Earth building, I
discovered, is a very labor-intensive process.
We
began our earth-building workshop by shoveling large amounts of clay into a
wheelbarrow. A process we went through 6 additional times after the first. The
wheelbarrow was then wheeled, appropriately, to a large, open pool filled with
water approximately 1/5 of the way up. The clay was dumped into the pool rather
ungracefully and then stirred with two hoes using what Alex has deemed the
“human blender” method. Artur and Troy stood on opposite sides of the pool,
each extending the hoe as far away from himself as they could. They then
dragged their respective hoes along the bottom on the pool towards themselves,
generating a whirlpool like affect. Once the clay was fully incorporated into
the water, creating a rich, chocolate-colored batter, we began adding straw
into the mix. Almost an entire bale of it. The consistency of our mix became so
thick that Kelly and Rachel decided the most effective way to continue blending
was to take off their shoes and step into the mud-pot, stomping around and
wiping earth all over each other.
After
a little girl-on-girl mud wrestling, Kyle instructed us to turn the mix over
with our hands, making sure any clay left at the bottom of the pool got cycled
in. Then the fun began. Kyle told me to grab a handful of straw-infused earth and
slam it onto the wall of straw and mud that had been assembled a week earlier.
So I did. And it felt GREAT. Immensely satisfying – like I was ridding myself
of all the angst and anguish that had been building up the last few weeks. I
was assigned my own section of the wall and continued to spank the hell out of
it as I molded the earth into the position I wanted. Kelly, always at the
ready, was standing behind me, handing me earth balls in an assembly line-like
fashion. Some parts of the wall were trickier than others and I had to squat
frequently to construct the bottom half. It felt great......until I woke up
this morning.
Three
hours later, our group had labored to create 7 pools of earth building material
and constructed two entire walls. How cool is that. Seriously. How COOL. I
walked out of what will become a library for the children who are home-schooled
at the farm and began cleaning up with the rest of the group. We were all fully
entrenched in mud. Good thing I chose to wear white pants despite Kyle’s
warning telling us to “wear clothes that can get dirty.” Oops. We trotted over
to the pond (we were barred from the main building) to rinse off before
venturing upstairs to take a real shower, which I desperately needed.
I
put on some clean clothes, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, sat down for
dinner and passed out on the straw-bale sofa. I was wiped. But I felt good.
Really good. Because I had pushed my body beyond its physical limit to
construct something solid, something tangible. And more importantly, I gained a
better understanding of the amount of energy that goes into making many of the
things I consume. An unfathomable amount when I begin to think about it. Seldom
do I ever consider the energy inputs for things like food, the materials for
the cell phone and lap top I use everyday, the clothing on my back. But I know
it has to be the equivalent of thousands of man-hours constructing straw-bale
walls. A truly inconceivable number.
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