Day Three
October 4, 2023
the only way we got this far is because we’re starting to coordinate our efforts
initiate team process
the second consecutive day where i had a sledgehammer in my hand longer than i didn’t have a sledgehammer in my hand.
so far, every morning we’ve had a brief meeting before starting the work. and for the past 2 days, after that meeting people kinda broke off in groups from the day before. but today the guy leading the meeting (rory) showed us how to pound a tire in less than 10 minutes (he was actually less than 5, but at a pace that you couldn’t maintain for any length of time). while i wish he could’ve shown us this on day 1, it kinda makes sense to let us get accustomed to just being on the site for a couple days. he also then talked about how it would all go MUCH faster if we started working as a single team. instead of everyone working on their own tire, it became more of a flowing process. some people placed the tires while other came behind and filled them up with loose dirt, then some other person would do initial packing of the tire, then someone else would finish it up, making sure it was solid. this last one is the part i did the most today.
okay. this is really HARD work. you’re using a sledgehammer to pack a tire with dirt until it doesn’t budge. til you can’t put any more dirt into it and it becomes a ‘radial earthen brick’. it takes a LOT of effort. but … it feels pretty pure. it’s a pretty direct connection with what you’re working towards. you’re not typing on a screen and choosing style templates, or gathering document evidence for compliance auditors, or managing your fantasy football league (hi sam). it’s something very basic, very fundamental. palpably connected to the whole of the endeavor.
the slide show below - a look at the left, middle, and right of the whole site.
parts of tent city moved down below left of the site to get away from the trailers and possible tweakers. people are still concerned about that, though a neighbor indicated that there haven’t been any issues in months. hmmm. not sure that would be long enough for me to feel all that comfortable.
the last one looks up towards where we enter the site there’s a bus parked alongside the road. the owner of the trailer park (which you can’t really see here) is building a bunch of tiny homes. so the idea is to create a kind of alternative housing community. i’ve been in one of those tiny homes i wasn’t crazy about it. kinda prefab construction. that said, it’s still early and they aren’t necessarily finished yet.
thermal wrap (hard insulation) being placed around the berm in its current state. as you’ll see later, that whole things is going to get buried.
here’s the same spot, but with it buried and cooling tubes roughed in. the cooling tubes themselves will be buried, winding up very near the bottom of the final berm.
here are the cisterns waiting to be placed and eventually buried behind the structure.
lastly, this is how things looked at lunch time. by day’s end we’d added 2 more courses, which means the top course is above my head. imagine what it was like to fill a 5 gallon lowes bucket with dirt, then lift it above your head so you can fill that course. i did that more than a few times. also, what you see is 4 courses above grade. when we’re done, it’ll be more than twice that height.
