Conclusion

The summer is over, it seems. I've been home for weeks. The NBI course is over.

After finishing the Community Design/Build class, I was done with all my Yestermorrow responsibilities. I hung around for a few days so I could have some last minute fun with my intern and NBI friends, and then headed off on a multi-day Amtrak ride.

It was hard to leave. I had grown so attached to the place and people. I loved the balance of work and play. The whole place seemed healthy and I was always happy. I learned a lot about tools, design and construction over the summer, gained a lot of great contacts for future opportunities, and made great friends who I hope to see again.

Since I've been home, I've been talking about Yestermorrow nonstop. I miss waking up early in the morning to do a morning chore routine. I miss having communal breakfast, lunch and dinner. I miss morning meetings, identifying tasks that need to be done and having the means to do them. There was a sense of belonging and purpose that I haven't experienced to that extent anywhere else.

If there is one word to summarize how I feel about Yestermorrow now, I would have to say "grateful." I am so thankful to my school for funding me this summer, the Yestermorrow staff for allowing me to come be a "mystic," and the interns for accepting me as one of them and teaching me a plethora of skills. I cannot vocalize how much this summer has positively affected me, but I do recognize it and am grateful.

It's been an amazing summer. Thanks.

Refreshed After Vacation

I took a week-long vacation to visit Boston for a cousin's wedding, family and friend visiting and general relaxing and escaping from the day-to-day. The time off was appreciated and wonderful, but I was very excited to get back to Yestermorrow.

And now I'm back. I've been back for a couple of very busy days.

There are two new interns - Anna and Ashley (male.) Tim (1) and Kendall are no longer interns. Kendall is gone and Tim is playing the role of resident builder. The new interns are nice - haven't gotten to know either extremely well, but am comfortable. The chickens grew quite a bit while I was gone. I almost couldn't tell which one was Betty Davis.

There is a push to get a building site (on campus) ready for a fabric-cement cabin. I don't know much detail about the actual structure - it will be built by several classes, I believe - but I have been helping a bit with getting the site prepared. Yestermorrow now has a giant brush pile that will be the source of an epic bonfire. We're also moving a building that a class constructed to it's site, which involves some tree-cutting. Perhaps I will write more about that this weekend.

I have been working closely with Dave, overseer of interns and grounds committee. This morning, we walked around campus identifying tasks that needed to be done. I am now in charge of making sure they get done, directing work-traders when available. The list is long and random. Today, I worked on getting some of those smaller tasks done.

I look like an unhappy tree hugger in this picture. I am marking potential camp-sites. I have identified several tent-sites and one excellent platform site. I am hoping to head up the building of the platform.

The tree house needed massive cleaning. The pine needles were getting clogged in the cracks of the walkway, which can lead to rotting. While clearing them out with a pocketknife was a slow process, it was fairly easy and relaxing. I worked clearing the pine needles for a while, but then turned the assignment over to a work-trader so I could work on projects that required a little more skill or knowledge of the campus.

I thought I had gotten a before picture, but apparently, I did not. This ladder had a broken rung that needed replaced. Upon further inspection, I saw that the rung above the broken one had some rot issues happening. (These rungs are old - the tree is obviously growing around the rungs.) I spent the later part of my day repairing the two rungs using hardwood that had been cleared out of the concrete structure's site. The poplar rung (white) and the rung below it were my new additions. I'm actually extremely proud of myself for being able to do this without any guidance (other than what kind of wood to use.)

Anna, Ashley and I all went to visit the NBI project today. Last time I saw it, timbers had just been raised:

Today, it looks like this:

They started strawbaling today. It was a very exciting time.

In the picture above, Mike and Bryce re-tie bales. I apparently don't know the name of this mechanism, but it's very tight and precise. When I straw-baled for the studio that I worked on last summer, we used twine, tightening it by twisting it around a stick, then shoving the peg into the bale. Different approaches to the same problem.

The class notched out a corner of that bale and set it upright against a window frame. The notched corner fit the post.

Normally, bales are not placed vertically, but for lining the windows, it is appropriate.

The last two evenings for me have been lecture evenings. Yesterday was one of the Summer Lecture Series, which are free every Wednesday. Deva, the NBI instructor, spoke to us about natural building compared to green building. The room was packed.

Tonight, I sat in on the NBI's lecture on moisture content and heat flow in an earthen (primarily strawbale) structure. Took lots of notes (click to expand):



I am completely exhausted, but feel great. I've been running all day (I had breakfast duty this morning) but am very proud of what I'm doing. I've said it before, but I love being independent with projects - I love having the know-how to take on a project by myself. I feel confident with this list of things to do.

I start my Invisible Structures course tomorrow.

Window Sills and Giggly Interns

This morning was dedicated to folding fliers for the summer lecture series. There were six people in the room, working in teams of three. One person folded, one put tape and a stamp on and the last put the to and from mailing address stickers and stamps on. There were a thousand fliers being sent to Vermont residents. It was a fun, chatty time.

Karie, Tim (2) and (work trading) Ryan working as a part of the three-person team.


Ryan and I worked on the window-sill that we started yesterday. (There's a garden shed that one of the classes built that needs some finishing work before we take it to it's final destination off campus.) Yesterday, I was having the worst time trying to come up with dimensions and plans for the window jams and sill. (Especially since the terms were new to me. Rough openings were the most confusing part, it seemed.)


Ryan worked on cutting and marking the sill.

I made the jams. The windows fit fabulously.

This evening, the interns and I went up to Sunset Rock and watched the sun set over New York and Lake Champlain. It was a beautiful hike and a great time.

Random Notes

I have a list forming on the top of my page of morning meeting notes of things to blog about. It's getting longer than I'd like for it to be, so here, I will take care of that list.

Chicken Meeting
On the 11th, the interns had an official meeting to discuss chicken duties. We had all been so psyched about getting the hens that we never really designated who was responsible for them. They are pretty easy to tend to, but the meeting helped to clarify who specifically was in charge. We decided that most tasks can be completed by the first person to notice they need doing (like letting the chickens out in the morning, giving them fresh food and water, etc.) Whoever is in charge of morning meetings gets to make sure that the chickens are let into their tractor in the morning and whoever is on dish duty gets to make sure they are tucked away at night with food and water. Whoever has office duty on the weekend is in charge, and gets to clean the coop. Every Monday, after our morning meeting, we will move the coop/tractor. (We actually forgot yesterday - not habit yet. We moved it today.)

Class Switching
There have been quite a few weekend and non-NBI classes coming in. It's odd to see the unfamiliar faces. There are still some core class members sticking around to finish up their requirements for their certificates in sustainable building and design. It's a truly unique social situation - developing great friendships with all the NBI kids, but also trying to be as friendly and open as possible with people that are only staying for a weekend or so.

Also, interns do quite a bit to prepare for classes. There was a major class switch after the core class ended, with some extremely rushed cleaning of the studio. We have to pay close attention to which classes are starting soon, find out the needs of the instructors and get everything ready.

Mower Vs. Weed-whacker
When given the option, use the mower. The weed-whacker is two-cycle, which means that the oil and gas are mixed, and both are being burnt in the process. The mower is four-cycle, which means that the oil and gas are in separate tanks, the oil being cycled and reused. Not as much pollution from burning oil.

What a Nice Day for an Outing!

Yesterday was a glorious day. The Interns, David, Robert Riversong (a local and teacher at Yestermorrow) and I drove out to Vergennes, on Lake Champlain to pick up two large logs (red oak, I believe) from a kind older woman named Mary. The plan is to cut these logs into boards, store them for a few years, and have about $1000 worth of wood.

But, first, we had to get the logs out of Mary's yard.

We used a pee-vee to roll the logs up to the trailor.

We wrapped a chain around the log and used a come-along to pull it up. It needed some help on the ramp (we had rollers underneath it, but after a while, the log was being lifted off of them and scraping on the ramp.) We used bars to lift and scooch the logs along.

Once both logs were on the trailer, we stuck shimmies underneath them so we could pull them over the mountain back to campus without them rolling.

After picking up our logs, we went to the Lake Champlain Merritime Museum. The museum had everything lake-related, with many buildings to walk between - each having its own focus.

Some of my favorite exhibits were items that were excavated from Lake Champlain's bottom.

The picture in the bottom right corner is the drawer right after excavation, before being cleaned. The items are what came out of the drawer.

Kendall and I spoke to one of the fellows in the lab who was in charge of cleaning found items. I was impressed by the ability to revert items back to their original stage. The picture above shows two pieces of wood, both waterlogged, one before treatment and the other after. The difference is amazing.

They also pulled up giant anchors. Taller than Karie.

Kendal and I wished we were scuba divers.
Karie is a way better at pretending to be a scuba diver.

There was a very large, very cool tent full of different boats that were donated to the museum. Each one had a label and description, some describing awesome details. I've never been a boat enthusiast before, but I really loved some of these paddle-boats.

And the bigger boats. I got to go on both of these boats.

The boat in the front is a replica of a war ship from the revolutionary war. Forty men, plus war supplies would go on the boat. The boat is small. It must have been hellish.

The one in the back, a replica of a shipping boat, travels around Lake Champlain (see map below to see how big the lake is) giving tours. The fellow who led me around lives on the boat all year.

The boats are no longer used for commerce on this lake, although it's a perfect opportunity.

Some boats used horses to paddle. Karie, ignoring the "wait for museum staff to operate" sign, pushed the floor in front of her, which made several gears turn and spun the paddle in front of Kendal. Interesting mechanics, cool exhibit.
I learned a bit about pulleys.
The more times the rope went through the pulley, the easier it was to lift the blocks.

This replicated how cargo could be lifted onto ships. By pulling one of the ropes to the side, the post would lift and move to that side. The middle rope would raise and lower the cargo. Simple, but fun to see in action.

The blacksmithing room was impressive. There was a strong Revolutionary war focus to the museum. At the time, blacksmiths would have been incredibly valuable for making tools.

If they had to make their own iron, they went through a LOT of material.

Karie tried out the pump, with success. This pump makes me want to research pumps that are used in very dry countries for irrigation. I'm wondering how similar the mechanisms are.

Today was less fun. There's a board meeting this morning, so all interns were doing grunt duty to clean up the campus. I was back on mowing and weed-whacking. It was very warm (ha! Really, only in the 70's) and pretty humid (nothing compared to all my friends in the south, I'm sure) and overcast. The weed-whacker was not working appropriately. I was feeling pretty negatively about the day, but then Stephanie asked me to help her plant some fruit trees. After getting my hands dirty and planting and apricot tree, I felt much better. I am amazed at the power of gardening to make people feel better - relaxed and rejuvinated.

Lawnmowing, Maple Creamie and Stupid Bugs.

Today was dedicated to grass and weed cutting, but involved a few other fun tidbits.

I woke up really early and served breakfast to the students. (It was cold breakfast, so not a big deal at all, but somebody had to make the coffee and unlock the building.)

I weed-whacked all around the building and gardens and trails. This took the majority of the day.

Around lunchtime, Heidi called me into the kitchen to help finish preparing lunch. We have a lot of students around now so she needed an extra set of hands - the core class has 19, the NBI has 10 and there's a weeklong Carpentry for Women class of 3 (these numbers might not be accurate.)

Dave, who is in charge of the interns and hasn't been introduced in this blog yet, received a complaint from the last person who drove the van for a field trip - said it was shaky when stopping. Dave wanted to check out the problem for himself, but needed a full van, so all the interns (except Kendall - she was already working on a roof) hopped in and went for a ride.

There was nothing wrong with the van.

I worked late today mowing the lawn. I used a riding lawn mower, which I've never done before. I was really jerky on it at first and left a few patches of tall grass behind, but I got used to it and now the lawn looks so much nicer. As we were playing hacky-sack after dinner, a few people commented on how much nicer it was to play in short grass. Makes my work feel appreciated.

Stephanie went on a town run and brought back maple creamies for some of us. (We ordered them in advance.) I've never heard of creamies before, but it's the same as softserve ice cream. Maple flavored though! It's from a local place that I always sit next to when I go into Waitsfield to use the phone - I've eyed it before but just have never acted. I have spent very little money up here. This creamie was totally worth the money, and may have to become a weekly occurance.

Tim (1) and I were talking at dinner today about how the weeks are better than the weekends here. Granted, weekends allow sleeping in and staying up late, but the sun wakes me up in my tent early every morning anyway, so sleeping in doesn't really happen. This weekend went by really slowly - lots of sitting around, reading and talking to people, but nothing compared to a busy day of good work. It just feels better to have something productive to do, which isn't always how I feel. I think the atmosphere here just encourages and inspires people to do something. Days go by so fast during the week. I was just antsy all weekend.

There are tiny bugs that bite here. My arms and legs are covered in bugbites. I haven't been this bitten since my childhood, for sure. I am incredibly itchy, but trying very hard not to scratch.

I'm not carrying my camera around as much as I used to. I need to fix this.

Kitchen/Garden Intern Today

There are two types of interns here. The Tims, Kendall and Karie are design/build interns. Stephanie is a kitchen/garden intern. I float between the two, which is why I've been in the gardens and the woodshop. I really like it this way - I feel like I get the best of both worlds. I get to understand everything that's happening among the interns.

I spent the majority of the day in the herb garden beside the kitchen. I weeded, which took many hours, and planted lots of new herbs.
This is the main portion of the herb garden. The before.
And the after. This picture (and the next couple) were taken right before the sun set, so sorry about the darkness.

I labeled a lot of the herbs on the nearby rocks. This is Stephanie's method.

But in some instances, it made more sense to label with sticks.

I talked to Heidi, the kitchen manager, a bit today. As part of the kitchen/garden duties, I will start doing kitchen duty occasionally. (Most of the time, there is a full staff that takes care of kitchen duty, but sometimes they need another person.) On Friday, I'll be serving dinner. Saturday and Sunday, I am in charge of lunch cleanup. Monday, I serve breakfast. I'm somewhat thrilled by this. The kitchen here is wonderful- most of the food is local and/or organic. There's normally 20-30 people eating, and the food is normally prepared by one or two people, with someone on dish duty. The food is excellent quality. Heidi likes to make sure that everyone is taken care of, so I have eaten the food a couple times. (If you help in the kitchen, you get to eat the food. Good rule.)

So to elaborate on yesterday's post, here are the drawers for the router table:
I drilled all the holes using a drill press. The ones on the left are quarter inch. Those on the right are half inch. I also cut a hole and hooked the dust sucking hose (apparently, I don't know the technical name) to the back. (Tim built this cabinet. There will be a router mounted underneath so people can move the wood on the stationary bit. I've only used a handheld router in the past.)

The tractor for the coop is almost done. It has all kinds of cutouts that represent chicken parts. A little odd, and a little awesome.

You can see Tim 2 standing next to the ramp. The door there connects to a door cut out on the side of the coop.

The side door is on the right of the building, in this picture. There's a panel that can be taken out.

The door is beautiful. It has two windows on it. One is large, held by the egg-latch. The other is much smaller, for winter ventilation. I'm a little worried, because these chickens aren't going to have much sunlight unless they are in the tractor. They will be horribly depressed during the winter, but warm.

The NBI class is getting to be more friendly. Today, all the interns and the class played hacky-sack for about an hour and a half after dinner. The teachers of the class pushed back their lecture time so that we could all play longer. (Everyone from the class was out there. An impressively large group of people.)

It's been a good day. A long day, but a good one.

Cooped Up on a Sunny Day

A lot of progress has been made on the chicken coop over the weekend (without my help.) Today, however, was entirely devoted to cooping.

When I went to the studio today, this is what I came to. Please note the awesome egg-latch on the nest box door. And the immense amount of angled, individually measured battens. Looking good though.

The door was constructed today, but I didn't get a picture. It's not attached yet anyway. All I can say is that it is beautiful. Without the door, however, you can see more details of the inside. The floor-panels are in place (they weren't in the last post - they are meant to be removable though.) The boards facing the chickens are planed smooth, so clean-up should be easier. The outside is still rough though, to keep that traditional, rustic feel.

My first assignment for the day was filling in the gap above the doorway.

Yestermorrowians are the most precise people I have encountered in chicken-coop building. Or, at least, Tim (1) is. So, each of these boards had to have the rafters cut out. And they are on an angle, of course. I used a bandsaw, a chisel, a Japanese hand saw, and a miter saw. And I created a near-perfect fit. I'm pretty proud. I like seeing the problem and knowing how to create the solution. I'm pretty glad that I'm getting to the point where I can be left loose in the wood-shop without much instruction.

After dinner, Tim and I decided to pull a really long day and get the first coat of paint on the roof. Well, it's not technically paint. It's a latex-type solution that is used in paint production. You paint a layer, place a layer of fabric, paint another layer and let it dry. Theoretically, it will harden to something similar to fiberglass. Tim and I worked until 9 getting the first coat up.

We wrapped up the coop so we wouldn't get any of this really thick paint-stuff on the walls.

The core class left for a week-long trip to a building site. I'm not sure on the details of what they are doing there, but another class has come in, so it's a totally different group of people. This is my first class switch-over, and it's a little odd. I got to be such good friends with members of the core class, but now they are away with a new group to replace them. The new group is friendly enough though, and I already know a lot of their names. After this week, both groups will be here at the same time. I think this summer is going to be full of meeting tons of great students.

Today was an excellent day for my confidence as the mystic seventh. (Have I mentioned that there are only 5 interns, so I'm really just the mystic sixth?) I was told that I could use the laundry fund jar in the office (coins emptied from the laundry machines) so I wouldn't have to pay to wash my clothes (intern priviledge.) I facebook friended Stephanie and Karie (I've been spelling her name wrong.) I was introduced as an intern. The office duty, morning duty and kitchen duty calendars were redone so I am included. And Tim (1) gave me my very own set of keys to the building, which so boldly declare that I am an intern.

It's been a good, long, productive day. I'm been going constantly since 7:30 this morning. And it's 7:30 again tomorrow. I have no idea how to record hours for Berea, but I will soon.

First Full Day

It's been a very long, busy day. Again, I am exhausted, but happy.

Since it's Memorial Day, nobody actually had to work (except the teachers in charge of the three week class that just came in.) However, interns did, but not rigorously. So it was a nice, relaxed day of work and orientation. Tomorrow will be a normal work day.

I was assigned a morning job. For now, I'm on trash/recycling/reclaimable/compost/energy monitoring duty. Nothing too unfamiliar (except this is the first time I've ever been in a state that pays back for bottles.) Morning duties change every week.

I spent most of my work-time today in the garden with Stephanie, and intern. I planted chamomile, onions, kale and weed-whacked. (And learned to change the string on a weed-whacker.)

I spent a good portion of the morning getting oriented. Tim gave me a tour of the building (which has the weirdest layout ever, but fits an amazing number of rooms in it), showed me my morning routine and introduced me to all the other interns. (Both male interns are named Tim, so I'll distinguish between the two if necessary. In this case, it is not entirely necessary.) Stephanie gave me the tour of the gardens. I walked around the campus by myself and took pictures.

All the other interns are really nice. Apparently, there are only five at the moment, although I'm still the "mystic seventh." Another intern is coming later this month, I believe. After lunch, all six of us hacky-sacked. (I stink at hacky-sacking, but enjoyed the company thoroughly.) Kendall, Carrie and I went into town today to get an appropriate alarm clock, as well as kill some time and get to know the neighborhood a little better.

I'm pretty sure I like it here. The place is beautiful. The weather is weird though. It's warm, but there's a breeze coming from the north, so it's cold. I have no idea what to wear. I'm dressing in layers, for sure. I had energy all day, but am now ridiculously tired. Even though there was nothing particularly strenuous, I've been on the move all day. I think this summer will be a summer of intense sleep.

The internet here is insanely slow, and picture loading is taking forever, and I am tired. This means, you will see pictures later. I'm taking lots though!