03/05/2011
04/06/2011 (Candida)
09/09/2011
10/09/2011
I started the making of a hay roof with the idea of being the simplest structure to do with the most accessible materials to find. Both ideas are right, I was just not counting with, first, all the time I would have to spent alone around this work, second, the low attention I gave and narrow observation I made to think my place, to plan it, with the climate specifics of the place!
The first lesson is quite clear, the steps you give alone can be the hardest ones, the two times that I had the help of my friends to accomplish some of the hardest parts of the work just made me realize how deepest and simplest is the world you share, we are made of community, even an eremite will need the idea of God shaped humans to give sense to his solitary quest, and a misanthrope have the dual behavior of hating the society that feeds him. Even with the solo purpose of changing our own life we would be giving up when we just hit the road on our own leaving everybody around us far behind.
There is a character in Demons, a Dostoievsky's book, Stepan Trofimovich, an intellectual from Russian noble circuits, that by the end of his life, with all his ignorance about a life outside the mansion, life without his slippers (!!), just leaves all the foolishness of the world and society where he lives to deliver himself all alone to what life and the road will bring, leaving his house furtively without much more than an umbrella and walking without destiny as far away as he can, feeling that those could be his last steps. That's what you do when you are alone, a straight belief in the dream of a world without other "crazy nonsense" humans around, but we soon get the feeling of being rather helpless... Nature is a good mother but our friends would be our brothers!
We should always think in giving the best of us to the ones that want to share of our steps, only if we give the best, we can be without the fear of what will come.
The second thing I learned is quite practical, naturally as I was building a place to live in the summer I thought in a shelter from the sun, well, basically, I used the standard of a Portuguese summer to conceive kitchen, roof, shelves, whatever I needed to have a nice relaxed life trough a nice easy summer... It's incredible how last year's summer was not enough to understand all the difference in weather and seasons standards from this side of Europe to the other where I came from, probably because living most of the time under a roof gives a wrong impression of what's going on outside our walls.
I basically got caught in the same disease of a generalized consumers society, where we don't ask, don't see, don't understand, we just take it as it comes and we are satisfied. It was my mistake and only mine, such trivial things are one of the major parts in the process of retrieving our close relation with the ground we step and air we breath.
Of course I was prepared for “some” rain, for a colder summer, for whatever would come in small easy quantities in a place where I knew that I cannot just live under a tree with a change of underwear!!
But I was not prepared for example for a full month of July with constant rain and cold, a sort of autumn straight out of spring, that was already full of rain, the grass pass the scything time, the paths got deeper, first fruits came earlier, smaller, rotten, and I got wet! Got wet under the roof, tippie, caravan, inside my shoes, the humidity levels were so high that I could grow mushrooms in the hay of my roof, I didn't need to built a fridge anymore (one of my projects was to built a stone and earth cold place) but a oven!
The more or less 200 kilos of hay in my roof got heavier with the water accumulated, probably got to 400 or more, it holds for sure, I can walk on top of it, but this will decrease the lifetime of the result of a lot of work and with the compacting of the hay already in the roof I had to put more hay sooner than I thought, and a lot of other small details that didn't allow me to get to the point of just enjoying the finished work, as a good lazy likes, but demanded much more regular care and attention along the time.
There is always an equilibrium to keep, never do something forever (and forever is just the time of your life), but don't just live for today (like my roof!).
For sure I'll be able now to seriously help any friend that want to make anything similar, and sooner or later to use some of the experience to work in my own place...
Share your life, share and deepens your knowledge, and when it rains share your roof!!!
On the first picture there are Zinka and Dragon giving a first painting to the caravan where I store my stuff, now it's completely covered with draws, even the windows, that mostly Johanka did, the last picture show the door with the cherry tree blossoms, a late standing spring for our eyes!
