mudslinging, and curious groundhogs

The straw bale hut seems to be approaching completion. We've Christened it "Chapel Perilous".

With such organic structures, dead lines are pretty much irrelevant. After all, the structure's life cycle could extend beyond any of our rational speculations. We are wise enough on our foolishness to allow for factor x.

Building Chapel Perilous has been totally worthwhile. Uncertainty in method and indefiniteness in timeframe are the Chaos that we bring our Work out of. WHAT AN ADVENTURE. I've been having an identity crisis which extended into this work season, a crisis which has been stomped into the mud along with the signature blood, sweat and tears. It's been hard to talk about- the connection between identity and voice is very strong. My relationships with myself and family and friends have been under pressure from the uncertainty, but I can talk again now. This, because I have the authority of knowledge that my journey is this 10x12 hermitage, and beyond. By the season that some lucky forest gardener WWOLFers find a way to crash here, I will be gone, like the offed gas of our bodilly fluids from the mud.

We wait, the cob is drying on its own. I am so glad, because it's been a long work spell and my Sabbath is right now. See, this weekend past, Griffin, Kat and I led workshop on the whole holy process of making and applying earth plaster. First, we made a watery clay mud mixture and pressed it into naked bales. These dry, and act as a sort of glue for holding on the next layer of mud. After lunch, we mixed up cob and applied it as a second coat. It held on there nicely, and is functioning much as your hide does, keeping vermin from the bales and breathing out moist air.

The last stage is applying da finish coat. It's gonna be really sandy, with special colored clays and some borax to keep the critter populations down.

I don't begrudge the critters, I just want to be the Acidopholus in this yogurt. They are keeping court there, now, in a mellow and balanced way. I saw a cricket and some ants, which attract big wolf spiders just like in Fukuoka's primordial rice paddy. Another critter was the mold. The cob layer coughed up a bit of that white, furry stuff. I would have known that the gliding undines were scheduled to muck around with the aesthetics if I had checked a weather report. However, I don't bother to get on the T.V. or computer these days, not even for facebook. Some things just don't matter. You could also say they don't soul much, or spirit either. We got the air moving through with a window fan, and the final coat will go on in a few days.

O yeah, about the groundhogs. We've known there's a big one living in the Sweet Annie patch. Yesterday, for the first time, it showed its four babies to us. They were so cute. Totally "Indigo", the kits crept up the hill, very curious, and stared into our eyes from five yards away, at most. Wild animals coming near you is an interesting indication of some peaceful piece of mind- like finding the meaning in a dream, such occasions can be good times for personal reflection. The kits eventually left us, and played in my tobacco patch.