Hello team,
Emily Wang has taken the decisive choice to become a natural builder, and I find her blog really inspiring.
https://evoiding.com/2024/05/15/my-time-in-moab-with-community-rebuilds/
She is not only learning natural building but traveled all the way to the workshop in Utah from Boston by train and bike!
I'll paste the latest entry here, but if you want the full thing with pictures go to the web address.
In community,
Joshua
My Time In Moab with Community Rebuilds
I spent March and April as a volunteer/intern/work-trader at Community Rebuilds, a small nonprofit Moab, Utah, that builds energy-efficient houses to alleviate the housing crisis there.
Some background: last year, as I prepared to embark, full-steam, on my journey into natural building, I came across Community Rebuilds (CR) online. They started in the early 2000s building strawbale homes with the help of the USDA rural housing loan program and volunteer labor. Since then, they’ve built 73 houses: a significant number for the small town of Moab, which has only about 5,000 residents but is flooded by about three million tourists every year. Its transformation in just a few decades into a major destination for outdoor recreation, especially mountain biking and off-road vehicles, was a double-edged sword. While it brought a lot of income in, it also made housing much more expensive, with rich people buying up houses as second homes and rental properties. The wages have not risen accordingly, so many working-class Moabites can barely afford to live there. It’s a tale as old as tourist towns.
In the twenty-some years since CR was founded, it has shifted, for reasons numerous and not all clear (I won’t get into them here), from building strawbale-infill houses to mostly-conventional (but very well-insulated) houses. While the first houses had all-strawbale exterior walls, the most recent batch of houses are stick-framed, with zero or one small strawbale wall, at the option of the owner.
The volunteer program has also shifted throughout the years. It currently takes the shape of two concurrent programs: a two-month unpaid “B.E.E.S” (Building Energy Efficient Shelter) program that runs a couple times a year, and a twelve-month, modestly-paid apprenticeship under the auspices of AmeriCorps, which contributes funding.
CR stood out to me for a couple reasons. First of all, it was an established program with an emphasis on educating young people starting at any experience level. Secondly, no tuition cost—it was a volunteer position with housing and a food stipend provided. Thirdly, it was a long-time member of the natural building community—even if it wasn’t doing a ton of “pure” natural building these days, there seemed to be a lot of natural building resources and connections linked to the organization. It was a unique opportunity: there didn’t seem to be any other program that checked all these valuable boxes.
I interviewed in January and was accepted to the term starting in March. Then I quit my job in February, got my affairs in order, and travelled by train and bike to Moab, a journey that I wrote about here.
The next two months were spent living with the other interns in the Bunkhouse, a fabulous nine-bedroom, two-story strawbale building near the heart of Moab, working on pre-foundation-pour work on three lots in Arroyo Crossing, a community land trust just south of town.
There were seven BEES on our first day. This dwindled to five by mid-term. There were eight apprentices when I started, which also decreased to six by mid-term.
I really enjoyed getting to know everyone: it’s cheesy but the people were really the highlight of the experience. Outside of the cob workshop I went to last fall, it was the first time I’d been around multiple people interested in natural building, for an extended period of time. After months and months of doing the whole song-and-dance of explaining this whole natural building thing, it was so energizing, fun, and affirming to finally talk about natural building with people who were into it, too! I’d found a passion big enough to restructure my whole life around, so maybe you can imagine how awesome it felt to be in that sort of community for the first time.
We worked 8-hour days, four days a week, with Saturday through Monday off (the apprentices worked five days a week). Much of our time was spent laying out the foundations of the houses with string lines and batter boards, as well as building the forms for the foundations to be poured into. Lots of metal stakes were pounded into the ground, gravel shoveled, boards screwed and unscrewed, tape measures pulled, dimensions scrutinized, and more.
We also had a fun week of building a dry-stacked (no mortar) stone retaining wall on one of the lots. I had been wanting to learn dry-stacking, so I was pretty pumped for that.
Another nice tangent was giving an earthen plaster facelift to the earthbag benches at a tiny community garden, which was a good practice (and great fun) in mixing and applying earthen plaster.
Photo credits from top left, clockwise: Lainy K., me, Lainy K., Rachel Z., Ian M.
I love that we really built a sense of community amongst us five (to six), and were supportive of each other’s journeys. We organized a couple of presentation nights. Rachel, a civil engineer, did a presentation on “Structural Engineering 101.” I did a presentation on “Lime and Cement Chemistry for Natural Builders.” We also invited our build supervisor to give a presentation on natural plasters and paints, as well as the director of the California Straw Bale Association, Massey Burke, for a Zoom Q&A, both of which were super informative.
Outside of work, we also just hung out a lot. Granted, I spent a lot of time biking and hiking on my own, for lack of biking companions, but even I had plenty of time with the gang. We played frisbee, cooked in the wood-fired cob oven, celebrated three (!) birthdays, hiked, walked around town, swam in the creek, danced, shared meals, volunteered, and talked a lot.
I had my own little checklist of things to do: mainly, biking to continue building touring fitness, and hiking several of the trails nearby. Notable bike rides include the out-and-back into the end of the road in Arches National Park, which was hilly, and the La Sal Mountain Loop, which was mountainous. I was especially grateful to have company on the La Sal Loop ride, because it was really hard, with a 14 mile stretch that alone ascended over 5,000 feet. I also enjoyed many post-work rides up into Arches and on the bike path past Arches.
Photo credits: all me except the one of me lying on the ground, which is thanks to the hill machine Chandler H.
My favorite hikes were Professor Creek and Grandstaff Canyon. Professor Creek was especially memorable. It was a beautiful, calm day, the perfect temperature to be in a t-shirt. I biked 24 miles to reach the trailhead. The trail tangoed back and forth with the little creek as it descended into a miniature canyon, which practically glowed orange with the light reflected off the water. The cottonwood trees glittered in the sunlight, leaves flickering at the slightest breeze. As the canyon deepened, the quiet gurgling of the creek was subtly bounced off the canyon walls, echoing the lower frequencies in a way that really fooled me into thinking that someone in the distance had a speaker playing music.
Photo credits: me, me, creek stranger
The trail followed the creek upstream, deeper into the slot canyon, until it ended at a waterfall. The water fell from above into a small pool, shrouded in shadow, deep enough for me to lose the ground. I mustered the courage to get in, having brought a swimsuit, but it wasn’t until the arrival of another group of hikers that I got the courage to put my head under. It was cold.
Then I hiked back, biked home, and had a great dinner.
Another wonderful thing about my time in Moab was my renewed inspiration to cook. I normally cook all my food, but something about this new setting gave me lots of fresh excitement and inspiration to cook. It was probably a combination of the food stipend encouraging me to be less extremely stingy on groceries, the free bulk goods provided to interns, the cob outdoor oven, which I was super excited to use, having never used much fire (but always wanted to), and the fact that I was needing to eat more than perhaps ever, with all the biking and hiking on top of a physical job.
A bag of whole wheat flour gave yeasted pan breads, my first ever sourdough starter, sourdough vegan pizzas blistered to perfection by scrap wood fires, freestyled sourdough foccacias of varying success, sour flatbreads, gnocchi, and pancakes. The residual heat of the cob oven, post-pizzas, gave the most amazing roasted vegetables I’d ever had.
I baked three birthday cakes for the three birthday-havers in our group. Since one of us was gluten-free, I decided to bake that first vegan and gluten free cake so that we could all share it. It was a hit, so I did the next two as well. I made vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, vanilla-lemon cake with lemon curd and lavender frosting, and carrot cake.
By the end of the two months, spring had very much sprung in Moab. The trees that had been bare when I arrived were thick with foliage. The tantalizing scent of black locust flowers drifted through the air, even when there were none in sight. Cherry blossoms bloomed and waned. Tent caterpillars carpeted the bike path (I ran over hundreds, if not thousands) and waved from every vertical surface. Days on site went from chilly to hot enough to start pouring water on my hat and shirt to cool off.
Just in time, I had begun to tire of the desert climate. I started missing the higher humidity in the Northeast (I’ve never wished for it to be more humid before). The dust that coated everything started to annoy me a little more. It mixed with the sunscreen on my skin and the oil in my hair and stuck there every day like a gritty varnish.
Soon enough, the end of the term was upon us. I was a bit tanner, a bit stronger, and a bit more comfortable with power tools. I had a few new songs written, some new recipes up my sleeve, two new (used) long sleeve shirts to keep the sun off, some new little scars from walking into things, and a fresh tin of my favorite sunscreen. I was also full of new ideas, connections, and knowledge. I can only say that it was time very well spent!
The weather for my ride back to Grand Junction was perfect: balmy, a light breeze, a bit extra humidity in the air, and totally overcast to start with, shielding me from the intense sun. It was like an apology for the cold rain on my way out to Moab. I really hit my stride a few hours in, as the clouds cleared a little. The coming of spring had brought more tourists and they seemed to be in good spirits too; I got several friendly waves and peace signs from drivers between Moab and Cisco. I also saw a few mule deer (delightful), and many prairie dogs (adorable).
The fabulous cloud assortment I’d enjoyed all afternoon turned out to be harboring rain clouds, which I found myself uneasily close to. The sky darkened, the wind picked up, and drops of rain started falling. I pushed the last few miles into McInnis Canyons, and by the time I was hurrying to pitch my tent, the wind was whipping it ferociously. I got inside just as the rain really started.
Snugged up in my sleeping bag, I ate a dinner of the homemade sourdough bread and “use-up-all-my-leftover-ingredients” oat bars I had baked in advance. The rain was over in an hour, and I enjoyed a sunset walk to stretch my legs before bed.
When I woke up in the middle of the night, I got out of my tent to a glorious night sky full of stars. It was comfortably cool, so I stood out there for a while, craning my neck up. I forget that there are so many stars, having lived an urban life. The sight reminds me that we’re in the universe. I felt sad that seeing a sky full of stars is now a luxury for so many.
The next day had only a few more hours riding to reach my Warmshowers host in Grand Junction. The big hill and switchbacks leading up to Greg’s house left me sweaty and winded. He and his dog welcomed me warmly (well, Blondie barked at first but relaxed after some biscuits, pets, and time ). He offered to make me an icy green smoothie with peaches frozen from last year’s local harvest and my stay only continued to get better from there, if you can believe that.
Greg was an absolute beacon of kindness and positive energy, which he showered me and the two other bike tourists passing through as well with. We enjoyed delicious meals with a great variety of fruits and vegetables. In his wonderful house overlooking Grand Junction, we had many excellent hours of conversation about our shared interests in nature, greener construction, and veganism. He had what seemed like several lifetimes’ worth of epic stories to share, on everything from building houses to firefighting to starting a horticultural research center. We biked down the hill to visit the old 1933 adobe house he was renovating, which I was so happy to geek out over. I feel very lucky to have enjoyed his company—thank you, Greg!
As I write, my bike and I am on the California Zephyr to Chicago, where I will transfer to the Wolverine to Detroit. Then I’ll be headed to Strawbale Studio to work and learn with Deanne Bednar for a little while. In early July, I’ll be back in Boston.
I’ll fondly remember the playful landscapes of the southwest, the fantastic shows put on every day by the rock formations and the clouds, the gorgeous wildflowers and night skies full of stars. I’ll find myself around here again someday.
To all the wonderful people I got to spend time with out west, thank you, and to my friends anywhere I’m not, I miss you.
Onwards!
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