HeleninFrance: Monday, July 4, Part I

No time now in the morning for a leisurely breakfast but I had time to take this early morning misty scene of the cow farm below. I could hear the tinkling of the cowbells reminding me of the goats back in Bretignoles-sur-Mer. I didn't have time for a walk, but I was looking forward to the work of understanding a bit more about straw houses. Since they are "hand made," they are really a work of art, in this case, more than 200 Wwoofers had already helped build this one.

In the future we will work with a crew from another Wwoofing site, but this morning our small crew of three is working alone.

But sometimes there are snags that arise and here was a already a problem first thing - the motor of the cement mixer seems to be on the fritz. Pierlo is working here to fix it.

The cat seems to be taking it easy while everyone else is poised to begin the workday.

Here Ana shows Joe how to pump the sprayer we will use to wet the walls. After the mixture I mentioned in the last blog is applied to the walls, it has to dry thoroughly. Then, when the next coat is applied, the wall must be thoroughly moist so that each succeeding layer will stick properly.

Apparently Pierlo has gotten the mixer ready to roll and Joe is being called to help remove its contents.

Since my job of putting the mixture on the wall can't be done until there is some mixture to apply, I take a few pictures of the preliminary operations. Joe has really gotten into it (sorry for the pun).

This is serious business!

The mixer keeps stopping so Ana, who has already worked a week on the house, has an idea. Pielo encourages everyone to be be creative and share their thoughts such as how to rearrange how the tools are kept. Naturally, with so many people working on the site, everyone has to be careful of putting things back in the same place so the next day they can easily found again.

Even though it's messy business, we all seem to have reverted the mud pie mentality of our childhood as you can see by the smiles on our faces.

Now we have to hoist the mixture by the bucketfuls to the second story. Joe starts hauling it up

and Ana receives it at the top.

Now Ana and I work together while Joe goes back for more of the mixture. I am wearing the "fancy" red shirt with holes that Noa left as he went on to another job on the Cote d'Azur. I got those red boots last summer when I took my younger granddaughter to an alpaca farm in Vermont for a week.

Pierlo comes in to get me and Joe started on applying the new coat. As Ana has already been here a week, she already has a wall she is working on. She will also help show Joe and me the proper way to spray the water on the wall before applying the mixture of earth, minerals, stones, and grass, and, of course, straw.

Marion has joined us as she often helps in building her house. Both children have been taught from a very young age how to negotiate moving around the holes around unfinished areas. When I sit on the terrace (with no railing) or work over open holes that go right through to the first floor, I get a little nervous about falling. But Marion is quite surefooted and also very strong as she pulls up the heavy buckets.

Ana carries the buckets inside to dump while Marion stays at her job hauling them up to the second floor.

Ana makes a large pile that we will all use to refill our buckets as we work.

Jules has decided he wants to help this morning so Pierlo works with Marion and Jules to do the next step in the corner. They are young enough to be able to work on their knees, something I can't do.

I get a little stool to sit on some of the time when it is low, and Pierlo tells me to leave the bottom for someone else to do if I can't do it.

Pierlo had said we could work with gloves on, but I decided to try the first day without. It felt a bit like gardening putting my hands in the raw material. Yet it was different, more difficult than gardening. In fact, I had some blisters at the end of the day and realized the next time I would try using gloves.

Jules is looking some word up in the dictionary. Even though Pierlo had planned for the house to already be done, he doesn't work in a hurried way. Sometime as we all talk, we need a word we don't know and there is always a dictionary to help us out. Pierlo is very interested in communication and knows how to speak some Esperanto.

As I take a quick rest, I look out from the terrace. The weather is still full of humidity which is actually good for applying the mixture to the walls. Notice the car, parked backed up against the edge of the hill. Actually, though it looks precarious, Pierlo built up the area into a small mound in back of where the cars are to be parked. You may be able to see the little "ridge" built up so that vehicles wouldn't drop off over the edge of the cliff into the ravine. I have to say, even so, I was always a bit afraid at this juncture as we arrived home.

I remember that first time we drove in on the narrow "path" that leads up the the dead end that is his beautiful piece of land. Of course he is used not only to the driving, but also the parking. But the experience quite took my breath away. On the right you can see that Pierlo has built a swingset for the children and one of our jobs will be to hang the trapeze as well as the swing.

Here is the view looking left from the upstairs windows.

Inside during another break, I take pictures of how the water pipes inside the walls have been inserted.

The fog thickens!

In fact, it is lunch time and we must put jackets on to pick the lettuce, edible wild flowers, and herbs. Tony, a dog the family is caring for while friends are on vacation goes with us as we pick the luncheon delicacies. When we went to Dominque's house to work, he escaped to visit back at his home where he has a "girlfriend." The first time we spent a lot of time looking for him, but after we found him that first time, Pierlo wasn't so worried about him when Tony pulled several repeat performances.

The flowers are small so it takes time to get enough for the salad. One has to be careful not to pick these particular flowers when they close at dusk. It's at that time they became a night shelter for some black bugs that one shouldn't consume.

After lunch some of us have a different job. Marion is soon to have a horse so she and I go up to the neighbor's barn and work to remove some debris of various kinds under what will become a shelter from the rain for the new horse. We move these metal "doors" inside the barn.

Inside the barn there is also quite a lot of loose hay that we must store in a couple of big bags.

When we get too tired, we goof off for a short time taking pictures. Chores are always done in pairs if possible, although some jobs only need one person.

Later we have almost finished cleaned the shelter under the eves and I take a series of cute pictures, just as I do with my grandchildren. I thought how Lily and Phoebe would enjoy these activities and posing for these shots.

Robert is very patient with Marion's different antics.

I thought I was a bit heavy for Robert so I patted him instead of inflicting my girth on him. But he seems quite used to Marion and really doesn't protest.