They were using it for insulation and stuff on this guy’s house. Thursday we mixed Portland cement and made stairs out of it and the stone they collected from the creek the first day I worked there. After we finished the stairs we worked on a wall that was made with earthen bags and barbed wire. We had to mix sand, clay, water, lime, and Portland cement to make a mixture called stucco. It was pretty easy if we could only remember the recipe. = ) It took us some time but we finally figured it out and it worked out pretty well. It was really messy at first though. We were spilling it a lot the first day. Friday we stayed with the stucco wall the whole day. It was pretty fun. We could finally make the stucco without repeatedly asking what the ratios were.
The Farm Ecovillage Training Center is located in The Farm (an intentional community) in Summertown, TN. This is the blog of our Summer interns and their experiences here.
Bunches of Building: Ariel
Monday was pretty good. We worked more on the bench in the Hodge-Podge lodge and cooked lunch again. We didn’t make such a mess this time. It was still really fun though. Tuesday was kind of boring. I mixed some kind of mixture (almost like cob only much, much wetter and no sand) the whole day. 
They were using it for insulation and stuff on this guy’s house. Thursday we mixed Portland cement and made stairs out of it and the stone they collected from the creek the first day I worked there. After we finished the stairs we worked on a wall that was made with earthen bags and barbed wire. We had to mix sand, clay, water, lime, and Portland cement to make a mixture called stucco. It was pretty easy if we could only remember the recipe. = ) It took us some time but we finally figured it out and it worked out pretty well. It was really messy at first though. We were spilling it a lot the first day. Friday we stayed with the stucco wall the whole day. It was pretty fun. We could finally make the stucco without repeatedly asking what the ratios were.
They were using it for insulation and stuff on this guy’s house. Thursday we mixed Portland cement and made stairs out of it and the stone they collected from the creek the first day I worked there. After we finished the stairs we worked on a wall that was made with earthen bags and barbed wire. We had to mix sand, clay, water, lime, and Portland cement to make a mixture called stucco. It was pretty easy if we could only remember the recipe. = ) It took us some time but we finally figured it out and it worked out pretty well. It was really messy at first though. We were spilling it a lot the first day. Friday we stayed with the stucco wall the whole day. It was pretty fun. We could finally make the stucco without repeatedly asking what the ratios were.
Building, Chopping, & Gathering: Ariel
This week was pretty weird. Monday we made walls out of cob (with lime in it) and firewood, instead of mortar and bricks. I think it was called cord wood. It was pretty interesting. This guy named Jason is going to use it to make his whole house. That is going to look very different when it is done. Tuesday we chopped and stripped more bamboo. Again, it was very tedious. = l Wednesday was fun. There were some kids, from a summer camp thing up the road, who came down and helped us mix some cob and build a bench with it. After lunch that day me and two other interns went looking through the woods to gather moss for a living roof. Thursday we gathered moss for the living roof and made lunch. Gathering moss was almost as tedious a job as chopping bamboo, but it was easier than chopping bamboo because we didn’t have to watch out for the machetes. Friday we went back to making the cob bench. It was a pretty easy and fun week.
Disaster in the Kitchen: Ariel
Thursday we cooked lunch. Cooking lunch was so much more fun than gathering moss. = ) When you cook lunch there are a couple of people in the kitchen to help. Well all we did was make the pie. We left some one else with the job of making actual lunch. We made a huge mess of really thin wet dough we were gonna use for apple pie. It was getting everywhere. We added so much flour and sugar to it, that the dough tasted like animal crackers when we were done. It came out pretty good though. It was a lot of fun. It was a pretty easy and fun week.
Grew to Like It: Ariel
When I started this job I was so mad. = ( I wanted something in an office or a store. How was I going to help at the hippie farm anyway? Well, I moved wood. = l A tree next to the hostel with firewood stacked against it was dying. Someone had been hired to come safely cut it down. So I had to help move the firewood that was next to it. How crazy! After that was over, we spent most of the rest of the day cutting down and stripping bamboo. After Monday was over I didn't ever want to go back to that farm… but I did. How sad = ( The next day we mixed mud all day. It was a mixture of clay, sand, straw and water that they called cob. We used it to make an earthen floor for a hippitat. I thought the hippitat was pretty cute. It looked like a giant mushroom from the outside. The next day all we did was “lime wash” the hippitat. It was a little hot in the hippitat but that was better than being outside where it was raining. Working in the rain is horrible. It's all muggy, and steamy. What are we gonna do when it rains like that and we're working outside? The next two days were full of bamboo. We cut down and stripped bamboo all of Thursday and Friday. It was the most tedious work ever. The same thing over and over is never a good thing, no matter how much you can goof off while you are working. After a week of work it was much better than I thought it would be. I started to have fun while I was working. I’m glad I stayed working there. = )