Well, it's clearly not finished but you can see that progress has been made.   It's likely the sandbag walls would be finished if the rain didn't wash out the crew on Saturday.  Buckets of rain poured down as our enthusiastic little crew sat huddled under the tarp shelter across from the structure, waiting for a break in the downpour.  They gave up by 4pm and came back to eventually huddle around the campfire under a clear star filled sky. 
The rain may have set us back slightly but our determination has not wavered.  Building is planned to continue weekends until.... it's done.  Anyone is welcome to come by, pitch in or just have a look. 
Big thank you to the new folks who came up to help out and to those brave souls who returned for round two - Alice, Dan, Mark, Megan, Tim and Wes - you all rock!!
And an extra thank you to Wes who came around on the previous Saturday plus a weeknight shift!

Something incredible happened this weekend.  A group of the most determined, enthusiastic and wonderfully kind people came together to help turn a dream into reality.  Family members, old friends, new friends and strangers who quickly became friends persevered through what was possibly the hottest weekend of the summer and put the meaning of 'labour' back in labour day weekend.

I am overwhelmed with joy, awe and gratitude to every single person who showed up to shovel, pack and lay the sandbags that quickly came up to form the walls of our roundhouse cabin.  Due to kitchen and baby duties, I was unable to be at the building site for much of the time but whenever I did pop my head over, this fascinating work ethic was immediately visible.  It seemed like people set up their own goals and precision was beautifully respected. People fought with finicky barbed wire, pounded sledgehammers, got a cruel lesson in the difference between top soil and subsoil, tampered the day away AND started to make a plan for a repeat visit for Thanksgiving weekend!?  How did we ever get so lucky?

Thank you to Alice, Andrea, Dad, Dave, Jeff, Kat, Kris, Kristine, Laura, Megan, Mom, Phillipe, Sean, Steph, Tim, and Vicky.  You are all amazing!

Plans for Thanksgiving will get underway soon however in order to secure a pre-winter move in date we are thinking to organize a couple more weekend events prior to then to move things along.  We're looking at next weekend (Sept 19).  I know the sunburns and achy muscles will have barely faded by then for this group but if anyone else is interested or up for it we would love to have you.

Here are some links to blogs/websites from other local projects by people that were with us this weekend, including a great little post by Kat about the build here:

https://katlitterbox.wordpress.com/2015/09/07/a-lesson-in-berm-a-culture

www.sailingtheearth.wordpress.com

www.earthbound-project.com

If anyone else has a blog or website that I don't know about and you'd like me to pass along then please let me know.  Thanks  again and hope to see you all again soon!