More and more, our one to two hour Monday and Thursday morning work parties focus on accomplishing a single task, quickly and efficiently, with Charisse (Rebecca) in the lead, both deciding the project and directing the process. About 9:45 AM we all get a text, announcing that day’s project and where to meet at 10 AM. Whoever is home (some podmates are working elsewhere) hops right on outside.
Last Thursday’s work party was particularly memorable because Charisse had been planning an outdoor kitchen ever since she arrived, six years ago. She thought she would locate it against the east wall of the Overhill house, but then, this spring, decided to make that area a flower bed. Voila!
Her inspired alternative? The desolate roofed area in back of the garage/greenhouse that has been used to store lumber.
Okay. Get to work!
The stored lumber was re-
stored next door, under a tarp.
Next, we spread wood chips, just about depleting the last gigantic chip drop.
At one point we had five people on wheelbarrow duty with two shoveling chips.
And of course, spreading chips.
“Okay. About done,” says Charisse, to her sweating crew. “Now all we have to do is move the kitchen sink (gifted to us two years ago by Lennie’s restaurant) and the table (gifted to us by my son Colin of the Garden Tower Project).
First, the sink.
Then, the table (very heavy).
Total time for entire project? About 90 minutes, thanks to crew: Charisse, Chris, Solan, Daisy, Dan, Camden, Gabrielle, and me. Eight people altogether. A new kitchen, outdoors, where we will able to leave the dishes and silverware outside, with folks washing their dishes immediately, there, rather than trooping inside one of the houses. This will work for much of the year, until it gets too cold for Community Dinners outside. Meanwhile, it’s astonishing how a small group, working together with focused intensity, can both accomplish so much and have so much fun. Still to come: a solar oven and a rocket stove. YES!
And, as I said above, the kitchen was finished just in time for our next Community Dinner that evening, which happened to be the first one since late June (we had taken the month of July off). YES, again!
See next post.
1 thought on “Green Acres Village: Thursday, August 8, first of two posts: OUTDOOR KITCHEN WORK PARTY”
I smile at your row of washed out plastic bags hanging on the line to dry and be re-used. That is what I have always done.