By Penn Taylor (former intern and DR's newest member)
4:00 a.m.: Wake up
4:15 a.m.: Morning flogging
5:00 a.m.: The Pit
OK, so that's
not quite accurate. There are no morning floggings, and I certainly don't wake up
at 4 AM. But the Pit? Oh yeah, there's a Pit. Plaster pit that is, and I'm in it
somewhere around two days a week. The plaster pit is where we stomp the earthen
plasters that coat our lovely straw-bale buildings, and one of the many things I
do as an intern at Dancing Rabbit is put plaster on buildings. Lately I've been
doing that for two days per week, and working in the gardens a day and a half or
two days a week. The rest of my time during the work-week might be spent doing
one or several of many things: cooking, building demolition, installing drywall,
building furniture, canning food, planting trees for erosion control, mowing the
many paths around the village, picking fruit, or any number of community
rotational chores.
When I was asked to write a short piece about what it's like
to be an intern here, I said, "Sure, I can do that. A 'Day in the Life' kind of
thing. No problem." I figured, "Hey, I'm an intern. I know what it's like to be
me. I know what I do all day. This will be easy." Yeah right. A few days later I
realized that it's almost impossible to give a sense of what a day is like for an
intern here because the days can be so wildly different. It's hard to even give a
picture of what a week is like because we do so many different things. A few
things are constant though: we're in the middle of a community of very
knowledgeable and caring people; we work a lot; we learn a lot; we sweat a lot;
and oh yeah, we work a lot.
Keeping the above warnings in mind about how varied
the weeks can be as an intern at DR, here's a sample work week, taken from my
June work log:
Monday : Organize, sharpen, and repair community tools. Build
trellis for scarlet runner beans. Village intern work scheduling meeting. Cut
grass along community paths with a scythe.
Tuesday: Work in garden preparing
beds and planting.
Wednesday: Work in garden. Cook supper and clean up.
Thursday: Install drywall in Skyhouse. Put out lunch. Intern check-in
meeting.
Friday: Apply final coat of lime plaster to Bella Ciao (a small
strawbale cottage).
And that's just the work the other Village interns and I did
that week. There were also sing-alongs, bonfires, evening dips in the swimming
pond, great conversations with other folks at DR, excellent meals (well, maybe
not the day I cooked...), and time spent watching fireflies and looking at the
stars. All in all, my time as an intern at Dancing Rabbit has been an amazing
learning and living experience, and I have trouble imagining anything else that
would feel so rewarding.
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