Life Lessons From Moving Piles
By Matthew Raybon, apprentice 2021
Treated bamboo drying and ready to move
If you were to visit Rancho Mastatal at any time of year, something you can count on seeing is the ever present pile. At first glance you may overlook them, but as the mystery of the Ranch unfolds in front of you, the seemingly insignificant pile of dirt reveals itself as a central piece of what makes everything at the Ranch happen. There are piles of sand and clay ready to be formed into adobe bricks or wattle and daub mix, piles of starfruit and lemons waiting to be fermented, stacks of bamboo waiting for the next bamboo construction workshop, piles of green papaya anticipating its second life as kimchi, piles and piles of knowledge held in peoples brains, piles of books filling up the library waiting for the next curious mind, piles of manure, compost piles, worm piles, piles and piles of piles.
It’s safe to say that piles and the movement of piles is an integral part of living in community at Rancho Mastatal.
LET ME PAINT YOU A PICTURE OF PILES
It’s one week into the 2021 apprenticeship program. So far we’ve spent our time getting acquainted with one another and our new home and taking a deep dive into the wealth of knowledge and experience Rancho has to offer. Up until now this has mostly involved talking and reading. Brain work rather than body work. Myself along with the other apprentices are ready to jump into the active work of building, fermenting, cooking, and caring for the land.
Monday of the second week rolls around and it’s time for our morning natural building work party. Amazing! For our first task we will be working with adobe bricks to construct the shower and toilet walls at a residential structure on the property called the Casucha. We all gather at the wood shop in the morning for a quick chat before breaking into teams to tackle the day’s tasks. “Alright,” Nic says, “first things first, we need to move some piles of sand from the road to the Casucha for our adobe mix. Let’s split into two groups. . . Two people grab shovels and go with Ali in the truck to haul sand from the road to here. The rest of us will transfer sand from the truck to wheelbarrows and bring it down the ridge to the Casucha.”
There is always more sand to move somewhere!
Two hours and a handful of blisters later we had successfully moved a few truck loads of sand from the road to the Casucha using primarily our hands, shovels, wheelbarrows and some tunes to keep the camaraderie high. In doing so we had all learned a few valuable lessons in natural building and in communal living as well as in life:
A. Nothing happens until someone moves piles
B. Many friends make light work
In other words, if you find yourself lost along the way and unsure of how to begin, start with a clear and simple task... and don’t be afraid to ask for help! I have returned again and again to these lessons and found steady ground in the simple act of moving piles to guide me through the ups and downs of life at Rancho.
And always more food from the farm to move
When embarking on a new ambitious project it’s easy to be quickly overwhelmed and consumed by details. What flavorings do I want to add to my kimchi? Is it really kimchi if I am not using cabbage? How did I end up here? Not to worry. First, I need to harvest, cut, peel, seed and grate a ton of green papayas. In other words I need to move and transform a whole pile of green papaya (recipe here). I’ll start there with that simple task and come to the details along the way. I look at the looming papaya pile and I think, “Oh man that’s a whole lot of papaya”. But then the next thought follows, “Good thing I’ve got some friends to help me out along the way.”
Before coming to the Ranch I lived in a house, I worked as an Architect and I ate fermented foods purchased from the store. I knew in my mind that the life that I was able to live was made possible by the physical labor of many people around the world. I didn’t know with my body what exactly goes into building that house that I lived in or creating a delicious kimchi, and I didn’t know with my body the waste that those processes can create. In moving sand and mixing adobes I am learning with my body as well as my mind what it takes to build a natural home. As I peel and process baskets of green papaya, I am learning what has gone into that kimchi I bought from the store. In doing these things I am able to understand the true cost and value of the things I was previously benefiting from. Not just the cost of the product on the shelf at the store, but the environmental cost and the physical cost.
The seemingly mundane task of moving piles has transformed into something far more significant for me. It is a means to an end that serves as a guide for me as I search for the next step. It is a way of strengthening a bond between my community and myself. It is providing me with both the mind and body knowledge of what goes into creating a community and living in harmony with the environment.
As the days pass on by, I am reminded constantly that all of those piles don’t just move themselves or fall from the sky. We move them. If I don’t move them someone else does, and when we move them everything happens. Like the leaf cutter ants toiling away at building their home one tiny leafy piece at a time, we set to work making sustainable community happen by moving piles. All kinds of piles.
Grab a friend, because there is always more piles to move!