Saturday was the BEST

I woke up refreshed and energized and spent a couple hours just hanging out.

I paid bills, and had the money to do so. I highly recommend this. It feels very nice.

Then I took the kids to a cob party. Caitlan had been studying, and needed a break. Nicholas is always looking for the next "fun thing." What's a better break then going out into the community and stomping mud and straw into cob? The City Repair folks were out at the Point with APC. There's a 20' trellised shade structure getting built.

Valerie was the lead on the project, and she's great. Good energy, nice management skills, and darn attractive too. People who are in right livelihood are just wonderful to be near. I worked hard, the kids worked hard... Valerie made a comment later: "I overheard children saying this was hard work... but they liked it!" Nick was up to his knees and elbows in mud. Caitlan of course, just adores working with these sorts of building products.

I took us over to Marketplace, all muddy, for sandwiches and got a nice compliment about the sign I'd installed Friday. The sandwiches and potato au gratin from the Deli were just the thing on a hot afternoon for people who needed some good calories in their bodies.

Caitlan asked me, "Did you like the food at the cob party?"

"Not especially. It was pretty good for that sort of thing, though." I did appreciate the people who had made the effort to provide for all the workers. Hotdogs and hotwings aren't much fare for vegetarians, though!

"I didn't like the watermelon very much," she said.

"Well, sweetie, you're spoiled because we get organic produce, so you are used to having flavor and nutrients. If you didn't know better, you'd have liked that watermelon, it was really quite good for supermarket produce."

I did a few postures to keep from seizing up. After our early dinner I cleaned up, then went over to the Alameda Biodiesel Cooperative and looked at a Bio-D trailerable processor for taking to car shows. I'll make a couple little signs to go on it and it'll debut at Crissy Fields the coming weekend.

Came back home, quick visit with Xena while she worked, then off to a party at Green Fairy Farm, an urban farm on a mere 1/7th acre lot (and a big house, too). I'd been invited by Shan during the cob build. Grey water advocates, humanure advocates, sustainability disciples of all stripes packed the kitchen and backyard. Snippets of conversations "rabbits for meat," "three years of driving on PV," "Makes his own musical instruments," "hope to take down the fences and make a large communal space," "infill," "backyard habitat" floated past me.

I looked around at all the people who were doing the work of building our sustainable future, and felt it in my deepest marrow: we can do this. We can be people of conscience and of good health and good will and good community, as we restore the planet's systems and repair the Earth's health.

We can do this.