I don’t like to drift from job to job never quite learning it by heart, so I set my sights on the external retaining walls for the week. In the background tiny Jennifer was getting so much joy out of using jackhammer on the paths that no one could help but smile.

The tires were pounded pull of earth already so we began laying soda can “bricks” and with the cement mixers tied up for the slabs it was time for an upper body workout hand mixing mortar. Using tires that would be otherwise in landfill and compacting them with earth is an amazing building material, it’s slow and hard work, but great thermal mass for the building. The cans and 3:1 cement mortar is concerning quite a few interns. People are still going to use more cans, so mining for more aluminum to make them rather than recycling seems like a misstep. There is also a huge amount of cement in these earthships (even with the cans) which makes them lower maintenance and faster than using say lime or a more natural building material, but as we slide down the Post Peak Oil slope, time is about the only thing we might have excess of. Renewable materials and light maintenance are the building blocks of a more sustainable future, I fear for some cans as walls and rubbish pounded along with earth into tired might be an excuse to make more waste, not less.

After dinner a circle of five braved the night chill and played hot coals around the fire. Three catching and passing and under strict instructions from Dylan the two of us dodging to protect out pump jackets. Then later after a good natured scrabble at the door, with Vera and Melissa not wanting anyone to leave we were back in the car counting speed bumps and singing at the top of our lungs to the hits of the 90s.

After dinner the interns in walking distance filtered into our humble abode. When we first realised we were staying here Sam and I, perfect stranger, hi-fived one another, it was nice. An experiment in a double storey city dwelling it had radiant slab heating, a double height courtyard and most importantly running water which we were told people in “the Pods” lacked. Ground floor and first both had a bedroom/kitchen and after some tossing of furniture between the levels a little table each. The four of us had leisurely lunches together being only a minute from site and we could here Jason strumming his guitar upstairs most night.

Most importantly there is a double height cistern system that was running low after a dry spell. Important because when a water delivery truck showed up they weren’t familiar with the system. Water began spilling across our kitchen floor and it was then with mop in hand that I got my first and perhaps only encounter with the great man of mystery Michel Reynolds. His first words to me were something like “we F@#$ed up”, then they did some tinkering and the tide receded.