i’d like to share another phenomenon that is emerging that i find to be related. there are a couple of sites i know about, namely help-x and workaway, which act as agencies to put together guests and hosts. check them out.

i started with help x last year, and am working with both this year, my first guest is already here.

the deal is as a host you describe your situation and needs, you can add pix and video to your post, and guests read your posts and those attracted email you through the site, and from then on directly.

in the emails all the specifics can be discussed, personal questions answered mutually, and arrangements for picking them up at the local station. ages of workers range from late teens to 60′s, with most between 23 and 30, most unskilled but a significant proportion also experienced professionals.

host posts range from relatively basic ‘help cleaning house’ or ‘taking care of aged relative’, to madly exotic ventures like restoring a medieval monastery to serve as temple to the religion of musical performance, (!), but most are small farms, as indicated in this initiative blogged here at FS.

in my case, folks are helping me with my donkey and horse, fencing, rockwalling, wood cutting and gathering, small building gigs and the like.

last year i had a couple, she scottish, he NZ, who came for a week and stayed a month. they were intelligent, thoughtful and willing.

you can strike your own deals with workers, mine is 4 hours a day in exchange for room and board, the guests pay for their own travel, but don’t spend a dime while staying.

i’m starting to realise there is a huge pool of fresh labour that will seek one out, and it’s a godsend, as local labour hired for the work would be 10€ an hour, and the attitudes to working with pleasure much less.

this is quite understandable, as there’s no novelty for a local teenager to come weedwhack here, it’s boredom incarnate!

(insert surly mumble).

whereas for someone to come from the wilds of suburban london, out here to the ‘civilisation’ of boonie italy, it’s a treat because it’s so different, and they can move on when and whither they arrange to individually.

obviously there’s lots of good faith, and a measure of risk involved. i am quite nervous when heading to pick them up!

maybe i’m lucky, but the people who have come through have been willing, industrious, and wonderful company. for the most part middle class (over?)-eddicated gap yearers, but also some who have slipped the moorings, and lead nomadic lives, where they work say canning tomatoes for a couple of months, and parlay that smallish saved sum into a year-long round the world working adventure, during which they may have learned cob building, installing grey water systems, yada yada, or ust had a good time yakking and swapping stories round a table full of fresh garden produce sometimes that they helped grow.

through help x i found someone to housewatch for 2 months and i was able to travel for the first time in 7 years, so to say this discovery is radically changing my life is no understatement.

the cameraderie is the best part, and the wonderfully enriching privilege of meeting so many hip, bright, clued in, extremely well-travelled young people.

this year i mentioned that i am a composer and instrument collector, and of course this has skewed the response, and i look forward now to a summer full of budding songwriters, suzuki piano teacher, flautists, guitarists and digital recording geeks as well as the mosaicist, treehouse builder, electricians etc.

ditto mentioning i’m a massage therapist to some applicants, now i have a girl who’s accepted in osteopathy college, giving herself a gap year, chinese med students, thai masseuse, acupuncturists, you tell what you like, they show up…

it’s wild, i love it to pieces, there are so many ‘kids’ of all ages who can’t find a career niche who are hitting the road and taking what they can gather from coincidence. (dylan?)

this is the future and i look forward to doing some guesting myself once i have this old farm in better shape, there is so much i can learn travelling in this way that will be useful to return with.

many americans, i had a guy email me from brazil saying he was ready to drop everything and buy his ticket as soon as i gave him the word…

i passed on that one, too desperate, and too much responsibility if it didn’t work out, the profile didn’t speak to me strongly enough to merit risk on that level.

have any here tapped into this kind of networking before?

@m.c. I heard a report that in America the pro gun nuts are going in to Starbucks coffee with guns straped around their waste (waist ?) have you heard anything about that or actually seen it first hand? That is really funny.
I am pro gun myself. I am just against bullets. OK a few bullets is a good thing, 2 for example. If you can’t hit the duck or the deer by the second shot you should stick to eating ice cream.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/detroit-wants-to-save-its_n_490680.html

Here’s the photo archive for BB, my spouse Sherry has the power drill making the mushroom log. (: The Trinity House pix (it’s on Trinity Ave, in the hood) are of a very old downtown house that was refurbished and taken totally off the electric grid. The pix sequence the transformation. Owners Rebekah and Steve Hren have a book called The Carbon Free Home, an easy-to-follow how-to, well worth a look.

flash crowds meet sustainable ag, the wireless-enabled version of barn raisings and shelling bees… what’s not to like?

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