Week 24- Marlborough School

March 6, 2012

Building


Have I ever mentioned that we are incredibly busy?  This morning's class was visited by Jesslyn, who played Village with us last year at Marlborough School and over the summer in Nelson.  It was great to have some extra help on hand, because we were SO busy!  The very exciting news from this morning is that the first house seems to have been completed!  Okay, mostly completed.  A peep would not be comfortable living there yet as there is no furniture... but the walls are up, the ceiling is on, it looks like it is going to make a very nice home for one lucky peep.  The other good news is that this home belongs to the editor of the newspaper, hopefully now that his house is finished we'll start seeing more news published.

The rest of the class continued working on the steps necessary to complete a house.  Most homesteaders are at the point of drawing out their lumber orders on the wood.  So many, in fact, that we ran out of wood this morning!  This lack of wood provided some homesteaders with an opportunity to do something different.  One homesteader who is apparently bankrupt (from purchasing everyone else's cardboard models and taping them all together) had some time to work out his finances and to think about how he can solve his current plight.  I don't think he came up with a solution that he was willing to do, however, his situation is dawning on him.  This has the potential to go two ways as I see it.  1:  Possibly some impressive changes in this homesteader's sense of community.  In his time of need will he look for/find a job?  Will he talk about his financial woes with his fellow homesteaders?  Will he ask them for help?  2:  He shuts down and refuses to participate.  I am hoping for number 1!

Another homesteader began brainstorming what this idea of having senators will mean  in our community and how it might be applied.  He was so enthusiastic about his plan that at the end of class when I asked him to put his paper away, he asked me if he could bring it home because he wanted to work on his ideas some more.

We spent a bit of time learning about the importance of right angles in home construction.  We also learned a few tricks to make sure the walls and roofs we are drawing out are accurate (a wall that is eight feet high at one end of the room shouldn't be nine and a half at the other end).

Our trading post manager imported a house he built at a previous village.  He had other homesteaders appraise it's value to determine his tariff. "I don't want to do it myself because it would be a conflict of interest."  Once again fairness it very important in Village.

Things are really coming together!

Next week we will do more of the same.  Tim and I have a TON of lumber orders to cut out between now and then.