the cric house

welcome to my blog barbara and bruce!!!


michelle and i decided we wanted to start woofing ( www.wwoof.org)at the cric house the following day so we called emmanuel in san francisco and ended up being able to stay at his place. we took the train from berkley to san francisco although we went the wrong way for about 40 minutes. we dropped our things off at emmanuels and went down to the bay where we had a great view of the golden gate bridge and alcatraz and we ate more hummus in the moonlight. so romantic mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
the next morning we got on the bus to santa rosa where we would have to get on another bus that would take us to sebastopol. some young kid that was wearing a sports jersey and a way to big hat sat next to us.he seemed nice. he gave me pokemon cards to look through and warned me not to scratch them. i do not care about pokemon at all.
we had arrived in santa rosa and started walking around because the next bus wouldn't be leaving for another 2 hours. while we were walking this realy nice lady sitting in her car at a traffic light gave us some very delicous pizza and told us about how she used to backpack all around when she was younger. then we walked into a store called kindred which sold only fair trade products. the lady who worked there noticed our bags and asked where we were headed. michelle bought a really beautifull and colorfull skirt. then some lady who was talking to the cashier said , hey if your going to sebastopol i can give you a ride. so she ended up giving us a ride all the way to the cric house. we got to the cric and were given a tour by a youngin named ben o. the cric house dumpster dives 80 percent of there food. its sounds gross getting food from a dumpster but in most cases it is in some type of bag. dumpster diving saves money, saves perfeclty good food from going to waste and its fun. they have a grey water system which converts the water from the sink and shower and filters it through a system of different plants which is outside. by doing so they are bypassing the process of the city using chemicals and such to clean the water. and all the energy that goes into that. also they have compost toilets. the compost toilet is set up just like a regular toilet but it stead of a bowl that you poop into and then flush and goes to a water treatment center and al that, there is a bucket. you make your deposit into the bucket and then add carbon material like straw or woodchips to absorb moisture and control odor, and there is none. with there system they empty the 5 gallon bucket into a bigger bucket and when that is full it gets put in a pile with cow manure and other things to undergo composting.

today michelle used a chop saw for the first time!!! we were cutting wood with a guy named roland to make raised beds. raised beds are easier to work with because you dont have to bend down as much, the soil doesnt get taken away by the rain and everything stays tidy. here the ground is very hard and the roots would have trouble getting through the soil.after the building of the structure was done we put in a layer of cow manure, then dirt that we had to sift to get out all the rocks out , then a wee bit more manure, then top soil for the top layer. after all that we planted some peas. michelle now has a very awkward tanline on her back.

a new wwoofer just arrived. its funny because when we were couchsurfing at emmanuels in san francisco, she was there. the weather has been great so far. good good good.

also, i have no phone reception here.