The linen project is now (end of June 2012) at a sensitive point where it could become robust enough to succeed independently of any one individual, or it could fall apart, quite possibly with bitterness and recriminations.
Here’s how it could succeed: We find an organizational form that engages people’s various motives strongly and focuses their energy specifically on doing the work necessary to producing cloth. The main prize will not be the cloth itself, but the organizational form, which can be applied to a range of other urgently needed projects developing local productive capacity. “We” means, of course, a group which includes “you”. So “we” aren’t going to find this organizational form unless “you” are trying to find it.
Here’s how this project could fail: The absence of enough committed people could allow crucial tasks to remain undone. Weeds could rage over our field. Come fall we could not have all the means prepared to ripple, store, ret, and dress (dressing means braking, scutching and hackling) our huge crop. So it could rot in the field, or languish in storage (the way my 2010 crop did when Transition had it.)
A less wasteful alternative that has crossed my mind is this:
I could invite the many fiber-arts hobbyists who are excited about flax, to divide up the field at harvest time and each bring home a fraction of the crop. Then they could each store and process their own bit, each at her own pace, using whatever rustic tools and methods they can pull together. This would at least develop widespread familiarity with the material, building a cohort of people some of whom might advance to more productive mechanized methods.
I started the idea in the last paragraph with “I could…” rather than “We could…” to make a point. Legally that whole flax crop is mine, from my contract with the landowner. Several people have made major contributions to growing it, and to building our knowledge of retting and further processing. They did this in the (correct) assumption that I would prefer that everyone gets their fair share of the glory from this as an activist achievement, and of the income from this as a possible niche industry.
But it would seem that many are making a further assumption, that I will figure out how to apportion these rewards fairly, and construct the system for doing so, all by myself. Yet this is a huge intellectual challenge – the central one in our overarching task of showing the way for other projects like this to succeed. I want some help figuring this out. I have some ideas, but I want other people to develop and post ideas too.
My ideas, which I have developed over years, I have attempted to:
- Identify the forms the decline might take, and their likelihoods and timescales
- Identify skills, tools and relationships that our community will need.
- Identify the obstacles and difficulties that stand in the way.
- Identify the human motives which could be engaged in overcoming these difficulties.
- Identify effective ways of engaging those motives
These difficult questions are each open to many answers, so having many people discussing them would bring out more useful insights. But I am unaware of any groups or individuals in Victoria who have attempted what seems to me very basic groundwork in resilience activism. I don’t want to do this alone.
Billy, 386-7984
I heard somewhere, I think it was from you Billy, that Kief had suggested a potluck. I think that this is a great idea and I would be willing to host such an event. The biggest problem I can see is getting everybody who has been involved all together in the same place at the same time. I will suggest Wednesday July 4th @ 5:30-6:00 pm as an opener and we can go from there.
Ken
Sure, I’m in for a potluck on the fourth of July. Kief himself is away for a week or so, but we don’t all need to be there to develop ideas.
Billy, 386-7984
I’ll have to be late on a wednesday July 4 – but I’ll catch you at the end of it. I think the more of us who can be there should be taken into account which might mean switching days – Guess we haven’t heard from others yet eh? What was that doodle poll thing that Denise used? that might make it easier to pick a day when we can get the most of us there.
barb
Something has come up for me at dinner time on July 4th. I can still host a meeting at 7:00 or 7:30 pm but not a potluck earlier. I meant to say in my last message that I think it is necessary for ALL those involved in this endeavour be present so Barb’s idea of a doodle poll sounds good if she is willing to put the time in to figure it out, I don’t have the time and can’t recall how Denise got one going, I can’t remember ever seeing one. As Kief is unavailable on the 4th anyway perhaps we should hang tough and wait on the doodle poll thing…maybe Nancy who came to the SHAS event and was available to do organising could help out? I do not have her number.
I have written a message to Dragonfly Farms in California in regards to the availability of their hackles and shipping costs.
A message to Beatrice- I know you are not keen to do the SHAS Harvest event but there does seem to be some interest in doing it again but not having a spinner/weaver present just isn’ t the same. Perhaps you can suggest someone else that may want to partake in this fun event?
Barb has started a “Doodle” poll to see when is a good time for a weeding party. You can find it at http://www.doodle.com/33b8u4wrzg2mzbq7 . You can phone her at 592-2164, or email her at barb@inhabitvictoria.org .
Cheers! Billy
Barb and I spend a few hours out in the field today. She weeded out the thistles at the top of the field. The only other weeds in mild evidence are some yellow flowers like buttercups. I suppose we should pull them out before they go to seed, walking barefoot tin the field to reach them. But not yet – the second wave of sprouts, from Brian’s follow-up seeding, is coming up, and will be less vulnerable in a few days. The first wave is up several inches and looks good.
We had a major loss of water over the weekend, when a “Y” connector ruptured, but fortunately there was no erosion damage to the field. The water just ran away underground, and you can’t even see where it happened. The system I put together turns out to be vulnerable to “water hammer” when perhaps a hundred pounds of water flowing to the sprinkler gets suddenly stopped by the timer valve slamming shut. I rigged up a fluid-shock absorber made of more hose lengths, but it is awkward to move when shifting the sprinkler line across the field.
It looks like hot dry weather is coming soon, so irrigation will give us a taller crop.
Hi – I’m having a bit of trouble with this site but am starting to understand it a bit I think. I have to click on a name on the right side of the screen to see the latest post from that person (I hope its the most recent one), then go down to the bottom to make another comment. So this post is mainly to see if I’ve got it right. and to see if I can edit it after it’s posted.
In case you don’t get the other mesg I sent I wanted to let you know that the shed has been taken.
Mesg to Beatrice – what happened to the seed bols you brought to SHAS? I don’t remember seeing them – did you find them a home?
barb
So now we have a barn in which to store the flax at harvest. It’s not far from the field but we will need some sort of truck, cart, wagon to get it there. Beatrice has made a beautiful piece of linen which we will be showing off at James Bay Market on Aug 4th. Hope to see you there.