I’ve said it before. Working with my hands alone is not only frustrating, but in my limited time scale, it is a guarantee for failure. I need a hammer to strike efficiently, a nail to retain permanently, pliers to hold tightly, a saw to shape a piece of wood, a ladder to climb a tree, ropes to tie the cow I will soon buy… The list goes on, growing and growing, winding through the various arts we humans have developed over the millennia.
But where do we put all of that? Under the sun and the rain? Hidden in the bushes? Exposed to the raccoons and the termites? Unthinkable! We need a safe place at once, an organized place to store things safely, a place for all the daily needed objects and tools to live. Without them, our Sustainable Agricultural and Conservationist Community would take a hundred years to build rather than ten…
The solution is very intuitive: a cave (preferably with a door). Unfortunately though, Babylon lacks caves. We could excavate it, but again, time is short!!! Something that looks like a cave? A container!! 90% of the maritime cargo on planet Earth is moved in containers, so it should be easy to get one. An old and cheap one that is already destined to swell the mountains of human waste whilst still holding a few more years of life and glorious utility.
So, we searched, compared, negotiated… and on July 21st, only 6 days after day ZERO, we received our brand new 20-foot container. It’s the small one: 5.90 m long – 2.35 m wide – 2.39 m high, and it’s only 2,300 kg of steel and wood, but masterfully shaped to maximize volume, stability, strength and watertightness. As a cave, it’s perfect.
True to our habit of individualizing beings and things, we have named it “The Cave”. Obviously.
The days leading up to the arrival of The Cave were warm and sunny. But the 21st dawned under a heavy tropical rain. We tried to abort the transport, but it was too late, we had played our cards and the die was cast. The road to Babylon, with its 10 km of ballast, is not particularly bad, but it has some steep slopes, which when wet…
At three o’clock in the afternoon the call came: the truck was blocked and unable to move forward, 5 km from Babylon.
We suffered for a while debating options: call 911, wait for better weather, stick our heads in the ground, … but actually, the solution was right in front of us: Scorpy!! There was no operator available, or at least known, so we decided to risk the oldest of us, and I became a Back Hoe operator by force of necessity and the acquiescence of recklessness, my eternal companion.
Basically, it drives like a car: it has a steering wheel, throttle, brakes and gearbox. I’m not quite sure which is the front and which is the rear, but seeing that the gear lever put R and D helped me decide. It’s pretty straightforward. I arrived at the place, where the kind driver indicated me the point to apply the thrust. A couple of unsuccessful attempts made it clear that Scorpy was only moving 2 of its 4 legs. After touching all the available buttons, and encouraged by the driver’s shouts, I pressed one that said green arrow forward: and the 4 wheels came to life!
Anyway, it was an hour of terror, shaken by the mass that threatened me from the front, and not knowing what to do to tame and control that composition of vectors in frenzy. In the end, we arrived alive.
I will only add that initially, Scorpy awoke mostly curiosity in me. Now, however, it awakes love and admiration.
For now, The Cave is at a random spot at Base Camp. But I hope that soon we will be able to prepare its proper location, next to what will be our workshop. Undoubtedly, one of the most important components of our Community. In the meantime, it is already being filled with the objects of the human arts…
Babylon Gardens 