The Porcupine Saga, Part 15, Supper

Will Harper, supper time, Saturday July 21, 2040

"Maybe, before we join the girls for supper, we should stop by the bathhouse and wash up a bit," said Allan.

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Will, whose bladder was getting full. "I was going to ask where the nearest washroom is, anyway."

"That problem we can solve," said Allan.

They turned toward the building that filled northern half of the space between the two big pole barns. This was a squarish structure with board and batten siding and a field stone foundation that stuck up about 18 inches out of the ground. Its gable roof ran east-west, at right angles to the roofs of the pole barns and the whole thing was set back about 5 feet from the north ends of the pole barns with its eaves jutted out just past the north walls of the barns.

They entered through the easternmost the two doors in the north wall of the building. Inside was a wide hall with a row of eight doors along each side. The walls and ceiling were neatly dry walled and were painted an off white, the floor finished in a light coloured hardwood.

"Nice job on the drywall," commented Will.

"Yeah. This was built in 2031," said Allan. "By then we'd had lots of practice at finishing drywall in the farmhouse renovations and the accommodations we built in the second pole barn.

"Surely you don't make your own drywall," said Will

"No, we don't," said Allan. "Back then we used materials from building supply places that were shutting down and having going out of business sales. Later, after law enforcement had largely ceased to exist, we helped ourselves at several such establishments that had been abandoned, with lots of building materials left behind. It seemed that very few other groups were in any position to build anything new."

"I'm a little surprised to hear that you weren't worried about the unsustainability of those store bought materials," said Will.

"Well," said Allan. "if we'd been using materials that were going to be replaced, that would have been a serious issue. But most industries had shut down by that point. So using the materials amounted to salvage and didn't cause any new damage."

"Hadn't thought of it that way," said Will. "You're right of course. Now what's behind all these doors?"

"Our idea of co-ed washroom facilities, actually," said Allan, stepping up to the nearest of the doors on the right and opening it. "Even at the time this was built we had a few gay and trans people. After some discussion we concluded that by making private closed off rooms instead of stalls, we could accommodate everyone in one location. Rather than having however many separate washrooms it would take."

Will stepped up beside Allan. To the right of the door, on the side away from the hinges, there was a little indicator at eye level, showing green at the moment. This reminded Will of similar indicators he'd seen on portable toilets. "I take it green means 'Not Occupied' and red means "Occupied," he said, pointing at the indicator.

"Yep," replied Allan. "One for each room."

Will looked inside, seeing immediately that the facilities were nothing fancy. The walls were sheathed with varnished plywood, the floor and the top surface of the vanity were covered in ceramic tile, and the sawdust toilet was built using plywood and 2X4s, like the one he'd seen earlier in Allan and Erica's room. The sink and taps had clearly come from the building supply places Allan had just spoken of, though Will assumed that at present they could have been made in Porcupine's machine shop. And the tiles made in their ceramics shop.

"Why don't you use this washroom," said Allan. "And I'll use the next one."

"OK," replied Will.

Will stepped in, closed the door behind him, turned the inside of the indicator to show "Occupied" and did the needful.

There was a pile of towels on the vanity and a wicker basket underneath for used towels. As had become typical in Inverpen, toilet paper was nowhere to be seen and had been replaced by a wicker basket of small squares of cloth, hemmed along the edges. "Toilet cloths", they were commonly called and served the same purpose as toilet paper, but were reusable after washing. A covered bucket held the used cloths until they could be taken away to be washed. There was a wooden bucket of sawdust next to the toilet, with a small scoop. A sign on the wall detailed how one was expected to use a sawdust toilet, including finishing up by covering what one had deposited with a few scoops of sawdust.

Will noticed that there was no "sewage" smell to the place. There was a small vent in the ceiling and Will could faintly hear a fan in the distance, providing ventilation to prevent the buildup of odors.

He washed up and met Allan back out in the hall. "Who takes care of all this?" he asked.

"There's a crew of three people, who proudly call themselves the 'Shit Crew'. They look after the composting toilets here, and in the farm house, the dorms and at various other locations around Porcupine," said Allan. "Takes more people than that of course, and the extras are provided by people looking to fill out their quota of 'shit job' hours. Literally, in this case."

"How big a job is it?" asked Will.

"Well, there's a fair bit of work involved on both ends," said Allan. "The saw dust comes from our saw mill and woodshop, and is supplemented by chaff from grain threshing and hulls from oat and barley hulling. All that has to be collected, stored and then used to fill the sawdust buckets in the washrooms on a regular basis. The buckets in the toilets have to be picked up when they get close to full, replaced with empty ones and emptied into our compost piles. Then the buckets need to be cleaned and put back into storage. That's the extend of the Shit Crew's involvement. The Laundry Crew looks after the toilet cloths and other linens, literally linen in this case since we can't grow cotton in this climate, which need to be changed on a regular basis and washed and dried. And we have a Cleaning Crew that spruces things up when they start to get too grubby. Not just the washrooms, but all the common spaces, you know."

"Sounds like a bit of organization is needed to get all that done," said Will. "You folks manage to do this without bosses or any sort of hierarchy?"

"Yep," said Allan. "And that applies to all of the efforts going on here. Things get done because everybody involved has already agreed that it's the thing to do and they are doing it for themselves, not because a supervisor is standing over them. The people in the crews keep track of what's needed and make sure it gets done. Small groups like that can reach consensus decisions informally and quickly. Of course everyone is watching, so if things go off the rails, it'll come up at the Tuesday night meeting and get suitably addressed."

"Right," said Will. "Kind of amazing that it works so well."

"You mean without somebody at the top to decide what needs to be done?" asked Allan.

"Well, yeah," replied Will. "And with the authority to make people do it."

"I think we've both worked in organizations like that," said Allan. "And seen how well, or rather how poorly, they work. The people at the top are usually badly out of touch with how things actually work and their supposed authority only extends until the workers are out of sight of them. There's always the chance here that the people at the meeting might be out of touch too, but since everybody has to take part in shit jobs and we get rotated through all the different parts of our operation, we all stay pretty well clued in."

"Yeah, I guess you have a point there," said Will.. "Sorry to change the subject, but I gather the pipe you didn't want to use in the dormitories ended up here?"

"Yeah. We only had so much in the way of pipe and fixtures, so we settled on using most of them in this central location," said Allan."Supplying every room in the dorms would have used a lot more pipe. Anyway, let's take a quick peek down this way." He nodded toward the interior end of the hall.

Following Allan, Will soon saw it was a T intersection, with a double door in the middle and halls heading off in both directions.

"Our laundry and grey water processing are through these doors, the hall to the left takes you to the first pole barn and the one on the right takes you to the second pole barn," said Allan. "Part way along to the right are the actual baths."

Allan led the way to the right and about half way along turned right again into another hall, with an exterior door at the far end. It too was lined with doors along both sides, but not so evenly spaced this time.

"For this we borrowed some ideas from the Japanese," said Allan, opening the first door on the right and waving Will in.

"The Japanese? I'm not sure what you mean by that," said Will.

"They've had bath set ups more or less like this for centuries. You get clean first, in this case in the shower," said Allan pointing to a shower stall on the right. "And then the bath is for soaking and socializing, without having to change the water so often. This room is meant for one to four people. Most are this size, but there are two that are for larger groups."

To the left there was a set of shelves with clean towels and baskets for used ones, a bench for changing, and hooks for hanging clothes. At the back was looked to Will like a small hot tub.

"I take it all this is clothing optional and co-ed?" asked Will.

"For Erika and I, as a couple, definitely," said Allan. "But if we came here with another couple, everybody would probably wear swim suits. We don't have an open marriage, you know. But I'm also not concerned about what other consenting adults may get up to. So as long as everyone involved agrees..."

"I see, I think..." said Will.

"Mainly a bit of fun for some of the younger, unattached folks, you know" said Allan, turning and leading the way out of the room, down the hall and through the last door on the right. "This is one of the larger baths," said Allan.

Will stepped in and looked around. This was similar to the room they'd just came from, but larger, with two showers and a large tub that looked like it might hold a dozen people if they were friendly and he suspected they wouldn't be here if they weren't. "I see what you mean," said Will. "I'm impressed with the amount of towels and such you folks have. Are they all made here?"

"Yeah, the ones we originally brought with us have worn out over the years. We grow quite a bit of flax, which provides both fiber and oil," said Allan. "In the second pole barn there's an area devoted to textiles, and we've managed to build some small scale automation of both spinning and weaving and for some of the earlier parts of the process, like getting the fiber out of the flax. All that would otherwise take a whole lot of person hours."

"So you decided to trade off labour hours spent spinning and weaving for hours spent cutting firewood?" said Will. "I'm assuming your automation is powered by electric motors."

"Yes, and the electricity comes from generators spun by steam engines that burn wood" said Allan. "We looked closely at tradeoffs like that and they turn out to be quite effective at minimizing the labour it takes to support how we live. Though there are limits, and if you notice we're not doing somehting in the way of automation, that's probaby why. We value our free time and cuttng firewood is hard work."

"Sounds impressive," said Will. "I'd like to have a look at that tomorrow—both the textile and firewood operations."

"Sure," said Allan. "And now heading back..."

They retraced their steps, stopping by the double doors.

"Tomorrow I hope we can also have a look at our laundry and dish washing appliances," said Allan, "I'm rather proud of some of the innovations—different approaches open up when functionality, ease of repair and longevity replace planned obsolescence and the profit motive as the main priorities."

"Add them to the list," said Will. "You mentioned grey water?"

"Yes," said Allan. "There is a really big tank under this building where we hold our grey water until the gardens need it—like at this time of year."

"Sounds like a great idea," said Will. "Of course in Inverpen we can always get water from Lake Huron, but carrying it to where you need it gets old pretty fast."

"I'll bet it does," said Allan. "Anyway, I guess that's about it for now. We should go see how the girls are doing."

They made their way back outside and joined Sue and Erika at a table under the big tent. It was open on three sides, but had a wall on the west that stopped the sun from shining in at this time of day and thus helped keep the interior fairly cool. The material appeared to be waxed canvas, likely made from linen.

"What have you two been up to?" asked Sue.

"Allan was just showing me around the place," answered Will. "A whirlwind tour, you know. And quite a place it is. The MAMAS folks would be drooling over it."

"Mamas?" asked Allan.

"Mackenzie Avenue Mutual Aid Society," answered Will. "A group of neighbours we got together with during that big power outage in the summer of 2028. And which has been a major factor in getting us through some of the harder times since then. 'Course, it has spread at little farther than our one block street."

"Mutual aid, eh?" said Allan. "sounds similar to what we've got going here."

"We're not nearly as far along as you folks," said Will. "Though you've certainly been giving me ideas about things we could do differently."

"Should I be worried?" said Sue.

"I don't think so, but only time will tell," said Will. "What have you been up to?"

"Catching up with people I haven't seen in ages," said Sue. "Even some from as far away as Ottawa."

"Wow. Getting here from there must have been quite an adventure," said Will. "That would be Brenda and Sam, I assume?"

"Yep—they brought their grown up kids and their kids, and they are talking about staying here—joining Porcupine," said Sue. "And Mary and Nick as well, though they are heading home tomorrow. But you're right, an adventure for both groups."

As they continued chatting about friends and family they hadn't seen recently Will noticed that the few empty seats at the tables were filling up. Allan got up and left for a moment, but soon returned with an old fellow who was using a rollator—a walker with wheels.

"Will, Sue, this is Jack Collins," said Allan. "I was telling Will about the day we met and I want you to meet him.

Will stood and reached across the table to shake Jack's hand, which turned out to be quite firm despite his obviously advanced age. "A pleasure to meet you, Jack."

"Likewise," said Jack. "You might say this young fellow and your dad saved my life that day."

"So Allan tells me," said Will. Indicating the chair across from his, he went on, "Nobody's claimed that chair yet. Why don't you sit down and we can talk."

"Don't mind if I do," said Jack. "I gather you'd like to hear more about the history of this place."

"I would," said Will. "But—"

He was interrupted by a young fellow who had moved out in front of the tent, "Good evening folks. I'm Harry Livingston, with the Events Crew. I'd like to welcome you to supper tonight. On your table you'll notice a tent card with a number on it. We'd like you to form a line at the serving tables, starting with table number one. You can go up for seconds or dessert as soon as everyone has been through the line once."

"What number did we get?" asked Will.

"It's number one Will," said Sue. "So you don't have to worry about fading away to nothing."

"That's good news," he replied, never one to hang back when food was on offer. "Jack, why don't you sit down and we'll fill up a plate for you?"

"Thanks all the same," said Jack, "but I'd just as soon look after myself. For as long as I am able to, anyway."

"Well in that case, why don't you lead the way?" said Will.

"Now you're talkin'," said Jack. He rolled himself out from behind the table and led the way to the head of the line.

Everybody at table one followed him to the serving tables, where a young man in a chef's uniform had positioned himself at the left end in front of a large roast of beef. "How are you today, Jack?" he said.

"Still on the right side of the sod, Mike" said Jack. "Could I get a few slices from the center of the roast where it's nice and rare?"

Mike smiled and said, "Anticipating your request I've already cut it in half to access the middle,." He carved several slices, put them on the plate and handed it to Jack, who set the plate on the seat of the rollator and moved on.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Mike LeBlanc, with the Cookin' Crew," said the chef when Will stepped up in front of him.

"G'day," said Will. "I'm Will Harper, Tom's younger brother. And this is my wife Sue. I like mine well done. Maybe some of the crisp part from the outside of the roast."

"Very good," said Mike and began to carve the nearer end of the roast, piling a generous number of slices on the plate and handing it to Will.

Will moved on and Sue stepped up in front of Mike, who asked, "And what is your preference, ma'am?"

A young women, next in line on the other side of the serving table, spoke up at that point, "Mike always forgets to tell our guests, but there are salt, pepper and butter at your table, along with vinegar, mustard, horse radish and Karen's special mustard/horse radish sauce."

"Pepper? How do you manage to get that?" asked Will. "It's been years since we've seen any black pepper in Inverpen.

"Same here," she answered, "but we've put together a blend of peppery tasting herbs, dried and ground, which make a reasonably good substitute."

"I'm looking forward to trying that," said Will.

They moved along the table piling their plates up with boiled new potatoes, peas, baby carrots, baby golden beets, fresh baked bread and an assortment of pickled vegetables.

The young woman at the far end of the first serving table, who had introduced herself as Tammy, said, "Drinks are on the next table. Fresh cold well water, sweet apple cider and hard cider from last year's apple harvest, two types of beer—a lager and a nice dark porter, and a red wine from a couple of years ago—the best year our vines have produced yet."

Will looked to the table past the drinks and saw that dessert was an assortment of fruit pies, accompanied by a large insulated tub of ice cream.

They all grabbed big glasses of water and made their way back to their seats at the table.

Will looked around, wondering what proper etiquette was for this situation. "Tell me, Jack," he said. "Do we wait for everybody else or just dig in?"

"Dig in, by all means," said Jack, "before it gets cold."

Will cut a bite of the beef and tried it. It was excellent, but he judged it still could benefit from some of Karen's sauce, which was in easy reach. He also put generous helpings of butter on the potatoes and other vegetables, and the slice of bread he'd taken. The veggies got salt and pepper as well, and the beets a dash of vinegar. He then set to with knife and fork and tried everything.

"Wow, this is good," said Will. "Of course we're used to fresh, locally grown food in Inverpen—there isn't any choice. But your Cookin' Crew clearly know what they are doing. In a lot of ways this reminds me of the grub we had on the farm when Tom and I were kids."

"No accident there," said Jack. "one of Tom's last requests was that we put on a meal like this for all the people who came to pay their respects."

"That does sound like him, " said Will. "Now Jack, when we got interrupted earlier, I was just about to ask you how things went for you going forward from the big outage in July of 2028 up until you joined Porcupine in the spring of 2030," said Will. "Most of the farmers I know are strong conservatives and it shades their perceptions. I understand your politics were more to the left even then..."

"They were," said Jack. "That period doesn't come up too often, but I see your point—my take on it likely is quite a bit different from the people you've been talking to."

He paused for a moment to think and then continued, "Let's see... in the summer of '28 my farming efforts had declined to not much more than an expensive hobby. I had forty head of beef cattle on the place, pasture and hay for them, a few acres each of wheat, corn, navy beans and flax, and about a quarter of an acre of vegetable garden that included a large potato patch. Everything was coming along nicely and then that outage threw me and most of the other people around here for a loop. And of course it was a presidential election year in the States. Those were interesting times..."

---

Coming soon, episode 16, Jack talks about events in the years before Tom started Porcupine.

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

The Porcupine Saga, Part 14, The Tour, Part 3

Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040

Will and Allan turned away from Porcupine's "Industrial Row" and started walking west. They soon reached the corner of a fenced pasture field and continued along the south side.

In the field Will could see about fifteen Holstein cows, around the same number of what appeared to be milking sheep, and six big black draught horses, Percherons as near as he could tell. Several of the animals noticed them and seemed to be watching them as they walked along.

"Some nice looking stock you've got there," said Will. "Though somehow I would have expected more of it."

"Well, our beef herd is up the hill at Jack's old place, around 80 of them, including 25 cows and a bull," said Allan. "Plus about 140 head of sheep for milk, meat and wool, including the ones you see here, with all but the milkers based in a barn to the west of Jacks place. In our pork barn, over to the east of here there are 10 sows and about 80 pigs being raised for meat at any one time. In our poultry operation, in barn to the west of here, there are about 400 laying hens and 500 meat birds. And that keeps us all very well fed, with enough left over so we can invite people to feasts on a regular basis."

"At the peak of things Dad used to run about 80 head of cattle, and only ate maybe two a year," said Will, "and that was on just a hundred acres, with some pasture space rented in the summer. So you could have a lot more stock if you wanted, I'm thinking."

"We could, but granddad had that many cattle mainly to support his connection to the regular economy and to keep the bank paid off," said Allan. "We only have to produce enough to feed ourselves, and we grow lots of grain, beans, root crops and other veggies as well as the meat. The meat is important—there a very few vegans here. Plus, it turns out you can't do regenerative agriculture without running stock on the land. We're always trying to improve the soil, rather than mining it for profit."

"And the stock contributes to that," said Will. "Rather than detracting from it?"

"Sure does," answered Allan. "Most of it, except for the poultry, is grass fed. So we're not growing a lot of grain for stock feed. And remember all those composting toilets. All that humanure ends up back in the soil, as well."

Three young people and a border collie had just come out of the barn and were opening the gate on the north side of the barnyard. Allan called out, "Hey guys, mind if we join you?"

"Sure, come on over," one of them replied.

There was a style across the barnyard fence, just on the south side of the fence they'd been following. Allan stopped there. "We're going to cross the fence here, then go through that gate into the field with the stock. They are all quite tame, used to people, and if we don't bother them, they won't bother us. Just follow the dairy crew."

"OK," said Will, "This takes me back to when I was a kid on the farm."

Will followed Allan across the style and towards the gate, where the dairy crew had stopped to wait for them.

"Martha, Brad, Matt," said Allan, "this is my uncle Will. I've been showing him around the place."

"Hi guys," said Will and shook hands with all three of them.

"Sorry about your brother," said Martha. "He'll be missed here even more than you might imagine."

"I don't doubt it," said Will, and then, not wishing to dwell on it, changed the subject. "You're bringing the cows and sheep in for milking?"

"That's right," answered Martha. "Milking goes on regardless of special events. But we've had an early supper and we'll be done before the entertainment starts. You've been around stock before?"

"I grew up on a beef farm," said Will. "Though that was a few years ago."

"OK, we're going to go around behind them and drive them into the barn. Tilley here will keep them bunched up, " said Martha, gesturing at the dog. "So if you two just follow us everything should be fine."

They did just that and the animals and their keepers had disappeared into the barn in just a few minutes. The horses looked a little disappoint at the lack of attention, but soon went back to grazing.

Allan and Will closed the gate and turned toward the barn.

"Are they going to milk them by hand?" ask Will.

"No, we've got milking machines," answer Allan.

"Well that'll speed up the process and take fewer people," said Will.

"Sure does," said Allan, leading the way along the north side of the barn. "This is what many people would call a bank barn. The north side here has earth bermed up against as if it was built into a bank. The bank forms a ramp, known as a gangway, that allows access to the hayloft and granary."

"Yep, the farm I grew up on had one much like this," said Will. "although the berm there wasn't as wide as yours."

"This one didn't start out that wide—we extended it on both sides of the gangway," said Allan. "Makes an ideal location for a big root cellar, which you can see here on the east side, and on the other side is our cheese aging 'cave'. The building in the corner between the barn and the cheese cave is our dairy."

"Right. How much milk do those cows and ewes give?" asked Will.

"We get about 60 gallons a day of milk from this herd of cows and about 15 from the sheep. Enough to supply all our needs for dairy products."

"Tom was pretty keen on making cheese," said Will. "He got you started on dairying?"

"Yeah," said Allan, "But then there were some young folks who picked the project up and ran with it. You just saw some of them."

"Right," said Will. "I'm a little surprised you went with sheep instead of goats."

"Sheep's milk is the best for making cheese, and yields more cheese per litre than cows milk or goats milk," said Allan. "Dad just didn't like goats. Said they make great pets but aren't good for much else. They are hard to fence in, plus the males have an awful stink that gets into everything, including the milk, if you aren't careful. There are a few types of cheese we can't make without goats milk, but we get by just fine without them. Now many people wouldn't agree with this, but we've never had anyone join up who insisted on goats, so we don't have any."

They continued along the north side of the barn to where a fence headed north from the corner of the dairy building. and then went through the gate just north of that building. Will looked around and saw they were standing in a good spot to size up the layout of this part of the farm. A laneway with fences on both sides headed north from where they stood, and continued into the bush. On the east side of it was the pasture field they'd just left. On the west side were two fields, the first a five acre vegetable garden, and next about 10 acres of hay that appeared to have been harvested only a couple of weeks before.

To the west where two rows of structures with a lane between them. The one on the north consisted of several cylindrical steel grain bins, with a couple of sheds at the far end. To the south was the machine shed and to the west of it several long, single story sheds whose function wasn't immediately obvious to Will.

"OK, just what have we got here?" asked Will.

"Well, this laneway extends to the north, through the bush, up the hill and all the way to the yard at Jack's old place," replied Allan. "To the west of the lane is one of our vegetable gardens and a hayfield."

"That much I had guessed," said Will. "But what's in the bins and sheds?"

"The grain bins contain, not surprisingly, grain." said Allan. "The first two are for hard wheat, then one each of oats, barley, corn, flax seed and canola. There is also a granary upstairs in the barn, where we keep grains we grow in smaller quantities—soft wheat, rye, sorghum, quinoa, millet, sunflower seed and buckwheat. The shed at the far end of the row of bins is our potato storage, since we ran out of space in the root cellar. Beyond that there's our mushroom growing facility and then our compost piles."

"That's a pretty impressive list of different types of grain that you're growing," said Will. "I've heard of them all, but never actually seen many of them growing."

"There'll be an opportunity for that tomorrow, I guess" said Allan. "The reason for so many different grains is to hedge our bets when we run into poor weather and pests. We've never yet had a season where all these crops failed at once."

"What do you do about crop failures, though," asked Will. "You can't exactly order out for fast food."

"No, no one can these days," said Allan. "We have a couple of strategies beyond diversifying our crops and splitting them up among smaller fields around this thousand acres, rather than huge fields of monocultures.

"One is keeping a pretty large reserve. That's what those grain bins are for. There's enough there to get us through a couple of years, admittedly on short rations and without much variety. The other is still a work in progress, consisting of connections to other communes all over the province. If we have a major crop failure here, they send us food or we send them people, or maybe some of both."

"There are that many communes?"

"Not yet, but the number is growing." said Allan. "Like I said, it's a work in progress."

"Sounds like a good plan, though," said Will. "Anyway, I know the first building across from your grain storage is your machine shed," said Will. "But what about the next three?"

"The first one is our food processing facility," said Allan. "Dehuller for oats and barley, flour mills, oil press, sorghum press, sugar mill, honey processing, wine, beer and cider making, etc. And facilities for preserving food—drying, freezing and canning. The next building in that row is food storage and the one beyond it is miscellaneous storage. And after that are our green houses."

"OK, I can see your first pole barn, which I know contains your kitchen, and dining and meeting halls, and a second pole barn to the east of it, with some sort of structure connecting this end of them," said Will. "Is there anything more to the east?"

"Yes, that's where our dormitories are," said Allan. "And between the two pole barns is our bathhouse, laundry and grey water processing and storage."

"OK, you were talking about putting dorms in the second pole barn at one point," said Will. "I take it that's changed?"

"It has," said Allan. "For the first couple of years we had accommodation for 40 people in the south half of the second pole barn, and our woodworking shop in the north half. As we grew, we added more dormitories to the east of there, and eventually moved everyone out of the second pole barn into those dorms. That made room for our textile and paper processing facilities, which needed more space."

"OK, let's have a look at these dorms," said Will.

"No problem, and on the way you'll see our summer kitchen and how we've set up for outdoor dining tonight," said Allan.

Will followed Allan south into the wide lane between the machine shed and the pole barns. At the back of the first pole barn was the summer kitchen—a beehive of activity as the final preparations for supper were being made. A large, open sided canvas tent covered a big piece of the lane, and under it were long tables and chairs which had been moved out from the regular dining area in the hall. Most of the people who had been in the hall earlier were seated there, visiting with each other as they waited for supper.

As Will and Allan walked eastward people waved and called out to them. "I'm giving Will the two bit tour, we'll be back soon," Allan replied.

Once they got past the second pole barn, Will could see the three dormitories, and on the other side of the lane, two greenhouses and the mushroom shed. The dorms were two storey buildings which looked to be a bit over 30 feet wide and 80 feet long, the long dimension running east to west. A row of what appeared to be mulberry trees stood along the south side of each dorm and provided shade. A roofed over pathway ran along the east side of the dorm and then west to the pole barns.

"How many people do you fit in each of those?" asked Will.

"Around 60," said Allan. "Depending on how many singles versus doubles versus four bed bunkrooms for kids that there are. We've set things up so the inner partitions can be moved fairly easily to match the demand for different sizes of rooms."

"So that's over 180 people, plus however many are in the farmhouse," said Will.

"Twenty or so there," said Allan, "giving us room for somewhere over 200."

"You have that many people here?" asked Will.

"More like around 150 full time residents," said Allan, "plus a varying number on a temporary basis—on their way somewhere else, you know."

"Somewhere else?" said Will.

"Well, when we're hosting an event, like today," said Allan, "there are often people like you and Sue who stay overnight and go home the next day. Others come to take courses that we offer, for a week or two at a time. Plus we've already budded off two other communes nearby. In the time leading up to getting their dorms set up, things got pretty full here."

"I see," said Will. "That's some pretty impressive construction, anyway. Must have taken a lot in time and materials."

"Yep," said Allan. "They're the largest and most complex structures we've built. The one nearest the road was built first, in 2032 when you could still buy conventional building materials. A lot of them discounted by suppliers who were going out of business, fortunately for us. The other two were built almost entirely from our own materials."

"The first looks like stud framing, the second one looks like rammed earth," said Will. "And the nearest one is what... adobe brick?"

"You've got a pretty good eye, Uncle Will," said Allan. "Clay, sand and stone are not renewable, of course. But they do last for a long time. Straw for the adobe, and lumber for framing are renewable, but we can only produce so much at a time, so building these dorms stretched us close to the limit.

"What about roofing?" said Will. "Looks like steel on the south dorm, cedar shingles on the middle one and straw thatching on the north one."

"Right again," said Allan. "The steel is a premium material, guaranteed for 50 years. Of course the company that made it no longer exists to honour that guarantee, but it is some indication of the quality. The shingles and thatch are local materials and renewable as well as pretty long lasting"

"And how are they to heat?" asked Will. "You put in lots of insulation, I presume."

"Yep, R40 in the walls and R60 in the attics," answered Allan. "In the first one we used fibreglass batts, and the other two are insulated with straw—baled in small square bales, then taken apart into biscuits and arranged so the gaps didn't line up. We heat them with wood and it takes surprisingly little. I don't think we have time for a look inside right now, but later tonight..."

"Yeah, no problem, I can check it out at bedtime," said Will. "What about the greenhouses?"

The green houses were sunk a few feet in the ground and the back (north) walls were bermed up with soil. Obviously an attempt to reduce heating load in the winter.

"Acquiring the glass was the hard part there," said Allan. "For the first few years, most of the glass we could get went into windows for the dorms. Since then, any glass we can lay our hands on goes to the greenhouses. A matter of what we can salvage."

"Right," said Will. "But what do you use them for—they seem pretty empty at the moment."

"We grow a bunch of fresh veggies in the winter, and in the spring we start plants that need a longer season than we get here," said Allan. "Most of those are annuals, of course, but there are also some perennials that we grow in pots—move them outside in the spring and back inside in the fall. Things that we really, really want, but that need a warmer climate than we have here. We are still experimenting on what's practical."

"Such as?" asked Will.

"Tea, coffee, and other sources of caffeine, chocolate, carob, ginger, black pepper and other spices," answered Allan. "With this few greenhouse we can't grow anywhere near as much of those as we'd like, so they remain rare treats."

"That's better than anyone else around here is managing," said Will. "Imports from the tropics have completely dried up."

"Yeah, that's why we've put a lot of effort into this," said Allan. "And why we'll expand the greenhouses when we can."

"Anything more?" asked Will.

"Lots," said Allan, "But that's about it for right around here. There are five other farms in this 1000 acres that have buildings we are using for cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry. And some other buildings we are using for storage of salvaged materials and equipment. We've got some fish ponds back along the creek and aqua culture in one of the green houses. And we've got orchards, bamboo groves and coppiced willow, ash and alder that produces most of our firewood. Five more vegetable gardens and various field crops you might be interested to see. But not tonight—not that we can see without being late for supper. In fact, I think our timing is just about perfect for supper at this exact moment."

"Great," said Will. "Things are smelling good and my tummy is starting to rumble."

---

Coming soon, episode 15, supper and conversation.

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

The Porcupine Saga, Part 13, The Tour: Part 2

Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040

Author's note: This starts a little abruptly, especially if you haven't been following the series. So here is the last bit of episode 12 just to tie things together.

---

"But after ten years, you're still a going concern," said Will, "so you can't have too many problems."

"Seems not," said Allan. "We make every effort to resolve interpersonal conflicts before they get out of hand, of course. We've all had training on participatory democracy, mediation and things like emotional intelligence. It all helps, and it does work most of the time, except when it doesn't. People being what they are."

"No doubt," said Will. "What's next on this tour?"

Allan stepped back from the fence they'd been leaning on and turn around, pointing north. "Well, that row of buildings is our industrial heartland, so to speak."

"Really?" said Will in a doubtful tone.

"I'm not entirely serious," said Allan with a grin. "We don't have anything on the scale of chemical valley in Sarnia, or the steel mills in Hamilton. But what little we have of that sort is concentrated here. Given your background, I think you'll find this quite interesting."

"Great," said Will. "Let's have a look."

---

"OK, next stop Industrial Row" said Allan and started off toward the buildings just to the north. "Many of the processes here involve fire and to avoid burning down the rest of our buildings, we put them down wind and a fair distance from anything else. Woodworking, textiles, and papermaking are in the second pole barn. And our sawmill is back near the woodlots."

"So what exactly do we have here?" asked Will, as they stopped in front of a pair of silo like structures."

"Well, these two outfits here at the south end are our charcoal and lime kilns," said Allan. "The one on the right is the lime kiln. It's pretty traditional. Basically just a short silo built from stone with an iron door at the bottom where we put in wood and a hole at the top where we put in limestone. Light the fire and it gets hot enough to change the limestone (calcium carbonate) into lime (calcium oxide) and carbon dioxide. After the fire goes out we rake the ashes and then the lime out the door at the bottom. It can be a filthy thing to operate, even though we put in a cyclone in at the top to spin out most of the particulate matter from the exhaust. The carbon dioxide released is an inherent part of the process, nothing to be done about it. So we make no more than the absolute minimum of lime that we need—mostly for mortar in the stone foundations of our buildings."

"If this is anything like Dad's farm, a fresh crop of limestone comes up with the frost every spring," said Will. "So at least you don't have to worry about supply."

"True. Picking stones on the newly worked fields is a regular activity every spring, just like when you were a kid," said Allan. "You know, one thing to keep in mind about this operation is that we build stuff so that once it's built, it doesn't have to be done again for a long, long time. No planned obsolescence here—just the opposite. Things are designed so that what maintenance is needed can be done easily and we're all careful not to damage things unnecessarily. This reduces our resource use and the wear and tear on our production equipment. And it reduces the amount of work we have to do."

"That's a big difference from the way things were done under capitalism, where planned obsolescence and continual growth were needed to keep the system running," said Will.

"Yep. And an infinite supply of energy and materials, which we don't have. But with all this talk of industry, it's possible that I'm creating a misunderstanding," said Allan.

"In what way?" asked Will.

"About work," replied Allan. "There was a lot of work the first few years. Getting the buildings erected, and the industrial stuff working, setting up gardens, orchards, coppices and such. But even then, we set a precedent of valuing free time rather using those hours to create a bigger surplus. And that's even more true now that the big projects are finished, and we've salted away ample food and such to carry us through bad years."

"So Tom's estimate of 32 hours a week turned out to be true?" asked Will.

"On the average, yes, maybe even somewhat less than that," said Allan. "During planting and harvest or when there is a big project on, people work from dawn to dusk. But that's only a few weeks each year. The rest of the time, there are a few hours of 'shit jobs' each day and then the opportunity to spend time doing stuff you like doing."

"So, what are these shit jobs and how do you get people to do them?" asked Will.

"Things like taking care of the composting toilets, laundry, cooking, weeding the gardens, shovelling snow and feeding the heating stoves in the winter," said Allan. "It's strange what some people like doing and others don't. But if you're not feeling like working at all, odds are that someone will come looking for an hour or two of help with a job you'd rather have avoided. Best to be seen as willing in that case, or you'll get stuck regularly helping with the very worst jobs. For most people, sitting around doing nothing gets boring after a while anyway and being helpful turns out to be enjoyable."

"I've noticed that most people develop a whole different attitude towards work when they aren't being forced to do it just to get money for rent and groceries.," said Will.

"That does make a big difference. Also, you'd be amazed at the things people like doing and work hard at, voluntarily," said Allan. "Anyway, carrying on... the charcoal kiln, the one on the left, isn't actually a traditional kiln but something a little more modern and efficient," said Allan. "Nothing fancy though—just a big steel pot with a fire underneath it. Plus some brick walls and insulation to keep the heat where we need it. The pot is moderately air tight, so when we heat up the wood inside it turns into charcoal instead of burning. The gases produced in the process are flammable and we pipe them down to the fire and burn them, giving us some additional heat so that it takes less wood.

"The scaffolding around them both gives us to access the top and between the two is a crane for hoisting things into place. And in the case of the charcoal setup, taking the pot down once the run is over."

"It looks... I don't know... very industrial," said Will.

"Ha ha," said Allan. "Does the job, though The first building past the kilns contains our foundry, forge and welding shop."

Beyond the kilns, Will observed a squat building, which didn't seem overly large considering what Allan said it contained. It had a field stone and lime mortar foundation, rammed earth walls and sheet steel roof. A big chimney was built into the nearest end of the building and a couple of stove pipes stuck out through the roof near the far end. They walked along the west side of the building and stopped in front of a big double door.

"I'd like a look inside," said Will, "but I'm guessing we don't have time for that today?"

"Oh, I think we have time for a quick peek," said Allan, stepping forward to open one of the doors. "For more detail, you'd be better to come back another day when this stuff is in use and there's someone to show you around. Which, by the way, I think they'd be glad to do."

"OK," said Will, stepping forward to stand beside Allan and look inside.

"In the wall on the right is our charcoal fired crucible furnace and the blower that force feeds it to get the temperature high enough to melt iron," said Allan. "Various sizes of crucibles are sitting on the shelf to the right of the furnace. Just pots made of clay and graphite, which can stand the heat of the iron we melt in them. We can melt about 50 pounds at a time in the biggest crucible. And on the left side is a stack of wooden molds and a box of casting sand."

"That all makes sense," said Will. "What's that contraption in front of the furnace?"

"That's just a big set of tongs that grip the crucible to set it into the furnace and take it out once the metal has melted," said Allan. "Hung, as you can see, from the rafters on chains."

"Right. And I can see the roof framing is all steel too," said Will. "I imagine you get enough sparks flying around here to set wood framing on fire."

"We sure do," said Allan. "Like the sheet steel for the roofs, we picked the I-beams up cheap from businesses that were shutting down. We considered tile for the roofing, but at that point clay was a rarer resource than structural steel.

"Anyway, in the back corner on the right is our forge. And next to it a power hammer, and a small rolling and wire drawing mill."

"And in the corner nearest to us is your welding table?" said Will. He took a step inside to get a better look and took in a nice assortment of electric welding equipment, a plasma cutter, a chop saw and a big heavy duty vise.

"Yep," said Allan. "We decided not to put the effort into manufacturing oxygen and acetylene. The forge, plasma cutter and electric welders do everything we need."

"I see you've got both TIG and MIG welders," said Will. "What do you use for shield gas?"

"Argon," replied Allan. "It makes up almost one percent of the air and liquefies at the high enough temperature that's it's easy to separate out."

"OK, looks like a pretty nice setup. But other than what you bought years ago before the economy shut down, where does all your metal come from?" asked Will. "Surely you're not mining it around here."

"Hardly," answered Allan. "But there is still a lot of scrap metal to be had. We have a close relationship with an auto wrecker a concession north of here and two side roads to the west."

"You've said you avoid using money, so...barter?" asked Will.

"Not likely—barter's really no different from using money, just more awkward," said Allan. "That kind of trading we reserve for strangers we don't trust, but we'd rather not do it at all. So, nope, like I said, it's a close relationship—essentially they are part of our commune. So they supply what they have that we need, and vice versa. No accounting involved."

"You say 'accounting' like it's a dirty word," said Will.

"One of the dirtiest," said Allan. "A tool of domination, oppression and exploitation."

"I won't argue with that," said Will. "Still, metal is a non-renewable resource—whether you're digging it out of the ground or salvaging it. Won't you run out eventually?"

"Sure," said Allan. "But with some care, eventually can be a really long time, especially since we are not committed to growth. The first thing is to use as little metal as possible. And then to make sure what we make from it is durable, easy to fix and easy to recycle. And nothing gets thrown away. We even sweep up the powder that accumulates behind our grinders and sharpeners, and recycle it."

"Well, it doesn't seem like your 'industrial heartland' is continuously spewing out pollution, anyway," said Will, nodding to the chimneys.

"Of course today is a commune wide holiday so nothing is happening here, but other than that, there are two issues, really," said Allan. "First, we don't need to run our factories continuously to pay off the bank or greedy investors. None of this was built with borrowed money. And our economy, such as it is, is based on demand pull rather than supply push. All our equipment works in batch process mode, and only has to run when we need whatever it produces, and then only to produce just as much as we need.

"Second, we've tailored our processes and equipment to limit the amount of pollution we create when this stuff is running. Starting out with scrap iron instead of iron ore, it's a much cleaner process. Not completely clean, but a lot closer than conventional industry."

"So you've got casting, forging and welding covered here," said Will, stepping back out of the doorway. "What's next?"

"The next building is our machine shop," said Allan, closing the door and leading the way over to another set of double doors in the next building to the north. "It doesn't really have to be here, but it's awfully handy to have it next door to the foundry and forge."

"So... lathes, milling machines, drill presses?" asked Will..

"Sure, all those and more," said Allan, opening one of the doors. "Take a look"

Will stepped up to the door and saw a very nicely set up machine shop, much of the equipment the sort that had still been commercially available a decade before, along with some that had clearly been made here at Porcupine since then.

"Our metal working crew, which got together right at the start of things, back in the spring of 2030, ended up in these two buildings, which we built in '33," said Allan. "They repair broken and worn out tools and machinery and build some new from scratch. Without them, we wouldn't have gotten very far. Even starting out with all of Jack's farm machinery."

Will took note that the machine shop had sheet metal walls as well as roof. "And let me guess," he said, "your machine shop is timber framed with the sheet metal on the outside to protect it from stray sparks from adjacent kilns and furnaces."

"Exactly, the machinery in here is not too likely to start a fire" said Alan, stepping back and closing the door. "Moving on, the next building, with rammed earth walls again, is our ceramics and glass shop. There are a couple of wood fired kilns at the back—it's probably worth taking a look at them."

He led the way around to the east side of the building. "The big one there is where we make bricks and tiles as well large runs of pottery, and the little one is for small runs of fine pottery. Anyway, I don't how much you know about ceramics—it's certainly not my specialty."

"It's something I've always been interested in, but never got a chance to try," said Will.

"Well, I guess we should have a look inside anyway, as a shortcut to the other side, if nothing else, " said Allan. He opened the door in the east wall of the building and led the way inside. Will followed, shutting the door behind them. "We had one amateur potter with us from the start and a couple of professionals join us in '32 and a glass blower in '33. Most of what's here is stuff they brought with them. You should have a talk with them this evening.

"About all I can tell you is there are a couple of electric kilns, a glass blowing furnace and another for melting glass to cast it.Plus all the other equipment that's needed for this kind of work. The electric kilns give you more precise control of temperature but the elements wear out, and we don't have a source of the metals needed to make new ones. We've got spares, but they will eventually get used up. Gas and liquid fuels are in short supply, so the plan is to switch over to electric arcs for a heat source—a project still under development."

"Looks good to me," said Will. "Can you make porcelain insulators? For electrical use, you know."

"I do," said Allan. "We don't actually have the right kind of clay locally for porcelain, but we make a type of glazed stoneware insulator that works pretty well."

"You have deposits of clay here on the commune land?" asked Will.

"Yeah..." said Allan. "Not the very best clay for pottery work, but far from the worst either. It is a non-renewable resource though, so we have to be careful how we use it. Broken pottery can be glued back together or ground up and mixed with clay to make new pottery. Makes it go farther and actually better to work with too. So like metal, with some care, clay can be made to go a long way."

"Moving on?" said Will, gesturing to the door in the west wall of the building.

"You bet," said Allan and led the way outside. "The next building to the north is the one I share with the rest of the electrical crew."

This was another structure similar to the machine shop.

"It's divided into three parts," said Allan. "At the south end is a room containing the main power supply for this whole complex. A 600V, three phase, 50 KW generator that powers the heavier equipment, and a 25 KW split phase 120/240V generator for the smaller equipment that needs that sort of power. Both are driven by uniflow steam engines with wood fired boilers. At the north end is a 50 KW DC generator driven by a steam turbine and another wood fired boiler, which powers the Acheson furnace in the chem crew's hot shop, where we produce graphite and silicon carbide for abrasives.

"In the middle is the shop I share with the rest of the power crew, where we build and repair electrical equipment. Motors, transformers, switches, circuit breakers—the kind of thing you used to work on, but on a much smaller scale."

"Now that I'd like to see," said Will.

Allan led the way to the door of the electrical shop and they spent a few minutes looking around inside, and then had a peek at each of the generator rooms.

"This really is impressive," said Will. "The more so since I recognize most of the equipment and know what it's used for. Are you still using digital test equipment, or have you switched back to the old style analog stuff?"

"Some of both," said Allan. "the digital equipment itself is pretty tough and long lasting, but batteries are no longer available, so we've had to set up power supplies to make them work off AC power and they aren't very portable. Eventually, the solid state stuff will wear out and we can't replace it. We've been working on analog meters with fairly sensitive movements, and vacuum tube voltmeters where more sensitivity is needed. Not that hard, it turns out. And doable with the technologies we have at hand."

"Well, they got along just fine with analog meters until the last quarter of the twentieth century," said Will."I could sure spend longer here, but I guess we'd better move on. What's next?"

They exited the electrical shop and again walked northward.

"These two buildings are the realm of our chem crew," said Allan."The first is the chemical hot shop and the second is the 'chem kitchen' where they cook up a great many things. Soap, alcohols, oils and greases, dyes, paints and varnishes, rubber, glues and resins, even some pharmaceuticals."

The first was another rammed earth building. The top of a fractional distillation tower was visible over it. Allan gestured toward this structure. "We don't have any crude oil to refine, but we cook a bunch of different gases and liquids out of wood and use that refinery tower to separate them."

The second building was another steel clad, wood framed building, without the chimneys, but with several pipe stacks penetrating the roof.

Allan walked over to the door in the west side of the hot shop, opened it and stepped in, followed by Will. "To the right is the Acheson furnace I already mentioned. And the rest of this stuff is various reaction vessels for making stuff that needs heat and pressure."

"Did you say you make rubber here?" asked Will.

"I did indeed," answered Allan. "There are just too many things we couldn't make without rubber, so we decided we had to find a way. Rubber trees are out, of course, due to our cold climate, and there is a fungus that is killing them off worldwide these days anyway. But dandelions produce latex too, and one species, the Russian dandelion, is especially good at it. We grow a few acres of it and produce a few hundred pounds of rubber every year from the latex in the roots."

"Amazing," said Will. "I can remember hearing people say that our technology was dependent on a complex, interconnected, global web and once it fell apart, we'd be back to the stone age or medieval times at the very least. Doesn't look like that has happened here."

"Yeah, I've heard people spouting similar nonsense," said Allan, "mainly because they had no idea how anything worked— it all just seemed like magic to them. Knowing how to make stuff is the hard part. It took hundreds if not thousands of years to figure that out in the first place. But once you've got it, and the will to hang onto it..."

"Great things can be done, eh?" said Will.

"Yeah. Dad used to talk about 'self contained suites of technologies' that support each other," said Allan. "You don't have to have the whole of early twenty first century tech to still hang on to some pretty useful stuff. As we've done here.

"We decided that we wanted to have certain things tech wise. And it turned out that each of those things required a certain minimum set of technologies, given the raw materials we have available, to make it possible. And typically each of those technologies required a further set. It might seem like there would be no end to that, but in fact, many of the end products we wanted were supported by the same underlying technologies, so the cascade didn't get out of hand."

"OK, I think I see what you mean," said Will. "Say you decided you couldn't get by without sharp, metal edged tools. The simplest way to do that would be using high carbon steel. Lots of scrap steel around to salvage, charcoal to fire your foundry, silicon carbide for abrasives to sharpen the blades, and so on. I see you have all that in hand. But there must be some technologies that were just too much of a reach...?"

"For sure. We've settled on what amounts to an early twentieth century level of technology," said Allan. "There are a few things we just had to reconcile ourselves to doing without. Solid state electronics is one example. And all the things that cascade out from that. Computers, cell phones, some of the medical tech from the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. Even relatively simple things like LED lighting and power diodes. We stocked up on those and use them very carefully, so as to make them last."

"Do you think that will ever change?" asked Will.

"Well, we aren't pushing too hard in that direction here at Porcupine," said Allan. "But the newer communes often specialize in one high tech area rather than being generalists like us. I hope one of them will eventually manage to produce some of the simpler types of solid state electronics."

"There'd be quite a market for that," said Will.

"Probably," said Allan. "But reviving a market based economy is not something we're interested in. Whether facilitated by money or barter, as I was saying, we avoid trade like the plague. But we do like to do things that can be helpful to others. I know it sounds pretty simple, but maybe that's why it works so well. With the profit motive gone, people have no real reason to take advantage of each other. Some of the people you'll meet at supper may be able to explain it better than I can."

"OK. Not that I'm doubting what you say, but a deeper understanding might be useful," said Will. "In Inverpen we're only now beginning to get our heads wrapped doing without money and not keeping track of accounts. Some people just worship those ideas and can't seem to let them go."

"Yep, when you've grown up immersed in capitalism, that's a big step to take," said Allan. "Sure simplifies life, though."

"I can see that," said Will.

Allan closed the door of the hot shop and they walked over to have a look in the chem kitchen.

Will had a quick look around inside. "Looks very impressive, though I must say I don't have a clue about what most of this stuff does."

"Me neither," said Allan. "Another time, I am sure the chem crew would be glad to clue you in."

Back outside, Will looked to the north and noticed there was a gap and then more buildings. "Are those buildings part of your industrial setup too?"

"That's our abattoir, tannery and our flax and hemp processing facilities. Many of us don't eat as much meat as we did before coming here, but it is still an important part of our diet. And leather and other animal products are critical parts of those tech suites—the basis of things we are not willing to do without. All of that stuff is pretty smelly, so that's why it is even more isolated," said Allan. "If you look past the tannery, towards the woodlot at the back of this farm you'll see our sawmill and primary firewood drying and storage facility."

"A major part of your operation, I take it, since most of your power comes from firewood," said Will.

"Yes indeed," said Allan. "And we make a lot of things from wood too. Let's not walk all the way back there today, though."

"OK, where to then?" asked Will.

Allan turned and pointed toward the bank barn. "Looks like the milking crew are heading out to bring in the cows and ewes. We should join them and have a look at the north side of the barn and then what's on the east side of it. That'll brings us closer to where we will be eating supper, as well."

Will followed Allan's gesture and saw that three young people had just come out of the big door on the east side of the barn.

"Sounds good to me," said Will. "Let's give them a hand."

---

Coming soon, episode 14, the tour continues.

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

The Porcupine Saga, Part 12, The Tour: Part 1

Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040

"Well, I guess we should start this tour at the clinic," said Allan, gesturing toward the building Will thought of as the "farm house".

"Clinic...?" said Will, doubt creeping into his voice.

"Yeah. What used to be the farmhouse. It would have taken another hour or two to tell the whole story," said Allan. "So I decided it might be quicker and easier to just show you."

"Okay," replied Will. "Lead on."

They got up from the bench where they'd been sitting on the east side of the hall and headed across the yard, picking their way among the vehicles parked there. The sun was a good deal lower in the sky than when they had first come outside and its heat was a noticeably less oppressive.

"Seems like it isn't all that much hotter here than in Inverpen," said Will.

"It usually is a little hotter here in the summer, but with less humidity than you get along the lake," said Allan. "Leaving the wet bulb temperature about the same. We're lucky in the Great Lakes basin—in the heat of the summer we get some 'siesta weather', when you're wise to take it easy around midday. But we can live without air conditioning, easier actually because after a while people do get used to the heat. Not like lots of places closer to the equator where it really does get hot enough to kill. And has killed many."

"Scary to think about that," said Will.

"Hell yeah," Allan said. "Though for those of us engaged in subsistence farming, droughts are even worse than heat waves. Floods aren't great either. And we've had one or two of both."

"Same thing in and around Inverpen, of course," said Will. "Though we do have the lake to draw on for irrigation."

As they neared the farm house Will noticed a small shed on its west side. He assumed it contained the generator Allan had been talking about earlier. "That your generator shack?" Willa asked, nodding toward it.

"It is," replied Allan. "Not gasoline powered anymore, though. Late in 2030 our 'prime mover' crew put in wood gas producers to fuel all of our generators. Then a few years later, after they'd got steam power down to a science, they put in two generators to power the clinic, each driven by a small steam engine. Along with automatic feed of wood chips to the boilers. Would you like to take a quick peek inside?"

"Yes, definitely," said Will.

They walk over to the shack and Allan opened the door.

Will stepped up to the threshold and took a look at the machinery inside. "Those are slick little engines. Run pretty quiet, too. And it looks like you built the generators here?"

"We bought a bunch of generators in 2030 and we are still using them for the most part. But we've built a few like these ones," said Allan. "Mainly to prove to ourselves that we'll be able to do it when the need arises. They put out up to 12 kW, single phase 120/240 volt."

"Looks pretty impressive to me," said Will. Noting that only one of the gnerators was running, he took a little closer look at the wiring. "They're just backup for each other? You never actually run them in parallel?"

"Yeah, just backup," said Allan. "So we can work on one while the other one supplies the load."

"Right," said Will. "There was a time when you'd have needed someone with a stationary engineer's ticket to run this setup legally. I guess that isn't such a big deal anymore."

"No," replied Allan. "We've never actually had a visit from a TSSA inspector. Though I am sure for the last few years there has been no such thing. We actually do have a couple of guys who are qualified as stationary engineers, and they been big help in making sure our steam power setups are safe."

"Yeah," said Will. "You can get away from regulations, but you still want to run things as safely as possible. So, that hopper to the left of the shack is full of wood chips?"

"Yeah," said Allan. "We don't usually like to make our electrical supplies so easy to use. A little inconvenience reminds folks that electrical power is a luxury that comes with many costs. In the case of the clinic, though, a round-the-clock, on-demand supply is pretty much a necessity."

"I see," said Will, still a little puzzled. "So, I though the plan was to divide the whole of the farmhouse into bedrooms and bathrooms?"

Leading them around to the front porch, Allan said, "Yep, just the living room and the addition at first, but by fall of 2030, the dining room and kitchen too. With the addition of Jack's land, we figured we could support 60 people sustainably, and we were aiming to build accommodation for them all, here and in the second pole barn. 'Course things have changed a little in the meantime..."

They went up the front steps and through the front door. Will took in, with some surprise, what looked like a doctor's waiting room with a receptionist's desk and a row of chairs against one wall.

"I can tell from the look on your face," said Allan, "that this isn't what you expected. To make a long story short, in 2031 we were joined by a couple of nurses, and in 2032 a doctor and a dentist arrived. Shortly after that, the second bird flu hit with a vengeance, and we turned this place into a medical clinic, lab space, hospital and quarantine space for new people, and living quarters for our growing medical staff."

"That makes sense," said Will, "and given that you're talking about a quarantine, I'll bet you made it through that flu better than a lot of communities."

"We did," replied Allan. "We were close to self sufficiency by then and we just locked the place down, quit going anywhere beyond our own borders. The few refugees who made it here on their own went into quarantine upstairs here for a couple of weeks before joining the rest of us. You'll remember the first wave of that flu went on for about 7 months, and then there was a second and third wave. I understand it was pretty deadly and a lot of people didn't make it through elsewhere, but we did pretty well—no fatalities and only a few people who got sick—mostly refugees who were exposed before they arrived. We didn't even lose any of our poultry, though we did move them to a barn on one of the other farms, just to keep them completely isolated."

"Sounds like a much more intelligent response than most places," said Will.

"I think it proved to be just that," said Allan. "Of course we didn't have to worry about the detrimental effects of lockdown on businesses."

"No, I guess not," said Will. "That concern led to all kinds of bad policy, and a lot more grief than was really necessary."

"Which we, fortunately, were spared," said Allan. "Anyway, by the time we'd set up this little medical clinic, provincial support for the health care had disappeared and most of the system along with it, so we've ended up welcoming in unemployed medical staff and providing basic health care to most of this township. Not that that amounts to a whole lot of people."

"There's nothing left in Inverpen but a few alternative practitioners," said Will. "'Wackadoodle' folks, as Sue calls them."

"Yeah, the trouble is that 99% of those alternatives just don't work, " said Allan. "There are a few other communes in Ontario working on pharmaceuticals, low tech medical equipment, and training medical staff to cope with today's conditions. They are just getting started, but I think they have a lot of potential. We may never get back to level of medical services we used to have, but we can still do a hell of a lot better than nothing. And with proper science based medicine at that."

"Right," said Will. "I remember Tom being pretty keen on that, but he also worried that we expect way too much of our medical people. Have you been able to do anything about that?"

Allan sat down on the edge of the desk. "Yeah, Dad felt that there were a lot of unrealistic expectations of health care professionals, both by the professionals themselves and by their patients. He was keen on setting up a health care system that didn't require doctors and nurses to be super human. And that wouldn't constantly be failing because of their failure to live up to those expectations."

Will took a seat on one of the chairs. "And have you managed to do that?"

"To some extent, yes," said Allan. "As has so often been the case, by eliminating capitalism, we've been able to easily overcome problems that were largely a consequence of it.

"Okay, but how does that apply to health care?" asked Will.

"Under capitalism, the profit motive was always getting in the way of health care," said Allan."

"Even when the health care system was socialized like here in Ontario?" Said Will.

"You wouldn't think so, would you?" said Allan. "But right wing governments always wanted to cut budgets and taxes, and so things like health care and education were underfunded, especially under Ford's Conservatives. They wanted to privatize as much health care as possible, so their supporters could turn it into profit centers. Leaving public hospitals understaffed and under resourced. Health care professionals already had a long history of overdoing ableism and the system encouraged a total disrespect for the value of rest."

"At Hydro One there were limits to the hours you could work in a day and a week, for safety reasons," said Will. "But there was no such thing in the healthcare system?"

"Not that was seriously enforced, anyway," said Allan. "We encourage a healthy respect for rest among everyone here. We also take a science based approach to just about everything and with that comes more realistic expectations of our medical people. Plus, they all escaped a system that wasn't working for them or their patients, and they have a strong commitment to stop that from happening again here. So things are working much better."

"Right," said Will. "Meanwhile Dougie Ford is alive and well, presiding over the Golden Horseshoe like a clown at a three ring circus. At least the rest of the province is free to try different and hopefully better ways."

"It doesn't take much to improve on the Conservative's approach, that's for sure," said Allan. "I'm not really the guy to show you around the clinic, so maybe we should move on."

"Sure. I'm curious what the bedrooms you created look like," said Will. Is it possible to have a look here, or have they all been turned into something else?"

"Nope, most of our medical personnel live right here, in the addition," said Allan. "As do Erika and I, since she has spent a lot of time using her biotech and lab skills working on medical issues. Let's have a look."

Allan led the way, opening the door to the addition and closing it behind him after they went through. "Separate ventilation system in here, with positive pressure that keeps us from getting exposed to sick people coming to the clinic."

Allan went to the first door on the right and opened it. "Home sweet home, such as it is" he said and gestured for Will to go in.

Will did so, and took in a room about nine feet wide and twelve feet deep, with a window in the outside wall and a closet in the wall on the left. It's furnishings included a bed, a chest of drawers, a bookshelf, a small desk, a couple of chairs, and in the corner to the right of the door, a composting toilet and a small table with a large pitcher and a basin, both in what appeared to be locally made pottery. Folded towels and face cloths on that table looked to be made locally made as well, not terrycloth but nicely thick and absorbent.

"I see you went ahead with the composting toilets," said Will.

"Oh yeah. It didn't take long for Erika to talk people around," said Allan. "Looking back, I wonder what the big deal was."

"Just a change from what people were used to, I'd guess," said Will. "Most people in Inverpen have a composting toilet now, what with the municipality giving up on infrastructure maintenance a few years ago. And with needing good rich compost for our gardens, without which most of us wouldn't eat nearly as well."

"Do you find it's enough private space for the two of you?" said Will.

"It's not much, but it's enough," said Allan. "Our lives are centered on the common spaces. All we do here is sleep and have occasional private discussions."

"Right," said Will. "and, ahem, bed sports."

Allan raised an eyebrow at this and blushed a little. "I don't think I've ever heard it called that. But yes."

Sensing the need for a change of subject, Will pointed to a violin case sitting on top of one of the dressers. "I see you still have your fiddle."

Looking relieved, Allan said, "Sure do. I am part of a pretty good bluegrass group and second violin in several different chamber music groups. Unfortunately, the best chamber music is pretty hard and we're just sort of hacking our way through it as yet."

"I take it recorded music isn't readily available?" said Will.

"No it isn't. We do have a few computers still operating, but we reserve them for only the most critical tasks," said Allan. "Some of us have collections of vinyl and CD's, but equipment to play them is getting pretty thin on the ground. So we've come to prefer live entertainment. It helps to fill in the slow times, especially in the winter."

"I hope we'll get to hear some of that blue grass tonight," said Will.

"You know, I think you just might," said Allan.

Looking again at the wash stand in the corner, another question occurred to Will. "Uh... I see you don't have running water in your room?"

Allan sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured for Will to take one of the chairs. "One thing that really surprised me about this place is that the whole 'needs and wants' thing has turned out to be a false distinction."

"You'll have to explain what you mean by that," said Will. "And how it relates to running water."

Allan chuckled. "Okay. What we have here is a co-production system—the consumers and the producers are the same people and they also get to decide what is or isn't produced. This means that if there is a consensus about producing something then we can just do that. Whether something is a want or a need really doesn't come into it. Instead it is a matter of having the desire to make it happen, and seeing if we have the tools, materials, skills and labour time left over from all the other things we are already doing, or if we'd like to stop making something else in order to make this.

"We have a well defined process for getting on top of all this information, so people don't have to guess as to what the facts of the matter are. People do guard their spare time jealously, though, so that's often the critical factor. That and getting enough people behind an idea. Which is the shape that politics takes here at Porcupine."

"So you decided that making the pipe and plumbing fittings and fixtures just wasn't worth the effort?" said Will.

"Not in the quantities that would be needed to put them in every room. Especially since there is a sink and hot and cold running water only a few steps down the hall," said Allan. "And making that work took a lot less effort. There are a lot of mass produced materials that we used to take for granted—plywood, pipe, wire and various sorts of hardware—that would require a level of industrialization that we simply aren't up for. Our industrial setup is the next item but one on this tour, so..."

"So we should get moving," said Will. "Your dad always used to say that accepting a minor loss of convenience and comfort could drastically reduce the burden we place on the planet."

"Yep," said Allan. "He had that right for sure. What few of us understood was how easy it was to give up such things, especially in return for the pluses of living here, which are pretty major."

They both stood and walked out of the room and down the hallway.

"This addition is more than twice the size it was ten years ago. We added the new section in 2034, making more room for our medical staff and their families. By then the local building inspector had joined us, and left the municipality to shut down its building department, so we were free to build as we liked. Though we take building safety pretty seriously ourselves, especially with the former inspector here giving us advice. But that's a story for another time. You'll probably meet Pete at supper though, and he'll want to talk your ear off."

They went out back door of the addition and paused on the porch at the top of the steps. "That field ahead and on the right is our visiting horse paddock," said Allan, "and that shed is where the visiting horses can get out of the weather."

"Everybody out here has switched over to horses then?" asked Will.

"Hmmp, what most people have switched to is shank's mare," said Allan.

"My mother—your grandmother—used to use that term," said Will. "Fancy way of saying 'walking'."

"Yep," said Allan, "and walking is what we do for the most part. Breeding up a population of horses is a slow process, and we've concentrated mainly on draft horses. They are in one of the fields behind the barn—we'll have a look on our way by. The riding horses you see here are from elsewhere. There are a few people in the area who have made breeding them up a higher priority. I guess they want to get around more than we do. Or maybe they just like riding."

"You Porcupiners are more self contained?" asked Will.

"That's part of it," said Allan, "but mainly we've chosen to focus on other areas. The riding horse nuts for the most part don't have electricity, for instance."

"A matter of different priorities then?" said Will,

"Exactly," replied Allan, leading the way along the fence toward the shed. "And many of those folks already had horses before things fell apart, so they had a head start."

"Sure," said Will, stopping to lean against the fence."By the way, these are nice board fences."

"Not by choice—nobody is making page wire anymore," said Allan. "This is the best we can do with local materials. As I was saying, it turns out that large quantities of galvanized steel wire would be pretty challenging to produce—same kind of thing as copper pipe. White paint is a challenge too, and it is traditional on board fences like this. We just give them a coat linseed oil every so often to protect them from the weather. That's something we have lots of—the oil, I mean."

"I prefer the look of natural wood, anyway," said Will.

All this made Will think of his father. Charlie had truly loved horses, farming with them for a couple of decades before he got his first tractor in the early 1950s. He still kept draft horses for ten years after that, claiming they were better for many jobs around the farm. Will had missed all that, not being born until 1965. But Charlie had found he just missed horses too much and got a couple of riding horses when Will was about 5. Will had learned to ride and take care of horses and though he had little to do with them after leaving the farm, he still had a keen appreciation for the animals. Here he noticed mainly bay quarter horses and a couple of pintos with some Appaloosa blood in them. All fine looking animals that were obviously well cared for.

"Nice bunch of horses, not suffering a bit," he said.

"I guess so, though I'm no expert" said Allan. "The water trough's full. They've got shade from the maples along the fence by the road and lots of nice green grass. And they seem to be getting along, even though I'm sure some of them are strangers to each other. I wasn't in favour of setting up this pasture. But there are quite a few more horses here today than usual, and this field gets to collect some horseshit it wouldn't otherwise. Maybe not such a bad idea after all."

"This is part of that politics you were talking about?" asked Will.

"You're asking because the commune went ahead and did something I disagreed with?" said Allan.

"Well, yeah," said Will. "I thought everything was supposed to be done by consensus...."

"Oh, I could have blocked the idea," said Allan. Takes three of us to block, and I wasn't alone in having doubts. Or 10 percent of those present abstaining has the same result, and in this case that was a closer thing. But people get tired of having their ideas stomped on, and if you're the one always doing the stomping, then when you're trying to get something approved, it doesn't go as smoothly as it might otherwise. So... you have to ask yourself how important it really is, and if it's not very, you don't make a big deal of it. I've had lots of support over the years, so I don't make much of a fuss unless I think something is a really bad idea.

"All in all I find this system works pretty well. Better than the alternatives, for sure. Many brains together work better than one. When an idea doesn't get approved, it's rarely because it's been blocked or a lot of people have abstained. More likely it gets sent back to be reworked by the crew or individual who brought it up. Sent back with a bunch of good, helpful ideas for how it could be improved. People also ask around and get others' opinions before bringing up an idea to the group as a whole. So the really lame brained stuff gets filtered out."

"But surely you get the odd person who just doesn't want to get along," said Will. "Seems to me, if they didn't care about consequences, they could make things pretty miserable for everyone here."

"Yep, could happen," said Allan. "Has happened occasionally. But we follow the principle of voluntary association—no one has to join our group, or stay a part of it, if they don't want to. And if, as you say, they don't want to get along, pretty soon they won't want to hang around either. Living this close together, conflict is pretty miserable, even if you start out thinking that a little conflict might be fun. Once a week we take a vehicle into Inverpen, and there's always a seat for anyone who wants to leave.

"Plus, we have a long tradition, started by Dad during our first Tuesday night meeting, of people taking a long walk to decompress. Many have found that it helps. And once or twice a long walk has turned into never coming back."

"But after ten years, you are still a going concern," said Will, "so you can't have too many problems."

"Seems not," said Allan. "We make every effort to mediate and resolve interpersonal conflicts, of course. We've all had training on participatory democracy, mediation and things like developing emotional intelligence. It all helps. And it does work, except when it doesn't, people being what they are."

"No doubt," said Will. "What's next on this tour?"

Allan stepped back from the fence they'd been leaning on and turn around, pointing north. "Well, that row of buildings is our industrial heartland, so to speak."

"Really?" said Will in a doubtful tone.

"I'm not entirely serious," said Allan with a grin. "We don't have anything on the scale of chemical valley in Sarnia, or the steel mills in Hamilton. But what little we have of that sort is concentrated here. Given your background, I think you'll find this quite interesting."

"Great," said Will. "Let's have a look."

---

Coming soon, Porcupine Saga Part 13, The Tour: Part 2

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Links to the rest of this series of posts:
The Porcupine Saga

• The Porcupine Saga, Part 1: A Celebration at Porcupine, Allan Harper, July 21, 2040, published February 24, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 2: When The Lights Went Out, Part 1, Will Harper, Wednesday, July 19, 2028, published April 30, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 3: When The Lights Went Out, Part 2, Will Harper, Thursday, July 20, 2028, published May 16, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 4: One Last Lecture, Part 1, Allan Harper, early afternoon, Tuesday, April 9, 2030; published September 25, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 5, One Last Lecture, Part 2; Allan Harper, late afternoon, Tuesday, April 9, 2030; published October 12, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 6, The Sign Above Our Gate; Allan Harper, late afternoon, Tuesday, April 9, 2030; published October 12, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 7, When We Met Jack; Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040; Allan Harper, morning, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published January 16, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 8, When We Met Jack, Part 2; Allan Harper, midday, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published April 23, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 9, When We Met Jack, Part 3; Allan Harper, evening, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published May 28, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 10, When We Met Jack, Part 4; Allan Harper, evening, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published June 3, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 11, When We Met Jack, Part 5; Allan Harper, morning, Thursday, April 11, 2030; published June 23, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 12, The Tour: Part 1; Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040; published January 30, 2025

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

The Porcupine Saga, Part 11, When We Met Jack, Part 5

Allan Harper, morning, Thursday, April 11, 2030

Allan got up earlier than usual the next morning, anticipating Jack's arrival and hoping to help cut down a couple of cedar trees to make posts for Porcupine's new sign. He hadn't quite finished eating when Tom, Mark and Jim arrived in the dining room. He raised an eyebrow at his dad, who replied, "The building crew has claimed the addition and the school is in the living room, so we—we're the finance crew—are going to convene here."

"I'll just get out of your way," said Allan, and he started to get up with the intention of finding another place to finish his porridge.

"Hang on there, Allan," said Tom. "I think you should consider joining us."

"Me?" he replied. "Why would I be on the finance crew? I didn't bring anything but pocket change with me when I came here, and I'm no genius with money. From where I am sitting, one of the best things about Porcupine is that we are not supposed to be using money."

"And that's why I think you should be on this team," said Tom. "Look around you at who is about to sit down—Jim, Mark and me—all old people who brought pensions and investments with them. It seems that, like you, everyone else is hesitant to join us, and I see a division in the making. We need you and maybe one other person to even out the representation a bit."

"OK," said Allan somewhat doubtfully. "If you haven't picked anyone else yet, maybe Wilf would be a good choice?"

"Sounds good to me," said Tom. "if no one has any objections, maybe you could go find him and bring him back to join us? After you finish breakfast, of course"

The rest of the finance crew were fine with it, so Allan wolfed down the rest of his porridge, and headed out the back door toward the machine shed, where he expected to find Wilf. Five minutes later he was back with both Wilf and Miles in tow. "Hope nobody minds, Miles wanted to join us as well."

"That makes six of us," said Tom, "Should be OK. Any objections?"

There were none, so Tom went on, "In a crew like this we shouldn't need a facilitator, and I'm not trying to set myself up as one. But there are a few things I wanted to say..."

"Just go for it, Dad," Allan said.

"OK," said Tom. "So, we're the finance crew and as I see it, our job is going to be tallying up what our financial resources are, and then have a look at what we can do within those limits.

"But first, I have to say how much it irks me that we are having to worry about money at all. I know, this isn't a surprise, but still.... What we should be able to do, when a project is proposed, is find a way to doing it using our own materials, equipment and skills. We'd figure out what it's going to 'cost' in terms of materials and labour, decide if we want to make that investment and if so go ahead. Mark my word, money is going to distort our thinking and keep us tied up in the system we came here to escape."

"I see your point, Tom," said Jim, "and I guess that will be true eventually for most projects, but there'll still be some that need specialized tools and materials that have to come from outside Porcupine. Currently we're talking about bringing in quite a load of materials because we aren't set up as yet to take trees from our wood lot and turn them into lumber. But it's still nowhere near 100%. The changes we're talking about doing to this house, for instance, will require some lumber, drywall and hardware, but the biggest input is the house itself, which we already own. Most of the value of the end product is already here. Same with the pole barns.

"So don't feel so bad, Tom. A year from now we'll have a sawmill running and stacks of lumber drying."

"I suppose you're right, Jim," replied Tom. "Wherever possible this crew should, in my opinion, focus on spending that helps us become more self sufficient. I'm not sure if this building program does that."

"Maybe not, but we need more people and they'll need a place to sleep," said Jim. " Anyway, you asked me to tally up some figures on our current income and expenditures. Maybe I should present them?"

"Yeah, for sure, go ahead," said Tom.

There was a white board at the south end of the dining room. Jim stepped up to it, picked up a marker and wrote a figure at the top left. "OK," he said, "this is our currently monthly income from pensions."

Writing a smaller figure under the first one, he said, "And this is what we are currently spending on groceries, utilities, property taxes and so forth."

Jim did the math and wrote down the difference. "This is the amount we have monthly to spend on materials, tools, equipment, seeds, nursery stock, livestock and such. The point being to produce most of our own food, fibre, lumber, energy and so forth, and in the process to increase the amount left over for outfitting. That won't really take off until sometime in the summer."

"It's not really very much money, and there is a lot we want to do. But fortunately we also have some money in the bank and some investments." He wrote another, larger figure in the upper right, and a smaller figure underneath it.

"The larger number is the total of our investments, and the smaller number is how much return we are getting yearly," said Jim. "Because of the depression, that number isn't as large as it once would have been. I think we can expect to see it get smaller, as well. At some point I think that our pensions will get discounted too, maybe even dry up altogether. So we should aim to convert our money into more concrete investments that aren't at the mercy of the failing capitalist economy. And as Tom says, to make sure those investments end up making us much more self-sufficient than we are now."

"That's good information, and more money than I thought we had," said Allan. "But exactly what is this crew supposed to be doing? And how are we going to do it?"

"I guess we are supposed to look at all the projects people are proposing, what they'll cost and which ones we can afford to do, given the available funds," said Tom.

"Projects, eh?" said Wilf. "I gather the building crew are costing out the projects we discussed last night?"

"I believe so," said Tom.

"Well then," said Wilf, "is there much we can do until they have a lists of projects and costs drawn up. I mean beyond what Jim has already done?"

"Well..." said Tom "It does look like maybe we've done what we can financially. I think the building crew is just looking at the partitions project so far. Maybe we could come up with a longer list of projects. And maybe we should inventory the materials, tools and equipment we do have on hand. Maybe even tackle those piles of stuff in the barn..."

At that point, the front door opened. Andrea, Terry and Jack made their way in and through to the dining room.

"Mornin'," said Jack. "Sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you folks."

"Could it wait until we are done here?" asked Tom.

"Well, I think maybe not, since it does bear on what I gather you're discussing. ," said Jack, nodding to the figures on the white board. "First thing I want to ask is this—how does one go about joining your outfit?"

"Well, so far, it's been by invitation only," said Tom, a smile forming on his face. "Are you saying you'd like to join?"

"Yeah, I am, actually," said Jack.

"Well then, you're in," said Tom, "welcome aboard!"

"That's all there is to it?" asked Jack.

"No need for more, really," said Tom.

"Just minute Tom," said Mark. "You know damn well there is a bunch of paper work that has to be taken care of. Especially since you are turning over a lot of private property to the commune, Jack. Tom did fill you in on how this place works, right? Especially the part about property?"

"Yeah—as I understand it, I just gave you 200 acres of land," replied Jack, "plus all my buildings and machinery and what little hay, straw and grain is still in the barn. And, oh yes, my pensions, cash and investments as well. Everything but what you folks recognize as my personal property."

"That's right," said Mark. "You're OK with that?"

"Strangely enough, I am," said Jack. "You know I don't want to leave my farm. But when Tom and Allan arrived yesterday, I had just about decided that there's no way to make it all work. I spent half of last night thinking about it, and it seems to me that joining Porcupine is the only way for me to have my cake and eat it too. Seeing as how my place now belongs to us all, in some sense of the word, it still belongs to me. Or a share in it anyway."

"That's true," said Tom. "Though, as I found out in the meeting last night, with consensus decision making you sometimes have to step back and let the group do what it wants with property that used to be yours."

"I can see that," said Jack. "I think I can live with it. And I'm looking forward that training on participatory democracy. Can't come soon enough."

"I think Angie made some phone calls first thing this morning," said Tom. "She's waiting for them to get back to her with dates for the training."

"That's good," said Jack. "Now, I think I mentioned yesterday that I have a couple of kids in Alberta who I don't really get along with. I know they are expecting an inheritance from me. When they hear that I've given away the farm, they won't be happy. So we'd better make this transfer of ownership bullet proof, legally speaking."

"That's the reason for the paper work," said Mark.

"Good. We'll get to that before the end of the day," said Jack. "From the figures on the board there, I gather you folks here are trying to figure out how to get properly set up with the limited money you've got?"

"Well, yeah," said Tom. "I was thinking it's going to be pretty tight."

"I can understand that," said Jack. "Mainly because I've got a big chunk of what you need, and I know how much it cost to put together. But maybe I've just solved part of your problem, eh."

"Hell yes," said Tom, "why don't you sit down and join us for a bit. Mark, you can have him after lunch."

"I'll hold you to that," said Mark.

"OK," said Jack. "I see you started by inventorying your financial resources. You can add mine to that. Jim, here are the numbers..."

Jack dictated pension, investment, utility bill and property tax numbers to Jim, who added them to the totals on the white board.

"OK, that looks a bit better—even with my expenses added in," said Jack. "You're buying your groceries retail in Inverpen?"

"We're buying as much as we can in bulk, but yes," answered Jim.

"Well, I've got some contacts who would be glad to supply you with meat, eggs and even some grains," said Jack. "And all at better prices than you're getting at the supermarkets. Especially with what inflation has done to food prices the last few years."

"Thanks, Jack," said Jim. "I think we'll want to take you up on that."

"OK," said Jack. "I'm glad to help. The next thing you need to do is inventory the tools, equipment, materials and such that you—I should say we—have on hand. I think we need to go through those piles in the pole barn and sort out what's personal property and what now belongs to the commune. And then you—we—need to do the same at my place. This has to be a first priority so you don't go spending money on things you've already got."

"Actually, we were just starting to discuss that, Jack," said Tom. "I've got a bunch of hardware left over from building a house years ago that will save us some money on the projects we are currently considering. I also suspect that the tradesmen and hobbyists among us have enough hand tools so that we don't need to buy more."

"You're likely right there," said Jack. "I guess the next thing would be to list the projects we want to tackle and figure out what order they need to be done in. Then we can start figuring out how much each project will cost. Have you got a building crew set up yet?"

"Yes, they're meeting in the addition right now," said Tom, "working on plans and a bill of materials for the partition project. Between us here, the sign crew, the building crew and homeschooling for the youngsters, there aren't any people free this morning. Sounds like this finance crew needs to switch to doing that inventory, and maybe coming up with a list of projects."

"Sounds like that to me," said Jack. "It may be that my carpentry background would be of help to the building crew. So I think I'll join them once I get done with Mark. That is, if Andrea and Terry don't mind. Maybe we can leave that sign until tomorrow..."

"Sure," said Andrea, "if that's OK by you, Terry?"

"I'm good with it," said Terry. "Hope I can get on that inventory crew."

"Me too," said Andrea. "Does your crew have room for a couple more people, Grandpa?"

"There are already six of us," said Tom. "But we could split into two groups--there's enough stuff to inventory that we won't get in each others' way."

"I'm going to leave you to that, and go touch base with the building crew," said Jack."And after that I'm all yours Mark, and we can take care of that paper work."

"I'll just come along," said Mark, "and introduce you as our newest Porcupiner."

Allan watched them go and then turned to his step-son Miles, "Well, I guess we've got some inventory to do."

"Not so fast, Allan" said Tom. "Between now and lunch, and I hope that's all the time it takes, we need to sit down here and figure out a set of guidelines for personal versus commune property. That way we can run them by the whole group right after lunch and get group approval."

---

Allan Harper, late afternoon, Saturday, July 21, 2040

"Well, we did figure out those guidelines by noon, and got approval from the whole commune after lunch, with only minor changes. Then we spent a few days on inventory, drawing up our list of projects, prioritizing them and figuring out what the ones near the top would cost," said Allan. "It wasn't that long, though, before we started the actual work and we've been at it ever since. You've already seen the sign over the gate, and the inside of our pole bar/hall, but I think we are finally to the point where we can start that tour I've been promising you, Uncle Will. You know, so I can actually show you what we've built over the last decade."

"Sounds good to me," said Will. "Let's do it."

---

Coming soon, Porcupine Saga Part 12, The Tour

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Links to the rest of this series of posts:
The Porcupine Saga

• The Porcupine Saga, Part 1: A Celebration at Porcupine, Allan Harper, July 21, 2040, published February 24, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 2: When The Lights Went Out, Part 1, Will Harper, Wednesday, July 19, 2028, published April 30, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 3: When The Lights Went Out, Part 2, Will Harper, Thursday, July 20, 2028, published May 16, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 4: One Last Lecture, Part 1, Allan Harper, early afternoon, Tuesday, April 9, 2030; published September 25, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 5, One Last Lecture, Part 2; Allan Harper, late afternoon, Tuesday, April 9, 2030; published October 12, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 6, The Sign Above Our Gate; Allan Harper, late afternoon, Tuesday, April 9, 2030; published October 12, 2023
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 7, When We Met Jack; Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040; Allan Harper, morning, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published January 16, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 8, When We Met Jack, Part 2; Allan Harper, midday, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published April 23, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 9, When We Met Jack, Part 3; Allan Harper, evening, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published May 28, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 10, When We Met Jack, Part 4; Allan Harper, evening, Wednesday, April 10, 2030; published June 3, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 11, When We Met Jack, Part 5; Allan Harper, morning, Thursday, April 11, 2030; published June 23, 2024
• The Porcupine Saga, Part 12, The Tour: Part 1; Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040; published January 30, 2025

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.