Homebrew Intensive

Girl Mark is in town. Right now I believe she is walking through the woods to crash here for the night. She just called from the refinery.

She and Rachel are doing another of their famous workshops. She is on her “Appleseed Reactor Tour.” I’m not sure how many cities she has been to on this stint, but she has workshopping down to a fine art.

And I am astonished by the turnout. We have two people from Kansas City. One from Sarnia, Ontario. There is a fellow from Mississippi. And folks from Florida.

I’m not in the class. So I am uniquely unqualified to comment on its progression or value. Except for what I see from the outside.

Rachel has lost her voice. That comes from constant talking, and question and answer.

Arlo and I trudged through the woods yesterday to check it out. He and the puppies stayed at Butter’s house and worked on some art. I butted into the workshop and met the twenty some odd participants.

It was remarkable. People were taking elaborate notes. Their brains were fried. Rachel was holding court. Girl Mark was demonstrating a remarkable number of myriad details. Her favorite clamps for holding hoses in place, for instance.

I watched her clamp together a mist washing demonstration in awe, and reflected on how many different approaches there are to the same problem.

Clamps for hoses are a brilliant idea. I use a brick.

With Leif away I’ve been doing the veggie runs. And I have found it difficult and awkward to secure a hose of flowing veggie to a 55 gallon drum. Which is why I now carry a brick which has three holes through the center. I stuff the hose through one of the holes, place it over the bung, and I’m good to go.

Girl Mark has clearly encountered this problem before. Probably many times. And she has come to town to demonstrate how to use clamps.

Just as all of us are at different points on the journey toward sustainability, we are all at different points on our journey toward homemade biodiesel. Use a clamp. Use a brick. Just make sure the output of your pump is held fast to its intended bung. Because if it gets away from you, it makes an awful mess.

To see the refinery with tents in the side yard is an amazing thing. To meet the visitors that have traveled from far away is amazing. Girl Mark and Piedmont Biofuels are putting heads in beds in Chatham County for the next few days, and that is a remarkable thing. Some are staying at Celebrity Dairy, which offers a discount to biodieselists. Some are at Bill’s Motor Inn in Siler City.

They are converging on Allen and Sons. They fill up half of the Flamingo. They are keeping the lights on late at the General Store Café. It’s an amazing workshop.

I am only on the fringe of Homebrew Intensive. I watch it from my luxury suite on the other side of the woods, and I am astonished by what I see.

Tonight Girl Mark and I sat at the kitchen table and talked about characters in the movement. She knows more of them than I do. She has the star power to attract workshop attendees from far and wide.

It impossible to talk about characters in the movement without thinking of Rachel. She not only has a fulltime job running the automotive program at the College, but she has helped facilitate Homebrew Intensive. Saturday night she crashed at our place after a full day of teaching. Sunday she dove in hard. By Monday at noon she had lost her voice.

Apparently Matt Rudolph and Adrian Boggs have also been instrumental in the success of this thing. Matt is clearly a future fuel maker, who has a million ideas about how to improve Piedmont Biofuels. And Adrian is a metal sculptor from Greensboro who is no slouch on the idea front.

I’m an interloper at Homebrew Intensive. I watch the bottles of Juicy Juice vanish from my home recycling bins, and appear at the refinery full of mini batches and wash water and tests of all kinds.

It’s an amazing workshop to behold. Today I stopped by with Tarus. Leif is back (we are saved), and the participants kept right on working in the drizzle and rain. Hurricane Ivan is making himself known, but he is no match for the combined energy of Homebrew Intensive.

Posted by Lyle at September 14, 2004 08:19 PM