Earthship Build in the Time of Hive and Coronavirus

So this must be it. With the Spring Equinox we may have surpassed the threshold to something… Originally I was going to write three separate posts about what I thought were three separate topics. But as it turns out, all of them are so interrelated that they simply would not make any sense on their own. So let’s see, where should I start? Maybe at the bottom, with the stuff that right under our feet: the good ol’ dirt we’re all made of.

The Last Course of Tires

Good news! At the Earthship build I’m at we have almost completed all the tire work. All we have to do is pound a few more tires on the 13th and final course, place two squishies, level the whole thing, do the backfill… okay, so admittedly, it’s a bit more than just a few simple tasks you could complete by working till dusk on a Friday evening. That’s okay, though. For the most part we have gotten over the imminent urgency that had been building up, regarding having the roof beams up by the first week of April. The reason: the current Coronavirus situation.

Extended Stay in Mexico

As every year, my friends at Itínera Theater arrived in Mexico in December, and were planing to leave in April, before the onset of the rainy season. For Stephane it was particularly important to be in Bordeaux, France by April sixth, in order to start playing concerts with his band. Julia also had planned to fly home to Rimini, Italy, around the same time. So it would have been just Manu and myself to close up the property for the season, before going our separate ways. With all these plans it would have been imperative to have the most important part of the construction done while all of us were still there.

However, as fate would have it, things took a different turn with the recent developments internationally. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak it seems unlikely that either of my friends are going anywhere until mid-to-late April. While we can’t know the exact implications the pandemic will have on us, for the moment Mexico, and Mazunte in particular, seems to be still relatively calm. There is no police on the streets forcing us to stay indoors (kinda hard without any doors), and the shops are still well stocked with toilet paper as well as beer (Corona and other types). So in a way, we are prepared for an extended stay, and most importantly, some additional time to complete the project.

Documenting Our Progress… But Where???

As we move along in building our Earthship-inspired multi-purpose structure, I am just as keen on documenting it as I’ve been from the start. But now, I’m facing a different kind of challenge: a split in the blockchain, resulting from a number of major turns in the way Steem has/had been organized. Now let me stress: at the moment I’m in a place with very unreliable internet service, and frankly barely any time to be online. That means, I write my posts while not even being connected, then save them into a template on Steempeak, only to post from my phone, whenever the connection seems to be working. Lots of time it’s not, but at least I won’t have to sit by my computer, watching the little wheel on the screen.

Under these circumstances it’s not surprising that I’m not on top of things, engaged in long discussions on discord, or doing in-depth research on JS’s sock-puppets, and the censorship imposed by SteemIt regarding articles on Hive. However, piecing together the bits of info that come my way, and listening to my intuition, I have to say that the recent hardfork that brought us Hive may have been the best decision ever. Walking away from a bully takes the wind out of their sails. And if the new place you’re moving to is an exact copy of our original playground, except one where they can’t bully you around, I don’t see a reason for not going there. In fact, I’m quite excited about moving to Hive myself (becoming a Hiver, Hivean, Hiveonaut!), though of course this is probably a bit more complicated than it sounds.

Basic Challenges on the New Chain

Whether using Hive.io or Peakd.com, I could not manage to actually access my account. The former I managed to access, or so it seems, with my Steem Keychain, but I sort-of doubt that I’m in fact accessing Hive. I may still be on Steem, actually. The latter suggested to download Hive Keychain, the alternative to Seem Keychain, but that may not be completely ready just as yet. Its other option, Hivesigner didn’t get me anywhere either. Okay, once again, this may be due to the bad connectivity, and the fact that this morning I really just wanted to get some thoughts out. This afternoon, or sometime tomorrow, I may actually visit a café in town where I can make use of their WiFi, which is not as sporadic as here on the property.

But even once I’ve established a way to connect easily to Hive, there seems to be a transitional phase to fully move across. In order to keep supporting the members and communities on Hive which I have been on Steem, I need to set up my auto-vote, delegate Hive, while stopping all these same things on Steem. Finally, I’m going to want to power down my SP, and sell my STEEM (in order to buy more Hive, of course), and maybe even replace my posts on Steem with a link to Hive… But all that is really a long-term project. For now, I may just start with this simple post, and leave the rest for later.