Cristine

Good labor works their fingers to the bone and that's what Christine did this past week.*

Labor: keeping it affordable, legal and ethical is a challenge with implications far beyond my understanding. But that isn't an excuse to dismiss the issues, only an attempt to evaluate and learn more. It's one of those tricky things. It's tricky from a business standpoint with L&I and taxes; management and job performance; quality of work and supervision; budget constraints; and the ethics of fair wages for local persons versus supporting immigrant workers who also need the money.

It had been my intent, in order to keep labor costs within budget, to hire some of the hard working young men from Guatemala who I see patiently waiting every morning to be picked up as day laborers. My crew would oversee their efforts. My clients would hire and pay them. However, this past few weeks they haven't been there waiting for work. So I was pleasantly surprised when I met Christine. She's attending green workshops and sustainable design charettes within her community, concerned about the health of our land, exploring alternative living models. She travels without a vehicle. She came out to the project for a couple of days to help clean up the land and was loving it!

As it turned out, the rain last week put a damper on the project and I had to postpone heavy work and move the machinery and crew to another job. She stayed though and worked diligently for three full days nearly eradicating the Canadian thistles on 5 acres of land. She gathered more rocks than all the other helpers combined (Joe disclosed) , turned a fairly rough road into a marvelous little trail, and was willing to work for modest wages to be doing sustainable work. Plus, she was focused, worked hard and worked without supervision.

Cristine wondering which patch of thistles to go after next!

*Canadian thistles can penetrate even the best gloves.