Village Day wasn't entirely a wash.
It did, however, poure on Saturday.
I had just enough time between the rain to do a little prep work on the spiral and test out one of my theories: could I bang a 1½-inch steel pipe about two feet into the ground and use those pipes as the supports for the mirrored panels I'd been preparing all week?
Turns out the idea works.
So that was something.
A Village Day of One
Sunday was our rain date, and no one showed up to help, well my kid and his friend were there and they helped clean up at the end of the day. And my wife and here friend did bring us lunch😁
No problem, though. I still had plenty to do.
There were a few things that needed finishing on the mirrors, poles to get into the ground, and somehow I decided this would also be a good time to cut an entirely new trail into the side of the mountain.
So that's what I did.
Armed mostly with a rake and a chainsaw, I started carving a path toward the site of the new mirror sculpture.
It was a lot of work. (my hands are still feeling the pain today)
I have this habit of starting a job with whatever tools I happen to have with me instead of walking all the way back to the barn to get the right tools.
Is it efficient?
Absolutely not.
Does the work eventually get done?
Usually.
By the end of the day, though, there was the beginning of a real path through the woods leading toward the sculpture.
And suddenly the installation started feeling like an actual place.
Building the Mirror Spiral
The idea for this installation started with some mirrored plexiglass I salvaged from a job one day.
Instead of letting it go to waste, I brought it home knowing we'd eventually find something interesting to do with it.
I cut the plexiglass into 14 panels, each 1 foot wide by 3½ feet tall, which will eventually form the walls of a walk-in spiral, with dead space between each panel exposing the forest.
I also had some salvaged boards that I cut to the same dimensions.
Using construction adhesive, I glued the mirrored plexiglass to the boards and weighted everything down for a couple of days while it cured.
Then I cut pieces of plywood and glued and screwed two supports onto the back of each mirror panel.
Those will become the structural mounting points that attach each panel to the steel posts using U-bolts or something similar.
At least that's the current plan.
Like most things at Artemis Ridge, part of the design happens on paper.
The rest gets figured out in the woods.
Six Down, Eight to Go
I managed to drive six of the fourteen steel posts into the ground.
Not bad.
But I've already found two spots where either a large root or a buried rock is exactly where I want a post to go.
Because of course there is.
I'll have to deal with those eventually.
The good news is that I'm not particularly worried about the posts themselves lasting. They're heavy-gauge steel pipe. It's the kind normally used for steam lines, and they should survive in the ground for quite a long time.
The wood is what concerns me.
Before the mirrors go up permanently, I need to figure out how I'm going to weatherproof everything.
This installation doesn't need to last forever.
But I'd like it to survive at least a few years in the forest.
What Comes Next
There's still quite a bit to do.
The new path needs more work. Some sections are still steep enough that I'll need to build steps into the hillside.
The remaining eight steel posts need to be driven into the ground.
Then everything needs to be adjusted, leveled, and positioned properly before the mirrored panels can finally be attached.
In the meantime, I also want to build a bench for the center of the spiral.
The center is large enough for two people to sit comfortably. It'll be a quiet little place to stop, relax, and reflect while surrounded by fragments of the forest reflected back at them.
And then we need signs. We need new ones and touch up the ones that already here... the fun ones!
We need signs along the trails pointing people toward these installations and slowly turning what are currently scattered projects in the woods into something that feels like an actual forest art walk.
So... What's the Point?
That's really the bigger question behind all of this.
We started Village Day because we wanted to build a community of like-minded people who could feel like they were actually taking part in creating this place.
Not just visiting it, but also building it.
This one was from our very first Village Day!
A place where people might help create a sculpture one month, build something from natural materials another month, learn a skill, share something they know, or simply spend a day working alongside other people in the woods.
We've been working on this land for a long time.
But if I'm being fair, there still isn't much of a community built around what we're trying to create here.
Maybe that's partly because we haven't always focused our intentions clearly enough.
We've had a lot of ideas.
Camping.
Forest art.
Natural building.
Plant walks.
Retreats.
Workshops.
Community gatherings.
For a long time, they felt like separate projects.
Now they're beginning to feel like pieces of the same thing.
Building the Dream
The forest art walk is one piece.
The retreats and places to stay are another.
The natural building school is another.
Village Day is another.
But together, they're slowly becoming the experience we imagine for Artemis Ridge.
A place you don't just come to see.
A place where you might walk through the woods and discover something unexpected.
Where you might sleep in a structure built from the materials around you.
Where you might learn how to build something, identify a plant, make art, sit around a fire with strangers, or leave something behind that becomes part of the place.
And maybe that's what these Village Days are really about.
Not how many people show up on any particular Saturday.
It's about continuing to build the dream, and leaving the door open for other people to eventually help build it with us.
This weekend, that meant six steel pipes, the beginning of a new trail, and a pile of unfinished mirrors in the woods.
Next time, hopefully, it'll look a little more like a spiral.
Artemis Ridge is being built slowly, one trail, one structure, one strange idea in the woods at a time.
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