Modern Day Barn Raising in the Digital Age - Renewing a Tradition
By gregoryjohnson
The tradition of having a Barn Raising is best known as being practiced among Amish communities, but the concept is found in various cultures and languages (Finnish, Norwegian, and Cherokee). Cooperative work is a form of social activism, and relationship building. It often serves as the most effective way to accomplish a goal. [more...]
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Gregory Johnson, Director, ResourcesForLife.com About Gregory About Resources for Life The Small House Society Gregory's...
gregoryjohnson
Wow! It seems like the U.S. is returning to a more interdependent community-based society. I hope so!
ModHomeEcTeacher
Alicia-It sounds wonderful,can I come and live? :)
Alicia
I live in Finland, and on the country side more than in the city there is a real tradition of men working together, and sometimes even women. We live in the city, but my hubby is from the country side, and he has been roped in (volunteered by his dad) to build wooden boats, fish, sail, chop down trees, build, paint, hunt and butcher all in big teams etc etc. The women usually only get together for weddings to cook, serve and wash up afterwards. I think it is a real shame that they don't get together more often, but I think they are too proud and must show that they can manage to clean the house, take care of a cluster of children, bake, cook and have a nice kitchen garden.
We have a cottage on the country side, and FIL along with his brothers, cousins and friends are busy renovating the house and fixing up the garden for us, just because they want to. A lot of the time they are telling the old stories of the house, the man that built it and his darling wife that loved all the children in the village as much as she loved her own. They want us to be able to spend time there relaxing and socialising so they think that if they fix it up for us then we will get there quicker. They send us the bills though for materials :-)
Our own downtown apartment block has become an oasis as well, as we now have a community garden with herbs and some vegetables. We trade meat from the hunt or fresh fish for fruit vegetables that others have grown on their cottage plots. But that is where it ends for helping each other.
gregoryjohnson
Thanks! You're reminding me of another modern day example... I'll go add it to the full article now!!!!
ModHomeEcTeacher
Oh My! I was just talking about this last evening at my upholstery class. One lady said her neighbor was moving a large storage barn on their property and all of the men in the neighborhood were so excited to have a project like this. These are professional men gettting their hands dirty and loving every minute of the work, the comaradarie and the sense of accomplishment. It's a good thing.
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