In the summer of 2019 the Mud Family provided technical assistance for a reality TV show where a homestead family from Alaska helps people whose American Dream has become a nightmare. A family a couple hours from our home in Ohio had hired a firm to build them an Earthship out of enormous bales of tires, but it had only been half done when the architect died, leaving them no choice but to move in with wind blowing through the walls of exposed tires and all sorts of other troubles. We helped the crew source
local sandy clay soil (40 tons of it) and
straw and buckets and tools at short notice, then spend a fun day with the homeowners and cast and crew on camera getting mud all over everything and everyone. We had a prior engagement so we were only able to stay the one day and missed the main fun when the homeowners' entire church congregation showed up that weekend to finish what we had started. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures during their shoot because, you know, Hollywood, but a couple weeks later on my way back from my daughter's wedding in Columbus I stopped by to get my tools and grabbed a little
video of our progress. I was in the mountains of Jamaica when the show was released. No Internet meant I didn't get to see it until several weeks later, but that night I got a text from a guy whose computer I fix when I'm not playing in the mud. He asked "Did I just see you on TV?" Yep. All 20 seconds of my fame.
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