Saving money by being Green

This is my entry for November's Green Mom's Carnival, hosted by Condo Blues. Check it out!

When people meet me and find out that I: a) live in an ecovillage, b) live in a straw bale house and that, c) our house is entirely off the grid, they seem to be flooded with a variety of emotions. Watching their faces as they internally work through it all and try to remain gracious at the same time is often hilarious. I’ve seen shock (“how do I characterize this person?”), a slight sneer (are they thinking “Grateful Dead-listening, Birkenstock-wearing hippy”?), guilt (“uh-oh, don’t tell her I drove here by myself in my SUV”), disbelief (“strawbales? You mean like the three little pigs?”), admiration (“cool, I saw something on HGTV like this”) and just plain total incomprehension.

But finally, when we get that all sorted out (it usually takes less than 30 seconds) we both recognize that we have much more in common than we have differences.

Far from being more expensive than the average life, I find that my green, sustainable lifestyle has been a great way to save not only money but time, which in the end is much more valuable, at least to me. How can this be possible?

I have crafted my life so that it costs less than my ‘old’ life in California. I work 100 yards from my home, so I do not need to commute long distance in a car to work each day. I eat most of my meals at home, or at the homes of friends, which I not only love socially but really appreciate because I get to hang out with my husband, which is kind of the point of getting married in the first place. Our home is located in the rural Midwest, so I can grow a lot of my own food. I live in an intentional community with a growing number of like-minded folks who share many of my values.

I am not trying to keep up with the Green Joneses. I do not have an expensive hybrid vehicle. In fact, I no longer own a car of my own. Instead I share two cars, a truck and a tractor (this is rural Missouri, after all) with 40 other adults in my community. This is often greeted with incredulity and then a look of sadness for poor, poor Alline, who cannot even have her own vehicle. Hold the phone! This little blip saves me thousands of dollars a year. I think back to my days in Berkeley when I had a very dependable Honda Accord. As a native Californian I loved my car, and valued it as a part of my independence. It is only since being here at Dancing Rabbit that I realize that perhaps the car owned me more than I owned it. Each month there were car payments ($200/month), insurance payments ($150/month), gas bills ($50/month), and the occasional maintenance expense. Anytime I went outside of my neighborhood I had to pay for parking; in San Francisco, this was phenomenally expensive. Now I pay .60 per mile. This makes an individual trip sound expensive, but this fee covers car payment, insurance, maintenance and fuel. When we need to drive a long distance (when the train just won’t work out), we rent a car. My average monthly vehicle coop bill is $50. That’s $600 compared to almost $5,000 annually.

My husband and I built our house ourselves. Well, to be brutally honest, Kurt built the house, and I was opinionated about what it all looked like. When we left our “real” jobs in Berkeley in 1999, I cashed out my 401K, and we used this money to buy our power system. For $12,000 we purchased solar panels, a small wind turbine, batteries in which to store the power and the electrical voodoo to make it all run. While it was pricey up front, we now have dependable power for as long as we have our home. There are a lot of arguments about the sustainability about solar power systems, many of which I agree with (the technology is polluting, the batteries are huge and only last ten years, etc.). However, we balance this will knowing that our power does not come from a nuclear power plant, nor is it the result of mountaintops being removed for the coal. We feel very grateful for the power that we receive from the sun and wind, and because it is plentiful but often variable in quantity, we don’t waste it.

We built our home out of reclaimed and locally harvested lumber, strawbales, and lime plaster. The bales, which are 18” thick are a waste product from the local wheat harvest. They are also incredible insulation. The windows were either purchased used or came from the Marvin Windows “bone yard,” where all the rejected special order windows go. For $1,000 we purchased an entire truck load of windows and doors. Most of these are double-paned and absolutely beautiful. The flooring in our upstairs bedroom and studio came from an old house. We pulled all of the nails out of it, and after it was in place sanded and varnished it. It was not expensive. It is not cool bamboo, or cork, or any of the other expensive-but-green building materials we read about in magazines (which just exist to sell you products, btw*).

We own 280 acres with the other members of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in a legal structure called a Community Land Trust. We pay a lease fee of .01 per square foot per month for the lot that our home sits on and the surrounding garden area; this is about $50 per month. This has many benefits, among which are having access to almost 300 acres of native prairie and woodlands (with creeks, ponds and wildlife) without having to buy it all ourselves. We get the extra added benefit of sharing our lives with others who we enjoy.

We are part of a food buying club and are able to order through a large natural foods distributor for wholesale prices. We patronize the local dairies and butcher, and often swap vegetables with each other (“hey, I’ve got a lot of zucchini – who wants some?”). We preserve much of the summer’s bounty – I have a pantry full of tomato sauce, salsa, blackberry jam, zucchini relish, pickled beets, dilly beans, pears, hot peppers, corn, etc. It is a delight to pull these jars out in the middle of winter – we feel rich.

We don’t have an energy-star rated dishwasher – I do them by hand. Kurt dries, and it is a nice way to hang out at the end of a meal. We don’t have air conditioning (our house is designed to stay relatively cool in the summer) nor do we have central heat – we have a wood stove. Kurt and I own the community washing machine – we bought it ten years ago when there was a need, and put a coin op on it. Half of the quarters go to the community building to pay for water and power, the rest go to us. The entire community shares this washer, with few problems. We all hang out clothes out to dry. Yes, even in the winter.

Lest we sound like Little House on the Prairie, we have computers with high-speed internet, telephones, a fully equipped kitchen (everything from a Kitchen Aid mixer to a coffee grinder and microwave), a bathroom (shower, tub and sink with solar hot water, composting toilet), a television (which isn’t hooked up to anything, just used for Netflix movies) and all the comforts of home. We utilize the local library, Bookmooch.com and buy used books online.

I no longer own the coolest shoes or handbag (don’t even know what they are); I don’t have to have an uber-chic wardrobe for work each day because it really doesn’t matter. People come to see us because of who we are, not to check and see if we’re wearing eco-couture. Once I realized who it was I was really dressing up for (other women; the men really don’t care, which always makes me think of Van Morrison’s Wild Nights “..and the girls walk by dressed up for each other…” but I digress).

So think about it. Why are you buying what you are buying? Do you really need to spend money to be green?

Recommend reading:
Your Money or Your Life
A Reasonable Life by Ferenc Mate
The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig.

* A note on magazines: You DO realize that magazines live (and die) by the quantity of advertising, don't you? It is in their best interest to write compelling articles about the items being advertised in their pages. While (of course) house insulation made of blue jeans or blown cellulose (which is simply recycled newspaper shredded into tiny bits) is MUCH more eco and sustainable than, say fiberglass, you simply DO NOT HAVE TO BUY STUFF to be green. I'll write (um, rant?) more on this topic in another post, but for now, urge you to read commercial publications with a jaundiced eye.

Additionally, magazines I trust: Good, Yes!, Mother Jones, Utne Reader...

Halloween Revels

The following originally appeared in the Memphis (Missouri) Democrat.

Revelers in the Milkweed Mercantile. Photo: Jennifer Martin

Hi all. This is Alline with the latest news from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

As this column appears in the local Northeastern newspapers and is sent to readers via email, we column writers do double-duty. The locals already know about the weather, but folks reading this in, say, Sarasota, Florida might not remember what a chilly, windy autumn day is like!

So with that caveat, we begin with the weather: The constant, driving, Noah-esque rain has finally abated and we’ve been receiving the wild winds for which the Midwest prairies are famous. Sometimes we wonder if we’re going to wake up in Illinois instead of here in Missouri. The leaves on the trees are all turning scrumptious shades of red, gold and brown, and are providing a gorgeous contrast to the bright green grass that still lingers. Fall crops are being harvested and eaten with gusto – chard and kale are still quite happy in the chilly fall air.

Halloween (or, as we call it around here: “Holler-ween”) is a big annual event here at Dancing Rabbit, rich in traditions which are being added upon each year. Preparation for the big day began early in the week with not one but two pumpkin carving parties. In addition, Bear crafted a jack-o-lantern with a skid-steer loader for Zane, a fan of all heavy equipment.

Bear & Zane with the Skid Steer Jack-o-lantern.

Saturday itself was filled with lots of planning and plotting for costumes and our annual Progressive Fiasco. Much like a progressive dinner, we dress up and go from home to home, where we are fed and entertained. In preparation for the stop his family was hosting, Cob came into the Milkweed Mercantile in the afternoon and asked for “a quarter pound of maggots.” In the spirit of the holiday, I filled his order with some delicious, organic jelly beans. Viewed in the right light, I guess they do look a bit larval…

When the kids could stand it no longer, it was finally time for the festivities to begin. The full moon rose over a cloudless sky – for once it was NOT a “dark and stormy night,” and we all gathered in the Community Building to ooh and aah over each other’s costumes. The first stop was Skyhouse, where we were delighted to find Tamar on a computer via a Skype connection. It was sometimes difficult to hear her, what with little zombies yelling for brains every few seconds, but it was lovely all the same. Lily (dressed as a school girl) and Brian (a creepy science teacher) read fortunes. Next stop: the tent kitchen of Boone (leader of the zombies) and Danielle (an iguana), where we were treated to video snippets of some of their hilarious shows. After this we all trooped over to the Milkweed Mercantile, where a fire roared in the fireplace and there were homemade donuts hanging from strings. After finding a donut at the appropriate height, Rabbits bobbed for donuts, no hands allowed. Jennifer took photos. Costumes included an eggplant (Mary Beth), the winds of change (Dennis and Sharon), a pony (Liat), an elephant (Ali), A Sleep (Thomas), a flower (Jan), a belly dancer (April), an uppity British couple (Ted and Sara), two witches (Aurelia and Elle), a baby bear (Zane), a voodoo princess (Jen) and the aforementioned zombies (the elegant Cynder and Duncan, Enzio and Ewan). Kim (a mummy) and Nina (a lamp) of Red Earth Farms came over to celebrate with us, as did Emily, Jacob, Apple, Owen, Renay and Gigi from Sandhill. What a great crowd!

After this we rambled over to the Timberframe addition, where we collaborated and told the scariest ghost story ever told. Then it was off to the home of the Carletons (dressed as a church lady, a schoolgirl, two zombies and a robot, who’s head was not only wired for sound with an I-pod but also had a clock, a camera and a straw for easy imbibing) for more activities and snacks (including “dried blood” popcorn). Last stop of the evening was Maikwe’s (an elegant vampire) house, were revelers danced into the evening.

Ali in front of Mirth Lodge, her home with Thomas.

In other news, the building season is slowing wrapping up, one work site at a time. Rev and Kit, who have been working feverishly on Maikwe’s home, departed on Thursday.

Maikwe's house. What you can't see: the clerestory windows, the plaster, and the fabulous posts inside.

Jennifer held an end-of-season BBQ celebration for her crew (Bear, Horacio, Dave and Randy) on Saturday afternoon, although I still hear hammering from the site where they are installing the observation tower on the Timberframe addition.

Dave waving from the observation tower. For more photos of the Timberframe addition, see Jennifer's Flickr site.

Travis (a work exchanger) has been helping Ted and Sara on the Ironweed Kitchen, home of the eagerly awaited “chicken TV.”

Travis working on a cob bench. On the right: the battery box. Top right (the round window): future Chicken TV.

Strange phenomenon on the cob exterior of the Ironweed Kitchen. Carpenter bees?

Dan and Mary Beth continue to work on their building, and are now applying lime plaster to the straw bales.

Dan plastering the East side of the house.

View of the window-filled south side of Dan & Mary Beth's house. It faces the pond (shown in the photo below). To the left with the blue roof: Larkspur, home of Bear, Alyssa and Zane.

Dan & Mary Beth's chickens, in their chicken tractor.

Last but certainly not least, Jeff finally moved into his house.

Jeff's House.

A group of Rabbits (Matt, Liat, April, Tom, Tereza, Bob) arrived home after ten days of hard work doing deconstruction for a Quaker group. While the work was hard, they had a wonderful time – the organizers thoughtfully prepared ten days worth of vegan food, and labeled and froze them all so that the Rabbits could dine divinely.

To close out the week with a bang, we met and finally chose the dates for our 2010 Visitor Program. We hope to have details posted on the Dancing Rabbit website soon!

Dancing Rabbit in the St. Louis Post Dispatch

Thomas and Ali
Photo by Dawn Majors

There's an article in today's St. Louis Post Dispatch about Dancing Rabbit. Titled Residents of Missouri's Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage test the limits of green living, it is a fairly accurate snapshot of life here. There was also a photographer from the paper here for two days, who has posted a multi-media presentation on the paper's website.

Yodeling Cats, and Wasting Time at the Ecovillage

This morning I got up, brewed a cup of (Fair Trade, Organic Peace) coffee, and turned on the computer. I dutifully and efficiently printed mailing labels for new orders (thanks for supporting the Mercantile!). But something whispered inside me: “check Facebook.” I did, and I found this, posted by my friend Claire:

After laughing out loud, I wasted another 6:32 minutes watching this:

I don’t really regret it, but I don’t know – I’m sure there are better uses of my time. I promise to have a REAL post really, really soon. In the meantime, let me know how your cat likes yodeling.

If Love Could Heal, She'd be Well

Last night the women of Dancing Rabbit gathered for a healing session with Tamar. We are under no illusions about our power to “cure” cancer, but remain optimistic that somehow we might make a difference.

Tamar lay on a comforter topped with a sumptuous paisley throw and many pillows on the floor of Jennifer’s home. We gathered around her, 15 strong, and laid our hands upon her. We chanted, sang, laughed, cried, and sent the healing power of love to her. If intention alone could heal, Tamar’s cancer would have moved on.

I have never done anything like this before. However, I am a massage therapist, and have often felt some sort of healing power flowing within my hands. If I pay attention I know where the pain is, and can work on the right areas to bring relief. I am not by nature very woo-woo or kumbya. Be that as it may, it was, and is, real. The power of touch is palpable, as is the power of love.

With all of this comes the acceptance that we do not know what path lies ahead for Tamar, and that in the end, all we can do is love her and wish her comfort, grace and peace on her journey.

I remain incredibly grateful for the way in which our community is dealing with Tamar’s illness. While we often founder in the day-to-day tasks of life, we are most excellent in a crisis. I hope that I can transfer this positive attitude to my everyday dealings, and that others will, also. The ripples will flow outward, and perhaps we will all hold on to this feeling, and remember what we are capable of accomplishing.

A week at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

This text was originally written for the Dancing Rabbit column in the Memphis Democrat.

Land Clean 2009
Left to right: Dennis & Enzio (in trailer), Alyssa, Aurelia & Danielle (with wheelbarrows)

Hi everyone. This is Alline with this week’s update from Dancing Rabbit.

Ten years ago when I was living in a city in a mild climate, the weather didn’t affect me much. I went from my home to my car to whatever building I was going to. The weather was something that I observed from inside, through a window. It never snowed, was never icy, rarely flooded, rarely was very hot. Only a few weeks a year, when I went backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains did I really pay attention to the weather. There I learned to read the clouds, and familiarized myself with weather patterns and storm conditions. My safety depended on it and I found it really interesting. However, back in the city, this information went largely unused.

Land Clean 2009
Danielle, Cob, Ali & Papa Bear celebrate after putting a piano in its place

Now that I live in rural Northeastern Missouri all of that has changed. Weather has become an integral component to so much of what we do. We watch the clouds, listen to the weather report, and some of us even have the NOAA weather on the startup pages of our computers. We’ve all become like stereotypical “old folks,” always talking about the weather. Our power sytems depend on sun and wind – when it is sunny and windy, our batteries are full and happy. Much of our food depends upon the weather - too much or too little of rain or sun or wind may mean the difference between an abundant harvest and a puny one (I have developed new empathy for farmers – what a wild ride they go on every single growing season!). We hang our laundry out to dry (we choose not to use electric or gas clothes dryers here, as they use a lot of power), utilize passive solar food dehydrators, and eat our meals outside whenever possible. Building season is also weather dependent – only interior work can be done in the rain, and we don’t like the straw bales with which we’re building to get wet, either.

Land Clean 2009
Sheila weeds in front of the Outdoor Kitchen; the courtyard and Community Building in the background, our new "grassy paver" road on the right.

Today is windy, blustery, blowy and fabulous. It is a perfect day for laundry. I look forward to this evening when I can take my sun and wind-dried sheets and towels and clothes and fold them, inhaling the fragrance of the outdoors. You’ll never be able to convince me that a “Sunshine Fresh” dryer sheet can compare.

Land Clean 2009
Rachel, taking a break from sawing firewood, proves that the women of DR not only love but can maintain power tools.

Weather aside, it has been a busy week. Tuesday we had a community land clean – we all met in the courtyard at 9:30 a.m., gloves and rakes in hand. We tidied the courtyard, mulched paths, cut weeds, weeded flower beds, cleared out junk and loaded it into the trailer to take to the dump, and generally made our home more presentable. Much like cleaning one’s house for company, we were happy with the results. Everyone helped, even 3-year old Aurelia and 2-year old Zane. Aurelia, with her own wheelbarrow, helped bring mulch to where it was needed. Zane, with his Tonka dump truck and back hoe, made sure the mulch was applied correctly.

Land Clean 2009
Cynder sweeps in the OK

Wednesday night we had song circle. We choose to use no accompaniment for these evenings, and no songbooks, either. We’ve found that when we have songbooks we are all looking down instead of looking at one another. We each take a turn choosing a song or teaching the group a new one. Our repertoire continues to grow, and includes everything from a windmill song and the Hobbit drinking song to one Tereza learned at Bryn Mawr, which we sing at the end of each song circle as we are all walking to our respective homes. It is almost magical to hear the song echoing from throughout the village, under the stars, becoming more and more faint…

Land Clean 2009
Tom in his lumberjack disguise, which includes kevlar pants and a chainsaw.

Thursday night we received almost 3” of rain. We worried that our annual Open House, which was scheduled for Saturday, would be rained out like last year, when all of the roads surrounding Dancing Rabbit were flooded.

Land Clean 2009
Ziggy and Thomas adjust a clothesline. It is obviously very serious business.

Friday was sunny and absolutely perfect. In the evening wehad a waltz class taught by Boone (he used to be “Dan,” – and actually is to most of his family and friends - but there are already two Dans here at Dancing Rabbit and the rule is that if you aren’t the first, you have to change your name. It’s just too confusing otherwise, and we’re already confused as it is…). Tamar played fiddle, Dave played mandolin, and everyone flowed gracefully around the dance floor – more or less. 1-2-3, 1-2-3…

When Saturday dawned rainy and wet we began to gnaw at our fingernails, worried that all our preparation for Open House would be in vain. Fortunately the sun came out mid-morning and the sky presented us with clouds worthy of a Winslow Homer landscape.

Our Open House came off without a hitch. Everyone participated; there were folks directing parking, greeting guests, leading tours, hosting tour stops, and answering all kinds of questions. We were delighted to see many old friends and to have the opportunity to meet new folks. Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

Fighting the Good Fight: Green Ads

We're in sad/crisis mode here at Dancing Rabbit today - one of our beloved members has just been diagnosed with what appears to be inoperable cancer. I (and most of the other Rabbits) are wandering around in a fog, and are not much good for anything. I'll write more insightful, interesting posts later; for now, I'd like to share some innovative green ads that were recently posted on Oddee.

Coming in a very close third in my personal pantheon of "Eco Ways I've Changed My Life" (after hanging out my laundry to dry, and hankies) is GETTING RID OF LAWNS. Denver Water Authority's excellent m new campaign, from Denver's Sukle Advertising & Design, frames TV and outdoor placements around the tag line, “Grass is dumb. Water 2 minutes less. Your lawn won't notice”.


Prolam Y&R , Santiago produced this large-scale billboard showing refugees fleeing from a flood in Asia, with dozens of air conditioners peeping out from a refurbished building, was produced to raise conscience regarding global warming. The line: El aire que enfría tu hogar, calienta el mundo (THE AIR THE COOLS YOUR HOME, HEATS UP THE WORLD), was used to help convey that climate change is also due to excess of carbon dioxide in the air.


This World Wildlife Fund ad campaign featuring public bathroom towel dispensers. These paper towel dispensers have a cut out the shape of South America through which a stack of green paper towels illustrates the green rain forest canopy of the continent. As the paper towel dispenser is slowly drained of its green paper towels, we see the greenness slowly drained out of South America, symbolizing the nasty environmental impact of disposable paper towels. How many more reminders do we need? What are you using in YOUR home?


WWF France presents a visual reminder of the importance of trees to the atmosphere in “Lungs”, a print advertisement developed by TBWA\Paris. The tag line: “Before it's too late”


For over 70 years now New Zealand's SAFE has been the voice for all animals, helping expose animal cruelty and abuse as well as fighting against animal testing across the world. The organization mainly uses public awareness campaigns (and advertisements) and political lobbying to expose and question the needless use of animals in cruel experiments and commercial exploitation. The ads above specifically target the latter, provoking questions about the use of animals as scarves, boots and other leather goods, and so on. More ads here at WebEcoist. Do you suppose that if we sent these ads to the women (and men) who feel they simply MUST have fur (or alligator boots or shoes) that it would do any good?


Use electricity wisely, another clever environment ad. This one is from the national power company Eskom in South Africa.


With that, I leave you with wishes for a healthy, calm and gratitude-filled day. Thanks for stopping by.