Updated True Confessions – My Life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, 12 Years Later

My husband Kurt Kessner and I moved to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage 12 ½ years ago. We were (and actually, still are) starry-eyed and idealistic. I don’t know about Kurt, but before my arrival I felt sure that by moving to an ecovillage I would become wise and that all things green would become clear. Ha! What I found instead: lots and lots of compromises. Rather than learning all the answers, I found more questions. I now realize that there is more gray than black & white in the world of “green” living.

The Milkweed Mercantile proprietors, in front of a natural plaster and mosaic wall. Our friends Jeffrey & Ha, who had a wedding reception at the Mercantile, had a photo booth set up. Much hammy-ness ensued.

In order to build a life here, I had to find my own way. I did (and continue to do) lots of reading and investigating. Every single day I learn something new. And at some point I had to draw my own line in the sand, i.e.: this is how I feel it is best for me to live right now.

It has taken almost thirteen years for many of our beloved friends to become comfortable with the fact that Kurt and I live in an ecovillage. This is not, we hope, a reflection on our attitudes, but rather their own. We find that we (unintentionally) inspire a lot of guilt and eco-shame where ever we go. Once we utter the words "eco-village" we become unwilling confessors to many perceived eco-sins. I don't need to know how many miles you drive a day, alone, in your SUV, or how many disposable Starbuck's cups you go through. Really. I'm living my life the best way I know how, and trust you are doing the same. I do not claim to have ANY of the answers - I'm just working on my own stuff here.

OK. I'm not going to tell you to carry a re-useable coffee cup. But maybe it would be a good idea, dontcha think?

Many of the choices that Kurt and I have made are different from the choices that others here at Dancing Rabbit, while others are the same. We are by no means representative of everyone who lives in our village. Uniting all Rabbits is an agreement to live by six ecological covenants. We trust each other to make decisions based upon his/her own criteria and comfort. What I'm writing here is just the way Kurt and I live our lives; it is not necessarily the norm at DR. One of the most important things we've learned while living here is that green is a wide continuum - we're just one spot on the spectrum. In the spirit of full disclosure and knowing how far I still have to go to reduce my footprint on this planet, I am presenting an updated peek into my life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

Below are a few details about some of the choices Kurt and I have made. I am including mostly physical (building) details. Food and social dynamics, both hot-button topics, will be covered in a future post.

Renewable Energy 

Kurt on the day the tower for the turbine was delivered. Even in the freezing cold he's having a great time!

Kurt and I have solar panels and two wind turbines with which we power our house and our Bed and Breakfast Inn. We currently store the electricity in what we acknowledge to be a less than ideal system: deep cycle batteries.

  It takes a village (and a lot of creativity and often laughter) to get a wind turbine up. Pictured: Robby, Dave, Thomas, Tom and Kurt.

While we like the cachet of being (most likely) the world’s only off-grid, solar & wind-powered B& B, we have recently connected the Mercantile up to BEDR (Better Energy for Dancing Rabbit**) for emergency back up in times of no sun or wind for a more dependable power supply. Kurt and I are perfectly content to live with the natural ebb and flow of power provided seasonally, including the dark windless winter days when power runs low, but it has been challenging to run a public-oriented business this way. Guests really like to have lights (go figure), we need to wash zillions of sheets and towels, and we’d like to be presenting the abundance of renewable energy instead of the lack thereof.

July 29th, the day our wind turbine collapsed. Another lesson learned.

Even more exciting, we have finally repaired our 3,000-watt wind turbine. We had been without it since July 29th when it fell over in a windstorm (whoops).  We have been delighted to find that our wind turbine keeps our batteries full (100%!) and so have not yet needed to use grid power.

Heating and cooling
We keep our buildings warm in winter and cool in summer with three components:

1. 18” thick strawbale walls
2.  Thermal curtains on all windows (more below)
3. Poured concrete floor for the downstairs of both buildings (more below)

In the 20-something buildings here at Dancing Rabbit there are many other flooring options demonstrated, from natural earthen floors to wood; there is no one “right” way. We have chosen to have poured concrete floors for two reasons:

1. Ground Contact – Having the floor in direct contact with the earth (there is gravel under the concrete) provides a constant temperature of approximately 54 degrees. This helps keep both buildings cool in the summer and warm in the winter. 
2. Durability – We wanted the Milkweed Mercantile to feel welcoming from the first moment guest step in the door, as guests are often already out of their comfort zone when they first come to DR. With poured concrete we found an option that would not require them to remove their shoes, be especially careful with luggage, or have to think twice before scooting a chair, etc. The upstairs floors in both our home and in the Mercantile are made of reclaimed wood and honey locust harvested from across the road. It feels great under foot!  
   

 Kurt putting the finishing touches on the bay window, while the concrete floor shines from the last layer of sealant.

Additionally, in the winter we heat with wood. Our wood stoves (one in each building) are also very efficient, and produce very low emissions. The wood burned is locally harvested or procured from a local pallet mill and a furniture-making company. These “scraps” are a fantastic deal  - they’re super cheap, kiln-dried oak and chunks of wood perfectly sized for wood stoves –  plus, without our intervention, the scraps, which are considered waste, would be burned simply to get rid of it.

 
 The Mercantile fireplace - hot air goes upstairs through the vents above the wood storage areas.

Cooking
We try to use as little petroleum as possible. It is certainly a challenge – everything from plastic wrap to toothbrushes to calculators to cameras and chain saws use some form of petroleum. Here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage we have all agreed to disallow propane for anything except cooking (i.e. no propane refrigerators). Because of this we have grandfathered in propane (for cooking only) until we can find a better solution. Additionally, for much of the year many of us use solar ovens http://solarovens.org/ – both commercial and home made. This is an especially exciting solution for hot summer days – with a little planning one can cook an entire meal this way. Elsewhere at DR, there are many wood cookstoves, rocket stoves, and hay boxes.*

Major Appliances

Refrigerators
Our refrigerators and freezer are chest styles from Sundanzer. They are DC, and run directly off of our batteries which are charged by our solar panels (without having to go through the AC inverter – I don’t want to get too technical here, as all of the electric stuff seems like voodoo to me and someone else could do  a far better job of explaining it!). They are really efficient, well-insulated and use less power than conventional models. We use one fridge for food, the other for beverages. At last count we carried 32 kinds of beer – we want to make your trip here worth the effort.

Big Hobart mixer
Used for weekly for bread & pizza dough, and monthly for making butter (we get raw cream five gallons at a time – heaven!).

Freezer
We use a conventional (i.e. hand-me-down) small chest freezer. It’s the first thing to get unplugged when power is low.

Clothes Washer
We have a front loader, which we really like. We didn’t do much research, but instead bought the brand that our local (Memphis, MO) dealer carries. We lucked out – it extracts tons of water (the clothes come out feeling practically dry already) and, at the risk of sounding like a 50’s housewife, really gets our clothes clean.

Clothes Dryer
It’s called a clothes line. Everything smells amazingly fresh and clean,  no dryer sheets necessary. It works just fine, thank you very much, even in the winter. Fortunately I am easily entertained – to me there are few things funnier than frozen underwear hanging on the line (ah, yes – life without television!).



Something else we don’t have: A commercial (electric) washer. They use a LOT of electricity. We wash all dishes by hand. Let us pause here for a moment of gratitude for interns and friends who pitch in to scrub.

The Brothers Washalotsov take a break from their dish-washing labors

Water
Our water, used for drinking, bathing and cleaning, is collected rainwater stored in a 7,000 gallon cistern under the porch of the Milkweed Mercantile. It is pumped with an electric pump throughout the building. The water is filtered with a 5 micron filter and passes through an ultraviolet light. Our water consistently passes all tests by the health department.

Hot Water
The hot water in our house comes from a solar water heater, and in the Inn we use a wood- fired boiler from Heatmor. We love it. In addition to providing hot water for the showers and sinks, we have plumbed a radiator into the downstairs Inn bedroom for extra warmth in the winter, and will eventually plumb a hot tub and the water in our house to this same system. It is located outside so that in the summer we are not heating the building while heating our water.

The Heatmor boiler being installed.

 Phone
Our phone is a land line (it's a princess phone!). Cell phones still get only marginal coverage here, which I kind of like. Do I really want to be available all the time? No way. I got sucked into technology lust and now have an I-phone, but am appalled at how much time it spends being charged. Thinking about that power usage multiplied exponentially across the world boggles my brain. And it hurts a little. So I’m rethinking this bit of technology…

Toilets
In our home we use the Joe Jenkins Humanure system, but in the Mercantile we have chosen to go with a Phoenix Composting toilet from Advanced Composting Systems . It is user-friendly and is a great demonstration to the public about how pretty much everything can be composted. For more about composting toilets, see my this blog post Don't be Afraid! Composting Toilets at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

 The not-so-scary composting toilet.

Window Shades
On the windows we have Roman Shades made with insulated fabric called Warm Windows. Made of five layers, including a moisture barrier, batting and an outside layer of ivory-colored cotton duck, it is a breeze to use. I cut it to size, cover the side facing the room with my own fabric, attach rings and draw cord, and screw it into the window frame. There is a way that you can install magnetic strips so that the shade seals the window completely, keeping cold air out in the winter and hot sun out in the summer.

The five layers of Warm Windows fabric, which we use in all of the Mercantile windows.

Wrap Up
There are folks here who do not have electricity or refrigeration in their homes, and who do not cook with propane. Others have homes with no electricity but use the power in the Community Building. Some cook on rocket stoves or belong to an eating cooperative that uses a propane stove. Green living is a spectrum, and there are many appropriate choices.

I’m still waiting for my “simple country life” to manifest, but have come to realize that as long as I continue to say “yes” to opportunities I won’t have much “spare” time. It is all about choice, and I still want to do everything. Sigh.

Regardless of frustrations, there is great satisfaction in knowing that we are living in a way that feels true to our values. We don’t claim to have all of the answers, but are happily seeking better solutions. We spend a lot more time than the average American doing things like growing and cooking our food, but we spend a lot less time working at jobs we don’t like, commuting or driving anywhere. We get to know our neighbors, spend plentiful time outside, see the stars at night and learn to recognize the songs of birds. There are lots of great trade offs for the things we are “missing.”

Another thing I’ve learned is that life is not a contest, and everything is subjective. It’s all about attitude. One man’s eco is another man’s disaster – none of us benefits from comparing ourselves to one another. So do your best, be happy, breathe deeply, and drop me a line if you have any questions.

Thanks for reading!


Love,
Alline

Don't be Afraid! Composting Toilets at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

Oh, my. Just what is it about composting toilets that get folks in such a tizzy? It's the one thing that always gets commented on by guests and visitors, and the thing that most new people are most anxious about.

I suppose it's because it is much easier to flush and never think about where everything is going. To actually enable our "waste" to turn into a valuable resource requires us to think outside of the proverbial box, veers into the icky and sends the squeamish into paroxysms of phobic over-reaction. Even my own mother, when learning about our toilet system, put her hand dramatically to her forehead and sighed "oh, Alline, we worked so hard so that you would have indoor plumbing." Sheesh.

So let's get down to business. As the book title says, Everyone Poops.

Here at Dancing Rabbit (and Red Earth Farms, and Sandhill Farm) we do have indoor plumbing. We have running water and everything. We just choose not to mix our beautiful, pure, clean drinking water with our waste (Note: I am writing a post about our rainwater cisterns and will have it up here soon!).

In his book The Toilet Papers, Sim Van der Ryn says:

Throughout this book, you will find the word "waste" used to refer to those raw materials-feces and urine-your body passes on to make energy available to some other form of life. This is what you give back to the earth. The idea of waste, of something unusable, reveals an incomplete understanding of how things work. Nature admits no waste. Nothing is left over; everything is joined in the spiral of life. Perhaps other cultures know this better than we, for they have no concept of, no word for, waste.

In our home, and around Dancing Rabbit, most folks use the Humanure System popularized by Joe Jenkins. I was a little skeptical at first, while reading about this at home in Berkeley before moving to DR. How could it not smell? Could it really not be gross? I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived and actually used the system. After each use one adds a handful of sawdust or wood shavings, which really does work. How? Through the miracle of thermophilic composting, which is just a fancy schmancy way of saying that the bacteria essentially cooks itself into beautiful soil:

In many backyard compost piles... mid range bacteria do most of the work. However, if conditions are right they produce enough heat to activate the "thermophilic", or heat loving bacteria. Thermophilic bacteria work fast. Their optimum temperature range is from 104°F to 160°F. This natural heat further encourages the rapid growth of more thermophilic bacteria, until all of the original organic material is digested and broken-down into a stabilized and homogenized nutrient- rich soil product.

As a gardener, and an environmentalist, I was already a believer and great fan of compost - we had been composting food scraps and garden "waste" for years. The rich black soil created from what had previously been potato peelings, apple cores, coffee grounds, paper napkins, dried leaves, grass clippings and egg shells was astounding. What a great, free resource! And it also alleviates the guilt that often comes from harboring "science experiments" in the fridge a bit too long - we're not wasting food, we're recycling it! Additionally, it is a great way to reclaim nutrients from your garden - both "green" and "brown" garden debris (leaves, grass, deadheaded flowers, etc.) stay out of the landfill and boost future garden productivity.

The Humanure System is equally efficient. Here in Northeastern Missouri the soil is clay-y and dense, and not suitable for septic systems. There is no county sewage system to hook in to. So even if we weren't gung-ho environmentalists the options are limited. Which actually turned out to be a plus for us.

The Humanure System consists of a 5-gallon bucket, a toilet seat, some sawdust, and a compost pile outside. Handy to have for beginners is a compost thermometer. The entire book is online, as are helpful videos (see link above). Not exactly an ideal system for high-rise dwellers, but something to consider for others with a yard or some acreage.

Most houses here at DR have their own Humey toilet.

This is in the still-under-construction Milkweed Cottage. A simply constructed wood box, sized to fit a tall 5-gallon bucket. A bucket of wood shavings next to it. TP holder on the opposite wall and cat on the windowsill out of view in this shot.

Over at Bluestem is the glitziest pooper on the farm. (Please note that I did not give them any advance warning or the opportunity to sweep - I just showed up at the door and asked Tereza if I could take a photograph. Where else does your neighbor appear 

out of the blue and ask to shoot your toilet? 

Ah, life at Dancing Rabbit). 

Tom made this 17-sided beauty. Apparently it was supposed to be 16-sided, and there was much swearing and frustration trying to get all the pieces to fit. It was only after he finished and counted that he realized that the difficulty came from the extra piece. Oops. 

Regardless, it is rather elegant.

This is a peek in the door of one side of the DR Outhouse. Sorry about the poor lighting. The outhouse features a Dutch door (for viewing scenery as you, um, sit) and side-by-side poopers - bring a friend! The toilet seats are attached to the plywood top, which lifts up (on hinges) in order to empty the buckets. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

A few houses have their own compost piles, others dump their buckets in the community humey bins, which are also where the buckets from the Community Building and the community outhouse are dumped. A humey shift is one of the rotational duties that all members of Dancing Rabbit agree to do. The finished compost goes on fruit trees in the community orchard.

Hauling buckets for a couple of people in one's own household, or being part of a cooperative system with 50-something people particpating feels manageable. But when it came time to choose a toilet system in the Milkweed Mercantile, Kurt and I wanted to be spending our time talking with our guests, not emptying buckets. A commercial composting toilet seemed to be an ideal solution.

We chose the Phoenix Composting Toilet from Advanced Composting Systems. A pdf of a cutaway drawing of the toilet can be viewed here.

We like it a lot - it is easy to maintain, holds a lot, and is fairly innocuous, as toilets go. Guests have confessed (after spending the night, getting to know us a bit and becoming comfortable here) that they were nervous about the toilets. Then they go on to tell us that the toilets were great, and exclaim "...and they (the toilets) don't smell at all!" We've asked them to include this info in their reviews on Trip Advisor and/or Bedandbreakfast.com but so far no one has. Folks don't talk about toilets much...

Here's Kurt putting together the Phoenix Composting Toilet (or, Still Life with Coffee Cup). The bottom two sections are on the left, and the top section is upside down on the right.

A view of the tines inside the Phoenix.

More fun in the basement.

 The upstairs Mercantile bathroom. Scary toilet on the left. Antique dresser revamped into a sink on the right.
In the center - 18" thick straw bale wall.













Gene Lodgson wrote a book called  Holy Shit; Managing Manure to Save Mankind  where he makes the case for composting toilets. Publisher's Weekly had this to say about it:

Common sense and just the right amount of folksy humor make this treatise on feces a pleasure to read whether or not you've ever knowingly come within 50 miles of a compost heap. Logsdon writes for a wide scope: how to recognize a manure spreader for those who don't know; the finer points of old-fashioned pitchfork tines, for readers who actually use them. In addition to lots of clear DIY instructions for utilizing waste, Logsdon, a blogging farmer in Ohio, draws from his boyhood experience during the days of the privy, his Amish neighbors, and his understanding of how ancient China saw agricultural productivity rates the likes of which we've never had in the U.S. Ultimately, the real coup here is that this book overcomes the yuck factor and illustrates how, as with many things American, we've taken a natural, healthy, efficient system and replaced it with something expensive, toxic, and marketable - in this case, chemical fertilizers. As food locavores gain visibility and popularity, so too should the rear end of sustainable farming practices.

So consider getting over your yuck factor. Think about how things really work. Maybe composting toilets aren't such a crazy idea after all?


Love, Alline

True Confessions: My Green Life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

It has taken almost ten years for many of our beloved friends to become comfortable with the fact that Kurt and I live in an ecovillage. This is not, we hope, a reflection on our attitudes, but rather their own. We find that we (unintentionally) inspire a lot of guilt and eco-shame where ever we go. Once we utter the words "eco-village" we become unwilling confessors to many perceived eco-sins. I don't need to know how many miles you drive a day, alone, in your SUV, or how many disposable Starbuck's cups you go through. Really. I'm living my life the best way I know how, and trust you are doing the same. I do not claim to have ANY of the answers - I'm just working on my own stuff here.

In the spirit of full disclosure and knowing how far I still have to go to reduce my footprint on this planet, I am presenting a peek into my life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of things, and included some that many would consider TMI ("too much information").

This is just the way Kurt and I live our lives; it is not necessarily the norm at DR. One of the most important things we've learned while living here is that green is a wide continuum - we're just one spot on the spectrum.

Additionally, while the list below may look like shilling for the Milkweed Mercantile, I view it as walking my talk. We only carry items that I believe in and use (or would use) myself. Neither of my blogs nor the Milkweed Mercantile sites carry advertising - we're in this to change the world, not to sell our souls.


Home: Our house is a 2-story, gabled-end 1,200 square foot building. Built of straw bales, reclaimed and locally harvested lumber, sheet rock, and lime plaster (hydrated lime, straw, sand, water). Downstairs we have a poured concrete floor stained with a non-toxic agricultural fertilizer. Upstairs is reclaimed wood flooring.

Aaron and Thomas applying lime plaster to the west gable end of the Milkweed Cottage.

Downstairs is a bathing room (shower & tub), a toilet/sink room, open living room-dining room-kitchen, and Kurt's office. Upstairs is our bedroom, my office and my art studio. Actually, the studio is currently in recovery from being the storage facility for all the Milkweed Mercantile merchandise. Can't wait to get it cleaned up!

Power: Our electricity comes from 8 solar panels and a 400 watt wind turbine. Power is stored in 8 deep-cell batteries. We run everything in our house off of this system: fridge (the biggest draw), pump for water system, Kitchen appliances, lights, tv, fans, sewing machine and serger, computers, etc. During sunny/windy days when we have an excess of power (the batteries are full, it is sunny out, and it is only noon) we have a number of “dump loads” so that we can utilize the power still coming in, like food dehydrators, and an electric convection oven. We also feel free to indulge ourselves and watch NetFlix movies on our TV, run the ceiling fans, make waffles, etc. In the winter, on dark, cloudy days when power gets low, we use as few lights as possible, make coffee in a press pot instead of the electric drip coffee maker, and read or play games in the evening rather than watch movies.

The solar panels, part of the garden (tomato seedlings that I didn't have room for anywhere else), and assorted wood piles and lawn chairs...

Water: We collect rainwater off our roof into a 3,000 gallon cistern. It is built below our house and made of steel reinforced, poured concrete. It is sealed with DamTite. Many Rabbits are choosing to go with ready-to-install plastic cisterns, but we did not want to be drinking our lovely rainwater out of plastic.

Storing the water and then filtering it for drinking has proven to be quite an art. I hope to post a complete description soon, as we receive many, many questions about it.

Waste: We use a composting toilet (Joe Jenkins’ Humanure system, his website is here, with lots of videos) with sawdust from the local saw mill which would otherwise be burned. All food scraps are composted. Paper, glass, steel, aluminum and #1 and #2 plastic is recycled. We use rags (old t-shirts, boxer shorts, etc.) and household hemp cloths instead of paper towels.

Appliances: We have a Planet DC fridge which we dislike (but it does have a high efficiency Danfoss compressor and runs on DC power directly from our batteries) and which will soon be replaced with a Sundanzer chest fridge. The other appliances are pretty normal – a KitchenAid mixer, Braun coffee grinder, my grandmother’s toaster, etc…Many of these we’ve had for years; when it comes time to replace them we’ll either consider doing without or investigate who makes them, and where. Our computers are Dell laptops. NOTE ON PAPER: We have friends who work in the publishing industry and so get reams and reams of paper that has been printed on one side only. This is perfectly fine for the majority of our needs, especially internal DR paperwork.

On the windows: we have Roman Shades made out of Warm Windows fabric. A five-layer system which includes a vapor barrier, these help keep our home cool on hot summer days, and keep the warmth in on freezing winter nights. They are relatively easy to construct (although are a bit unwieldy) and even have a magnetic strip along the edges to seal the shade tightly.

Scrubbing the Sinks: Bon Ami. Yep. Just like grandma. It works like a charm, doesn't smell like something you'd find in a nuclear dump, and is blissfully non-toxic.
Soap: Dr. Bronner’s (Peppermint or Almond) or one of the many lovely soaps made by friends and Mercantile vendors. I like to put them in an organic cotton soap bag which keeps all the little pieces together and foams up fabulously!
Laundry Soap: Moon Works All Natural Laundry Soap This is what we use in the Dancing Rabbit Laundry Co-op, where the gray water goes out to a constructed wetlands area. It cleans really well, and remember, lots of suds does not mean lots of cleaning!
Laundry Spray: Earth Friendly Everyday Stain and Odor Remover When I moved to Dancing Rabbit I was reluctant to give up my SHOUT. Oh, how it worked - I tend to slobber a lot of food onto my clothes, and Kurt works construction. We're really not neat and tidy people at heart (well, we are first thing in the morning, but as the day goes on...). At the risk of sounding like a cross between a 50's housewife and a cheesy TV commercial, this stuff really works!
Dish Soap: Dawn - oh, this is bad, I know. But I needed to be honest! Our gray water goes out into our garden into a sand and gravel trench, and so gets filtered before getting near any plants or ponds. I just haven't found an eco-groovy dish soap that actually removes grease. Arrrggghhh! I use organic cotton/hemp Household Hemp Cloths or hand-crocheted wash rags.
Furniture Polish: Earth Friendly All Natural Furniture Polish On the RARE occasion that I actually clean instead of handing out dark glasses to guests at the door, I use this. I have one really lovely table that belonged to my grandmother and this polish is keeping it that way. It removes dust, leaves a delightful shine, and has a very light, very clean fragrance.

Guilty Pleasure: Dr. Pepper. On ice. Served by a cabana boy.

Photo credit: photovirginia.com on flickr

PERSONAL CARE
Shampoo: BWC and a few others. I'll post more later on this. In the mean time, check out the Environmental Working Group's recommendations here at Cosmetics Database.
Sunscreen: a big hat and Badger SPF 15
Bug Repellent: Badger Anti-Bug Balm
Menstrual Products:
Seventh Generation Organic Cotton Tampons
Hemp/Organic Cotton Menstrual Pads and hydrogen peroxide for soaking
I blow my nose on: vintage cotton hankies or organic cotton flannel hankies

Transportation: I am part of a vehicle co-op which shares two VW Jettas, a Ford Truck and a tractor (this IS rural Missouri, after all!). All vehicles are run on biodiesel. When going further a field, we drive to LaPlata, MO (43 miles from Rutledge, to destinations south or to Chicago), Quincy, IL (64 miles, to Chicago) or Ottumwa, IA (73 miles, when headed west) to catch Amtrak.

Food:
Meat comes from the Rutledge Meat Store (local) or HyVee grocery store in Kirksville (34 miles) where they carry organic meat trucked in from God-knows-where.

Still life with salsa (2007).

Produce: In the summer just about all of our produce comes from our own garden, the gardens of friends here at Dancing Rabbit, Sandhill Farm or Red Earth Farms, or is ordered from a local Mennonite family who grows their produce organically. This usually gives us large enough quantities to can tomatoes, pickles, fruit, etc. for the winter. It is a lot of work but the trade-offs are huge – fresh delicious food just the way I like it (the tomato sauce has my own home-grown basil and oregano in it!) and I know exactly what is in it and where it came from.

Dry Goods: We are able to purchase bulk goods such as beans, rice, sugar, oil etc. from a Natural Foods Distributor through our local grocery store. We are also able to get organic cheese, tofu, meat, ice cream, etc. They add a 5% surcharge to the wholesale prices but it is still quite a deal, and enables us to find organic and Fair Trade goods in what is often a less than sympathetic to organic area.

All of the other "stuff": we have the delightful Zimmerman's General Store in Rutledge, which carries everything from 20 kinds of bulk flour to local milk in glass bottles. They also have soft serve ice-cream cones for 75 cents, and the best quilting fabric selection I've seen outside of San Francisco (far better, in fact, than many quilt stores I've been to!)

Shopping: Shopping no longer has the allure it used to. After working 30 years in retail and knowing just how exorbitantly prices are marked up it just kills me to pay full retail price. Also, it is important for me to know where items come from and who produced them. I grew up in a union family, and prefer to support American labor when possible. It is not worth it to me to pay a “less expensive” price at somewhere, say, like WalMart when I know that the true cost is not reflected. Items made by exploited workers, possibly underage under inhumane conditions do not feel like bargains to me. When purchasing imported items I look for a Fair Trade label.
I find a lot of things that I need online.

Relationship: married and monogamous. There are many ways to be in a relationship; Kurt and I have found that being a respectful monogamous duo works best for us. At DR, however, relationship forms are all over the spectrum; I like living in a place where people can find what works best for them in all aspects of life, including love.

Alline & Kurt in the garden. Photo credit: Dan McCoy

Our wedding rings: if we knew then what we know now (where diamonds come from, the devastation caused by mining, etc.), we would have done things differently (perhaps a ring from an antique store? A ring from a Dr. Pepper can?). We both have hand-crafted gold bands from a shop in Berkeley, CA. My engagement ring has a diamond. I hope to gift it to one of my nieces or Kurt’s grand daughter someday.

That's all I can think of for now. If there are more lurid details you'd be interested in knowing about life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, let me know!

NOTE: Read an updated version of my Dancing Rabbit life here, written January 2012.