Timberframe Bent-Raising at Wabi Sabi

NOTE: all photos are clickable for a larger view.

Two of the many things I love about Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage are these:

1. When you need help, folks come a'runnin'

2. A variety of building methods, techniques, and philosophies are embraced, encouraged and supported.

Yesterday was a good example. Wabi Sabi, a food cooperative with Thomas, Ziggy, April and Ali as members, hosted a bent-raising for their under-construction kitchen. Joined by work exchangers Jacob and Jonathan, they've been working hard getting ready for the big moment. 

It was an impressive set up.  I apologize in advance for the poor photos - I did the best that I could with my goofy outdated camera (hint to Kurt: I need a new one!) while trying not to be crushed to death under beams that surely weighed a zillion pounds. Additionally, April was shooting video that will soon (I suspect) be posted on Ziggy's blog,  at A Year Of Mud. 

The building is being built with the timberframe method: the method of creating structures using heavy timbers jointed by pegged mortise and tenon joints. So here was the challenge - to get this peg into this hole (one of these on the north and south sides of the building),

and this little piece of rebar into that little hole, on the middle post. 

Which doesn't sound like such a big problem until you realize that these pegs/rebar are supporting these mondo huge beams. Here is a view from the other side.

In the photo above you can see how they have rigged up a pulley. Attached to this crossbeam are the three posts which are being lifted into place. We hope.

Here (above) the crew of volunteers gets instructions from Thomas. He's the one on the right in the dashing bonnet. In the background you can catch a glimpse of Wabi Sabi's temporary kitchen, complete with "clerestory" windows.

Katie, Jordan, Claire, Jacob, Maikwe, Jenny, Marqis, Kate

About this time Thomas yelled "PULL!" and so they did. At the same time the other half of the crew, below, supported the beam with notched 2x4s.

Snack, Tim (boots only are visible!), Craig, Dan, Travis, Ziggy

This is when Ziggy called to the rope pullers "oh! Watch out for the sweet potatoes." OK, Zig. No problem. You can see that Jacob and Jonathan ran around the garden patch to pull while not stomping on dinner. Good job!

Meanwhile, Pug supervised. He did an exemplary job.

While the crew with the 2x4s supports the beam (the rope has been tied off at this point) Ziggy and Thomas check to see how close (or how far) the pegs are from the holes.

The pegs are close! First they adjust the one on the right (south), then move to the middle. This takes a lot of crowbar action and careful support from the 2x4s. Jacob get ready to grab the "persuader." Talk about perfect names for things. The Persuader must weigh at least 20 lbs, and is bigger than Rhode Island.

I realize that this looks like a photo of Ziggy's lovely behind, but it is REALLY a shot of all of the careful aligning being done. Jacob is persuading, Thomas is working the crowbar, BETsey and Marqis are supporting with a 2x4 (as are Snack, Tim, Kurt, DAn...). An impressive group effort!

The pegs pop into place. Kurt and Thomas screw in supports. 

And we're done! Which is when the playing begins. Below, Kate demonstrates the power of persuasion on Tim.

Thanks for reading. More soon! 

Love,

Alline

When It's Too Hot to Cook, Cook This.

GMO soybeans, feed corn, and sunflowers do not make a great meal...

Photo by Julie Traichel.

Living here in the middle of rural Northeast Missouri we don’t have access to the abundance of farmer’s markets like those of you who live in real live cities (my oh my, if you ever have the chance to visit the market at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, do it – check out the photos here). If we were to eat truly local we'd be chewing on GMO soybeans and feed corn. But I digress...

The good news is that we do have a lot of great produce being grown here in the "Tri-communities" of Dancing Rabbit, Red Earth Farms and Sandhill Farm. We've gotten beets, carrots and potatoes from Sandhill, tomatoes from Nani here at DR and Jacob at Red Earth, gorgeous cucumbers and beets from Dan D., who also makes feta and mozzarella cheese. Garlic is available from the Ironweed Garden, we've scrounged hot peppers from Tom & Tereza, and are growing tons of our own basil and other herbs. Each year there are more gardens and gardeners producing more and more great vegetables. It is very exciting.

A few weeks ago we had a streak of record-setting almost-too-hot-to-live days (soaring into the high 90’s, with humidity to match). That kind of weather doesn’t exactly make one want to rush into the kitchen and turn on the oven. So I looked at the gorgeous produce we had waiting for us in our kitchen and went searching for recipies that didn’t involve a lot of cooking. Some ideas came from Mark Bittman, some ideas came from Lorna Sass, some I made up in my own little head.

Kurt and Alline dining at the Mercantile.

Here’s what we ate a lot of during the heat wave:

Beets
Roast beets whole (or boil them or buy them precooked), then slice or cube. Toss with a little chopped garlic (or a lot of roasted garlic), toasted walnuts, orange juice and olive oil.

Potatoes
Fast, grown-up potato salad: Boil bite-size red potatoes. While still warm, dress them with olive oil, lemon juice, whole grain mustard, capers and parsley.
Or
boil bite-size potatoes (or new potatoes cut into bite-size pieces). In a separate skillet, sautee a couple cloves of garlic, chopped until it is fragrant. Toss potatoes with garlic and oil, a little salt and freshly ground pepper.

Creamier Hummus
Instead of using garbonzo beans, cook some navy beans (or get a couple of cans of navy beans). Rinse and drain. Put the beans with garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and a pinch of salt in a food processor. Pulse until smooth. If needed, add a bit more oil or lemon juice. Serve with pita bread or pita chips and raw veggies, with a handful of kalamata olives on the side. Speak with an unidentifiable accent and pretend you are somewhere exotic.

Tomatoes
Nothing says summer like a plate of sliced tomatoes. Branch out from those plain old red ones – try the green, the yellow, the purple. You’ll be so glad you did!

Arrange sliced ripe tomatoes on a platter. Sprinkle with crumbled feta cheese. You can add some cukes and some fresh basil if you have some in your garden (I hope you do). Instead of feta, fresh mozzarella is great, too. Drizzle with a balsamic reduction*. You are going to be so darned impressed with yourself.

Carrots
Grate about a pound of (peeled, organic) carrots. In a blender mix approximately 3 Tb. Sweet Mango Chutney, 3 Tb. lime juice, 2 Tb. peanut butter, 2-3 Tb. water, 1 teaspoon salt. In a large bowl toss the grated carrots with the dressing. Top with chopped cilantro and chopped roasted, salted peanuts. Recipe from The New Vegan Cookbook by Lorna Sass. **

Noodles
Cold not-sesame noodles: Cook and cool noodles - udon, soba or even good old fettucine. In a blender or food processor combine about a half-cup peanut butter with a tablespoon soy sauce and enough coconut milk to make the mixture creamy (about a half cup), along with garlic and chili flakes. Toss sauce with cooked and cooled noodles, a load of mint, Thai basil, and/or cilantro, and lime juice. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts. Shredded cucumber and carrots optional.

Happy eating.

* How to make a balsamic reduction:

1. Pour the balsamic vinegar into the pan. Use enough so that you allow for it to reduce by half--I like to reduce a whole liter of vinegar and keep it on hand.
2. Heat the pan to high.
3. Whisk briskly, even prior to boiling. Once it starts boiling, keep whisking constantly to prevent burning.
4. Sprinkle in a tablespoon of sugar.
5. Reduce by half, or until the vinegar takes on a syrupy quality.
6. Allow to cool. You are gonna love this stuff.
   

** I love Lorna Sass. I first heard about her from a fabulous woman named Cathy who did recipe testing for Lorna. Cathy and her husband Neil came on a Sierra Club trip (hiking in Northern England). Conversation turned, as it often does, to books and food. One thing led to another and because of Cathy I found these innovative, easy-to-follow cookbooks. Do NOT be dissuaded by the word "vegan" on the cover. This only means that there is no cheese or eggs or pork chops. Step away from the dogma and check it out. You can always serve these vegan dishes on the side of a big juicy steak if you choose. Just sayin'.

The Wind Turbine Goes Up! And Then, Comes Down...

This is the tower arriving way back in February 2010. It was very cold that day.

Here's Kurt unloading the tower. He has a good time no matter what he's doing. I like that in a guy.

On July 13, 2011, after a two years of planning (we tend to multi-task so stuff takes a while - see photos, above), we finally raised our wind turbine. It was an amazing, exciting, eagerly awaited event – those in the community who weren’t helping were watching, which was easy to do, as it went on for several days.

We purchased a 100’ tower, which in its previous life was a radio tower at the local hospital. While the tower came with a gin pole (essentially a lever designed to help raise the tower) we still had to figure out how to get the whole thing to work.

Everything at DR is essentially an experiment – when it came time to raise the tower the crew found that there wasn’t quite enough cable to raise it. So with the gin pole alllllllllmmmmmost there, a series of cable extensions were added. It was quite a show.

Below are a few picture with details. I realize that is it not a very comprehensive explanation of how to raise a tower, but it's the best I've got.

The 100' tower rests on the ground. The gin pole is that thing sticking straight up in the air. Welded to the tower at a 45-degree angle, it is used as a lever to raise the tower. At the far end, in the DR driveway, the turbine is being installed.

Robby and Tom work on attaching the blades of the 3,000 watt turbine. Tamer and Armand, visiting while making a documentary on communities, film it all.

This sucker is BIG. At least for us. And no matter what they say, size DOES matter.

Lots of folks took turns ratcheting the tower up. No wimpy fuel-powered winches for us, no sir-eee! Here Robby demonstrates his manliness.

Slowly the tower went up and up and up. It was very cool to watch. And then, it stopped.

We had run out of cable.

By now the gin pole was really high, and pretty much out of reach. The Mercantile Tower Brain Trust went to work. How to get someone up high enough to attach more cable? Hmmmm. What if we brought out the tractor and put Tom on the bucket? FANTASTIC idea!

Thomas and Kurt providing ballast while Tom climbs.

Tom, defying death at every turn, perches (happily) on the tractor bucket to add yet another length of cable. The gin pole is to his upper right, and soooooooo close to the ground.

I secretly think that they (Tom, Thomas, Kurt, et. al) LIKE the drama of projects like this - finding ways to make seemingly impossible situations work out just dandy. They were psyched, and having a good time.

The crowd looks on anxiously. L-R Kristen, Claire, Haley, Meghan, Armand.

They scrounged up more cable and attached it. We continued to ratchet up the tower. And we ran out of cable. Again.

So they attached more.

Dave and Thomas connecting the cable extension.

After fiddling around a bit, the tower was up, the blades were turning in the breeze and power was being collected. It felt like a freaking miracle.

It was an incredible high to look up and see those blades turning, generating power (remember, we don't have TV and so tend to be quite easily amused). We designed the Mercantile's power system to run on both solar and wind - in tandem they are a great duo. Where we are located in Northeastern Missouri it is almost always windy when it isn't sunny. Because the system is fairly large (we have 28 batteries to fill) the power grew incrementally - at first we weren't even sure that the system was working. But it was, and slowly the batteries filled up.

And then came a big storm. On July 28th, the wind blew over the top portion of the wind turbine. Normally we would have been devastated, or at least tremendously bummed. But that morning when we woke up we realized that Baloo was dying, and the wind turbine seemed a lot less important. It was a good lesson in priorities. And also a lesson in the need to make sure the tower one uses is strong enough to hold the turbine placed on top.

Don't let this happen to you.

So now, a few weeks later we're making the time to work on the turbine yet again. We ordered more blades (to the tune of $2,090 - eek!) and they're waiting to be installed. I'm not quite sure how the crew plans on taking down and putting up the whole thing again. But they'll think of something, and it will definitely be entertaining. I'll keep you updated!

Bridges to Sustainability

Saturday Lunch at the Mercantile

Hi all. The following is a column written by our work exchanger Robby Boyer for the local weekly, The Memphis Democrat. That's Memphis, Missouri.


In the summer of 2010, I arrived at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage to help for six weeks on a natural building project. In the course of these weeks I grew fascinated with a community brave enough to experiment with the comforts of modernity that most Americans take for granted. This short six-week stay was just long enough to inspire to me completely change the focus of my doctoral dissertation research in Urban Planning at the University of Illinois. I have since reoriented my professional and academic life toward investigating Dancing Rabbit and other similar ecovillages, as well as promoting its mission of community-based sustainability.

Robby playing guitar on the porch of the Mercantile.

In departmental seminars, college lectures, high school assemblies, meetings with municipal urban planners, and even dinner conversations with my friends and family I’ve attempted to explain how residents of Dancing Rabbit have built a fifty-plus member community that generates its own electricity from the sun, cultivates the vast majority of its water from the sky, builds its homes using only recycled and/or locally harvested lumber, recycles all of its organic waste, and survives in rural Missouri with only three shared vehicles.

I returned this summer as both a researcher and an employee at the Milkweed Mercantile Eco Bed & Breakfast—a fascinating business that I will discuss further below. I’m finding that even as a life-long environmentalist and advocate for social change, that daily life at Dancing Rabbit is a challenge. While I am each day more and more encouraged by the successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) experiments in which the “Rabbits” have engaged, I have also encountered the challenges of routine change that come with new, more sustainable ways of living. For example, the amount of electricity I feel comfortable using is heavily dependent upon yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s weather. Even as I type this article, I am reminded of the ‘low’ level of energy available in the community’s common house that has resulted from a rather old and inefficient refrigerator (soon to be replaced!). I’d very much like to wash my clothing at some point this week, but I am finding that this season’s energy shortage may force me to wash my clothing by hand—a relatively time consuming and unfamiliar task to a middle class suburban man.

Everyone's birthday gets celebrated at the Mercantile. This was Grant's day...

My excitement about Dancing Rabbit is, in part, the result of my concern for the long environmental and economic emergency of global climate change. All available information I can access paints a rather pessimist picture in the coming decades. But here’s some good news: I am convinced that the vast majority of the physical technology needed to overcome the humanity’s environmental challenges already exists. Humanity has already invented all of the “stuff”—the solar panels, wind turbines, solar ovens, composting toilets, etc.—that we need to live comfortably and at lower impacts on the earth. The real challenge now is how we use this stuff and how we live together, and this will require some routine change. Routine change is hard.

Overcoming the environmental challenges of the twenty-first century will require lots of it, but I’d personally prefer experimenting with small routine changes now than be forced to make terribly uncomfortable routine changes when, for example, gasoline prices approach $10/gallon, or a new climactic reality overwhelms even our “emergency” resources.

For ideologically motivated folks like the residents of Dancing Rabbit, routine change is the new reality. For the vast majority of humans, however, routine change is a taxing endeavor. I have trouble imagining most of my friends and family living at Dancing Rabbit for even longer than one week, let alone a lifetime. This summer, however, I have been encouraged by my experience at the Milkweed Mercantile Eco Bed & Breakfast (The “Mercantile”) and its role as a “bridge” between the radical routine change in the Dancing Rabbit community and guests exploring new ways to live more “sustainably”. It is only appropriate that such a transitional space would manifest in a B&B. The facility exposes guests to energy, water, food, transportation, heating/cooling, and feeding systems of noticeably different, yet comfortably similar dynamics. A guest at the Mercantile, for example, will find many of the same comforts they would find in any other B&B: clean white sheets, large comfortable beds, impeccably clean bathrooms, a delicious and hearty breakfast, a hot shower, running water, a pleasant selection of cold beer, wireless internet, and yes, light switches connected to functioning lights.

The solar & wind powered Milkweed Mercantile (the porch is still under construction!). That yellow thing in front (in the DR courtyard0 is not a tanning booth, but a community-sized solar oven.

More observant guests, however, will realize that all the electricity is generated by solar panels on-site, all the water is harvested from rain and purified on-site, the air is “conditioned” by straw bale insulated walls, the water is heated in a wood-fire furnace, the food is mostly grown locally, and everything that falls in the toilet is recycled—after a long and careful composting process. Managing such a business and keeping it affordable (under $100/night) for guests is far from conventional. Each morning, for example, my responsibilities include closing the windows of the B&B, a seemingly counter-intuitive routine given the summer’s extreme heat and that the building has no air conditioning unit. But closing the windows effectively traps the cool evening air inside the highly insulated walls so that the air in the inn remains cool relative to the heat outside. Staff at the Mercantile must also monitor rainfall, rotate the compost container, make cooking decisions based on the weather, collect burning material for the water boiler, and make sure to do the inn’s laundry in time for it to dry in the afternoon sun.

Alline and Kurt (aka "The Milkweeds") owners & proprietors of the Milkweed Mercantile.

The owners of the Mercantile (hey! that's us!) comment that a more sustainable living situation does not require deprivation. Indeed, my experience living and working at Dancing Rabbit has exposed me to an abundant, rewarding, and fun lifestyle that simultaneously offers me the chance to be a better global citizen. While I do not expect the world to dive into radically new living practices overnight, I do think that radical change is necessary if we expect to avoid catastrophic change in the next few decades. I’m hopeful that places like Dancing Rabbit and the Milkweed Mecantile can offer solutions that allow humanity to live together peacefully, abundantly, and in good health for millennia to come. I would also encourage any individual, with even the slightest curiosity in environmental innovation, to take a tour of the community and/or spend at night at the inn.

Bye Bye Baloo

Me and Baloo.
Photo by Ramin Rahimian

My best friend died this morning. He was almost 14 years old, and hairy as all get out. He was my Golden Retriever, Baloo.

Baloo being mysterious on a frozen pond.
Photo: Liat Batshira

He didn't start out as mine. He came to Dancing Rabbit with Jess Mund, who, when pregnant and uncertain about where she and her new family would live, agreed to let me have him. It was the very best gift I have ever received, and one for which I will ALWAYS be grateful. Thank you again, Jess.

Kurt and I first met Baloo in June of 1999 when we arrived at DR. We were all living in tents at the time. Every morning Baloo would poke his nose into our tent to say hello. "Oh," we thought, "he likes us best!" Later on we would find that he was an equal opportunity greeter - he stopped by everyone's tent every morning.

Jess was incredibly unselfish about sharing Baloo. As a retriever he was obsessed with sticks and balls and mud clods and rocks and anything else that could be hauled in his mouth from point A to point B. This was an especially fun game in the pond. There were some summers when we wondered if he was mildewing from all of the time he spent in the water.

Playing with Tim Johnson, 2005 (?)

Jess and Baloo had trained to do search and rescue, and since Baloo was the smartest dog on the planet (sorry, I'm a bit biased) he retained much of his early enthusiasm for searching. He wasn't always so great at the actual finding, but that didn't deter him.

Baloo had a secret life that we knew nothing about. Here he is sledding with Ziggy and Thomas.
Photo: Liat Batshira

Baloo was luck to have many, many friends here at Dancing Rabbit. Tom Cowen and Thomas Kortkamp have both spent twokazillion hours playing fetch with him. Sparky was his "au pair" and he adored her. Meadow claimed he was her spiritual leader, and he adored her, too. Actually, Baloo adored everyone, which was part of his charm. He was great with kids, except when he knocked them down with his wagging tail, which was entirely unintentional. He was a great ambassador for Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

"Snow? What's the problem? Get out here and throw something!"

Before Baloo came into our lives, I had always wanted a dog. But not just any dog. I wanted one of those dogs who would hang out with me, be by my side always, not have to be on a leash because we were hanging out together. I didn't think it was actually possible, but Baloo made it so. He decided that I was the one, and everywhere I went, Baloo went, too. People used to joke that they always knew what building I was in because Baloo would be waiting patiently outside. At home, as I roamed from room to room, he did too. (When our cat, Fionn MacCool joined our family, he also joined the parade. Going to the bathroom became a spectator event - all the animals followed me in, sat down, and enjoyed the show. What can I say - we're all easily entertained!). Baloo came with us back and forth across the country many times, on trips to California and Oregon. He was a great traveling companion. He slept at the head of our bed (tucked under the eaves), he would lay by my desk while I worked, and generally never be more than five feet away.

With a toy given to him by a Mercantile guest.
Photo by Sequoia Rock

Kurt likes to say that you can learn all that you need to learn about life from a dog like Baloo. I'm inclined to agree, except for the parts that involve rolling around in dead raccoons.

"Hey, I'll drive!" says Baloo, on his way across the country yet again...

He's been slowing down a lot lately. Two weeks ago he no longer had the strength to get himself out of the pond. We compensated by using the garden hose on him in the afternoons in this horribly hot weather - it seemed to help him cool off a bit. On Thursday morning he refused his food, but did drink water. We talked to the vet who, through a lot of euphimisms, said that if he didn't eat (if we couldn't use a syringe and get some nourishment into him) he might suffer a slow death from starvation. She said that she could make a "farm visit" the next day if we wished. Which meant euthanasia.

Whoever said that balls don't grow on trees clearly had never seen a hedge apple (osage orange) tree. You can imagine Baloo's excitement at discovering such a marvel very close to our house. The only problem was: how to choose?

"OK. I like this one. Throw it please!"

Baloo lay in the Mercantile all day, and then dragged himself back to the cottage - his back legs had pretty much stopped working. He reclined in the same place, on the cool concrete floor for hours. About 3:00 a.m. we had a big thunder storm so I brought a quilt and pillow downstairs (for me) and slept by him - he hated storms. At 8:00 a.m. we called the vet. Word spread, and the loving, caring Rabbits trickled in to say good-bye. There is something tremendously comforting in having so many people love and care for your dog. There were tears, and hugs, and lots of caresses, mostly for Baloo, but for us, too.

We drove back and forth from Missouri to California and back several times. Not only was Baloo a great sport he actually LOVED riding in the car. On this trip Kurt rigged up the luggage in the back seat so that Baloo could ride at our "level," since he was always trying to skooch up into the front seat anyways.

At 11:00 a.m. our very kind vet came by and after a gentle but thorough exam agreed that our decision was the kind and compassionate one. She administered a sedative, and then another injection. In ten minutes Baloo was gone.

Thomas had dug a grave under our solar panels in the garden while we were waiting for the vet. A few of us carried Baloo out, wrapped in a sheet, and buried him with his rubber duck and some flowers. Many people came back and helped cover him with dirt. There were more tears, and hugs.

We'll have a celebration of Baloo on Monday. But I suspect it will take a lot longer to get over the reflex of calling him when I get ready to leave the house, or reaching to pet him before I go to sleep.

Good bye Baloo. I'll miss you, more than you'll ever know.



Us Two
by A. A. Milne

NOTE: Not having the opportunity to ever know Baloo, A.A. Milne wrote this poem (from the view point of Christopher Robin) about Pooh. I have taken quite appalling liberties with this poem to suit my own needs. Somehow, I don't think Mr. Milne would mind...

Wherever I am, there's always Baloo,
There's always Baloo and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" says Baloo:
"Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too.
Let's go together," says Baloo, says he.
"Let's go together," says Baloo.

"What's twice eleven?" I said to Baloo.
("Twice what?" said Baloo to Me.)
"I think it ought to be twenty-two."
"Just what I think myself," said Baloo.
"It wasn't an easy sum to do,
But that's what it is," said Baloo, said he.
"That's what it is," said Baloo.

"Let's look for dragons," I said to Baloo.
"Yes, let's," said Baloo to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few-
"Yes, those are dragons all right," said Baloo.
"As soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
That's what they are," said Baloo, said he.
"That's what they are," said Baloo.

"Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Baloo.
"That's right," said Baloo to Me.
"I'm not afraid," I said to Baloo,
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!
Silly old dragons!"- and off they flew.
"I wasn't afraid," said Baloo, said he,
"I'm never afraid with you."

So wherever I am, there's always Baloo,
There's always Baloo and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Baloo,
"If it wasn't for you," and Baloo said: "True,
It isn't much fun for One, but Two,
Can stick together, says Baloo, says he.
"That's how it is," says Baloo.

Ready to rumble at a Squire cousin reunion, 2005

I Heart Mary Oliver

Prairie Wildflowers and Grasses
Photo by Grant Steerzer

A friend over at Red Earth Farms just posted on Facebook with a question: If you were to memorize a poem, which would it be?

Someone mentioned A Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost, which I often hear running through my head.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Talk about great (insert sigh here). Robert Frost is like that - who can walk in the woods and not think "...whose woods are these I think I know..." or, when you have to drag yourself away from somewhere you'd like to stay, the line about "...but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep..." (from Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening).

But one of my favorites has to be The Journey by Mary Oliver:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Oh. So. Delicious.

In other news, life at the ecovillage has been hot but lively. The Inn has been full for two weeks straight, which has kept us exceedingly busy. The work exchangers have been amazing - they see things that need to be done and do them, which has taken an enormous load off of my shoulders. I'm having great fun cooking with Mina, Robby is working hard on making us all (semi) famous, Danae and Jordan are taming the garden and making the place absolutely beautiful, and Katherine is taking care of the inn rooms beautifully. It makes me very happy to watch this all fall into place!

The other night we had an International potluck which began with a game of street cricket, and finished with an amazing array of food. Yum!

Baloo
Photo by Sequoia Rock

Baloo, best dog in the world, continues to get older each day. He can no longer walk all the way to the pond, which is just as well, because his hind legs are no longer strong enough to push him out of the water. It is sad but we have had 14 fantastic years, and each additional day feels like delicious gravy. He and I take slow, short walks, and hang out together a lot. He seems quite content, and still enjoys (very short) games of fetch.

It was too hot for pizza night (we couldn't bear the thought of standing in the kitchen near the oven pumping out 500 degree heat for four hours) so Kurt grilled burgers ("real" and Boca), a bunch of veggies, we steamed up a ton of sweet corn and whipped up several tons of potato salad (recipe tomorrow). It was a big hit, and a nice change from pizza. We're thinking about doing lasagne in the solar oven this Thursday.

The pond at sunset
Photo by Grant Steerzer

That's it for now. I'm kind of in a hurry to get outside - it's 8:22 p.m. and it has finally cooled down. It's fairly quiet out because half of the community has gone down to Columbia to participate in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. But the birds are singing (a nest with 3 robins about to fledge right outside my window), the kids are laughing, and there is a guitar and singing going on in the courtyard. Time to go, perhaps for a swim and then to join the singing.

More tomorrow.

Reminding Myself Who I Am, or the Forest for the Trees

Hi friends!

Here in Rutledge it is currently 96 degrees ("but it feels like 103!"). We are, and you might be too, in the midst of a freakin' hot summer. To compensate, I am sitting here in front of a fan (with very few clothes on, one of the joys of working from home!) and a big icy Dr. Pepper at hand. Earlier today I met with work exchanger Robby Boyer (not to worry, we were both fully dressed) and brainstormed ways to get the Milkweed Mercantile a little more attention. Our goal - to fill more Inn rooms, bring in a little more green (as Kurt is fond of saying, we're "making tens of dollars!") and spread the good word of sustainability.

Robby, taken last summer on the Mercantile porch. Who knew he'd be back for more?

In thinking about past publicity the Mercantile has received I remembered one of the very first interviews I did. It was with Mike Sowden, who at the time was working for EcoSalon. (Your guess is as good as mine why it is under the "Sex" category - ha!) It was, as always, a blast to be my opinionated self. Rereading it was like getting a shot of adrenalin, or perhaps receiving an incredibly positive kick in the pants.

When one is smack dab in the middle of an all-consuming adventure, one often loses sight of how much has been achieved. One being me, of course.

"Pondage"

So thanks for the reminder. It's time for a swim in the pond, and then back to the Mercantile to prep for Heat Index Grillin' Evening, which is being held in place of pizza night. It's just too damn hot to hang out by a 500 degree oven for five hours!

Keep cool!