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

Last Hurrah - Three Great Dessert Recipes

Before the holiday season is over, before you despair over the weight gained over the past month, before all excuses for cookies have disappeared, I wanted to share these with you. As you may know I have devoted my life to a search for the best of the best recipes, with a laser-beam like focus on dessert. Perhaps next year I'll be inspired by chard, but for now it's all butter, all the time.

Below is the most amazing recipe for Apple Crisp I have ever had. The boiled cider, Pomona's Ambrosia we use is from our friends at Blue Heron Orchard in Canton, Mo.

Additionally I'm including two cookie recipes which have been known to make grown men cry. We're serving them with mulled cider tonight at the Milkweed Mercantile. 

Have a lovely, peaceful, guilt-free holiday. 

Love,

Alline

 photo credit: Tecfan on Flickr

Apple Crumble

Adapted from King Arthur’s Flour Baker’s Companion

Filling
5 pounds apples
1/4 cup cider
2 Tb butter, melted
2 Tb boiled cider (Pomona's Ambrosia)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
3 Tb tapioca flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

Streusel Topping
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup thick old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. baking powder
8 Tb butter (1 stick, 4 ounces)

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9” x 9” cake pan or a ceramic pan of similar capacity and surface area.

To Make the Filling

Peel, core and slice the apples into 1/4" thick pieces. Place them in a bowl with the remainder of the filling ingredients and stir vigorously to combine. In the process of apple pieces will break into smaller bits. This is fine. Spoon the apple mixture into the pan.

To Make the Topping
In a medium size mixing bowl stir together flour, oats, salt, brown sugar and baking powder. Add the butter, cutting it in with a mixer, your fingers or a pastry blender as you would when making pie crust. Mix until crumbly. If you work it too much the mixture will clump together so use a light touch but be thorough. Sprinkle the topping over the filling.

Bake the crumble for 1 hour or until it is bubbly and a deep golden brown. Remove it from the oven; let it cool half an hour before serving.  

Dream Bars

About 2 dozen 2 ¼” bars

King Arthur Baker’s Companion

These bars are absolutely ugly - they will never win a prize for pretty. However, take these words of wisdom from the cook book:  “...but just take that first bite and you’ll for get the visual impression. Coconut, nuts, and sugar combine to form a gooey, rich topping on a buttery cookie base. Sprinkle these with a shower of snowy confectioner’s sugar and you’ve got bars whose looks begin to live up to their taste.”

Cookie Layer

1 stick (8 Tb) butter

½ cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ tsp. salt

Topping

2 cups dark brown sugar

1 Tb unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 tsp. baking powder

2 large eggs, well beaten

1 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened

1 cup diced nuts: walnuts or pecans

Preheat the oven to 300. Lightly grease a 9”x13” pan

To make the cookie layer:

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the flour and salt; the mixture will be crumbly. Pat the crumbs into a. Bake the cookie layer for 10 minutes, while you prepare the topping. Turn the oven up to 325.

To make the topping:

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, and baking powder. Stir in the eggs, mixing until smooth, then add the coconut and nuts, again mixing until well combined. Dollop the topping onto the crust in the pan, spreading it out; wet your fingers  and spread it around as evenly as possible.

Bake the bars for 25 minutes, until they’re golden brown. Remove from the oven and let them cool. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar, if desired, and cut them when they’re completely cool.

Yuletide Toffee Squares

96 small pieces

King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion

“...meltingly buttery yet crisp base, slathered with a just-thick-enough layer of chocolate and dusted with finely chopped nuts…”

Crust

4 ½ c. rolled oats

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 ½ sticks (12 Tb.) butter, melted

¾ cut light corn syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp salt

Topping

2 cups (12 oz) semi sweet chocolate chips

2 Tb. Vegetable shortening

2/3 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 450. Lightly grease a 15x10-inch pan

Combine the oats, sugar, butter, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt and mix well. Press the mixture into the pan, using lightly greased hands to help the process along.

Bake the squares for 12-15 minutes, or until they’re a light golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack. (NOTE: they will still look a little mushy in the middle – this is ok.)

In a medium saucepan set over very low heat, melt the chocolate and shortening together, stirring constantly until smooth. Spread the mixture evenly over the oat base and sprinkle on the chopped nuts. (I did this while the crust was still warm and everything worked out…)

Cover very loosely and chill the squares in the pan until the chocolate is firm. Remove from the fridge and cut into squares. The easiest way to do this is to use a chef’s knife to cut the bars into long strips while they’re still in the pan, and then transfer each long strip to a cutting board to cut into bite-sized pieces. They will be hard to cut, but easy to eat.

Party on, dude!

A World of Abundance - Sharing the Good Stuff

Photo Credit: imashleyhello on Flickr

 So there I was, wandering around the house and the Mercantile, trying to work up some good juice for a blog post about the holidays, and giving, and how none of us needs any more stuff…I was getting nowhere, fast. Partly because I kept tripping over piles of stuff in my house, and partly because I was feeling short on inspiration.

Then, I opened my email . There I found an email from Kurt’s semi-nephew X (who wishes to remain anonymous). X and his brother are nephews of the second Mrs. Kessner, but Kurt received shared family visits in the divorce, for which we are truly grateful, and so as the fourth – and last – Mrs. Kessner, I benefit, too.  X is not only funny, he is very, very thoughtful, and kind. It said:

  

Dear All,

Merry Christmas!!!!  

Because I'm only working part time this year and hate spending (my wife's) money, I was going to buy a single goat or a llama or a water buffalo from Heifer International and let you all know that your gift was a fractional share of same which, as we all know, goes to help out a worthy impoverished family somewhere on the other side of the globe.

However a lot of people here in the USA are also food insecure, especially lately, and I remembered reading a couple years back about this guy who had created sustainable urban farms right here in the good old Midwest.  Naturally, when I thought of giving something on behalf of you all I thought, "Why buy the cow when you can buy the whole farm!" 

So anyway that's what I did and I thought since you aren't getting a pretty card like you get from Heifer, that the least I could do was provide interesting details about what your gift is supporting, so here are a few links you can follow about this organization (see below):  

Best Wishes for a safe, wonderful, and happy holiday.  Let us all take a minute and thank our lucky stars that we have enough to eat as apparently, according to info on Heifer's website, 1 in 5 children in this country do not.  

 -X

p.s.  Thank you in advance for any and all gifts you sent this year (which we will open Jan 7).  You are wonderful, thoughtful, loving, family and if no power on earth will stop you from buying us stuff then I gratefully accept your generosity.  That said, we do have a lot of stuff already and a lot of people the world over don't.  Just sayin if you donate to something that matters to you on our behalf next year, that would equally wonderful....

 

 Christmas Trees Before Being Cut Down

Photo Credit: xdex on Flickr

The beneficiary of my part of a cow is Will Allen’s GrowingPower, Inc.

Read more about Will Allen in this article from the New York Times,  and watch this short video:


Will Allen: The Urban Farmer from Spark Project on Vimeo.

So that's it. Just that. Maybe we don't really need all of those brightly wrapped packages. A home-grown head of lettuce, some real tomatoes, and the inspiration of people who are doing good things in the world might just be enough this holiday season. I know it is for me.

love,
Alline

Thanksgiving Recipes, Redux

I love Thanksgiving. Food, friends, family squabbles - what's not to love?

Since moving to Dancing Rabbit Thanksgivings have gotten much easier - we have a potluck dinner with everyone from DR, Sandhill and Red Earth Farms who has not already gone away for the holiday. We all bring a dish or two; there are some very good cooks here.

The only snag is that more than Thanksgiving Day I love the day after, when we can make sandwiches with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, all between two slices of bread (or perhaps a brioche bun) slathered with mayo. So I often make a mini Thanksgiving for me and Kurt, and we nibble the leftovers for the rest of the weekend.

I always bring cranberry sauce to the potluck. It is super easy, and the sweet/tangy cranberry with a bit of orange zest seems to make every bite of mashed potatoes, yams, turkey and gravy taste just that much better. I was horrified, and then amused, to find that not everyone shares my opinion. Thanksgiving seems to bring out our most base, almost reptilian connections to food. For example, our friend Tereza insists that her cranberry sauce must come out of a can (and have those little dents in the side). It is not about the flavor; it is about the memories. For those folks, I bring a can of congealed cranberry sauce, complete with little indentations from the can.
RECIPE # 1: Cranberry Sauce
Makes 2 1/4 cups

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 4 cups (1 12-oz package) fresh or frozen cranberries
• Optional Pecans, orange peel, raisins, currants, blueberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice.

Directions

1. Wash and pick over cranberries.
2. In a saucepan bring to a boil water and sugar, stirring to dissolve sugar.
3. Add cranberries, return to a boil.
4. Reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes or until cranberries burst.
5. At this point you can add all number of optional ingredients. I prefer about a half a cup of roughly chopped pecans with or without some orange zest. (The recipes all say that you can add a cup of raisins or currants, or up to a pint of fresh or frozen blueberries for added sweetness. Spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg or allspice can be added too.)
6. Remove from heat.
7. Pour into serving dish, and cool completely at room temperature. When it is cool, chill in refrigerator. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

Photo Credit: Michele Hume on Flickr

Memories are also behind Kurt's seemingly innocent request for Green Bean Casserole - you know, the kind with Cream of Mushroom Soup in it. Which created a dilemma of sorts. You see, when it comes to food (and just about everything else), Kurt is the ultimate good sport, an incredibly amiable, agreeable guy. I, on the other hand, seem to be a bit of a, um, snob. The Cream of Mushroom Soup request really threw me for a loop - how to make Kurt happy and not make myself crazy?

You can imagine my delight when I found Robert St. John's cookbook, which comes with the lengthy subtitle "...how to survive in a southern kitchen without a can of cream of mushroom soup." Within its pages is the most divine recipe for Green Bean Casserole, bar none. The end result has the same just-like-mom-made comfort as the original (for Kurt) and yet contains nary a drop of cream of mushroom soup - it uses Béchamel Sauce instead - which satisfies my snooty inner gourmand. Besides that, it is relatively EASY, plus you get to throw around terms like "Béchamel." This year, I am adding Robert St. John to the list of people for whom I am thankful.


RECIPE #2: Ultimate Green Bean Casserole
4-6 servings
Inspired by Robert St. John's Deep South Staples. Changes made to original recipe by me (Alline) and are not indicative of Mr. St. John’s culinary talents.

Ingredients

• 1 quart chicken broth
• 4 cans green beans, drained (14.5 ounce cans)
• ¼ cup bacon, sliced
• 1 cup onion, medium dice
• 1 ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 2 cups Béchamel Sauce (recipe follows)
• 1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded
• 1 6-ounce can French’s French Fried Onions

Directions

1. Make Simplified Béchamel Sauce (below)
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. In a large sauce pot, bring chicken broth to a boil.
4. Place drained green beans in the broth and simmer 10 minutes, Drain the green beans.
5. Meanwhile, in a separate skillet, render bacon until it just becomes crisp.
6. Drain excess bacon grease from the skillet and add the diced onions. Cook over medium heat for five minutes.
7. Stir in salt, pepper and Béchamel sauce.
8. Remove mixture from heat and fold in green beans, cheese, and ½ of the canned, fried onions.
9. Place mixture in a 3-quart baking dish and bake 30 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the remaining fried onions over the top of the casserole and return to the oven for an additional 12-14 minutes.
11. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Simplified Béchamel Sauce (modified from Joy of Cooking)

In a heavy saucepan over low heat, melt:
3 Tablespoons butter

Stir in:
3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally with a wood spoon or spatula, over medium-low heat until the roux is just fragrant but not darkened, 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

Slowly whisk in:
2 cups whole milk

and return the saucepan to the heat.

Bring the sauce slowly to a simmer, whisking to prevent lumps, and cook, stirring often and skimming any skin that forms on the surface, over low heat, without boiling, until it reaches the consistency of thick cream soup, 8 to 10 minutes.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, if desired. Season with salt and ground pepper to taste.

Hmmm....why does this dark brown chocolate nut tart look RED? Probably because I haven't yet learned to mess with photos that were not taken by me...sheesh. For the real thing, check out the Vegetarian Times website!

RECIPE #3: Triple Nut Chocolate Tart
Vegetarian Times November 1, 2008
Serves 12 (we served 16, easily)

No one will guess this rich, elegant tart is vegan.
Crust

• 1 cup pastry flour
• ½ cup cornmeal
• 2 Tbs. sugar
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup vegan margarine (1 stick)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Filling

• 3 cups mixed walnuts, pecans, and almonds (1 cup each), coarsely chopped
• ¼ cup vegan margarine (½ stick)
• 5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped or in chips
• 2 Tbs. pastry flour
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup maple syrup
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions
To make Crust:

1. Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in bowl.
2. Rub margarine into flour mixture with fingers until mixture is crumbly.
3. Sprinkle in vanilla, and stir.
4. Add 1 to 2 Tbs. cold water until dough clumps together loosely.
5. Press dough into pie dish or tart pan until sides and bottom are covered.
6. Chill in freezer 30 minutes.

To make Filling:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Spread nuts on baking sheet, and bake 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly browned.
3. Melt margarine and chocolate in saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth. Sprinkle in flour and salt, and stir until smooth.
4. Stir in maple syrup and vanilla.
5. Stir in nuts.
6. Spread nut mixture in piecrust.
7. Bake 25 minutes, or until crust is golden and filling is firm.
8. Cool on wire rack at least 20 minutes before serving.

Have a wonderful holiday!

Occupy Your Community with Revolutionary Love

This short video was on Facebook the other day. As many of you know, I'm not very "woo woo." But this really hit home.

Following the video is the text from Sacred Economy. Thank you Charles Eisenstein - I'm looking forward to reading the book!



"This movement isn’t about the 99% defeating or toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story – which the 99% create their own new 1%.

What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible, a sacred world, a world that works for everybody. A world that is healing, a world of peace. You can’t just say we demand a world of peace. Demands have to be specific anything that people can articulate can only be articulated with in the language of the current political discourse.

That entire political discourse is already too small and that’s why making explicit demands kind of reduces the movement and takes the heart out of it.

A real paradox, the movement actually understands that.

The system isn’t working for the 1% either. If you were a CEO you would be making the same choices they do. The institutions have their own logic. Life is pretty bleak at the top, too.

All the baubles of the rich are phony compensation for the loss of what is really important.

Loss of community, connection, loss of intimacny, loss of meaning. Everyone wants to live a life of meaning.
Today we live in a money economy, where we don’t really depend on the gifts of anybody, but we buy everything. Therefore we don’t need anybody because whoever grew my food or built my house or made my clothes, well, if they died, or if I alienated them, or if they don’t like me, well it’s ok, I can just pay somebody else to do it. It’s really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is “we don’t need each other.” So people get together and…they consume together.

Joint consumption doesn’t create intimacy. Only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection.
You have such gifts that are important just like every species has an important gift to give to an ecosystem and the extinction of a species hurts everybody. The same is true of each person that you have an important and necessary gift to give. For a long time our minds have been told us that maybe we’re imagining things, that maybe its crazy to live according to what you want to give but I think now as more and more people wake up to the truth that we are here to give and wake up to that desire and wake up to the fact that the other way isn't working anyway the more reinforcement we have from people around us that this isn’t crazy, this makes sense, this is how to live. As we get that reinforcement our minds and our logic no longer have to fight against the logic of the heart   which wants us to be of service.   

This shift of consciousness that inspires such things is universal to everybody –the 1% and the 99% - and it is awakening in different people in different ways. I think love is the self experience of connection to another being.

An economist says that the more for you is essentially less for me, but the lover knows that more for you is more for me too. If you love somebody then their happiness is your happiness, their pain is your pain, your sense of self expands to include other beings. That’s love.

Love is the expansion of the self to include the other. That’s a different kind of revolution.

There is no one to fight there is no evil to fight, there is no other in this revolution. Everybody has a unique calling and it’s really time to listen to that. that is what the future is going to be. It’s time to get ready for it and help contribute to it and make it happen."

Thanks for reading.

Love,

Alline 

A Murmuration of Starlings - STUNNING!

Today Tereza and I had our weekly Art Date. Sometimes not much art happens, but we invariably have a great time. This week our date happeend to be on Tuesday morning, when Alyson is waking up the sourdough starter for her weekly bake on Wednesday. In the midst of a lively conversation and lots of catching up, Tereza mentioned the video of a murmuration of starlings. Huh?

Watch this video. It is absolutely breathtaking. I can only imagine what it must have felt like to be paddling along and then have this happen right above my head. Sometimes nature knocks my freaking socks off.




More ecovillage schmoo later. In the meantime, take a walk, enjoy the leaves and the sun and the wind and whatever is happening in your neck of the woods.

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