Tao’s 2 Cents

            We’re finishing up our vacation at the Beaton family lake house on Tennessee/Mississippi border.  It’s been really relaxing most of the time, especially compared to the all-consuming house renovation. 

 

I’ve still had to keep working on my web work which wouldn’t have been too bad but I have to drive several miles to get Wi-Fi and I can only work sitting in my car for as long as my battery will last.  That’s meant a couple trips a day every work day. I turned on the broadband wireless card that’s built into my laptop but the lake house is in a black hole for cell phones. 

 

We’ve also been reading and refining plans for what we want to accomplish in our couple months left this summer out at the farm, as well as what we want to accomplish as far as the big picture out at the farm.

 

We’re hoping to spend a few weeks and get a pretty good idea of where we’ll likely want to put our new house and situate the eco-village.  We want to set up a campground area for people visiting us and we think that’s where we’ll start with everything.  Since camping will only be going on spring to fall, locating it on a prime southern slope isn’t necessary, in fact, a northern slope will be cooler anyway.  All I hope to get done this summer on the camping area is build a small covered area for some composting toilets and a place to hoist up some solar showers with good drainage.  Next year we’ll start off with the pavilion which will have a place to cook(probably rocket stoves), and a kitchen area with water supplied from rainwater harvested off the building’s roof.

 

            The plan is to camp out at the old cabin until we figure out where the camping area will be and then set up a camp settlement for ourselves for the rest of the time to start preparing the site for next spring by setting up compost piles, clearing brush, fixing up the roads, etc.

 

            When we get out there again early next spring we’ll start on the screened in pavilion next to the toilet/shower area as a temporary place for us to live while we work on a house to get us through the winter.  We had been planning to build our permanent home next summer, but we’ve decided to practice with a smaller building that we hope visitors and possible members to the eco-village can stay in.

 

            That way we’ll have figured out all our mistakes on a building that won’t be our “dream” house.  It’ll also mean that we’ll be able to build faster the following summer so we can get more done and so possibly build bigger.  Either way we’ll be building our dream house in phases with everything built ready for additions in the future.

 

            Whenever the cold starts to get unbearable we’re probably going to head back to Roanoke, VA and stay in Liz’s family’s house out in the country.  It’s a big place that we’d be sharing with her brother and sister.  We really want to save some money and all we have to do is split the utility bill there.  That should give us a decent amount to work with next spring out at the farm.

 

            Over the winter I hope to work out the legal stuff with the land to make sure the other guy that owns half the land is ok with what were doing and willing to either let me buy an equal voting share or even just sell his part to me completely.  Either way I think he’s on board with what we’re doing, at least that’s the impression I get from my Dad.

 

            I’m also hoping that after doing a lot of site analysis this summer I’ll be able to start work on a more detailed plan of attack for next spring.  I need to research things like where to get sand or straw bales, how to get them to the site, when to have the soil prepped for vegetables, what to plant when, reading over the construction books and fine-tuning our floor and building plans.

            We’ve also been talking about how we’d like the eco-village to function.  Nothing is perfect, but this is the way that we’re thinking of doing it.  To be a part of the eco-village, members work something like 16 hours/week on communal projects, like working in the edible forest garden, constructing the community center, working on the roads, and even some time building their own homes.  We’re trying to avoid using money as much as possible, and so when we do need money for things like solar panels for the community center we’ll hold workshops or events to basically fundraise the money and people can work their community hours by working at the event.

 

            Another touchy thing we’ve talked about is property ownership.  We think the easiest thing to do is to say that all the buildings built out there belong to the entire community but is basically rented to the person who built it for as long as they want to live there and continue to follow the other guidelines of the eco-village like putting in their community hours and generally living green.  If they leave then the house is available and a new or different member can apply to move into the house.

 

            Those are just a few of the things we’ve been talking about over the last week.  It’s exciting to know that we’ll actually be out there on the land in the next day or two.  We were planning on leaving tomorrow but one of Liz’s cats disappeared a few days ago and we’re anxiously waiting for it to show back up again.  After a few days here we’d started to let the cats out and they were fine for the first 4 days but then Mr. Pink and Lynx both disappeared but Pinkie showed up again last night.  We’re hoping Lynx gets hungry and shows up tonight or tomorrow.  I’m not sure what we’ll do if she doesn’t.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Culture, Society, Tao, The Farm, Sustainability, Permaculture, Travel, Community, Dreams, Agriculture, Environment. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.