Author Archives: Ann

Two more community dinners, and another (likely) “Oops”

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Valentine’s Day dinner at 2601 DeKist (“the first DeKist house,” or DeKist 1) I took only two pics, one of them way too dark, and the other one a pic of Mariella’s kids Asiri and Juakim on their screens. They hardly noticed their surroundings, plus she had fed them earlier. Oh well! Mariella tells me that they only rarely get to spend time on their screens, so she let up on them this time.

 

 

Last Thursday’s dinner at 2615 DeKist (“the second DeKist house” “DeKist 2), was somewhat sparsely attended. All but four of the nine of us were either out of town or working. BUT: Dear Aaron, who has returned to the Bloomington fold having spent a think a year or so in Asheville North Carolina, is back, and brought a wonderful woman whom none of us have met before. Also, a friend of Mariella’s — damn, can’t remember her name right now — brought another new person, again and woman, can’t remember her name either — and a bunch of us women had a conversation at the dining table that reminded me of the olden days in the 1960s and 1970s, when we women were starting to get to know each other, in a brand new way, beyond the roles we were playing for our boyfriends and husbands. A wonderfully stimulating conversation. Thank you! Here they are:

First new woman, on left, with Gabrielle and Aaron, in background.

 

Second new woman, in back, on the left. Justino and Andreas in foreground.

 

Justin’s massive meal . . .

The likely bigger oops came in the past two days, when the temperature plunged to 5°, and our poor peas, just planted, will they survive the ordeal? Right now, early afternoon, it’s 19° and tonight’s forecast to go down to 10°. After that it’s clear sailing, for awhile anyway. Solan popped his head under the double cover that the just planted peas are under yesterday and pronounced them “alive, but stressed.”

I just took this pic. We still don’t dare uncover them, even for a few hours, in this cold.

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Work Parties, February: clean-up, plus plantings, compost — and one “oops”!

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Let’s do the “oops” first. On February 10, during that extremely cold spell, Solan noticed that the person whom he had told to put the tomato trays on a shelf in the sunlight the day before had NOT put them back on the heat pad that night. HIs fault, he said. He should have checked, and actually, he didn’t tell the person to do it, so he should have done it. Plus, Andreas was supposed to build a fire in the greenhouse for overnight, but since he had never built a fire before, and so would need supervision, Rebecca told him to forget it, the seedlings would be fine so long as they were on the heat pad. Well . . . Yep. That’s the oops! Because of numerous people not going in the greenhouse that evening  for various reasons and inattention, the sweet delicate little seedling tomatoes all died. . . But then, Dan and his friend Emily stepped up to the plate and planted them again that very same day. Luckily, it’s not too late. Live and learn!

Actually, ever since Rebecca left, a few weeks ago, except for morning and evening watering of seedlings and regular caring for chickens, our work parties have been slacking off . . . Rebecca is also slacking off, deliberately, having driven all the way to Nevada, where she is glamping for a month or so in a glorious new Queen of Sheba tent with her two dogs in a desert campground near Las Vegas, where she can go work as a Uber driver, when she needs money. Unfortunately, I can’t find a pic of the tent.

But today, work parties resumed with gusto, four of us, plus Camden, who has been coming to dinner and wanted to join work parties too. The goals: to clean up the chicken yard, plant the peas, and make a new compost pile. All done!

Clean up chicken yard

Justin with chicken wire, lots of it, which we rolled and stacked. The pile beyond on the right is actually the beginnings of a new hugelkultur bed, however, so we didn’t touch it. Notice the new fence!

Plant the Peas

Here they are, on the right front, next to the beets at the end, ready to go out.

 

Solan, director of this work party, plants.

 

Camden overlooks Andreas and Justin planting, his water bucket full and ready.

 

Done! And notice the sticks inserted on the left for the peas to climb. The other side has wire for that same purpose. The peas will have to be covered, with both ground cover and tarp, every time it goes below freezing at night. We found those and stacked them next to the bed.

Making a New Compost Bed

I didn’t stay for this operation, and Justin had to go to class, leaving Solan, Justin and Camden to do it. I did go out to check on their progress mid-way through. It took about an hour altogether, layering leaves, food scraps, chicken poop infested hay, and spent grains which we get from a brewery. No manure for this bed, unfortunately, so it won’t compost quite as fast. Our three houses, with nine people total, all contribute food scraps, so we have lots of buckets. Half way through the operation, these had already been emptied.

And these awaited emptying.

Here we go.

Adding the leaves . . .

The pile slowly grows, layer by layer.

It’s 4:30, time to do my daily yoga, chi kung, and tai chi, then get ready for this week’s Community Dinner, to be held in our regular rotation, at the second DeKist house this evening. Tomorrow I will do a blogpost on that dinner, plus two other dinners from February. Tomorrow we march into March! YES!

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Two Community Dinners: We rotate among the three houses . . .

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. . . and here are photos from the last two dinners, first at Overhill, next at DeKist 2. Next Thursday will be DeKist 1’s turn.

Overhill Dinner, January 31, 2019

It’s interesting. Much like potlucks (ours are not potlucks, but giftings; you aren’t required to bring anything to come), the amount and kind of food varies from week to week. This week was spectacular in the sheer amount of delicious food present, including three chickens! See the chicken in the red pot? That’s the one I made with Dan’s chicken, and it turns out we didn’t even touch it! So I made it into a hearty soup to follow our next work party, painting the garage, on Sunday last (no photos).

 

And see the humungous salad? Some of that made it into the soup as well. Way way way! too much! for the 13 people who were present.

What surprised us this time was young Sophia’s contribution, a very special chocolate cake with, she says, “not too much sugar in it.”

Neighbor Devin and Sophia’s mother Eva beam to see Sophia’s evident pride in her accomplishment.

She cut it into slices, and I think it was all gone by the time everyone left.

Oh, and BTW: on her way out the door, Sophia yells, excited:  “Wait until you see what I bring next time!”

 

DeKist 2 Dinner, February 7, 2019

Well, Sophia sure turned it on this time, and now, with her mother Eva contributing lemon bars as well. Absolutely, the three desserts “took the cake” at this week’s dinner. Each of them was unusually, indeed spectacularly good, the two others being some kind of fluffy pink cookie and a complex cheesecake that frankly, was the best I’ve ever eaten.  I don’t know if any of the 14 people present had less than three desserts . . .

We started speculating. What if Sophia (on right in photo). . .

. . . and her Mom Eva started a bakery business together? What would that look like?

The rest of the food was “okay,” filled us up; the exception being, of course, Andreas’ famous pork dish that comes  from his Cypriot grandmother (he tells me its one of three dishes he knows how to fix).

Three new people graced our presence. Chris, standing up talking with Devin at the table, who is Eva’s new husband and his daughter Siah (sorry, didn’t have my camera when she I noticed her doing a quick backbend in a dark corner). Here, Sophia’s Mom Eva is in one white sweater, and her mom Wanda in the other white sweater.

The other new person, Camden, who found us at the ic.org site (Fellowship of Intentional Communities) —

Camden, on right, with big smile, talking with Andreas.

—  is a senior at IU majoring in Religious Studies. He and Devin, who also majored in Religious Studies, but 30 years ago and is now a poet, got into an immediate conversation. Turns out both of them are mostly interested in comparative religions. I asked, “What is one universal that they all hold in common?” Camden thought a moment, “Well, the idea of being good,” he said, and went on to mention several other qualities. A little while later, Devin found a thick book sitting on top of others in the living room, Homo Deus, by Yuval Halal Narari, and when he told me it’s about men becoming gods via AI and transhumanism, and that he was half-way through it at home, I shuddered, and declared that I would  not read this book.

Would much rather get back in communion with each other and the Earth herself. Plus push technology, and especially AI and transhumanism, into a back corner.

Camden, who hails from nearby Bedford, lives now with his granddad, and says his entire family — with many aunts, uncles, cousins, grandkids etc., all live within 25 miles of each other! That they not only get together for holidays, but many of them get together weekly. He says the ongoing presence of his family makes him feel “blessed.”

Meanwhile, Camden says he doesn’t have much to do in his final semester, and wants to join our work parties! Terrific! We’ve put him on the list.

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Work Parties: Tool Care and Planting Seeds

By 1 commentUrban Farm

We’ve upped our game. Now we ask that podmates devote four hours, rather than two hours, per week, to our common goal of evolving this permaculture village and urban farm into an living template that will inspire others to do the same in all the suburbs of America! I know it sounds like a big vision. And it is. And why not? What else are we here on this blessed Mother Earth for if not to reconnect with Her and each other? I mean, duh!

Okay, so two work parties this past week. First:

Tool Sharpening and Oiling

We have never done this task before as a group work party.! Yet it needs to be done yearly, in the winter months, when the tools are not being used and we’re twiddling our thumbs waiting to get back to the soil.

Four men and one woman gathered in the DeKist 1 living room about a week ago, and got right down to the task, mending, sharpening and oiling. (They were going to do it in the greenhouse, but it turned out to be too damn cold.)

Andreas, Joshua, and Alex all concentrated on sharpening.

 

Solan did the fixing, here tightening screws on our post hole digger.

Finally, Rebecca was the oiler.

 

These tools await sharpening and oiling.

And these shovels are already done, back up on the outside wall. Oops! Notice the tiny unoiled place on the left edge of the middle shovel . . .

Next:

Second seeding party 2019

Yesterday, on a very wet and thunderstormy early February day when I, Ann, was almost electrocuted by lightning, and water pooled for the first time in memory in the Overhill front yard . . .

Josh, Andreas, Solan, and Dan gathered in the greenhouse to replant tiny seeded soil blocks into larger soil blocks . . .

 

Dan took time to rev up the fire . . .

 

Then they planted these new seeds:

 

I noticed that a coffee cups had “Mathematical Reviews” on it, reminding us all of my deceased husband Jeff Joel, an Editor at Mathematical Reviews in Ann Arbor, for 17 years, until he moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to live in a 20-foot diameter yurt with me. My inheritance from Jeff, who died in 2003, ended up funding this Green Acres Permaculture Village and Urban Farm. We are forever grateful!

This morning I went out for another look at the situation.

Oooo! Pea sprouts!

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