life’s adventures in an off-the-grid ecovillage, simple living, and other random musings
Note: Please find all of my cob building related content at my new blog, The Year of Mud: Building a cob house. Thanks! See you there!
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Here’s a recent article (well, I wrote it several months ago) that I wrote that was featured in the newest March Hare, Dancing Rabbit’s quarterly newsletter. It touches upon my plans and hopes and dreams of my food future at Dancing Rabbit, and how I’d like to see food culture grow and develop. Here ya go:
2009 marks the year I start to seriously think about food. If 2008 was the Year of Mud, let 2009 be the first Year of Food. I’ll start off with saying that I adore food. Not only do I love the flavors and sensations associated with a good meal, but the act of eating, and how food is grown, and food culture are all of major interest to me.
(A note about the previous post: I may have jumped the gun a bit on posting that image, but I want to provide a contrast between the suburban home I grew up in versus the home I am building now, and about to move into. That image is still a couple weeks away, though!)
I am back again in NJ for similar (too similar) reasons to my return here last summer in July. My dad’s father has been in ill health and has just passed away after a long, slow decline in his health. I’m glad to be here to help support my family. In particular, my dad and grandmother have had a hell of a past few months. I think we’re all glad to see my grandfather at ease now, instead of remaining in his difficult state of being.
It’s strange to say but the timing works out because most of the work is done on my house and I’ll be able to move into it when I get back. It’s been pretty interesting for me to have this sudden break from Dancing Rabbit life, right at the tail end of a very busy (and at times intense) past few months. I think that I will return with a refreshed sense of energy, ready for the next half of the year: growing veggies and figuring out my food scene, wrapping up the house, and planning for the next project (or series of projects, I should say).
It’s that time again…
Morels + homemade butter + salt = a good life.
A day or two later after A Kid Off The Grid aired on Nickelodeon, The Daily Show took notice. We were excerpted in a segment with Lewis Black making some funny commentary about our use of the humanure system (”pooping in buckets”). They didn’t use our name, so most people will probably never know just who those people were…
Surreal… anyway, check out the Daily Show video here.
Dancing Rabbit was very recently featured on Nickelodeon’s Nick News in their Kid Off The Grid TV feature. A camera crew came out in February to talk to some of the DR kids about daily life in an off-the-grid community.
It’s a seven minute segment that’s actually quite well done and covers a lot of info. about living here at Dancing Rabbit from a kid’s perspective.
Check out the Dancing Rabbit on a Kid Off The Grid video.
p.s. There’s a brief shot of my cob house in there, too!
I think I’m done making my sheet mulched garden beds. I say “I think” because I may want to make up a couple additional beds in the near future, but I have everything complete that was priority.
I used the sheet mulching method of creating these garden beds. That means I did not dig into the soil. Instead, I knocked back any growth that was coming up through the soil. Next, I laid down large sheets of cardboard. Then I piled on an inch or two of composted manure. Finally, I added a heavy layer of straw.
I made a giant suntrap-style keyhole garden bed on the back half of my warren. The beds form a “U” shape and faces the direction of the sun (south). Keyhole beds are a space-saving technique, and they’re more visually appealing than straight garden beds. I think my design looks like the underside of a leaf with the veins being the walking space.
There are two apple trees to the north of this U, and two peach rootstocks to the west. Eventually I’ll get another couple of trees planted to the west, and fill in the space between trees with shrubs like hazelnuts and raspberries. The U will eventually be planted with perennial vegetables.
The front garden beds (pictured below) will be planted with annual vegetables. I hope to fill these beds with seedlings that folks give away. There are usually plenty of extras to go around. I can’t say for sure what will end up in these beds, but so far I have some onions, walking onions, early cabbage, and broccoli, all of which I got for free.
On Saturday, April 4 at 6:30 P.M. ET, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage will be featured on the Food Network’s new TV series, My Life in Food.
The episode is called Living Off The Land and it gives a sneak peak into community living at Dancing Rabbit and it documents the community’s relationship to growing and eating food.
More information can be had on the My Life in Food website.
Oftentimes, people here at Dancing Rabbit build compost bins out of recycled shipping pallets for their gardens. Shipping pallets can be had for free from many sources – stores, warehouses… anywhere and everywhere that receives large shipments.
They are easy to build and cost next to nothing. You can make a very simple three-sided design or get fancy with a gate that opens and closes.
Here’s how you can build your own recycled pallet compost bin for $15.
The Year of Mud: Building a cob house Green Options: Posts by Brian Liloia
