small-scale: life in an ecovillage

I feel like I may have neglected to go into a lot of detail about how people actually go about living their lives here, so I’m going to make an attempt to address a bunch of random points. Very random points.

Fun facts!

• Drinking, cooking, cleaning, showering… it’s all done with rainwater that is collected from the rooftops and stored in cisterns. If there is a long period of drought, DR can tap into county water supply and fill up their cisterns. (All water is filtered, but there is a special drinking water tap built into kitchen sinks that has a more effective filter than the cleaning water filter.)
• Showering. There are two showers in the Common House that anyone can use, provided they are part of the shower co-op. $40 a year will get you access to both these indoor showers, and the outdoor solar showers. $4 a year will get you access to just the solar showers. Lots of people just choose to hop in the pond and rinse off in the solar shower to get clean. (I have yet to use the indoor showers, myself.)
• Laundry. I was surprised to find out that DR does indeed have one washing machine, but I haven’t actually seen it running too often. Some people choose to wash clothes by hand (I’m not actually sure where or how), but people don’t create a whole lot of laundry because clothes typically get a lof of wear.
• Language. Members here at DR frequently use the term “co” to designate a person of unknown or uncertain gender. (Example: ‘One cup per co’ instead of ‘One cup per person’)
• TV. No one watches TV.
• Trash. The community does a lot of composting, and trash (for the landfill) buildup is fairly minimal. The entire community (25ish people) produces something like one or two garbage cans a week (if I remember correctly).
• Animals. No one raises any animals at this point, but chickens have been raised in the past.

Umm… that’s all I can think of right now. There’s definitely more to be said, but that’s all you’re gonna get for now.

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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