Monthly Archive for September, 2007

A busy weekend

Published
by
Brian
on September 30, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage and Life
. 0 Comments

This weekend has been one of the busier ones in a while. On Friday morning, Nathan, Liat, and I woke up around 6:00 a.m. to drive into Kirksville, a town 35 miles away, to drop off Liat’s brother at the (tinytiny) Kirksville airport, run some errands, and then hang out until the Critical Mass bike ride, which was at 5:30 p.m that day.

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Kirksville is a pretty small town, maybe 25,000 people or so (including students), and it’s also home to Truman State University. We spent some time on the campus in the afternoon, mostly posting fliers for Critical Mass and passing the time. Thankfully, a kind student swiped us into a cafeteria at one point so we could grab some grub, because it was a long day and we were all pretty hungry. Sitting there in the student cafeteria and eating a questionable mushroom sandwich and french fries brought back many memories of my own four years of college food.

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After all that was the actual Critical Mass ride, and there was a nice turnout of 50+ riders, most of whom were probably students.

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A friend of ours from the La Plata community had joined us for the afternoon, and afterwards we biked the 15 miles to La Plata to spend the night at her community’s home. There we had an awesome dinner, including fresh, homemade butter from the cream of Amish neighbors’ cows. So good.

The next morning, we woke up at 6:00 a.m. to bike back to Kirksville, and then we drove back to Dancing Rabbit. That afternoon we had our annual Open House. Over 150 people from the surrounding area showed up for tours of the ecovillage, with different stops at some of the highlights of the community. It was a busy afternoon, but fun and rewarding. I was busy shooting video most of the time, but unfortunately it was super windy, causing some audio problems. Anyway, I was happy to see a friend from St. Louis again and catch up, too.

By the end of the day, I was pretty wiped.

Next weekend will be an even bigger one, because we’ll be having a three-day 10th anniversary reunion and celebration of the community. Lots of old members, interns, etc. will be staying for the weekend, and I’m sure it will be a time for many stories.

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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Dan at DR

Published
by
Brian
on September 29, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Check out what a good pal here at Dancing Rabbit, Dan is up to on his blog here. Dan has been busy at work building the foundation for his future straw bale house, and it’s great to see him out there working hard every day. I’ve helped him a couple times since he broke ground for the house, and moving those big chunks of urbanite ain’t easy!

Dancing Rabbit TV episode #3

Published
by
Brian
on September 26, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage and Video
. 0 Comments

Ok, Dancing Rabbit TV episode #3 is now ready! This time, it’s Natural Building How-To: Earthen Plastering with Tamar. This video is a complete look at how to make earthen plaster from clay, sand, manure (!), and straw, and how to mix and apply it to a wall.

Check it out below…

Fermentation

Published
by
Brian
on September 20, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage, Food and Life
. 0 Comments

I’ve been doing some thinking about fermentation lately. A copy of the book, Wild Fermentation has been floating around the kitchen lately, and I’ve been thumbing through it for a few weeks now. There is a wealth of great information and recipes inside, and it’s inspired me to look into doing more fermenting of foods.

In the Bobolink food co-op, standard yearly fermented foods include sauerkraut and pickles, and this year, we tried fermenting some squash due to the sheer abundance of it this season. The process is pretty much identical to pickling cucumbers, and the results are very tasty. Amy of Bobolink recently fermented some onions, which I tried yesterday, and enjoyed quite a bit. They are very sweet and make a great pizza topping. All it took was some salt, and time did the rest.

My own fermenting pursuits lie in kombucha and kefir. I made my first batch of kombucha the other day in over two months, and I enjoy having kefir regularly with a bowl of oats in the morning. But I want to try something new. Flipping through Wild Fermentation, I became interested in amazake, a fermented rice drink. It requires nothing more than rice and a koji culture, which can be purchased from G.E.M. Cultures. The drink itself is very sweet and can be used in baking as a sweetener. While browsing on the G.E.M. Cultures website, I noticed they have natto starter, which is combined with soy beans to produce a very unique, sticky, stringy soy ferment. I’ve had natto a few times in the past at Japanese restaurants, and despite the strange flavor, it’s pretty tasty and I wouldn’t mind giving a spin.

But yea, there is something very appealing about the process of fermentation. It’s like a magical transformation of food that usually requires nothing more than time and natural bacteria. It’s like a science, but not necessarily a precise one, and it amazes me that just about anything can be fermented with relatively simple processes.

Natural Homes map

Published
by
Brian
on September 19, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Environment and Sustainability
. 1 Comment

Check this out… here’s a global map (using Google Maps) featuring natural homes located around the world - everything from straw bale, cob, cordwood, to earthship homes are included. Looks like a work in progress, so undoubtedly this map will fill up over time.

(You can see that Tony B. and Alyssa’s home, Larkspur is on there with a link to my video.)
From Natural Homes:

Random photos again

Published
by
Brian
on September 17, 2007
in Life and Photography
. 0 Comments

Random photo update

Published
by
Brian
on September 15, 2007
in Life and Photography
. 0 Comments

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September

Published
by
Brian
on September 11, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage and Life
. 0 Comments

Ok, so I’ve been slacking with the writing lately… but that doesn’t mean stuff isn’t going on.

Recently, I’ve been working on an entry for Current TV’s Ecospot contest. The idea is to create a short video, either 15, 30, or 60 seconds long, about global warming, providing an inspiring solution or idea that people could adapt to tackle the crisis. I used Dancing Rabbit as my example (naturally), and submitted my entry today. Anyway, the contest is a bit disappointing when you see the list of prizes: big screen TVs, cell phones, computers, and a hybrid SUV. Kinda defeats the whole purpose and theme of the contest, no? It’s not very encouraging and doesn’t exactly send a good message. (I mean, come on, the Highlander hybrid gets a measly 24-27 MPG. Not very impressive.)

Other than that, the weather has cooled dramatically over the past two days. Somehow, we’ve entered fall over the course of 48 hours, with tonight’s projected low temperature dropping to 40 degrees! Geez.

This weekend, Rutledge (population 103) is holding its Fall Festival, with lots of activities and games and music and food. Should be a good time to meet up and mingle with the locals.

Lately I’ve been doing more reading than usual, this time looking at The Long Emergency. The Long Emergency is all about peak oil and our impending (current?) energy crisis, and the surrounding problems of global warming, water depletion, and all of that other fun stuff. A good read. Will probably write more about this one later.

A few DR folks have planned to do a long bike ride spanning a few days in another week or two. During the multi-day trip, we will visit some parks and reservoirs and other fun stuff. There’s no set schedule or destinations just yet, but I am looking forward to the ride. I’ve always wanted to do a long, multi-day bike trip.

Weekend of biking

Published
by
Brian
on September 3, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage and Life
. 1 Comment

On Friday, three of us went into Kirksville for the monthly Critical Mass bike ride. That evening, we biked in La Plata, about 15 miles away, to stay the night at another community, currently unnamed, but so far populated by three individuals with a couple more folks on the way. Formerly (but never officially) Mustard Seed, this community is another off-the-grid group with a slightly different setup than that of Dancing Rabbit. The three currently live in a previously Amish-owned home on 80 acres of land, complete with a barn and a pond, but not much else. They’ve only been settled in for about five months, so it’s still very early in the game. However, the trio uses no electricity and is completely car-free. Bicycles are their main mode of transport. All cooking is done over wood, or in a wood stove. The group is also heavily into permaculture. It was exciting to visit them and see their place. I was happy to spend time with Ethan, Katrina, Sarah, and the other folks who were visiting with them. They were a truly inspiring group of people.

The next day, we biked from La Plata back to Dancing Rabbit, a 40-45 mile journey. I had never done a ride this long before, and I was happy to have that experience. It was an exhilarating ride. It just felt really good to be out there traveling the roads on a bike, carrying nothing much other than water. Once we got back, the fatigue hit me, but the excitement of the accomplishment was very satisfying. It was inspiring, and I hope to do more long distance rides in the future. I don’t feel so intimidated by the prospect anymore.