Gabriel: I am really excited because the village school is moving to a new location. We’re going to be out here in the forest gardens. Behind me, right here is the forest garden. An area that’s been through a million different iterations, different teams, lots of people taking care of it over the years, and it’s been in and out of being well taken care of, this beautiful idea, this beautiful vision of this permaculture food forest, different levels and layers, different kinds of food growing in different places. It’s always seem to just not really get taken care of the way that it needs in order to be as beautiful as it could be and produce a lot of food.

I was out there one day just looking at it and thought about how if the kids were coming here every day and basing their school program here and finding projects that they’re interested in, things that they’re interested in getting into and growing some food and some of the garden beds and taking care of the fruit trees. Just be here every day, learning about this place and loving this place and taking care of this place.  Then not only would the place be getting taken care of. But the kids would be learning about that relationship and learning all the different skills that are involved in that. All the different things they need to get done here, all the different things that they can practice as far as working with the land.

And so that’s the idea. I’m excited to land here with them and see what they get into. Hope it can be really good for them and for the community also.

Part 2

Being Here in a Good Way

All right. Let’s imagine that today is the first day of school, which is coming up on Monday.

Hopefully, things will be a little more put together. We’re going to meet out here in this driveway on the first day of school for a good old fashioned driveway fire. Probably be a fire right around here somewhere. I’m going to talk to the kids and tell them about this place, about what we’re going to be doing, what we’re going to be talking about, what we’re going to be learning.

Also just talk to the place in front of them, talk to the place and the trees and animals that live here. Tell them that we’re coming in and we’re probably going to change things and destroy some things and mess up some things by accident or on purpose. Take some things and ask all of their permission and help and support and guidance to be here in a good way. Hoping that our being here can teach the kids to relate to a place in a way that’s beneficial to the place and that all of that taking and destroying and serve that purpose.

Greeting Each Day

So anyway, let’s check it out. We’ll start here. Then, we’ll travel down the road and across the bridge into the forest garden. Every day, the kids will meet back up there where we had our fire, and they’ll be hanging out, waiting. Then when they hear the conk blow, they’ll come walking, gently, quietly with their backpacks, walking up this road.

This tarp here is the camp for our saplings program that’s our younger children, 6 to 8 years old. We have four of them with Chelsea Spitzer as their teacher. This will be their home base beneath the great grandmother hemlock tree. Really cozy little spot. The beautiful view of the field.

Over here is the growing area of the forest garden. It’s wide-open playground for our imaginations, for growing things, for taking care of the land. A lot of work that needs to get done, a lot of really kid friendly jobs out there.

Already the taking and destroying has begun, bringing the tractor through here to bring sand and materials and build things. Hopefully, we can find a way to take care of this tractor tracks and mud.

So, the older kids will walk past the saplings camp and come up the road here.

Hopefully, every day will be as gorgeous as this day, probably in its own unique way. Some of them in a rainy way.

Over here on the right. This is our hearth or fire circle where we’ll meet every morning, have circle time, lay out some blankets, and sit and check in. Start our day. In some quiet and some sharing.
It’s like a little Cathedral of trees.

Part 3

Our Hearth

So this spot where we’re standing is the exact same place that for many years there was this thing that we called the pirate ship. It was this bizarre assortment there was like half of an old piano right here. There were the prow was kind of in here and there were several different decks and layers. Then was this crazy roof made of all different kinds of metal and other kinds of roofing like layered together and it was attached to all these trees and weird ways. And there were bells and spots you could go under and cabinets and kids used to play in here. Way early on in my time at Earthaven I used to take kids out here doing child care. We would play and hang out and it was all funky,  dangerous, and crazy. These buildings are all built around the same time.

Then at some point the pirate ship got taken down and a lot of these trees were dying because they had weird metal and stuff in them. So I took down some trees and we put some sand in here and this will be our hearth.

The Classroom, Round Table, and Math Circle

Let’s go look at the classroom.

This is a part that I’m really excited about. I had this vision, this idea, of… we have 12 students and myself, so we have 13 people and I was just thinking how can 13 people sit at one big table. So, I made these tables for the school and they’re arranged so that you can sit anywhere without interfering with the legs and it’s big enough for 13 people to sit together.

This table is primarily going to be for our math circle. Math circle is a way of teaching mathematics that is really participatory and democratic and it opens up the kids to thinking about complex difficult open-ended problems in a collaborative way, working together.

You can see if you come over here, you can see that this chalkboard is a little low for me. Most teachers would put their chalkboard up here. That’s because this is the kids chalkboard, you know, the whole point is that to get them up out of their seats working things out on the chalkboard, working things out, trying things out, and then having conversation with each other.

Math Circle: How did I make this table?

This is why I wanted to have it as a round table. It’s like king Arthur and the knights of the round table. Like putting everybody in the same ball game together so that they are talking to each other and it’s not just me and them.  I’ll be sitting at one of these chairs like everybody else and working it out.

The first problem that we’re going to do in our math circle is going to be all about how did I make this table. What’s the geometry of this table? How would you construct this exact shape? What are its features and yeah how would you build it? All the different math involved in making the tables

The post Village School Overview with Gabriel at Earthaven Ecovillage (Three Part Series) appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

Previous owners gifted Earthaven’s main street with a healthy stand of bamboo that’s now prolific near the Forest Garden Learning Center. Early Earthaven members added additional stands around the community.

What a beautiful and useful plant (we thought)!

Bamboo IS beautiful. AND useful. But like a beautiful and useful animal, bamboo has to be trained and maintained. Otherwise, despite one’s love for it, IT WILL TAKE OVER!

We had the naïve idea that if bamboo is planted between natural “barriers,” such as creeks and roads, you don’t have to worry about its invasiveness. Think again. Bamboo spreads, like any grass, in every direction through networks of rhizomes and root mats. Although it may be stopped by a road bed or other deep boundary it’s definitely hard to control. If it gets close to a road, come heavy snow and ice, it will lean down frozen and stiff and block traffic.

Excavation to remove Bamboo from the Bellavia pond.

One year, we tried making eating bamboo shoots an incentive to control one stand, but the thrill of eating them didn’t seem to justify all the effort to prepare them. This year, encroachment on a building became too risky to ignore, and a major excavation was undertaken. It will take several years of pruning as new sprouts emerge before we can consider the job done.

Now all neighborhoods and the commons are being managed for bamboo to stop its spread. Harvests are providing material for future decorative and useful experiments.

The post Lessons in Bamboo: Love it but Don’t Leave it Alone appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

My neighborhood (Village Terraces) has a shared washer, but I like to use Shangri-Laundry when the weather is too rainy for outdoor drying. And, I often sleep too late to get my wash hung on the line in time to dry. 🙂

Diana Leafe Christian organized the laundry coop and the system was designed by Greg Geis. It is easy to use. When you walk into the nice, cool basement, this motion-sensor light comes on, so you can see to put your laundry in the washer before inserting money that starts your timed access to electricity: lights, washer, dryer, and DSL broadband Internet.

The laundry supplies environmentally friendly laundry soap and booster for you to use at no extra charge, as well as about eco-cleaners you can buy at Shangri-Laundry.

While the washer is running, you can hang out on the sofa and go online or read magazines that are provided. You can lock yourself in for privacy (and there are toilet facilities). There are plans to install a bathtub later, so you will be able to relax in a hot bath while the machines spin!

Here is Greg moving his laundry from the washer up to the dryer. Both the washer and dryer are energy-efficient and have multiple settings from heavy-duty to delicate. The front-loading washer is gentle on your clothes. It senses the size of the load and adjusts the amount of water accordingly. The dryer can be set for a timed cycle or to sense when your clothes are dry. The length of washer and dryer cycles can vary based on the load size and the options you select.

When you are down to your last 15 minutes (a dollar’s worth of time), a constant beeping will start and this blue light will blink. You can press the blue button to stop the beeping if you don’t need any more time. Insert another dollar as needed to keep the electricity going until you are done.

There are many helpful signs to guide you through the steps. The Shangri-Laundry is available for Earthaven residents, visitors, and neighbors. We hope it will help make our lives more sustainable by letting folks avoid a trip into town to do laundry. We are interested in feedback to make the laundry meet your needs–please “like” us and stay in touch on our Facebook Page.

The post Shangri-Laundry appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

	The Forest Garden Learning Center has a new patio on the north side of the greenhouse. The new space is designed to serve multiple functions, such as a fruit stand, rest area, and welcome space for courses. Melissa Thurmond led the project, with help from friends.
	The OFF the GRIDdle Eco-Café is taking shape near the Council Hall with the arrival of a pair of shipping containers that will form the kitchen and dining area. The café is being developed as a private venture by Suchi Lathrup, Lance Penley, Liz Diaz, and redmoonsong. The café team plans to have the kitchen ready for a New Year’s party. Follow them on their Facebook page:
	In farm news, on September 15, Imani Farm’s cow, LC (Large Cow), gave birth to a heifer calf named Sassy Mae, and on October 8, Yellowroot Farm’s sow, LaFonda, gave birth to 11 healthy, red-headed piglets.

The post News from the Village appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

On her next-to-last day at Earthaven, our Forest Children’s Collective tutor Amakiasu (center), and her kids Chioke, 17 (left) and Ayo, 13 (right), sheet-mulched the slope between Greg’s homesite and our place with cardboard and straw. You can also see one of our water-catchment tanks, the greenhouse (with a shower inside for lodgers and neighbors), and in the far left, Greg’s apartment and workshop, and his solar panels.

Another view of our cleaned-up slope. Our lodging units and greenhouse are at the top, and our row of compost bins below. Thanks to the sheet-mulching, people driving into Earthaven, our lodgers, and Greg won’t have to look at a jungly mass of pokeberries, sumacs, tiny poplar trees, blackberries-on-steroids, horse-thistle (eek!), and other assorted “please-don’t-grow-here!” plants. (For about 6 months anyway.) Someday this slope will grow berries!

Thank you, Amakiasu, Ayo, and Chioke. Goodbye . . . and . . . come back soon!

The post Forest Garden Neighborhood, July 20, 2010 appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

Suchi, Kimchi, and Gaspar have been facilitating forum at Earthaven for the past couple years.  Arjuna, Debbie, Mana, Steve, Clark, and Red Moon Song are joining them as a forum facilitation team with community forums scheduled twice a month.

Our abundant spring rains have turned into hot summer sun, and our gardens are growing! We harvested garlic, squash, beans, greens, and lots of berries, and even our first few tomatoes.

We celebrated the summer solstice with yoga, meditation, a ceremony at Hidden Valley, and a work day to deepen our swimming hole!

Earthaven hosted our third group of college students over summer solstice weekend. This group, from Wake Forest University, was on days 19-21 of a 27-day field trip throughout the Southeast. During a break from their studies they built a grape trellis and mulched paths in the Forest Garden.

Our teachers have been busy preparing for their summer programs. Andrew Goodheart and friends are hosting a permaculture certification course at Earthaven in August (see article later in the newsletter), Corinna is preparing for her August Wise Women Immersion course, and the women at Red Moon Herbs are preparing for the fifth annual Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference.

Diana has had a busy spring and summer traveling around the world teaching and speaking about intentional communities and ecovillages. Her travels so far include teaching the Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) course of GEN’s Gaia Education program in the Philippines (see photo), being a keynote presenter at Portland’s Village Building Convergence, and participating in the International Cohousing Summit as one of the few Americans invited. Between speaking engagements she edits the Ecovillages Newsletter.

The post News notes – Summer 2009 appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.