snow Archives - Earthaven Ecovillage

Snow Day

Earthaven Admin Team — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 17:23:58 +0000

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It Never Snows in NC

Lee Warren — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:46:47 +0000

Group of mostly adults sledding after a snowstorm this week.

It never snows in North Carolina. “Or so I was told,” said Tanya Carwyn, who moved to Earthaven from Colorado two years ago. “So I sold my skis before I left.”

The other common thing you’ll hear people say about this area is that we have the “mildest temperatures on the East Coast.” While that’s probably true on a scale of averages, at least historically, the last two winters have been colder and snowier than many places much farther north.

LC the cow drinking water. We manually crack the ice on her water several times a day during cold weather.

Last year, the winter of 09/10, we had three major snowstorms of well over a foot of snow each time. This year we’re on our third snowstorm already and it’s just the middle of January.

For those of us working or tending animals in the snow, our jobs are harder. And for some, like Art Myers “being snowed in at Earthaven is tough–sledding all day and sauna all night.”

Liz Diaz

On snowy days, villagers of all ages have been gathering together to sled down the upper pasture at Village Terraces Cohousing Neighborhood.

“It’s an excuse to hoot and holler,” says Liz Diaz, a resident at Earthaven. We 12 to 15 people get together that don’t normally see each other, it’s an opportunity to connect and share in some fun.

Chai Tea at the Hut Hamlet Kitchen after a hard day of sledding.

This week, after the sledding, there was hot chocolate at Art and Karen’s and on another occasion Chai tea at the Hut Hamlet Kitchen.

Families from afar sometimes worry about us stuck here in our holler. Karen’s mom called, worried about their family. But because we are seasoned homesteaders we often survive these storms better than city people. We have stacked firewood, generate our own power, and grow and store enough of our own

Art Meyers – always ready to have fun.

food that most of us could be snowed in for weeks without worry. “I told my mother-in-law that I could even find fresh green vegetables by digging out some collards from under the snow.”

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An Early Morning Tractor Tale

Earthaven Admin Team — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:08:55 +0000

Written by Diana Leafe Christian

The morning after the February 12 unexpected snowstorm I had a rendezvous with Mana and Johnny and the tractor at 7:30. Mana, a sailor who knows knots, lashed my 2 suitcases to the front fork. Johnny got in the seat and Mana and I perched on the bumpers on either side, holding one with one hand onto the back of the seat and the other holding the handle on the bumper between our legs, my computer safely jammed between her and Johnny.

Given the potential warmth-factor of our vehicle — which is the current outside temperature + the breeze you create by your speed + the breeze off the mountain — I was wearing 3 pair of socks and Debbie’s rubber boots, 3 pair of cotton long johns, jeans, my ankle-length wool knit skirt (which was hiked up so I could grab the handle between my legs), 2 turtlenecks, a sweatshirt, my black parka, my neck scarf wrapped around my neck and lower face, a wool hat and my parka hood, and a pair of gloves inside a pair of mittens. Considering I was wearing nearly all the clothes I own and the outer layer was black, I reminded myself of a chubby Inuit thrift-store Beatnik. Johnny and Mana, much more sensible, (not to mention svelte) wore Carharts, hats and sweatshirt hoods, gloves, heavy work boots. and polar-tec balaclavas. They had it down.

I reckon it was about 15 degrees, given the online hour-by-hour forecast (thank you, Greg) with actual temperature and wind-chill factor. “Don’t let your feet get tangled up in the wheel,” Mana cautioned. And we were off!

It was a beautiful sunny morning and the sunlight glinted off the fresh dazzling white snow. The views out over the snow-covered mountains were wonderful. There was ice in the wheel ruts of previous cars, and, I suspect, black ice from the night before under the snow at the turns. But Earthaven’s tractor don’ care ’bout no steenk’in’ ice; it just trundled over everything, impervious. We were kings!

Johnny employed darn-near every gear the tractor has on various grades and slopes. The snow was only about 2″, which made it easier and much less slow-going than when Johnny and Mana took Andy and Julie out three weeks earlier in about a foot of snow.

Every once in awhile Johnny sort of hug-patted my nearest leg, which was adjacent to his gear-shifting arm, as if to say “How’re ya doin’, old girl? Hanging in there?” It was exactly the way someone sitting in a chair would hug and pat a dog around its neck if it was sitting next to their knee, so I’d laugh because I felt like I was being patted like a dog. It was friendly and funny (and the momentary BTUs probably helped reduce the refrigeration factor by some fraction). Each time he did it I wanted to bark in appreciation.

As we chugged around the hairpin turn at Deer Rock we saw Brian’s van and UPN’s truck amid the many cars that had given up on getting up the hill and parked there unexpectedly. At near midnight the night before, since cars were sliding backwards down the road and there’d been an accident, Brian, Carmen, Sarah, and Will had said, “Forget this!” and hiked on home.

We rumbled into the parking lot at Crooked Creek gas station at 8:54 am. Minus the time it took to lash the bags to the mizzenmast, it took about an hour. And there was Black Mountain Laundry’s airport shuttle fellow waiting, so I traded vehicles, got a lot warmer real fast, and made it to the airport in plenty of time. Mana and Johnny turned that red baby around and chugged back on home, and I flew to blizzardy Iowa just fine. Where I haven’t chopped kindling, lugged firewood, or checked a trimetric meter even once!

Thank you, Mana and Johnny! And thank you, Earthaven and the EDO for years ago buying — and every year maintaining — our beautiful, massive, fabulously versatile and sometimes-Iowa-job-saving tractor!

Diana Leafe Christian, communities expert, just returned from teaching in Iowa for a month, and is Earthaven’s Airspinner. dianaleafechristian.org http://www.EcovillageNews.org

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Remembering Snow!

Earthaven Admin Team — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:17:41 +0000

written by Arjuna da Silva

The biggest snowstorm in close to forty years visited us this past December, just in time for the Solstice. Yes, it was a white Kwanzaa (hmm…that’s another story!*), and a deep one too. We received over a foot of the White Blessing, and proceeded to dwell in below-freezing temps 24/7 for almost two weeks. In the midst of it, came rain (I guess it must have gotten above freezing for an hour or two), which then froze. Trees were down all along the state-maintained roads, and there were major delays while utility trucks from as far away as Alabama worked their chain saw magic to clear them. Our own tree damage was not that severe, and our “fellas” were out on the tractor giving us the option to test our tires on our own roads pretty quickly. It probably took a week before most of us dared to venture out—the bamboo on Another Way near the Forest Garden, which always hangs low when there’s an ice storm or snow, didn’t rebound and had to be chopped to the ground for the first time ever, so we could pass.

Overall, we were pretty cozy and content, and we know that the White Blessing is just what the water table and the soil need for extra nourishment. There hasn’t been much snow here in many years. Oh, but then the thawing—paths and roads as mushy as mud stew. Gravel patches to get through the worst of it are all we can expect until the roads do their own version of “mending” and are solid enough again to let repairs last.

Yes, water lines also froze. Folks in outlying neighborhoods on newer water systems offered showers and fill-ups, and folks hunkered down by their woodstoves, washing less and (we hope, anyway) cuddling more.

In January there was more snow, and the sun didn’t give us a full day of brightness for the first half of the month. Generators back up valiant batteries sucking what they can from PV panels, and the micro-hydro system tunnels along merrily. Clearly, we haven’t been hit hardest by this unseasonal beginning to Winter—folks elsewhere are experiencing serious losses. Our hearts (and pennies) go out to all who are suffering from unstable weather patterns and the shifting of Earth’s underside. Stay safe, y’all, and cozy, and let us know how you’re doing this year, wherever you are.

* About the other seasonal celebrations, after the gala Solstice gathering at the White Owl, we gave ourselves a taste of Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa during those snow-covered times. In particular, Amakiasu and Ayo made a beautiful Kwanzaa ceremony for us in the Council Hall, combining background, ritual and story, which the delightful Forest Children enacted with great aplomb (i.e., “self-confident assurance”).

Arjuna da Silva is an Earthaven founder, Culture’s Edge president, and former Airspinner. She is coordinating the Natural Building School and Fundamentals of Permaculture workshops at Earthaven this summer.

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