Acorn Community

I love Acorn! One of the many big things I love here is that the land is absolutely stunning. As the land evolves throughout the seasons, everyday brings new beauty to the surface to enjoy and marvel at. Today brings a thick and fluffy snow that covers all of our buildings and landscape. It is the second major snow fall we have had this winter. It was so inspiring, I decided to go out while it snowed and take as many pictures as I could.

Heartwood Residence

The Frozen Pond

The Barn

Farmhouse Backyard

The Farmhouse

The Greenhouses

Acorn

Various Buildings

Into the Woods

I can't feel my face.

Well, that’s all for now. I think I’ll try to start blogging more about my Acorn adventures, and I definitely want to start putting up more pictures!

it’s been a few weeks since my last post. we’re still doing old-fashioned mondays, i still have a lot of crafty stuff to do. i still have laundry days and wash my things by hand (my clothes now, too, instead of just my cloth wipes), and we’ve had more snow since early december. here are a few photos from the past weeks.

orange and blue sunset

this beautiful horizon was  a nice surprise one evening as i went out back to bring my laundry in before dark. i love the silhoette of trees in the wintertime.

gloves from a cut up old sweater, fixed

i made these fingerless gloves in the winter of 2007 with two then-interns at acorn. we cut up a hole-ridden sweater from commie clothes and used dental floss to make gloves. i knew better than to attempt fingers with cut-up knitting. and now, two years later, the edges were getting awful ragged – and i finally had enough basic knitting skills to just pick up some of the hanging loops to keep it from unraveling further. other places required more creative measures.

fiver climbing ladder at heartwood

i woke up one morning to find fiver ascending a ladder just outside my window. the heartwood re-siding project was going ahead full steam every day until the snowstorm came (and then christmas). that ladder is still outside my window.

laundry day - hand washing clothes

another laundry day. it feels good that it’s becoming a simple routine, and still isn’t something that i resent or feel stubborn about. sometimes i put it off for a few days, but it’s always a pleasure once i make it outside and sit on my bucket in the sunshine for a simple hour of rewarding work. now that i’m washing my clothes as well, i have that delicious fresh air scent all the time. you can’t find that scent anywhere but line-hung clothes.

ashleigh wrapping crystals

another old-fashioned monday found ashleigh wrapping a few crystals to turn into necklaces. i got one of them as a trade for some henna body art that i did on her weeks before. it’s wrapped in copper, and i haven’t taken it off yet.

after the snow - heartwood wreath

we got nearly two feet of snow out here, and so for the first day or two everything was especially scenic, a veritable winter wonderland. of course now we’re in the waning days of dirty slush and scattered patches of stubborn snow. i made this wreath for heartwood after pruning an evergreen that always tickles my head when i walk on the path to the farmhouse. the trimmings made a fine wreath (for a beginner, anyway), and made heartwood feel a bit more festive.

dandelion tincture

i just started this dandelion tincture yesterday, after going on a weed walk the day before and finding some hearty dandelion south of the greenhouse. it’ll serve as a good winter tonic six weeks from now. i’ve been really excited to be undertaking more herbal projects, and have also finished decanting the herb-infused oils, and then used some of them to make lemon-balm lip balm and lavendar burn salve.

i hope you’re having a good new year wherever you are.

i almost forgot! i meant to share a picture of our first snow. it was a lovely day – bad for driving, but great for staying in and sipping hot cocoa. i walked around late the next day to catch a few pictures. it was cold enough that even two days later patches of snow still lingered in the most shaded areas.

i grew up in rural pennsylvania, and really appreciate a good snowfall. i spent my elementary school years making forts in 5-foot snow drifts and sclupting snow turtles, tromping around in snow clothes knowing that Mom was waiting with hot chocolate when i got home. it’s nice to see snow come back to visit this year… i’ve been living in richmond and alabama for the past ten years, and the snow was… not plentiful, there, to say the least. i’m looking forward to hunkering down at acorn for a snowy winter.

here’s the wood pile outside of heartwood – we’re in the midst of a huge re-siding project, and this is the pile waiting to be de-nailed. needless to say, no de-nailing happened that day.

my pile of tasks for the evening

this past monday we gathered in heartwood for yet another ‘old-fashioned night’. usually it means crafty things – mending clothing, knitting, or crochet. this monday had all three and more. i was joined by several lovely acorn ladies and a few gents while we created headbands, baby wipes, hats, and tooth powder (i was running out). the guys in the room helped by playing old-fashioned music and reading books on the elizabethan era. one guy said he enjoyed just sitting and watching us all at work. it was a cozy evening.

today we went on a craft store run to charlottesville. we got various knitting needles and crochet hooks so more of us can do projects at the same time, and hit the goodwill for sweaters to unravel for yarn. i think it’s safe to say good times were had by all, though we were very happy to get home just in time for dinner. we had enough of the city for one day.

We have a daily community errand runner, here at Acorn.  Sending out one person in one car to get the half dozen things that we need from town saves a lot of time and gas and cuts down on the number of cars that the community needs to keep to function efficiently.  Today I was that person.

I’m also one of a small number of folks who look after the machinery here.  Today the errands were unusually machine focused as I had been saving up errands that required my special attention for a week or two.  I discovered that a good metric of how mechanically inclined one’s basket of errands is is the proportion of stops that result in the person I’m visiting pulling out their “mics” or high precision calipers.  Today that was three stops out of six (the library, post office, and hardware store had no desire to measure anything I was bringing them).

There’s a lot happening here in the world of machines.  We’re upgrading our tractor capacity now that we have the labor and money to do it.  We finally bought a used John Deere 1520 a couple months ago.  Hailing from the 1970’s and weighing in at about 46 HP it’s a big step up from our vintage 1938 Ford 9N with it’s 24 HP.  Plus, it has a front end loader.  As River predicted, once you have a front end loader you look at the farm in an entirely new way.

The three errands today all stemmed from the purchase of the tofuier tractor (thanks to my friend Pax for finding a vegan friendly alternative to “beefier”).  The bigger tractor has the ability to run a mower conditioner which means that we can start haying our own fields.  This means that it made sense for us to get a hay rake and a pair of pallet forks (which can double as hay bale lifting forks) at an auction recently.  As with many things purchased at auction, the upfront cost is low but the amount of money you’ll have to sink into someone else’s junk to make it work is unknown.

On the way home, one of the universal joints on the drive train for the hay rake shattered.  It was quite the ordeal dragging the whole thing the remaining 15 miles home.  The project now is finding a replacement for the shattered yoke.  The discovery, sadly, seems to be that the u-joint in question is ancient and idiosyncratic.  Dickie, of Louisa Auto Parts, says it’s of a size that simply isn’t available any more.  We’ll have to chop the whole thing off and substitute a newer model.  One caliper usage down.

When we got the forks home from the auction we discovered that the pins for the forks were a few fractions of an inch smaller than the holes in the front end loader.  Now the project is finding bushings or reaming out the holes on the fork so that the front end loader’s pins can fit.  I brought a sample pin off the forks to Dick Harris, the machinist in town, for him to puzzle on.  Second caliper usage down.

Now that we’ve got a big tractor we can finally run our tractor mounted back hoe again.  Our previous big tractor died some 6 years ago and we didn’t have the money or skill to repair it or replace it until this year (I’ve been training myself for the last few years and finally started figuring out the rusting behemoth in the tractor lot last spring).  So last week I pulled the tarp back from the poor neglected backhoe, dug out the accumulated humus from years of rotted leaves, and hit all the joints I could find with penetrating oil.  Miraculously, all the valves look to be in great shape.  Sadly, the hydraulic lines supplying the PTO mounted pump had sprung leaks and the adapter that affixes the pump to the tractor’s PTO shaft had rusted half to dust.  I got the pump off and with the help of plenty of penetrating oil and a bearing puller managed to separate the pump and the adapter.  Then it was in to the local backhoe dealer to get a replacement adapter and some advice on the pump and backhoe.  We needed a new key to affix the adapter to the rusted pump drive shaft.  But what size was the key supposed to be?  Third caliper usage down.

In a week I expect us to be fully functional in tractor land.

I hope I didn’t bore you.  Joan told me to just go ahead and write what I know.

day of the dead altar

sixer and i organized a low-key celebration for day of the dead just after halloween. we turned the piano into an altar complete with marigolds, other flowers, painted skull masks, candles, personal offerings, and lots of skull cookies. here are a few photos.

skull cookies

for those of you unfamiliar (we were pretty unfamiliar too!), day of the dead is a celebration of loved ones who have passed on. it is often a multi-day celebration, during which families honor those who have passed with flowers, favorite foods, drink, and other things the dead might miss from life on earth.  there is typically a parade to the related cemetery, where festivities continue, altars are created, and offerings are made. stories of dead loved ones are shared amidst traditional sweet bread and sugar skulls. there are also often dolls made to look like the deceased.

day of the dead altar

we had a fun time with the cookies – i made vaguely skull-shaped sugar cookies and then filled a few henna cones with chocolate icing for decorating. we ended up with cookies decorated as famous folks, bugs, spaceships, and all manner of crazy things.

acorners around the bonfire

in anticipation of the rains that came today, jason lit up our massive burn pile last night and we gathered round for an evening of fire worship. some sang, some just sat and pondered, others convened in the smoke shack (that’s most nights, though). there were swapped massages, poi spinning, and offerings released into the fire to be cleansed.

though sometimes our fires are a big event involving food and friends and frenzied activity, last night was much more calm, and with the number of people at acorn now, it’s starting to feel like we have a nice big cozy family to celebrate with. these are the good times.

mousetrap (my cat of 18 years, a venerable old lady) joined me around the fire, enjoying various laps and much tall grass for late night stalking. that’s us in the picture, with various acorners in the background (and the fire, of course).

you can see a nice picture of the fire itself on the “culture and recreation” page under “about us”.

just a few nights ago odilia and i set out on a mission to create herbal massage oils. a lot of massage exchanges happen here, what with garden work as a daily chore, and the re-organizing of heavy boxes of seed catalogs, huge bags of seed – you get the idea. we end up with a lot of sore backs and people looking to loosen up.

i’ve been reading about various ways to infuse oils with fresh herbs, and finally settled on a method. so we went into the herb garden, kindly asked a few of the herbs to let us take some of their leaves to help nourish our sore muscles, and then harvested away. we chose four different herbs – lavender, sage, rosemary, and lemon balm. luckily our patches of these herbs are healthy and overflowing, even after our first frost.

lemon balm oil

into the kitchen we went, where we chopped and poured into sterilized and dried jars. we chopped, and waited. heated water (to sterilize jars), and waited. dried jars in the toaster oven, and waited. and finally, filled the jars with herb and oil, capped them, and

waited. the oils have to infuse for six weeks. we’ll have worked up some serious knots by december second! while those cure we’ve created two other little jars of oil that we mixed together with some essential oils, so our massage nights aren’t so lackluster (if there is such a thing!).

herb infused oils

i found the process of pouring oil over the fresh herbs surprisingly beautiful. the pictures aren’t top notch, but they will hopefully convey a bit of the magic that went into that evening of creation.

have you created herbal infusions of any sort? what did you make, and for what purpose? thanks for reading!

recently i asked what you wanted me to write about here. i got one response from a reader named franklin asking for “reasons why folks move into acorn community… and what keeps them there.”

well, this is for you, franklin.

rainbow with onlookers

it is, of course, easiest for me to speak from my own experience, so i’ll do that first. i was drawn to acorn at the wee age of 19, when i had finished my ‘general ed’ courses in college and was required to choose a major to continue studying. i was paying my own way (and working three jobs while taking out loans – it still wasn’t enough), and couldn’t see any sense in paying for some degree that i couldn’t even afford unless i was sure i wanted it. and so, one spring day as i sat at my computer, my subconscious spoke up. a buzzword that i had heard but not noticed popped into my head. “intentional community” it said. i did a web search, and found ic.org and thefec.org. from there i realized that there were two intentional communities near my home – acorn and twin oaks.

acorn appealed to me because of the seed business – looking for something important to focus on in my life had led me away from college and out into adventure, and growing and preserving healthy organic seeds seemed pretty darn important. so i wrote my visitor letter and came for two weeks at the end of spring in 2007.

the healthiest meal of my life, up to that point

by the end of the two weeks i had

• felt the exhileration of not needing an alarm clock
• successfully eaten more healthy vegetables than i ever had in my life (no, seriously.)
• enjoyed physical work in the outdoors with people who were fun and open-hearted
• been in awe of the tolerance and understanding i found (e.g. not being yelled at for mistakes)
• enjoyed a high number of quick friendships with mature, open, and honest adults
• fell in love with the beautiful land, climate, and wildlife

so those were my initial reasons. there are ups and downs, of course. every community is different. i have been through two big personality clashes, cried at meetings, howled at the moon, thrown a surprise 60th birthday party for a dear friend, and enjoyed countless moments of wonder and awe with others here at the farm. there have been double rainbows, cool bugs, exciting projects successfully completed, delicious food tended from seed to seed, lots of silly moments, and many evenings of movie-watching and video games (don’t forget delicious homemade popcorn!). i’ve been supported in efforts to become a healthier person, but have also had the space to go within myself and grow. i have struggled through community process that didn’t always turn out how i wanted.

chocolate heart homecoming cake with a platypus sweet potato.

i suppose what it comes down to is this: i love this land, and i love many of the people here. they bring laughter and joy into my life much more often than sadness, and i am enriched by sharing a home with them. there is meaningful work to be done here, and the space and flexibility for me to pursue the type of lifestyle that i crave (mostly focused on sustainability and self-sufficiency). and that’s about all a creature can ask for, isn’t it?

i’ll post a poll in heartwood and see if i can get responses from other acorners. feel free to comment and ask more questions!

several days ago myself and several other acorners volunteered at the first ever day of workshops presented jointly by master gardeners and master naturalists. the theme was ‘moving toward sustainability’. we learned about supporting butterflies throughout their lifecycles, creating habitat for wildlife along the edges of fields, replacing invasive plants with natives, and thereby supporting local pollinators, and maintaining your harvest into fall and through winter. i learned about a few plants that might do well around our farmhouse – it’s an area full of dry shade, which makes landscaping tricky. and, perhaps best of all (as i now sit listening to the rain splashing on the leaves outside), the weather was beautiful.

here at acorn we’re working toward sustainability as well. bathrooms are not often thought of as places to start ‘going green’, but circumstances have prodded me to do so over the last year, and so i’ve made some changes.

cloth toilet wipes

in the bathrooms at acorn, we have low-flow toilets to conserve water. we have a normal trash can, and then a box or bag for paper waste – mostly cardboard toilet paper rolls and their wrappers. this waste is either fed to the furnace as kindling, burnt on our ‘burn pile’ as kindling during potlucks and gatherings, or recycled.

i take it a step further. after living at red earth in northeastern missouri, i learned to live without running water or conventional toilets. since it is generally inadvisable to leave much urine in a composting toilet, i started to pee outside – anywhere off our few main paths was fine. though i did seek out shorter grasses, as ticks are a problem some of the year!

cloth toilet wipes

to facilitate my outdoor pee adventures, i made cloth toilet wipes out of old flannel shirts. it was incredibly easy, and takes about 12 minutes to make one. all i do is cut out two squares of fabric (about 4-5″ per side), sew up three sides, flip it inside out, and sew around the outside edges to further protect the inside seams during machine washing. of course, at red earth, i washed them by hand, with dr. bronner’s soap and rainwater.

some of you may wonder how it works – it’s simple! you keep a clean wipe in your pocket for whenever the moment arises. when it does, take the wipe out, wipe yourself clean with soft flannel goodness, and then – depending on your comfort levels with such things – either consider the wipe ‘dirty’ and put it in the wash pile, or fold it up and put it back in your pocket to be used again later.

this is a great way to save money on toilet paper, and very helpful if you live on a lot of land and a toilet isn’t always handy. also great for camping trips!

so what do you think? would you ever make or buy toilet wipes? what would your concerns be? how would you see it working in your home?