Forest Restoration and Stewardship Small Diameter Pole Utilization Class in Greenfield on June 14th+15th!!!

Robinson Creek restoration project in May 2013

Being Here in Ecotopia

The big news is pickles.  4 Quarts of Bread and Butter on Thursday....7 Quarts of Dill last Tuesday.  One of those satisfying activities that sets us up for enjoying summers abundance next winter.  We're keeping the long long vines of pumpkins and kuri squash well watered as the days are simmering past 100 degrees.  The capillary action of a twenty foot branch of cinderella pumpkin is impressive as it carries water from roots to tips.  Food and water..... what's counts more in the great scheme of things?  It's a revolutionary act to grow your own.  The perfume of the blackberries in the heat is intoxicating.  Picking up wind fall apples with a little 8 year old friend is being in a state of grace.  Savoring the juice of an asian pear, a gift from Gaia from a tree just two years old.  The generosity of nature....so underestimated, so undermined.

I asked Gaia what was on her mind and she reminded me: Make peace with yourself, grow your own food, share and give thanks ceremoniously in community, take care of all children everywhere. Remember what matters most.  Know what you know.
 
What nourishes us?  Not the empty calories of consumerism but the sustenance from original sources.  Grow some chard and adopt a couple of hens. You will eat and feel like a queen.  Blessings shower down like meteors from sparkling north western skies.   If you are not ecstatic with gratitude you are missing what is right before your eyes......

.....like the Perseid's. Don't go right to bed for the next couple of nights.  Go outside and experience reality in the form of a meteor shower..... a spike in the number of meteors or "shooting stars" that streak through the night sky. Most meteor showers are spawned by comets. As a comet orbits the Sun it sheds an icy, dusty debris stream along its orbit. If Earth travels through this stream, we will see a meteor shower. Although the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, if you trace their paths, the meteors in each shower appear to "rain" into the sky from the same region. Meteor showers are named for the constellation that coincides with this region in the sky, a spot known as the radiant. For instance, the radiant for the Leonid meteor shower is in the constellation Leo. The Perseid meteor shower is so named because meteors appear to fall from a point in the constellation Perseus.

Catch a Falling Star and put it in your pocket save it for a rainy day
Catch a Falling Star and put it in your pocket never let it fade away
For love may come and tap you on the shoulder
Some star less night
And just in case you're feeling kinda somber
You'll have a pocket full of starlight.

HOBNEELCH FOR HENDY WOODS

*HOBNEELCH FOR HENDY WOODS

 

Grab your *applehead, get a new *hedge, and get out of that *can kicky mood! We're having a *tidrick and it's gonna be a *beemsch.

Dance to Clan Dyken & the Mermen
Saturday, June 16, 8pm, $20
Anderson Valley Solar Grange, Hwy 128, Philo,CA
Local Beer and Wine and homemade foods

*Boontling Translation Key
Hobneelch - Saturday night dance
applehead - girl friend
hedge - haircut
can kicky - angry
tidrick - party
beemsch- good show

HOBNEELCH for HENDY WOODS is co-produced by

Cloud Forest Institute & Pete's Sound Productions
Proceeds will go to help keep Hendy Woods State Park open and promote
the Cloud Forest Institute Mendo, CA & Mindo, Ecuador connection.

Boontling is a folk language spoken only in Boonville. Scottish, Gaelic
and Irish, some Pomoan and Spanish influenced the vocabulary of the
language. Boontling was invented in the late 19th century and had quite
a following at the turn of the 20th century. It is now mostly spoken
only by aging counter-culturists and native Anderson Valley residents.
Because the town of Boonville only has a little over 700 residents,
Boontling is an extremely esoteric dialect, and is quickly becoming
archaic. It has over a thousand unique words and phrases. The Anderson
Valley, of which Boonville is the largest town, was an isolated farming,
ranching, and logging community during the late 19th century. There are
several differing versions as to the origin of Boontling. Some assert
that the dialect was created by the women, children, and young men in
the hop fields and sheep shearing sheds as a means of recreation, and
that it spread through the community as the children continued using it
when they grew up. Myrtle R. Rawles explains that Boontling was started
by the children of Boonville as a language game which enabled them to
speak freely in front of elders without being understood.It is believed
that the language originated from Ed (Squirrel) Clement and Lank
McGimsey, in or about the year 1890.

Your Ecovillage Awaits

Our friend Tom Wodetski is very kind and very intelligent.  He recently announced that the commune that he helped found in the 70's is for sale.  Since this blog is about living in community I would like to give you the opportunity to gather your affinity group together to think about coming up with a down payment in order to acquire this very desirable homestead.   Here is what Tom has to say and the description of the land follows:

  Hello. Salmon Creek Farm, the commune I lived on from 1975 to 1990 and am still part owner of, is soon to be placed for sale, now that none of us 13 owners live there any more. I'm asking you if you will send out this description below to all your friends and acquaintances who might be interested or know others who might be. We hope to sell it-- 30 rural acres with 8 legalized cabins on the Mendocino Coast-- to good, community-oriented and neighbor-sensitive people. If you could help us find them, we and they would be very grateful.

Salmon Creek Farm

30 rural acres with 8 rustic cabins in Albion, California, on the Mendocino Coast.

1.8 miles from the Pacific Ocean lies "Salmon Creek Farm." This wooded, south-facing, 30-acre property is located at the end of a quiet country lane in the desirable Middle Ridge Road neighborhood in Albion. The village of Mendocino is only 20 minutes  away.

Just inside the front gates in a sunny meadow is Orchard House, a 580-sq-foot cabin surrounded by a mature, well-maintained fruit tree orchard. This fenced open expanse of meadow is an ideal garden location with nearby outbuildings.

Beyond Orchard House are seven additional rustic, legalized, owner-built Class-K cabins tucked away down footpaths in charming settings. Majestic Redwood trees grace the hillsides and beautiful woodland trails wind throughout. A year-round stream bisects the land, flowing into Big Salmon Creek that forms the southern border of the property.

"Salmon Creek Farm" was lovingly settled by a family-oriented commune in the early 1970s and has remained in their hands as a living community for 40 years. This unique commitment to community continues today on Middle Ridge Road with friendly neighbors, monthly potlucks and a swimming pond within walking distance. This is a magical place to live. 

General Information:

Location: 32297 Middle Ridge Road, Albion, CA 

Approx. acerage: 30.5 acres

Coastal Zone: No

Number of dwellings: 8 Class-K owner-built Cabins

Sewer: 2 cabins with septic systems, 6 cabins with gray water and detached privy

Forest: Redwood & Douglas Fir, approx. 750,000 bd/ft. 

Water: Year round stream provides 1400 gal/day, spring box to tanks to cabins

Fire prevention: 8 dwellings have fire hydrants with 20,000 gal of available water 

Electricity: available to all dwellings and water system

Heat: Approved wood burning stoves and chimney systems in each cabin

Cooking: Portable propane tanks in each dwelling

List Price: $679,000 with 30-40%  down

Price per acre: ~$22,600

Photos are available upon request. For more information contact:

David Coddington 

Big River Realty

707 937-3233

DavidC@mcn.org

Flower Moon Pot Luck

At a MendoDragon meeting a couple of months ago we decided to schedule a pot luck dinner on the first Friday of each month. Serendipitously, this months first Friday, April 4, was also the full moon, always a good reason to celebrate. By word of mouth and through email we invite folks to join us for food and music, never knowing who will come. Not only the food, but who appears contributes to the “luck” factor of the mixture.

This was our second potluck and it was populated by many folks we are meeting for the first time. I am reminded about how timeless this practice is of people gathering to break bread. And there was some hearty homemade whole grain bread to break, too, even though we sliced it. Some other delicious offerings were, salad made from garden greens, homemade quiche and macaroni and cheese, pasta salad, guacamole, marble pound cake, lentil soup, homemade brandied cherries dipped in chocolate, sauteed tofu in coconut sauce, home pressed apple juice, and raisin kefir water. Lots of friendly chatter and chewing co-mingled with easy going guitar playing and a little singing.

It was pleasant being with new and old friends from a sister community, Emerald Earth. Soon, Emerald Earth will host a gathering of local intentional communities to compare notes, talk about what works for them, what the challenges are, etc. Anderson Valley is home to at least 6 communities that we know of and I have yet to visit any of them. Something to look forward to.

The Moon was rising as the first couple with young children left at sundown. Luna is up there blessing us and sometimes we hardly take the time to notice. That's how it is with nature, true treasures are ignored and even destroyed as many choose to buy in to the mirage of modern life. In the past, when we had less manufactured distraction, we were more aware of the natural world. This is exemplified by the names given to each full Moon. April's was known as the Seed Moon, Planter’s Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Grass Moon, Flower Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, and Moon When Geese Return in Scattered Formation (Dakota Sioux). With just a couple of words each name tells a story about what people observed or did at this time of year.

April’s name is believed to be derived from Aprilis from the Latin word aperire meaning to open. This “opening” refers to the budding and flowering of the perennial plants and trees. May all our eyes be open in gratitude to the beauty and blessings of our Mother Earth. Every day is Earth Day.

Spring Equinox

I'm flummoxed about how time escaped me and I have fallen out of my lunar cycle about blogging. I can offer excuses like losing track of the phase of the moon in Ecuador, it always hiding above the cloud blanket, or having been down with the flu for a couple of weeks but in reality it takes a strong will to accomplish any intention no matter what the circumstances and of course the competition of other priorities interferes too.

Today I will myself to take keyboard in hands, sitting up in bed to write before I do anything else. Even though, I sit here guiltily knowing that the hens want to be freed from their coop. Our days here at MendoDragon are framed by releasing and feeding the hens in the morning and tucking them back into their coop in the evening. So I'm putting on my clogs right now and running out in my pajamas to do just that. I'll be right back...

They were more than ready to be released, all 9 of them. Four of them are only 8 months old but look full grown now. They were fertile eggs from friends in Philo. We tucked them under broody Zsa Zsa last summer after realizing she wouldn't budge until she hatched something. Her own eggs are not fertile since we don't have a rooster. We opted to keep the noise down and the rape. I'm not saying all roosters are unpleasant but past experiences have been challenging. When roosters start attacking the hand that feeds them that makes them undesirable.

We did have a sweet banty rooster once with feathery feet. I guess you could say he was a new age sensitive rooster because when he was in the chicken yard and spotted a morsel to eat he would make a particular sound and call over the hens and offer it to them. He made a soft little crowing noise, too. He fertilized eggs and we had hens that got broody and hatched them. It was so sweet to see a mini little rooster with feathery feet emerge. A hen, hatching and caring for her brood is one of the most heart warming motherly things in the world to witness. The little peepers trail around so close to Mama exploring around the yard learning to scratch and then sleep tucked under her at night. This looks really funny when they get older and don't fit under her anymore but still insist on being there. Having them secured in their coop at night is crucial as they are so vulnerable to raccoon, fox and weasels and it is such a sad loss to see massacred hens and chicks first thing in the morning. We have a sign up sheet for house and yard chores and take turns making sure there is always someone available to begin and end the day caring for the hens. After all...they are providing about 2 dozen eggs a week now and we are very thankful to them for that.

Gathering eggs feels like getting to have a treasure hunt everyday even though they are not usually hard to find. A couple of weeks ago we harvested some honey comb, too. The gold of the yolk of the egg and the golden flower nectar neatly packed in the geometrically perfect form of the comb are everyday miracles worth more than the currency we would get if we were to sell them. The quality of life would go down more than a few notches without them. Even primitive life included these gifts. Another beauty of these two particular blessings is the potential for their abundance. With enough hens and enough hives it's not unusual to have so much that there is extra to sell or barter. I'd still rather trade eggs for artichokes and keep the money out of the equation.

In case you are wondering about my trip to Ecuador it was full of psychological polarities even if geographically on the equator. Canoa, the coastal resort town did have a wide expanse of white sandy beach and warm water. Witnessing the sun shimmer on the breathing waves of mother ocean is always a spiritual experience for me. But I needed to walk north beyond the littering crowds of people to break free of all the debris on the beach to experience this communion.

I then spent the afternoon picking up plastic in all of it's manufactured forms from small screw caps, and bits of rope to the large soda bottles. I imagined myself living there dedicated to working with the community to start a recycling program. Just like our friends from InforAmazon in Brazil who are educating to clean up litter along the rivers there. The other striking polarization was the ubiquitous undernourished unwanted dogs on the one hand and the growing number of overly coddled designer dogs on the other hand. More than ever Ecuador needs a dedicated mobile force of veterinarians to euthanize, spay and neuter.

I had a deep connection with two women, Goretti and Olgmanka, from the Amazon who came to Mindo during Carnaval. They were among the vendors in a big tent selling jewelry made from naturally colorful seeds large and small. Goretti was dressed in full regalia with red markings on her face as she was part of a troupe of traditional dancers. I admired the arm and ankle bands she wore that made a pleasing sound like rain bouncing on broad leaves when she moved. I was delighted to notice a pair for sale on her table. I did not haggle when told the price which made Goretti smile and then gift to me a pair of earrings. I told Goretti I would think of her when I dance wearing my arm bands and a warm sisterly feeling swept over us making our eyes well. The vendor across the isle, an Otavallean lady from whom I had bought a sweater took our picture and I joked that in Ecuador I get to be the tall one. I'm only 5'1" but a good 4 inches taller than Goretti. Olgmanka then asked if I would email her and attach the picture. Imagine that.....tribally connected on the web.