Farm Love
Justin and I really enjoyed our stay at OUR Ecovillage. We spent some time hanging out with the great posse that lives there, and spent some time in the garden transplanting sege.
Great things about OUR Ecovillage:
- We vibed with the residents. Its rare that you find people who speak the same language as you. People who get God in the same way you do, and feel the same passion in the same way for the earth and people who desire the same level of communication and co-operation. This is what we found at OUR, people who were just like us.
- The ecovillage is old enough to have gone through a lot of the zoning issues. Sure, the farm is still an infant, but they have moved through a good portion of the zoning challenges, have applied for grants and have dealt with some of the major money issues. (The most stressful parts I think)
- The ecovillage is small enough for a new family to influence the process. One of the major things that drew us to OUR was their openness and changeability. There are no homes built on site, except the house that was originally there. They are just establishing their program, their specialities and are still looking for experienced people to teach courses (and not so experienced people to grow into the roles available). Justin and I both felt that our energy could make a difference there.
- Everyone is still excited. There aren’t a lot of hearthkeepers at this point, which means that the work is distributed between very few ands. The hands, though, are still excited to be doing the work. I think this is one of the most important questions to consider - are the people passionate about the work?
- The landscape is beautiful. For a place on “Baldy Mountain” the stewards have done a terrific job of making a real farm out of it. There is a fairly diverse range of pioneer trees on the land, which make for beautiful forests and trails. They’ve done a great job with the gardens and have created some amazing cob houses, sourced locally.
- The people are still learning. They haven’t got all of the animals and plants they wish to have, nor have they made all the final decisions. They are still experimenting with ideas and processes - to me this adds to the amount that we can contribute and how much we can be part of the learning process.
Despite the long list of fabulous qualities, we have decided not to make our home at OUR Ecovillage. Why?
The terrain. For Justin, the terrain is just too variable. Sure, he could sort of make it work now, but in 20 years? What is formed of the garden etc is not done with wheelchair accessibility in mind. While that could be changed, much of it is sloped and would be quite difficult.
The ecovillage adventure continues.