A first visit to the ecovillage

Emily of Liberty Tree Photography came to visit us this weekend with her husband and toddler. There's a nice write-up of her experience on her blog.


I also like her link to the movie No Impact Man. Britta's been talking about hosting a "DocumenTEA" evening (documentary, tea, and discussion): maybe this would be a good movie to start with. (I'm also intrigued by Shayne's mention of a documentary called One Hundred Mile Building...we may have to have a few evenings.) If you're interested in joining us, you're always welcome to send an email to annclement1@yahoo.ca.

Community Dinners

When our common house is complete in early 2012, we expect to have common dinners three or four times per week, with most families attending once or twice. The idea of coming home after work to go straight to a hot-cooked meal makes my heart sing!


Chuck Durrett tells us that his cohousing community has common dinners four nights a week: to make this happen, each adult needs to cook once every five weeks. This is lovely-sounding math to my ears.


It is exciting to dream about our common house, but we don't want to wait until the building is complete to begin living in this lovely way, so we've been having one community dinner every week since the beginning of this year. For now, we are alternating between the old farm house and one of the new duplex units, which can entail some serious chair transporting! It is nice to take this time together each week to relax over good food (or, in the case of last week, life-changing stupendous food! See the picture above of Joe with the wok he rebuilt to accommodate the cooking of enough Thai curry for all of us.)

Yum!

Exciting March Events!

We’ve had a grand response from interested folks since Chuck Durrett came and guided us to our new Yarrow Ecovillage plan. Now we’re writing to invite your further participation, whether you’re at early stages of interest in cohousing and ecovillages or fully committed to moving into our new Village.

And as always, you’re welcome to contact our Membership Team directly at annclement1@yahoo.ca and Ann: 604-823-0232.

Please come to our Open House on Saturday, March 6th, 1pm- 4pm

We'll display and explain our new Chuck Durrett Village drawings. You’ll be welcome to peek into some of our new houses and meet long-time residents.... we’re planning fun too, with a bonfire, scavenger hunt (bring your digital camera & USB cord...), refreshments, garden tours and more. We do hope you'll come.

There will also be Public Presentations by Chuck on March 19th.

The March 6th open house and the public presentations are suitable for everyone, even if they are unfamiliar with cohousing or ecovillages. Please feel welcome to forward this invitation far and wide. RSVPs are not mandatory, but they are gratefully appreciated for planning purposes: annclement1@yahoo.ca.

Mark these dates

Saturday afternoon Feb 27th Workparty

Saturday March 6th 1pm-4pm Open House -bring friends

Friday March 19th 7pm Chuck Durrett's Public presentation

March 20-21 Chuck's Getting it Built weekend Workshop

Friday April 9th 7pm Chuck's Public Presentation

April 10-11 Chuck's Commonhouse weekend Workshop

A Thought

Raj Patel is quoted in a Globe and Mail review of his book The Value of Nothing as saying, " The opposite of consumption isn't thrift, it's generosity."

Today's Poem

Of Moment

The particular gift
of this house
is its air
and the spaces between.

The breadth of this house
Is in rafters and posts,
the sky over head
and strong underfoot.


The force of this house
is the wind in the roof,
the trees in the beams
the rock in walls.

The heart of this house
is the hands on the rail,
the feet up the stairs,
the soup in the pot.

The love of this house
Is the colour of full,
The lying in bed,
with the breathing of walls.

Save the dates!

Saturday afternoon, March 6, 2010: open house & sharing of the site plan developed in January with Chuck Durrett

Save the dates!

Saturday afternoon, March 6, 2010: open house & sharing of the site plan developed in January with Chuck Durrett
Friday, March 19, 2010: Chuck Durrett public presentation at Langley Music School
March 20 - 21, 2010: the getting it built workshop
Loads of details to follow soon...watch this space.

Nice to live in a village...

I was sitting at the little table in the deli today with some business-type folks having a meeting. And in the hour or so that I sat there, I watched three individual ecovillagers come into the store to pick up an item- milk, a sandwich, a brownie etc. But I also watched as three eco-families including parents and kids walk by the big windows. Where were they going? The post-office? the bank? the gas station to return bottles? the movie store? so many options! I smiled inside because I didn't know specifically where they were headed, but I knew they were walking to go shopping and that their money was being spent locally and that living in Yarrow is quite a gift.

How far back does the property go?

When Matthew and I started seriously considering the ecovillage, we wanted to know how far back the land went. (I'm still hoping that the Rail for the Valley people succeed, so I wondered if our land goes right back to the railway tracks for us to walk to the train to Vancouver in the future.)

I've doodled on a Google maps capture to show where the ecovillage's 25 acres are. Look for the red scribbles on this (rather rough) picture:

You can click on this picture to make it larger and clearer.