Raise the BARN!

COMING APRIL 21

Take Part in a Good Old Fashioned Barn Raising

In the past, when a barn was needed, communities came together in a fun and frantic weekend to build it. Now, you can take part in a barn raising yourself, at the Yarrow Ecovillage Community Farm in the Fraser Valley. The farmers at this Community Farm need a barn, and are using this need as an opportunity to invite everyone to take part in an amazing, community building event. All people, young and old, are invited to participate – the handiest people will be given the difficult jobs, and children and anyone uncomfortable with a hammer can pick fresh vegetables from the farm, and prepare a lunch for the crew.

So how can you take part? Well, before the actual barn raising, the Yarrow Ecovillage Community Farmers need to do some barn fundraising. They will be launching a peerbackers.com campaign from April 21^th to May 31st, and anyone who donates, even if it is just one penny, will be invited to take part in the barn raising fun. Those who donate more are eligible for all sorts of amazing rewards, such as organic produce, an invitation to a pumpkin picking party, or a fancy local food dinner for two. You can help by encouraging you friend network to donate when the time comes. Please email us at welcome@yarrowecovillage to be put on our campaign list.

The Yarrow Ecovillage Community Farm provides farmland to farmers who are committed to growing organic food for local markets. If you have shopped at a Vancouver Farmer’s Market, chances are you have bought something grown by one of the Community Farmers! Some of the produce grown by the different farms include salad mix, sweet baby carrots, heirloom tomatoes, and deluxe asian vegetables. The Community Farm is also expanding as a hub for local food and agriculture events, such as gardening workshops, local food dinners, and of course, barn dances once our barn is built!

For more information, a tour of the farm, or an interview, please contact

Tamara Bonnemaison,

Farm Manager, Yarrow Ecovillage Community Farm

Tamara.bonnemaison@gmail.com

778 374-0321

NutShell Niblets #26- - February 2 , 2011

Ann's very personal, highly biased and incomplete guide to the ecovillage ... in a nutshell. With only a small amount of (necessary) hyperbole, this time.

Suggestions for reading this Nutshell Niblet –

If you want loosey-goosey creative writing about why I love this village, then start with “Studies show that”

If you want to get to the good stuff about what we’re really doing, scroll down to “Community Meeting”

If you want a beautiful poem by Wendell Berry, that’s at the very bottom.

And to follow progress in construction, jump past the Niblets entirely and scroll down the blog.

Studies Show that...

We’ve burst our seams for our weekly resident community dinners in the last while.... no room is large enough to hold the whole mess of us. Too many people around here! Now, by the dividing the group in half, we do two dinners per week. Hmmmm, I’ve noticed one or two people, mainly one person actually, with the initial ‘J’, who shows up for both meals, bowl in hand! Hhummmm! Wait a minute!!!

To be fair, he can’t wait to be chef on double-duty, too, so that’s alright. Chuck of http://www.cohousingco.com/ tells us that when we have our regular commonhouse and are serving six meals a week, not every person comes to every meal. At his cohousing village, the average is 3-4 appearances out of the possible 6. When there’s abundance on offer instead of scarcity, it’s easier not to over-stuff. And in consequence, our commonhouse dining room is planned efficiently to be the right size.

NutShell Niblets #23- - November 22nd, 2010

Ann's very personal, highly biased and incomplete guide to the ecovillage ... in a nutshell.

Stream Team

On Friday November 19th, two instructors Dan and Jeremy from Columbia Bible College, brought their class of Environmental Sustainability/Outdoors students to work on our Stream rehab project.

Workparty events ---from Shauna

I just wanted to update everyone on how the Work Party went with Dan and his class on Friday. We were a little worried about the sudden change in weather, but they arrived gung ho, & ready to go. So we all moseyed on over to the creek, talking about what we do here at YES the whole way. Once we got out there, Joe' took over and showed them what needed to be done, and we all went to it. And wow, they must have been really tired of sitting, because they pulled those canes faster than we could have ever anticipated. We had all the canes pulled, the willow pruned, the leaf mulch laid, and the logs moved away from the bridge, all within only 2 hours. AMAZING! We really didn't ask that much of them, but they were tackling anything we threw at them and were asking for more. lol.
After all the work was done, everybody came back and washed up for lunch in the Bunker Silo. After lunch we had a quick presentation regarding Stream Restoration, and about how the work they did helped. Many, many thanks to instructors Dan and Jeremy and their class of Quest sustainability students!
The day was a Huge Success, everyone. Thank you so much to Ann for lunch, Joe for hard work and energy, Michael for the tractor , Gerry for washing water
Editor's note: Shauna brought everyone together in a wonderful, enthusiastic way and pulled off a highly enjoyable and productive day. Thank you Shauna!
　
What's a CSA Box? .... Animal, Vegetable or Mineral ?

In the spring, when the first vegetables are ready for harvesting, we'll be able to buy fresh produce from our farmers on a weekly basis.
Community Shared Agriculture) (CSA) is a socio-economic model of agriculture and food distribution. A CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farming operation where the growers and consumers share the risks and benefits of food production. CSAs usually consist of a system of weekly delivery or pick-up of vegetables and fruit, in a vegetable box scheme, and sometimes includes dairy products and meat.(Wiki)
Lucky us!
　
We love TED http://www.ted.com/talks
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas worth spreading -- through TED.com, our annual conferences, the annual TED Prize
and TEDx which is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis
From Michael- Brene' Brown - connection and vulnerability- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0
from Britta- Jeremy Rifkin --- Empathetic Civilization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReQ4iuTNYtA
From Liz - John Hardy off-the-grid school in Bali http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hardy_my_green_school_dream.html
from Cher - the Story of Stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
　
November's Groundswell Community Meeting
Many, many of us gathered - residents and new buyers ... we're out-growing our meeting spaces!
In a nutshell...
To determine our Strata fees, we're going to go with a levy system that is combination of - household, person and and assessed value. For example- Snow-clearing would be per household, water use by #persons in household, and insurance by assessed value. Our Adhoc Strata Team of Beverly, Maureen and others will take the next steps and bring back their findings and recommendations to the next meeting for consensus.
Britta and Krishna presented their initiatives for counting Work Contribution Hours. We're learning from the experience of other cohousers that yes, hours do need to be counted so that we know who's doing what, what work is needed, workers are accountable and contributions are appreciated. Folks will either undertake a set minimum number of hours per month, or pay for someone else to do it. We're going for an easy-to-manage, no-hassle system of advance post-dated cheques for a dollar value of a minimum work requirement, to be refunded if work-hours are completed. And there'll be some sensible flexibility in there, too. We're not slave-drivers ready to crack a blaming whip.