What makes the sap flow? As with many life processes, it is still somewhat mysterious and magical to me. The sap flows when the daytime temperature is above freezing and nights are below freezing. Why? It is kind of like a pump: the sap in the sapwood of the tree (not the cambium) expands with higher temperatures, thus creating pressure, which causes the sap to flow into our buckets to relieve the pressure (if there are any wounds in the tree, it flows from there too). Low temperatures at night make the sap contract thereby creating a vacuum, causing the sap to be sucked up into the sapwood from the roots, where it was stored in the winter. Then the rising temperatures make the sap expand again, etc. But wait! We have freezing/thawing temperatures in December and January as well. Does the sap flow then too? No. The sap rises in the spring (though I've been told that you can also collect sap in the fall; we have never tried it). Apparently, the inner energy in the trees begins
to stir according to some inner clock (when the geese start flying north?). When it's spring, the sap rises.
How fast does it flow? It depends on the weather/temperatures. Occasionally, a tree will fill a 5-gallon bucket in a day, but it more often takes a week or more. In the same time, one tree may yield five gallons of sap while a neighboring tree will give only one. Why? I have no idea! We generally put out about 100 taps in about 50 trees every year these days. Our total annual yield has been between 16 and 76 quarts of syrup in the last decade, which translates to between 10 and 60 gallons of sap per tree. In our operation, it takes about two hours of work for every quart of maple syrup.
How do we cook? History: we first cooked maple in 1988: Ann & Ceilee decided to tap a big old maple near our pond as a home schooling project. They cooked it down on our kitchen stove. It took forever, but it worked! We had just purchased another property, which had a grove of large maple trees, and we realized we could use our sorghum cooking pan to increase the speed and efficiency of cooking. The next year we tapped approximately 20 trees and cooked it in the sorghum pan (a stainless steel pan 3'x16' over an open wood fire)--it was so much faster! We had been cooking it there until two years ago when we converted our sorghum cooking operation to a wood-fired steam boiler system. The boiler uses water to make steam which passes through copper tubes inside the juice to boil it. However, we can't use this process because during the time we process maple, we have freezing temperatures and so we would have to drain the boiler and all the tubes every time it was going to freeze-
-way too much work! Solution? We took the old sorghum pan and cut it down to 3'x9' and moved it to a separate space in the same building (not quite that simple since we had to build a firebox with firebrick in a new location for the pan). Maple was the one to be moved since it is a small part of what we process in Sugar Shack. Sorghum is our main income producing business: we make about 700-800 gallons, and 100-200 gallons of honey compared to 5-20 gallons of maple.
Back to how we cook. With sorghum, we cook the raw juice into the finished syrup in a continuous process--all in the same day (or even hours). I assume some do the same with maple, but we don't (I have never watched anyone else cook maple). We do not sell any of our maple--it is only for our own use--and our pan is not designed to finish cooking small batches. When we have enough sap, we cook it down and then leave some in the bottom of the pan so it will not burn. When we have more sap we add it to the pan and cook it again - so the same sap can get boiled 4 or more times before we have enough that we can take it off and finish it in pots on our wood stove in the kitchen, where we can control the heat and concentrate the syrup w/o burning it. The last step is to ladle it into quart jars for storage for the rest of the year. We do not filter it and so we have “sediment/maple sand" in the bottom of our jars--it tastes the same as the rest of the syrup, but if we were to sell i
t, we would probably have to filter it.
We cook together, too. When Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage became our neighbors 10 years ago, some folks there were interested in making maple syrup. They tapped some trees on their land as well as on neighbors' land. They bring the sap to our place since we have the facility to cook it efficiently. We divide the syrup by the number of hours we contribute and/or the sap we bring in. When Alyson moved to DR, she became the point person for the maple energy since she had family experience making it in New England. Now she lives at Red Earth Farms and coordinates the maple energy at Red Earth and Dancing Rabbit.
Stan's version. 12/27/08
Tempeh: bad news. We have production problems all year (actually began in '07) - the tempeh does not develop evenly - there are spots where the innoculant does not grow. We try various measures: clean the processing kitchen & incubator, try different soybeans & innoculant, varying temperatures, etc. Occasionally, we have better batches (maybe 60% salable vs 10%).
We get a tip - test the soybeans for bacillus subtillus; we do and sure enough, they test positive. Awright! We're hopeful of a quick fix. We find some local soybeans that test negative - but the tempeh patterns are the same! What? Bummer.
At this point, i don't know if we still have a tempeh "business". Our regular customers continue to wait for our product - but for how long? We've sold virtually none in 10 months.... (except what we call “house" tempeh - which is intended for our own consumption - and we sell it at a discount to dr & ref folks).
Membership. For most of our history, we've wanted more members, and we are in that place now. In the last few years, we've been actively recruiting younger folks.
Ann & Kevin were here the entire growing season this year and we hoped(& still do!) that they would become members. Their dream was to buy their own land and homestead. They looked for the perfect spot in this area for some time - no luck. We then offered to sell them a chunk of our land - they liked it better than any they'd seen but they are still undecided (one factor is that Ann's forearms became sore and she was unable to do many manual things - certainly a deterrent to a homesteading lifestyle).
The membership took on a new urgency in November, when Kathe & Michael announced that they will be leaving in October 2009 to move back to their homestead in SW Missouri. They are an integral part of Sandhill currently and will be sorely missed; in the meantime, we have another year together.
parting thot: in these days of economic upheavel, think outside the circle - kiva.org
Willow Catches a Fish
i have a cool kid. Kids are an amazing crapshoot: you don't know what kind you will get and you don't necessarily have that much control over how they come out (parents love to think that they do, but the other factors often overwhelm their efforts). i got lucky.
Willow has some wonderful primaries (people who regularly spend a couple hours a week with him, getting labor credits for this work in my community's elaborate work system). Yesterday, Trout took Willow to the pond with a fishing rod and some of our vegetarian sausage. They were going fishin'.
Our pond is tiny. Since it is principally for swimming, it was designed with upstream filters and catchment pools so it would not have fish in it. But life only being secondarily concerned with the will of man (sic), other things happened.
As Willow tells it, they put a small piece of soysage onto the hook, Trout did the casting, and Willow pulled it in slowly. The did this a dozen times with no effect. Willow convinced Trout to pull the hook and affix a larger piece of soysage to the hook, and within moments a fairly good sized fish, probably a trout (no relations), was snagged. Willow pulled it in with great joy and mild trepidation.
When i arrived at dinner last night, they had already cooked and cleaned it and my son was in storytelling heaven. He ran to me in the dining hall and demanded that i gues what had happened. Several people had already told me and my lack of surprise did not slow him down for a moment. He was up in my arms, animated and in full tale. His joy was infectious.
i ate a small piece of his first catch so i could be part of the history. Tasty.
i was fearful becoming a parent. Though Hawina and i choose it very intentionally and added Sky as a co-parent after careful deliberation, i was unsure if it would work well in my manic life. In retrospect, it is perhaps the smartest thing i have ever done.
i don't advocate parenting for Babylonians, but here on the commune, it has been an amazing experience. i am learning about intimacy by working with these small hands and listening to the gentle snoring of this cool kid. My kid, Willow.
Acorn Update
Well, 2008 has been a wild year for Acorn. We've seen some significant changes in our membership and our businesses.
Seed businesses across the USA have been seeing phenomenal growth rates this last year and our own Southern Exposure Seed Exchange has been no stranger to the trend. Overall, sales have increased by something like 50% for the year with some of our historically slower months seeing their sales double or more over last year. It could be rising fuel and food prices, a maturing organics and green movement, all the promotion that we've been doing this last year, or just a good old fear of the apocalypse. Or some combination thereof. Speaking of promotion, this year, on the first Saturday in September, we held our second annual Heritage Harvest Festival with Monticello, Whole Foods, and the Master Gardeners. We fretted and worried when the tropical storm decided to roll through our area precisely on Saturday morning but were stunned when an estimated 1000+ people came
out and braved the rain with us. This year also saw us purchasing Garden Medicinals and Culinaries, a seed company specializing in herbs, off the same fellow we purchased SESE off of some 10 years ago.
On the membership front, we bid adieu to the Weaver family this August. They had been members here for three and a half years, after uprooting themselves from Madison, WI, to repopulate Acorn after the population crash of 2004. They had two children while here at Acorn and have moved on to central PA to start a new life. Just before they left, long time veteran of Twin Oaks, River, and returning Acorner, Marielle, joined us. They have brought a lot of experience and energy with them and are bringing change here every day. We have also recently added ex-Twin Oakers Thomas and Emily to our ranks. We did, however, lose new member Joan who found love and is following her long held dream of homesteading in a mud hut. She and her partner Courtney are looking into joining Red Earth Farms in the spring.
Although generally a quiet place we've pulled off a couple fabulous parties this year. We celebrated our 15th anniversary this year on April 1st and had so many people over celebrating with us that we literally filled every square foot of our dining/common room with dining friends and communards. Not so long ago, Joan organized a surprise 60th birthday party for founding member Ira, and a bunch of old friends of hers showed up and reminisced and told stories for hours and hours.
At any rate, it's an exciting time to live at Acorn. Our membership is cohesive and growing. Our business is booming. The infrastructure is rising out of the sea of entropy. Space is getting competitive. Some of our friends have taken all this data and begun to refer to an Acorn Renaissance. Whatever it is, it works for us.
How to Visit an Intentional Community
by Kat Kinkade
Kat Kinkade of Twin Oaks gives a communitarian's perspective on visitors. She discusses visiting etiquette, gives practical advice on how to get the most out of one's visit, and offers valuable insights about how prospective members may be viewed by existing community members.
The mechanics of visiting a community aren't very difficult. One writes a letter, waits for a response, follows directions, and that's that. But assuring oneself of a fruitful and satisfying visit is another matter. Most communities spend considerable time and energy talking about and worrying about optimizing visitors' experiences. Yet there are still shortcomings and miscommunication from time to time. Visitors can help by doing some thinking ahead of time to set themselves up for a good visit. This article is full of advice to the prospective visitor. Read it with your own plans in mind. Maybe it will give you some ideas.
It is useful to consider the question: Why is this particular community open to visitors at all? What do they want or need from them? I think it's safe to say that most communities that advertise in a directory are keeping an eye out for people who might join them. They may be openly seeking members, or they may be only selectively open, watching for someone with a high degree of compatibility.
There are other reasons for having visitors, and they will vary from group to group. Some may simply need help with their work. Others may welcome stimulation from outsiders. A number of groups make their living from welcoming visitors at various conferences and seminars. Some organizations are interested in spreading their philosophy or religion. What you can be sure of, however, is that a group opens itself to receive strangers for its own reasons and its own needs. It isn't just exercising neighborly hospitality.
On your side, you have your reasons for wanting to visit. So, it makes sense to seek visits with groups that not only have something to offer you, but also have something to gain from your stay.
No matter what a visitor's personal agenda may be, helping the community with daily work is quite likely to make the visit worthwhile on both sides. Work is appreciated, and good work is appreciated a lot! This is true on the smallest commune or the biggest cooperative. Shared work opens doors to friendship and mutual confidence that no amount of conversation can open. Most people know this intuitively.
Over the years my home communities have hosted thousands of visitors, a large percentage have pitched in willingly with our work -- everything from collating newsletters to bucking hay -- and they don't begrudge the time. They have helped us build what we have today, and I am personally grateful. It's one of the reasons we will probably continue to be open to thousands more. The visitor who feels touchy about being exploited during the few days or weeks of a visit just doesn't understand the trade-offs from the community point of view, and is unlikely to get much satisfaction from the visit.
Sometimes a visitor is perfectly willing to work, and repeatedly volunteers, but the community members don't seem to take the time or make the effort to find an appropriate job. If this happens and you aren't the sort who can just intuitively find ways to help out, just make sure your offer is clear. Then, enjoy yourself doing something else. Some groups are not organized well enough to use visitor resources, and there's no point in bugging them about it.
A mistake to be avoided is treating communities like a sort of Disney World, put there for the interest of the public. For the most part, intentional communities are not showcases, are not kept up to impress outsiders, and are not particularly interested in being looked at by casual tourists. Resident communitarians may put up with a certain amount of tourism for income, or for outreach; but residents live their personal lives in community, and generally they don't enjoy uninvolved spectators.
Occasionally a visitor is not content with a guided tour, and causes exasperation by insisting on "talking to the residents to get a real feel for the place." The resident members in any community are generally friendly enough, but they may see too many strangers. The only way to get a feel for the place is to stay awhile; and the best way to do that is to invest yourself in a visit that is useful to both yourself and the host community.
Let us assume, then, that you are prepared to establish your welcome in a community by one means or another, and get on to other issues. One of the other main issues is expectations.
It's a good idea to read the printed material that a community provides. While no substitute for a visit, it at least gives you an idea of the self image of the community. Of course this material will contribute to your expectations, as it should.
This can be upsetting when your actual on-site experiences don't seem to have much to do with the lofty sentiments expressed on paper. Just the same, there are connections between stated group beliefs and their behavior norms. It is a mistake to ignore these connections, especially if you think of joining.
Years ago I knew a couple who read the philosophical material of a certain community and were appalled by it. They didn't agree with the published community tenets and didn't like the tone of the material either. However, they happened to meet someone from the group who was highly personable. So, they visited and found the entire group to be friendly, charming, and warm. My friends figured actions speak louder than words. They decided to ignore the declared goals of the community, believing instead the day-to-day behavior of the people they were getting to know and enjoy. They joined up. But as the months of their membership progressed, my friends found themselves more and more at odds with the founding members of the community. Everybody was warm and courteous, but their goals weren't compatible. Serious internal dissension grew, which saw my friends in conflict with the original leaders over issues of community direction. Eventually the new couple left, and so did some othe
r members, who were disillusioned by the bad feelings generated by the philosophical struggle.
This left the group weak, angry, and exhausted. It was a community tragedy, and not an uncommon one. I say, before joining an intentional community, read and believe the community documents. The chances are good that the published goals and values of every community are deeply respected by many community members, even though the behavior of some members may give consistent impressions to the contrary. Of course a visitor will have expectations of some sort, but it's useful to keep them to a modest level. I can think of several common expectations that frequently meet with disappointment.
There's the wealthy commune vision. At Twin Oaks we sometimes hear, "But I expected a rural group to have horses." Some people don't understand why the community isn't bursting with artistic work, or doesn't have its own school, or isn't generating its own power, or creating more original architecture. Such visitors haven't considered the wealth that must be allocated to realize such visions. Alternatively, visitors who look more closely can always find visions beyond financial survival that are attracting the energy of community members.
For instance, at my community we maintain a wide assortment of musical instruments and drums, and provide work credits for dramatic productions and a wide range of apprentice training. We have indexed an extensive library of books and tapes. The community maintains an intimate retreat cottage, mud pit, sweat lodge, swimming hole, gardens, pastures, and woodlands. We provide attractive transportation opportunities for political and cultural events, and a wide variety of conferences. The visions realized will vary in each community, according to the interests and skills of the members as they come and go.
Another more common expectation is the vision of a sense of community. Those with this vision expect to be included and loved fairly soon after arrival, because of an idea that all the people in a true community love one another. It is a serious disappointment when they realize that this kind of love grows only after time and mutual commitment, and cannot be grasped quickly.
Many people expect all communities to be wholehearted in their dedication to food self-sufficiency or healthful eating habits. I have seen some visitors to my community seriously shocked by our casual laissez-faire attitude toward diet. Some of us eat meat and frequently serve desserts, as well as indulge in a small amount of junk food. To many of us this seems moderate and reasonable, considering our abundance of whole grains, soy foods, and vegetables. To some visitors it seems like heresy and backsliding.
A viable community adapts to the needs and desires of its own members much more than it conforms to abstract ideals. The probability is high that it will not, if successful, be very fanatical in its ideals. There will be some determined core idealism, but otherwise compromises will prevail. Doubtless some communities don't compromise. Some don't last either. I suspect a connection.
Many visitors set themselves up for disappointment by expecting their visit to be blessed with a love affair or relationship. Now, who am I to say this won't happen? In fact, it has happened to hundreds of people in hundreds of communities, and maybe you will be blessed also. But don't count on it. If you join, that's another matter. The chances of a long-term community member finding, at one time or another, a loving relationship within or through the community are quite high if not absolutely guaranteed.
But the visitor? My advice is to set that hope firmly aside and seek enjoyment elsewhere. Trying too hard will just make it even less likely. As to the notion of finding readily available casual sex in the commune, forget it.
The most interesting community visitor is a person who wants to join the community. Let's say you have read the community visitor materials, and you're ready for a change in your life. You've come with modest expectations, and the community looks pretty good to you. Even at this point, there are still considerations that may enhance the chances of a good connection to your chosen group.
Take this question: Shall I be on my best behavior while I visit, or shall I let them know what I am really like? By all means put your best foot forward! The experienced community makes allowances. We know that in a year or two you're not going to be jumping up and volunteering to wash the dishes, the way you did when you were visiting. But the eagerness to make a good impression makes a good impression. We'll like you wanting to please. It says something good about your social skills. We know that the real you is somewhat more of a mixed bag. So is the real us for that matter. That's not the same thing as hiding vital information. If you have a serious medical problem or a sticky child custody situation or a history of drug abuse, you cannot expect a community to become involved in such major personal problems without prior knowledge and agreement.
Then there's the question: Shall I let them know my real opinions, or shall I just go along with their assumptions? The answer depends on the nature of the group. Are you joining a group with a religion that all members must accept? If so, it seems questionable ethically to join such a group without embracing that religion. On the other hand, a group that is essentially secular should not concern itself with your private opinions. It is your behavior that matters.
Nothing is more obnoxious than the visitor who defies the important traditions of a community. Imagine, for example, a visitor passing out candy bars to children in a commune that accepts only healthy foods, using the argument that children should be free to choose their own diets. Joining any community entails giving up certain personal freedoms, even as you gain new ones (different ones in different communities). It is unmannerly in the extreme, to say nothing of ineffective, to insist on taking for yourself freedoms that the community members have voluntarily given up. A certain amount of "When in Rome do as the Romans do," is certainly appropriate.
On the other hand, if you are thinking of joining, and your happiness depends on something that you don't think the community has, don't give up too easily. Make it a point to ask, without being judgmental. It might be that the community is more flexible than it looks. There are many things that can be done, within my own community agreements, that aren't done very often for various reasons. If a prospective member who looks good to us wonders aloud if certain personal hobbies or practices would be supported at my community, we are happy to discuss possibilities. Certainly it's worth bringing up the subject and checking it out.
The community you see during any one visit is not the whole community. It is almost impossible for visitors to understand this, but it is profoundly true. A little slice of time cannot give a deep understanding of the nature of an intentional community. Your visit is influenced by many factors that are trivial in relation to the entire membership experience. The seasons have a great impact on community activity, as does filling a big order for community products, participating in an emergency, or being there during a birth or a death. An influential member may be absent when you visit. Or, there may be other visitors at the same time who by their presence skew your impressions.
The particular issue being discussed avidly when you visit is probably only one of many. Your visit will not give you an accurate impression of either the long-term importance of the issue or the outcome. If you visit when somebody is angrily leaving the group, you will pick up on a different feeling from the one you'd get if you visit when things are going well and membership is solid.
Your impressions of the community will also be influenced by the group you hang out with. I strongly advise all visitors to be cautious of information from a member who is angry with the community and wants to air grievances. Negatively loaded information can give a sense of getting the lowdown on the community, but the value of such insights is questionable.
At a minimum, a visitor who hears about significant community grievances should make a point of bringing up the same issues with a member who is happy with the place. A disillusioned member on the way out is certainly not an objective informant. No place is perfect, but it's probably not as bad as it can be made to sound.
Regarding community controversy, there's not much point in a visitor getting involved. At Twin Oaks, public discussions are carried on in writing, on a bulletin board. The comments of visitors on controversies are not usually welcome. Other communities argue in meetings, and the same thing is true of visitor comments there. It may seem to the visitor that there is something quite relevant that hasn't been said, and somebody needs to say it. But this is virtually never true. No outsider can really understand these issues after a brief stay.
Even after joining, new members will still blunder. Only after time spent living with longer-term members can new people gain an effective understanding of controversial community issues. All this doesn't mean "Visitors should be seen and not heard," but there is value in listening a lot and reserving your opinions for later.
It can be valuable for the visitor to listen to the controversial discussion and then later ask questions of individuals, outside of meeting time. Be aware of framing your questions in a neutral form, "Why is it so important that quot; or "What would happen if this approach were taken?" This personal approach will give you a chance to participate without being resented, and to learn more about community issues at the personal level. Be prepared to hear answers to your questions, and don't be hurt if your input isn't taken very seriously.
Every once in a while a visitor really does have knowledge that is immediately useful, and help offered in such cases is appreciated. Generally, this is technical help. For example, the community is having legal difficulties with a child custody case, and you are a retired lawyer from a firm that did a lot of custody work. Or the community is building a house, and you are an experienced builder. Or as a doctor, you notice that certain community norms are likely to lead to a particular disease. Note that the useful knowledge is not philosophical, but practical, the direct result of specialized training and experience.
In between solid technical expertise and personal opinion lie many visitor skill areas that may or may not be useful to share with a host community. The one I notice most often is massage. A lot of people are trained masseurs these days. Good. Offering to give massages is a courteous and friendly thing to do. You may or may not get any takers. The same is true for various schools of conflict resolution, facilitation, and therapy, and for artistic accomplishments that you can teach. If you have such a skill, your best tactic is to offer but not push it. If your guitar playing draws a happy crowd, good; you've added something to the group's happiness. On the other hand, if nobody wants to listen, oh well, try something else.
Any community's favorite visitor is the cheerful, helpful one who is genuinely impressed with the community and not very critical of shortcomings. Even if they don't join, leaving the community with a positive feeling is a nice thing to do. Of course it's always possible that some group at a particular time doesn't really need congratulations; it needs a kick in the pants. Even so, be very careful before you elect yourself to the job. A word about doing the community circuit. People often set out to visit many different communities, but few ever finish their trek. They find out what they need to know after being at two or three places. This being the case, it makes sense to look at the list of groups that sound interesting, and visit the most likely looking communities first. Directories get outdated, so write letters to more communities than you plan to visit. Some of your letters may not be answered.
When my fellow communitarians learned I was writing this article about how to visit a community, they asked me to pass along several messages. "Tell them this is our home." "Tell them not to drop in without being invited." "Tell them they sometimes have to take no for an answer." While I'm at it, I should explain that 19 out of every 20 visitors are a help and a pleasure to us. The growls and groans all come because of the exceptional twentieth.
Virtually all of those who publish the names and whereabouts of their groups do want and need a certain number and kind of visitors. So don't be discouraged. If you really want to live in an intentional community, you'll find one.
About the Author
Kat Kinkade is a founding member of Twin Oaks (1967), East Wind (1974), and Acorn (1993). She has written, and Twin Oaks has published, two books about that community, A Walden Two Experiment and Is It Utopia Yet? At Twin Oaks Kat passed away in 2008 at her home, Twin Oaks Community.
East Wind Update
Last winter was a joy, and we were fortunate all winter to have fresh greens coming out of our garden. The weather was conducive to outside activities, which kept the farm a little less penned up.
Spring came on like gangbusters. When the rains hit we had flooding in our lower fields, actually maxing out the flood plain; complicating our use of those fields for hay, and completely flooding our fine swimming hole. Sarah and Zeke, the new ranch team, managed to fix the bailer. I think they're like sewing machines: magical--not mechanical. We were still able to harvest hay out of a damp field, and as for the swimming hole, we moved it to a more accessible location.
Yohanan's birthday party (his 157th, I believe) was held up the creek, via canoe, at some nice chert banks. May Day brought us some friends LEXing from Twin Oaks for our 34th anniversary! Our holiday festivals have been wonderfully light hearted, with hula hooping and frisbee. We've a group of people who have been playing with the fire circus idea with a fire hula hoop, juggling pins, fire rope batons, and of course, poi. This all added to the fun and exciting environment that makes these events so special. As long as I am talking festivals, I should add in that this August music festival was a wonderful time, with members of The Shwag (a local Grateful Dead tribute band) coming down and giving us a fine reason to dance the perfect night away.
We have moved the deck from behind the sandals trailer, where it was not being used very often, to the south side of the music room. A beautiful new flight of stairs wraps all the way around, making this a very comfortable and usable space with a great view of the fields.
Our kitchen has been working harder and harder to get more of our food from within a 100 mile radius, providing us with fresh milk, which is being used for some learning experiences with soft cheeses. And, fresh eggs to supplement our chicken's production, as well as some free range meat chickens from a Mennonite farm about 40 miles from us. There's even been gossip of building a dairy barn again and going back into production!
Our personal food production has been wonderful this year with the ranch team harvesting and processing our own animals instead of sending them out for butcher. We've also had an amazing year in the garden, featuring peppers, cabbage, lettuce, kale, ginger, an amazing (and historically huge!) strawberry harvest, and tomatoes, coming in right up until the frost. This is only a small taste of the good work Faery Link and Peter have put into our garden. Many help, but the brunt always comes down to a few dedicated gardeners and they have done a fabulous job feeding us fresh food this year. We also have had more folks doing food processing, with beans, tomatoes, jalapenos, pickles and salsas all being put away this year.
We have had a rising interest in sustainability, which has produced some nice morning gatherings where members and visitors talk about what sustainability means to us and what we can do.
Our businesses have been doing well, and we communards saw profit sharing this year! We also put away cash for a building fund in a separate account and voted to increase that fund this year.
The Nut House expansion saw a slow point in construction, but has recently picked up again. Hopefully, we will get walls on it before the snow flies! (Update: walls are on!) One of the reasons for the new jar line is the addition of a tamper evident seal. There are roaster trainings going on and a new team taking on Nut Butter production. Feels like a lot of energy going into our business again!
Twin Oaks Update
As I write this, a child is being born here at Twin Oaks. In the upstairs living room of Kaweah, Summer and Purl are being assisted by friends, family and a midwife in giving birth to our newest member.
In June of this year we celebrated Twin Oaks' 41st Anniversary. Around 200 members and ex-members gathered together to watch slide-shows, have dinner and dance together to mark the occasion. Unfortunately, while we were waiting for dinner word got to us that one of the buildings next to our warehouse, named Oz, was burning. The destruction was total, but luckily the fire did not spread to any of the other buildings. The folks at Louisa Fire Department contained the fire and put it out for us. Work is already underway to replace Oz with a new steel building by this spring.
This year's Halloween party was a blast. Many members dressed up and partied down. Costumes included: Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter (costume worn by a 40-year-old man), Peak Oil (person adorned with garbage bags and car-oil cans, with a trickle of fake oil dripping out of co's head) and Johnny Cash (complete with 3-piece live band, he led the whole room in singing a round of "Ring of Fire")
As of this moment, Twin Oaks is at maximum capacity. In early November we took on our 93rd adult member, which according to our current policy is our Population Capacity (or Pop Cap for short). Already since then we have collected a waiting list of a dozen people ready to move here once the opportunity arises. Is this the beginning of a new trend or just an anomaly? Only time will tell.
Many of our newer members have expressed a strong interest in moving our community into a more ecologically sustainable direction. We have converted most of our light bulbs to compact fluorescent and are working on plans to add a composting toilet. We are also doing renovation on the solar hot water heater in Harmony. We have done some calculations and learned that in our domestic areas we consume 70% less gasoline, 80% less electricity and 76% less natural gas the the average Virginia resident. We also produce 87% less solid waste then the average American. We are also exploring the idea of hosting a natural building workshop with a focus on communal structures in the fall of 2009. Email bucket@twinoaks.org if you are interested in hearing more about our community focused natural building workshop.
We hosted the 2008 Communities Conference and Women's Gathering this year, both of which were marvelous successes. Members here also attended the Climate Convergence, hosted at a nearby convention center.
And finally, one of Twin Oaks' primary founding members, Kat Kinkade, died on July 3rd, peacefully at home at Twin Oaks. Kat was a visionary and a mover-shaker, and her life's work touched thousands of people. Her family and friends were here with her when she passed. Kat Kinkade was a founding member of three communities in the Federation of Egalitarian Communities: Twin Oaks, East Wind and Acorn. Each of these communities are still thriving to this day. Kat died due to complications related to bone cancer, an illness she has been living with for quite a while. Kat was buried in Twin Oaks Community's cemetery, with friends, family, and communards in attendance.
In this issue we bring you updates from our member communities, a review of our accomplishments in 2008, stories from our communities, and more!
2008 was a great year for the FEC! We have had a rise in participation and interest from our member communities and we have made significant progress as an organization.
Our 
This past year has been full of changes. The biggest, being the birth of our first baby, Ruby, who is the daughter of Johanna and Sheldon. As a community, we've been learning how to support new parents, how to do baby sign language, and how to relate with this little one. It has been a challenging and rewarding learning opportunity for us. Now, Ruby is walking/tottering, which brings a whole new set of fun and challenging things.
Each year, we are expanding our own food production, and this year we joined a collective farm on Vashon Island, which is just a ferry ride away. We have one out of eight shares, where we put in $400 upfront, do six hours of a labor a week, and get our share of the harvest. That in addition to what we grow in our own garden has enabled us to have a pretty decent produce supply in the summer months. We're planning on continuing this next year.
Nathan Rive of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo says that if we are to have any chance of preventing the average temperature from increasing over two degrees "we would have to cut global emissions by 80 percent by 2050."
The bylaws of my home, Twin Oaks Community in Virginia, list ecological sustainability as just one of the many purposes of our community's existence. The primary intention of our community at its founding was to create a culture of cooperation, sharing, and equality. We certainly do care about ecological sustainability and hold many discussions on how we could improve in this area. However, we have put most of our energy into finding ways to live cooperatively, communally and comfortably.
Juan here, reporting on Skyhouse's comings and goings and doings since the last FEC assembly in February at East Wind.
On the business side of things, Tony has continued his hard work on the FIC's website, and Amy and I built the online store for the
Milkweed Mercantile (http://www.milkweedmercantile.com). A dream of Alline Anderson and Kurt Kessner of Dancing Rabbit, the Mercantile's physical building isn't finished yet. But when it is, it will be host to a bed and breakfast, a cafe, and a general store. Skyhouse is now extremely close to seeing the last of the debt it incurred building our house go away, and I for one, can't wait.
