Twin Oaks Community

Beth thought it would be nice for our Dutch guests (Micha, Wieneke and their son Fabian, who i was the donor for) to see the new visitor center at the US Capitol while they were in Washington DC (which i call Death City).
So we all packed into Shana’s Subraru, including Beth’s daughter Rachel and i hide in the back to evade the DC police in our overcrowded vehicle.

The  first hurdle was the security at the Capitol which wanted us to throw out all our food and the water bottle containers.  This infuriated both Wieneke and Beth who did not want to dispose of the perfectly good reusable water bottles they had.  So we delayed our tour and Beth took them back to the car.

The Capitol guides are a cross between a security guard and tour leader.  Ours started her tour with the emphatic statement “You have two tour options today, you can go with me for about an hour or you can wander off from the group and get a tour from the capitol police, which is very short!”

And so it was for the next 40 minutes or so as we saw the myriad statues and paintings which fill the Capitol with the LA jewish high school basketball team which toured with us.  Our guide was regularly directing tourists where they could and could not stand or sit, that they could not use their own headphone jacks in the free radio headsets which werre provided all the while asking triva questions about California’s pending statehood anniversary and basketball tidbits from Kansas (really).

At the end of the tour, Beth asked Fabian how he had liked it and he responded (in a manor i could her myself quiping) “I thought they had outlawed torture in this country.”

If you have acccess to Facebook there is a cute video of Fabian and Rachel Spinning in the Emancipation hall.

The communities conference is just a week away!

The new fire pit is all finished and beautiful, the living roof we built over the shower is looking beautiful, and we just finished major upgrades in our kitchen! Everything is falling into place and we are expecting nearly double the turnout this year.

Below are a list of workshops and presenters given this year. We have a few more details to finish before we finalize our workshop schedule, so things may change.

Cooperation Is The Ecological Solution

by Alexis Zeigler

Cooperative living is the most effective solution for peak oil and
global warming. We will look at how alternative energy and
conservation strategies can be cooperatively applied to live lightly
and well, and how cooperatives can lead the environmental movement
toward real solutions. We will look at cooperative energy
conservation in a global context, as well as some of the nuts-and-
bolts of different conservation and alternative energy technologies
as they can applied in small groups.

Alexis Zeigler is a self-educated activist, green builder, and
orchardist living in central Virginia. He has organized numerous
campaigns around environmental and social justice issues, built super-
insulated buildings and alternative energy systems, and has lived in
intentional community all of his adult life. More information,
including articles, interviews, and downloadable books, can be found
at his website, conev.org or by contacting alexis@conev.org

How Do We Choose The Communities We Join?

by Irena Hollowell

i did not think love of games was a genetically transmitted trait, but it seems Fabian has it.  After an exciting game of Blokus with Feonix, Micha, Wieneke and Fabian, the boys got down to some serious Yahtzee.

They taught me these lovely additional rules, where if you complete your desired roll configuration before your three rolls are done you can bank your unused roll as a stripe on your score card.  If you want an extra role you can go into debt by placing an egg at the bottom of your score cards.  Eggs cancel stripes, stripes cancel eggs.

Thru some lucky rolls, i got way ahead and on my last roll i had 8 tries to complete my Yahtzee and got it in 6.  So generously i gave one of my stripes to each of Micha and Fabian.

Fabian, who was the last to roll got his desired 4 of a kind without using the stripe i gave him.  But Micha suggested he re-roll the one unmatching dice anyway.  His 2 became a 4 and after the counting, Fabian had won by a single point.

So i said to Micha “i gave him the chance and you gave him the advice and thus Fabian wins.”  And so it is, well beyond Yahzee, these additional rules for life.

Fabian and Paxus playing Chess on the Ferry w/ Micha and Feonix on phone

News of the Oaks Issue #108

by Valerie

Since the last edition of the Leaves, we've gone from the frigid cold of Winter to the sweltering heat of mid-Summer. We're taking advantage of the sun these days with our latest solar energy project. We've just completed the installation of a 10 KiloWatt array of 48 photo-voltaic solar panels in the central field of the community. The electricity generated will be used to power three of our buildings and one of our well pumps, with any excess electricity being fed back into the main power grid (via our local electic co-op), and we will be compensated for that power.

installing one of the 48 panels for our new solar energy array.

Earlier in the year, we found out that there's nothing like being snowed in for days and weeks on end to bring out people's creativity. In January, Twin Oaks took advantage of the avalanche of snow we received (and the 30-hour power outage) and members' inventiveness was bustin' out all over! Our very own 'outsider-artist-in-residence', aka our member Purl, used the time to construct a chair out of hickory saplings and hemp rope for his daughter Anya, aged 15 months. And when our pond froze, Noah decided a game of ice-hockey was in order, but we only had 2 sticks. Undaunted, he used some scrap wooden stretcher bars from our hammocks business to construct 6 very realistic hockey sticks, 5 of which lasted until the end of the game! And on a more cultured artistic note, Kayde organized a Variety Show in which members could showcase their talents, including poetry, singing, piano, dancing and a puppet show featuring Marshall Rosenberg of NVC (Non-Violent Communication) notoriety as the main character.

Anya sits in her new chair.

Another big January event was the arrival of our newest Oaker, a healthy baby boy born to Elsa and Scott. Elsa delivered him into the world at home, with the help of a midwife, her assistant, a doula, Scott and big brother Luuk. We welcome Ridgeley Ember Jennings Linden to our lives!

Ridgeley Ember Jennings Linden

In February, as an alternative to Valentine's Day, Twin Oaks celebrates Validation Day, a day in which everybody, not just people in intimate relationships, receives a handmade, individually designed card, inside of which other members have written validating messages. On Validation Day, we hand the cards out after dinner, and then break out into a dance party. This year, we also had a 'Songs of Love' performance, which was graced with the presence of the KITCH Army, sharing their version of KISS's new song 'Stand'.

Memory, Calliope, Claire and Keith transformed in to the KITSCH ARMY

Some people might say Twin Oaks has hit the big time, when we were featured in an Earth Day special on CNN news in April. In two of our fifteen minutes of fame, the piece focused on Twin Oaks as an example of how to live a sustainable lifestyle in contemporary America. We were pleased that information about our alternative culture was able to reach the masses.

There's also good news for our two largest community businesses. We've launched a new and improved website for Twin Oaks Hammocks. We sell hammocks both to wholesalers and to retail customers, and the new site makes it easier for our retail customers to make a purchase. Please go to www.twinoakshammocks.com if you'd like to take a look. And with our newest tofu account, we've increased our workweek to 5 tofu production days. This enables us to make the additional 5000 (yes, five thousand) pounds each week for the new account.

And several members have been busy working on creating new community.
We've been having meetings of a group of former and current members
who are working towards creating the Living Energy Farm. Now in the
process of finding land, the project will ultimately encompass an
intentional community with an environmental education center, which
will focus on sustainable ways of living, free of fossil-fuel. It has
been informally dubbed neo-amish (ie. Amish-style, minus the
patriarchy).

For more information: http://www.livingenergyfarm.org

A Day in the Life of a Communard

by Mushroom

6 a.m. My alarm wakes me up and I roll out of bed, ready to start my day. The sun hasn't quite come up yet, but there's some soft light coming through my east-facing window. I don't have to get up this early--we each set our own schedule--but I like being up before the hustle and bustle of the day really begins. Plus, since nine of us live in my building, I probably won't have any competition for the shower.

6:15 a.m. I make myself breakfast (toast with homemade bread and an egg from one of our chickens) in the kitchen in the Courtyard, where I live. Lunch and dinner are served buffet-style at Zhankoye (ZK), our main dining facility and community center, but we also have a handful of smaller kitchens for breakfast, snacking, and preparing meals for small groups of people. As I eat, I read a novel I pulled from our public collection of several thousand books--no library card needed.

6:55 a.m. Since I like being up early, I signed up for a 7 o'clock tofu-making shift last week when all of our labor was being scheduled. I head to the Tofu Hut, a mere two-minute walk through the woods from my room--not a bad commute. It's chilly out, but the Hut is warm and steamy. I put on boots, gloves, a hairnet, and an apron, and start pressing curds into big slabs of tofu.

10 a.m. My shift is over, and I head back to the Courtyard. I check my email on one of the public computers in the office. In addition to actually making tofu, I also do a lot of customer service for our soyfoods business. Someone has contacted us to find out where they can buy Twin Oaks' tofu in their area; I respond, and also check out the orders that have come in locally from stores and restaurants in Charlottesville and Richmond.

10:45 a.m. I see my friend Sabrina outside with one-year-old Anya in a carrier on her back. She's doing a "primary," labor-creditable child care. We make tea and go for a walk together, Anya making cute faces at me the whole time.

12:05 p.m. It's lunch time, so we walk up to ZK. Lunch is mostly leftovers, supplemented with a fresh salad and baked potatoes. We grow greens throughout the winter in our huge greenhouse, and we harvested enough potatoes in the summer and fall to last us through the winter.

12:50 p.m. I walk back to my room to put on work boots for my forestry shift, then ride a public bike up to Modern Times (MT), where Carrol, River, Purl and I will meet for the shift. MT is our main shop building, with space and tools to fix our cars, bikes, tractors, and vacuums.

1 p.m. We head out into the woods, where we'll selectively cut trees and haul them in to be processed into firewood. All the wood we harvest is done so sustainably, and all of our buildings are heated with wood all winter long. It's too hot to do forestry work in the summer, so during the off-season, I'll switch some of my work scene indoors to do data entry and accounting work to monitor our communal money budgets.

5:15 p.m. I hang out in my room a bit before dinner, finishing up a letter to my family and listening to music. I find it's important to carve out alone time for myself--it's very easy to get sucked into the social scene 24/7 here. There's always something going on, someone to talk to.

6:00 p.m. Dinner is served! Tonight it's my favorite--veggie burgers. (And, OK, hamburgers too. But I'm a vegetarian.) There are plenty of side dishes, like steamed spinach and sweet potato fries. A large percentage of the meal, both veggies and meat, is homegrown. I sit in the Lounge with about ten people and chat with McCune about his latest plumbing adventure. Sometimes at dinner there's one main conversation but tonight several smaller discussions have sprung up. Besides copper-vs-plastic waterlines, people are talking about the new fruit orchard we're planting, the latest news from our sister community 8 miles up the road, and trying to work out if people's schedules will allow our belly-dance troupe to meet on the same night as the queer-theory discussion group.

7:30 p.m. Mala has invited me to her residence (named Beechside) to hang out--there's a really cozy kitchen/living room there that's highly conducive to fun social gatherings. A bunch of people come over, and we sit draped on the couches and on the floor. Debbie and Trout play fiddle and guitar, Casey is knitting a pair of socks and Ezra makes a large amount of popcorn. Zadek, age 4, and Samir, age ten months, provide a lot of the entertainment. It's a festive atmosphere, though there's no particular occasion; we just like to enjoy each other's company.

10:00 p.m. I head home to my room. I record the work I did today on my labor sheet and write in my journal a bit to unwind before bed. I'm very tired, but happy. It's been a good day.

Jessica Marie Quintet

by Summer

Debbie (above), Elsa, Jessie and Summer, 4/5 of the Quintet

I'm standing downtown in Charlottesville with my 6-month old daughter strapped to my front, singing with four other women. We run through our repertoire as a small but steady crowd of people gathers to listen. We are appreciative of the donations they leave, and afterwards we go to soothe our voices at the gelatto place down the street.
I am part of the The Jessica Marie Quintet, nee Oakapella or FEC-Sharp, which started in 2008 with eight original members singing a broader range of a cappella music, and has gradually narrowed to a focus on barbershop. When the idea first arose, I squealed with irrepressible dorkiness my delight at the thought of being in one of these groups again--in high school I was head of our 8-member a capella group. Characterized by close harmonies and four distinct voices that often sing the same lyrics (as opposed to doo-wop, which usually features a lead singer and several backup vocals), barbershop feels more egalitarian, more cooperative.

After a few months we were down to 5 people, and renamed the group the Jessie Marie Quintet, in honor of the two members who share that name (Jess, our bass; and Jessie, our tenor). Free online sheet music eventually gave way to specific arrangements ordered off the internet; one practice grew to two 2-hour rehearsals a week; and we began to perform as much as we could, including at homespun coffeehouses, busking in Charlottesville, at the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, Christmas/Solstice caroling, at a nursing home, at Acorn's Land Day, and for Twin Oakers in full-on JMQ concerts. Twice we've taken an educational trip to town to rehearse with the Skyline Chorus, Charlottesville's Sweet Adeline 30-member women's barbershop chorus. Their director has come out to Twin Oaks with two members of the chorus to help us through a rehearsal. We finished the practice with new warm-up exercises, help with posture, breathing, mouth shape, diphthongs, and lots of other information that has helped us advance our singing together. Last summer we used Twin Oaks' recording equipment and squeezed ourselves into the young adult library on hot evenings to put out our first CD.

Recording together was another learning experience: how far away do we each have to stand from the mic? Which room captures the best sound? We feel proud of the result and hope to make another album once we've added enough new songs to our repertoire. Right now the group is working on our theater debut singing and dancing for the community's performance of Greasel. After that, a belated two-year anniversary concert is in order. And after that, who knows? [The Jessica Marie Quintet is comprised of Jessica Marie (Jess) on bass, Summer on lead/baritone, Debbie on lead/tenor, Elsa on lead/tenor, and Jessica Marie (Jessie) on lead/tenor. Our CD, *In the Good Old Summertime and Other Modern Hits* is available for $8 (sliding scale).]

From Seed to Seeds

By Cloud Supernova

Edmund processing seeds.

Twin Oaks Theatre: 'Greasel'

by Kelsey

To most of American society, 'community theatre' means a group of theatre people, who happen to live in general proximity of each other, bound together by the act of putting on a professional-looking show. Here, it seems we take the word order of 'community theatre' more literally. It's more community, with a 'Hey! Since we're all here, let's do a ridiculous Twin Oaks-based spoof on Grease this winter!'

Talent? That, we have in buckets here. It started with the unbelievably hilarious team of writers (or re-writers, rather) creating songs and a script for the fantastic band and actors that then assembled. From within our ranks also came choreographers, set designers, props and costumes managers, publicity, lights, and no fewer than three directors. Not to mention those that pick up the slack within the community for this motley and brilliant team to have time to put a show up.

We knew we wanted to spoof the plot of the original show, placing it in a Twin Oaks setting, with lots of references to our alternative culture. Just the name alone-- 'Greasel' -immediately presented itself as a tip of the hat to the alternative energy practice of using vegetable oil for fuel, so-called 'greasel' instead of 'diesel'.

The 'cool kids' in this show were we communards. Members Michael and Summer starred as a hippie, dread-locked Danny paired with Sandra V, the mainstream commodities trader plopped into the middle of our commune for a visit. Musical highlights included 'Oberlin Dropout' as Crunchy (aka Frenchy) ponders returning to grad school, and 'You're The Ones That I Want' as an homage to polyamory. And what would Grease be without 'Hopelessly Devoted to Tofu' (performed, of course, by some of our most committed tofu workers)?

Really, though, there is more to what makes theatre here so interesting: while we do happen to have a lot of talent residing on these 450 acres, talent is also not exactly the point. In community, art is everywhere, and everyone can have a role-not just the 'artsy' people in society to whom we delegate the task of moving our culture forward. Anyone that wants a way to contribute here can probably find one, and while we don't aspire to Broadway with our work, we do aspire to enrich all of our lives through a collective creative process. So, we do. We shape our time together as we wish, and it is certainly never boring. Besides, what makes life worth living if not some Twin Oakers singing about how unexpected romance can blossom over pickling the beets?

Politics at Twin Oaks

by Valerie

Here at Twin Oaks, we generally consider ourselves beyond conventional conversation restraints; this becomes immediately obvious by listening to a mealtime discussion of the lurid details of gruesome symptoms related to the latest sickness going around.

When it comes to talking about politics, it becomes a little more complicated. There are certain topics that we can all discuss with ease and generally agree upon. However, somehow there are others that are more like opening a can of worms while walking through a field of landmines...

Acceptable: global warming and polar icecap melt

More delicate: what temperature to set the communal hot-water heater, and the ecological implications of using ice-cubes

Acceptable: Obama versus Hillary

A bit trickier: Organic versus Local

Acceptable: increasing water shortages and the evils of the bottled-water industry

Tread carefully: the fact that a certain communard-who-shall-remain-nameless replaced the low-flow shower head with one that delivers the approximate force and volume-per-minute of Niagara Falls, without any process.

Acceptable: the discriminatory aspects of impending US immigration policy

Walking on eggshells : our membership process about whether to accept that controversial visitor from the last visitor period.

Acceptable: gay marriage

Call in the Process Team: your lover announces their desire to form a polyamorous triad with that statuesque blonde who arrived as a new member last week.....

Twin Oaks Conferences!



You are invited to come to Twin Oaks and participate in our two summer events:

Join us for a weekend of sharing and celebration at the 2010 Communities Conference, August 13-15th.

With workshops and events focused on:

News of the Oaks Issue #108

by Valerie

Since the last edition of the Leaves, we've gone from the frigid cold of Winter to the sweltering heat of mid-Summer. We're taking advantage of the sun these days with our latest solar energy project. We've just completed the installation of a 10 KiloWatt array of 48 photo-voltaic solar panels in the central field of the community. The electricity generated will be used to power three of our buildings and one of our well pumps, with any excess electricity being fed back into the main power grid (via our local electic co-op), and we will be compensated for that power.

Kelsey is wonderful and i am going to miss her terribly when she joins her lover in Tanzania soon.  She has been a huge help in the Heroes homeschooling game.  She asked me if she were a Caucasian person going to a foreign land of a different race  how would she best learn to assimilate.

i said ‘Go to an american who has been there for a long time and say “tell me what you think i need to know about these people and this place to fit in and serve.”  Listen carefully to what they say and take lots of notes.  Then take their story to a respected elder native and tell them what you heard and get them to correct it.’

“That is brilliant” Kelsey exclaimed, which are about my most favorite words.

“That is why i get the big labor credits” i quip and several folx at the table laugh (Roberto and Eva V).  i then go on to explain that big labor credits are still only worth one hour each, but they are the oversized credits you get for doing amazing things.

Once upon a time, in this type of conversation i would have said “that is why i make the big bucks.” The joke here being that i make $85/month.

We are facing a vexing world, we need to be clever. And i try to do it when ever i am able, regardless of the compensation.

one of the early options when you google image search for 'brilliant'

There are a couple of stunning errors being made which have my head in a twist, because there are clever well paid people who are supposed to be catching these opportunities.

The recipe for a successful boycott requires an easy way to switch products and cleear branding.  The unsuccessful BP boycott has both.  Gas consumers can simply drive across the street to buy from another vender and while BP has some subsidiary brands, if a significant number of customers simply avoided their branded stations it would have a further crippling effect on BPs profits.

Why isn’t someone knocking on my door asking me to stop buying until they have paid the $20 billion promised in damages or some other reasonable demand?  Why dont we have people dressed as dirty birds or dead fish at BP stations?  [Tho there was a wonderful action at the Tate Museum in London.]

Part of the answer is that we are pretending that we can do push button political action and click something on Facebook and move on.

So i am working on a more complex entry perhaps called betrayal and bolo – so stay tuned for that.  But i did not want to let more time go by without posting and there is a cute myth story running around the Ta Chai living room with me.

So the myth is that we are poor.  Many people in the mainstream, especially friends of members, believe we are in need.

Understandably, they look at our low allowance and generally modest consumption patterns and assume this represents a kind of poverty.

Numerically (which is the most precise and generally least useful) we have a bunch of money in the bank, 450 beautiful acres with a couple dozen high functioning low impact buildings.  There is a weight room and a sauna, fresh grown food for most of the year and membership comes with full medical, dental and home care if needed.

But what is more important is that between the commie clothes library and our fleets of bikes and cars, most members (i believe) dont fell strong desires to have more.

But the myth persists, and combined with our friends generosity and sense of humor we get a bunch of presents.  Today in what is sometimes called “the State Room” Bochie is running around in a Snow White costume that we are convinced was hand and machine sewn by someones 80 year old grandma, perhaps as th last thing she did on this earth.

There are perhaps 2 dozen pairs of high heels mostly in good shape which will look fabulous on Valerie or Mushroom.

But perhaps the most fun was watching Bochie go hunting thru the boxes of handbags and shoes and art supplies, giggling like a slightly crazy child at their best birthday.

Dear friends, communitarians, and explorers,

We are in the midst of getting the word out about the Conference.
With barely over a month to go, we're posting to relevant websites,
e-mailing friends, and sending a press release. Now is a great time
to tell or remind any of your friends, too, if they might want to
come.

Valerie is putting together the list of workshops and events that will
take place, so if you want to offer an event, it's a great time to get
in touch with her. Meanwhile, we're also continuing to get the site

read more

We are have lots of different types of events here at Twin Oaks. Anniversary is one of my favorites, in part because it is a principally internal affair, with most of the guests being ex-members and the closer friends of community.

This year was a smaller celebration (43 not being an especially significant number) and it was precious.  The weather cooperated, the home-grown entertainment (especially Uncle Trout’s Dead cover band) engaging, the food was glorious (see viz Rich’s fabled flame thrower salmon below) and our spirits were high.

Rich viz

uses flame thrower to cook salmon

From a funological perspective, we even had our bonding crisis experience.  For the last few songs of the Dead cover bands performance, the wind kicked up and what looked like a serious storm started to blow in.  Communards, quick to help jumped up and deployed tarps.  I had a precious moment dancing with Mushroom as we both held on of the canopy poles to the ground wrestling the storm winds.  And in what perhaps typifies our collective response, as a handful of dancers moved in to secure the stage from the storm, other participants who had been sitting, instead fo getting out of the pending storm jumped up to take the dancers places.  The storm blew past the revealers partied on.

telegenic entertainers

As i looked around at the highly telegenic crowd of current communards, each more interesting than the last, i realized that the old adage was true.  Kat‘s last book was cleverly called “Is it Utopia yet?”  To which we occasionally answer “No, but on a good day you can see it from here.”

Anniversary was a good day.

It has been a rough couple of weeks, projects have been crashing, i have been struggling with some of my intimate relationships.  And a couple of days back when things got bad and i was in the Twin Oaks courtyard i asked myself “Who should i go see? Who will make me feel better?”  And i remembered that Willow was with Trout down at the pond fishing.  So i toddled down to the pond to find my son, his fishing instructor and a 17.5? wide mouth bass.

Willow Star Falcon with his fish

Trout (who is a member here) informed me that Willow had caught the fish on his very first casting of the day.  Apparently, this is not unusual for Willow.  While i was there, Willow caught another fish that he knew was too small before he even reeled it out.  Trout used the pliers while Willow held it and then threw the happy to be released fish back in or tiny pond.

As therapy for me it worked brilliantly.  My son was pleased and proud of his accomplishment.  i ran around and got a camera to take a couple of shots.  Trout agreed to cook the fish that was served at the community dinner and Willow got to take some of the time he spent catching it as labor credits – which made him doubly happy.

Willow, Trout (the person) and Bass (the fish)

“My father was the president and founder of a successful architecture firm. My mother is the founder and executive director of 200 person non-profit. My brother is the lead singer for a rock band which has multiple Grammys and gold records. And i am the tofu delivery boy.”

i love delivering tofu.  i get to drive the tofu truck, which is just large enuf to be a real truck and just small enuf for me to get into to trouble for it.   i love decoding the parking complexities of Richmond during the day, the slightly rickity hand truck i get to move the crates around in.  All the restaurant workers who say nice things about our products and offer me coffee (which i dont drink) and other treats (which i do eat).

i breeze into the walk in fridge at VCU and unload amongst the bustle which is a huge institutional kitchen.  i drop at a tiny cafe where the death metal music is always blaring in the kitchen.  The Harrison Street Cafe uses huge quantities of Tempeh and are always friendly and generous.  i deliver tofu scraps for the Richmond chapter of  Food not Bombs to the ever cool staff at Ellwood Thompsons.

Hey again,

Just another update from Louisa, VA...Bucket has been hard at work preparing the conference site for this year's event, and a new and improved shower area with a living roof (!!) is on track to be completed in time for us all to enjoy in August. The blueberry bushes are in, and Winter and Shakaya are doing wonders on the stone fire-pit.

After working out some kinks with online registration, all is finally well, and we're excited to be adding this new option for the first time. Paper registration is still a-okay, though, and the big push next week will be to get a 5,000 piece mailing (a flyer and registration form) up and out to folks across the country.

As always, we want to hear from you! Do you want to lead a workshop, or are you hoping to see something at the conference this year that you've been missing? Let us know...

With love,

Clementine

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Twin Oaks Community New Large PV Array & Gardening


Some construction pics of the new 10 kw PV array installed by Shockhoe Solar company. We did some of the work, such as digging the wiring trench. Large crew was in the garden at the time, planting potatoes.
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Twin Oaks Community Rowan & Luuk birthday party


Recent celebration at Kaweah Beechside of the births of Twin Oaks children Rowan and Luuk. Cakes were decorated by Jesse (and Jess?).
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Twin Oaks Community Huge Solar PV Array


A 10 kilowatt photovoltaic electricity generating array is nearing completion at Twin Oaks. This is a grid-excited net-metered installation, though we'll probably also modify it to run a well pump during power outages. The State of Virginia has provided a sizable tax credit or other rebate.
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My personal flavor of propaganda includes rants about a number of things i rarely do including make apologies, capitalize the pronoun i and  use towels.  On this list is the celebration and generally even the acknowledgement of birthdays.  These often feel like obligatory events and i prefer home grown and otherwisee inspired ones.  When i told Hawina, many years ago, “i dont do birthdays.”  She replied “That’s fine, your going to remember mine”

A year ago it was Saara Michel Tansey’s 21st birthday.  i barely knew her then, but somewhat uncharacteristically, i was working hard to get her a job offer  from NIRS (the anti-nuclear group i volunteer with) by that date.  Mary Olsen, who runs the NIRS South East office, had recommended her highly, she was experienced in local organizing against the proposed new reactors in Jenkinsville SC and she was well connected to the youth climate movement.  I had also met her briefly at the Carbon Free, Nuclear Free conference in Takoma Park a couple of months earlier and she seemed quirky and fun.

i failed to convince the NIRS Executive Director, my old friend, Michael Marriott to hire her.  Which turned out to be one of the luckiest failures of my life.

Fearing that we (in this case the anti-nuclear movement) would loose her to some other cause, i asked Sara to come work on the Villages in the Sky project.  i wrote what i thought was an enticing and clever job description and she agreed.  Both of us thinking this would be a stepping stone for her to go to NIRS when the money needed to hire her was in hand.

We have monthly family adventures.  Sky, Willow, Hawina and i get together and do something fun as the infamous “Star Family.”

Yesterday we just played Cosmic Encounter because Willow was just not going to a movie, no matter how compelling the trainer is.  And i have to boast that my 8 year old son beat his three parents, in a game that some very clever adult friends of mine have just found too complicated to learn or play.

But the funniest part was when we were driving from Twin Oaks to Woodfolk in Cville.  We were playing 20 questions (tho we don’t actually count the questions, like good anarchists) and it was Willow’s turn to have the secret.

Hawina’s first question was “Is it a Rubics cube?”

Willow lit up “That is it!, How did you know ?, Your a genius!”

And then in complete deadpan he said “Of course it is not a Rubics Cube”

i nearly wet myself laughing.

Earlier in the day i went into the ABC store and bought a bottle of Vodka when i was the tripper.  The woman behind the counter had never met me before, but after i paid her she said.

“You don’t want a bag do you?”