Towards Community.

Floyd wrote:The idea of like minds moving to a town is an excellent one. There are two examples of that I can think of. Glastonbury UK and Salt lake City US.

I'm sure there are many other examples, as well, but I can tell you of one which is located quite near to me: Grafton, New Hampshire. According to wikipedia, "Grafton is the focus of the Free Town Project, a movement that seeks to encourage libertarians to move to the town".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton,_New_Hampshire

This small town of just over 1000 people is basically turning into an intentional community as more and more libertarians move in. But everyone has their own accommodations and of course everyone is free to pursue or not pursue whatever they wish. It appears to me that things are working quite well there, though during the last election cycle there sure were a lot of "Ron Paul" signs along the roadways!

NewParadigmGuy wrote:

Floyd wrote:The idea of like minds moving to a town is an excellent one. There are two examples of that I can think of. Glastonbury UK and Salt lake City US.

I'm sure there are many other examples, as well, but I can tell you of one which is located quite near to me: Grafton, New Hampshire. According to wikipedia, "Grafton is the focus of the Free Town Project, a movement that seeks to encourage libertarians to move to the town".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton,_New_Hampshire

This small town of just over 1000 people is basically turning into an intentional community as more and more libertarians move in. But everyone has their own accommodations and of course everyone is free to pursue or not pursue whatever they wish. It appears to me that things are working quite well there, though during the last election cycle there sure were a lot of "Ron Paul" signs along the roadways!

Thanks for this
Yeah this is the kind of thing we wanna be looking at. Its not realistic to expect everyone to up and relocate to a self contained community..the personality clashes would be unbearable..but everyone in their owns space in a particular town village working closley together is a different matter. Imagine a town full of conspiracy theorists lol

Floyd wrote:Imagine a town full of conspiracy theorists lol

If you are not part of a conspiracy, then you need to start one of your own.
-- Catherine Austin Fitts

Carol wrote:Hah!  Hippie not.  And we've tried having different people in our home from time to time and it rarely works out which is why I like the idea of folks having their own space to create in it what they wish for themselves.

Over here in the cold north east area of Oregon we have been burning the firewood daily.

However, I thought it interesting that you mentioned Glastonbury as that is the one spot in England I was drawn toward and where it felt like home to me.  I could easily live there if it weren't for the coming ice age Paul.  I hope you have lots and lots of firewood.  

South of the equator is warmer.

This is a great thread, I like to be present in a forum somewhat in the same style as an actual physical community,
sitting together with dirt on our hands, I mean proof of our work on the land. Virtually sharing a meal, prepared
from the harvest, collected on that land. Cheering with a beer in our hands and laughs, for silly jokes and funny
mistakes, with bodies glowing from physical work on the land, in contentment and faces with sunburn.
I myself am in favor of keeping in touch with physicality and the work with our hands, creative manifestation of form.
It's one of the blessings to balance our right and left brain activities, also finding the silent space in the middle.
Now I restrict myself in philosophical wandering, for this post needs its proper place, down to earth if possible.

10 Gifts to community

* When I speak of others in their absence, I am aware that I may be given form to a reality which doesn't exist.

* I speak about myself and others in such a way that it serves me and the others in their development.

* Before I speak with someone about organizational matters outside of his/her field of work, I pause a moment
and ask myself if this is the right time and place.

* I constantly view myself as part of the whole and I consider what I can do for the growth and wellbeing of the
entire community. I develop dreams of a new home and create that which I would like to receive from the others.

* I do not burden the others with my bad mood I either transform it into something constructive or discuss it openly.

* I care for the place where I live. I spread beauty and in this way I link myself to this place. Every day I am open
to others, I do not tie them down to past images and experiences.

* I seem them in their most beautiful form. When I do not like something, I examine it to see if I cannot use it to
make a suggestion for the good of everyone else.

* I use energy, water, warmth and food conscientiously. I only take what I really need.

* I do not take myself too seriously – but that which needs to be done.


How do we experience a sense of community? We can live together on planet Earth, as a global family, sharing our
experiences, views and food for thought In the Mists here, float through the cosmos in Starship Enterprise, while
rubbing each other's shoulders and in lots of giggles, witnessing coffee drifting out of a cup, due to weightlessness
and getting to know each other that way, build a strawbale home in a remote area on Earth or other planet's with
plantlife. Even maybe live underground in cavities of Mother Earth's womb. As long as we have a spark of humanness
in 3D in us, we will have close encounters with fellow beings of the human kind.

I think that this condition offers great opportunities to meet the best and worst in us. And opportunities to see it for
what it is, within our inner world first, in compassion for that being part of our story, our creation of separation, by choice.
Only by creating contrast and duality, we can define both sides of that hand and have a felt sense, in our physical body.
We're now finding ourselves in beautiful bewildering days, for finding that there's no you and them, in life's creation.
When we're aiming for the truth, we're moving on to greener pastures. I love my green food and walks, barefoot in the
long grass of Home where my Heart is.

Very nice memory BB. Thank you for reviving the thread. We have some new neighbors who want to do homestead gardening with no land so we offered them a few acres here to experiment. One of my favorite people is Geoff Lawton who is an expert in Permaculture. I'm excited about this project and what we can do with the land. We already have fenced pastures which are being prepared as a garden using Geoff's techniques. It will be a blessing to have the land enriched while producing food.

How to Create a Permaculture Design
Geoff Lawton visits Dan Halsey in Minnesota who in 2006 made the switch as a successful photographer to become a professional Permaculture Designer. Dan gives you a tour of his farm and then shares with you his techniques of designing large scale properties. Even if you don't know one tree from another, Dan shares with you his method on how to design in any environment.

http://www.geofflawton.com/sq/45352-how-to-create-a-permaculture-design

Nice. The gardener caretakers will be moving onto the property. We will build them a tiny house using solar and wind for off-grid electricity and a rain catchment system for water and composting toilet.

Take a look at this. This woman built this on the island here for only 11k. Very impressive


Kristie designed everything custom: from a toilet-sink to save water (she’s not only off-grid, but she relies on rainwater capture for water) to an indoor/outdoor shower with cork-bark tiling.

15’ by 15’ / 230 sq feet house / sliding glass door on either side of bedroom and windows 3rd wall facing outside
stair ladder leads to deck trap door
thatching and bamboo exterior trimmed with bamboo haves, reed fence, bamboo fence thatching hanging down
used plexi glass saw to cut plexi glass bedroom windows
built on stilts with pier blocks foundation
16’ x 16’ foundation
used pulley straps to life boards up
3 corner foundation corners
2” x 6” by 16’ tongue in groove for flooring
1 piece of tongue and groove on top of beam to hold rain gutter
rain gutter to use for water collection
sheet rock is behind bed open wall on other side as closet
counter top by 2’ wood planks
2  6 volt batter, so 12 volt system, 3 breaker box - last for pump and inverter
sliding barn door design for bathroom / used sliding closet door hard ware with coasters on bottom to help with glide
toilet bowl sink on top of toilet / hand made concrete block sink catchment as counter on top toilet so water first goes into concrete sink to wash hands and then fills up toilet tank.
Tongue in groove 2 by 6” treated to be waterproof for shower floor
shower wall is tundra tile cork blocks cut with sheet rock knife, glued to concrete board with air plants attached on shower wall
used bamboo tube to go over/cover shower rod.
can buy frame for slate glass windows with glass cut to size, so the shower is like indoor / out door shower / pan underneath outside of the house for water to drain into and away from structure

Corners on lower half are build as hurricane proof
used rope for railing upstairs on deck

septic tank with metal top as access
tankless propane battery operated water heater hooked up to water filter
3  100 watt solar panels and power for phone and laptop to charge
12 volt pump that pumps water up / hard wired

headboard is made from cardboard tube with woven mat glued onto it
vertical mirror other wall on side of bed
can have hanging bed or spa underneath structure
indoor/outdoor fabric on hanging bed

plexi glass windows in bedroom with sliding glass doors on two sides
tongue and groove ceiling

2  275 gal water tanks

Homelite 14″, 2 cycle gas chainsaw. Weighing in at just 9.8 lbs and priced at $119 good for a woman to handle

The Roots Up’s Dew Collector greenhouse can help farmers in arid climates raise fresh vegetables, even during droughts. Dedicated to creating a system of self-reliant farms in Ethiopia, the greenhouse helps to collect dew that would otherwise evaporate into the atmosphere. With the dew collector, farmers can raise protected plants, and yield clean water for both irrigation and drinking.

The dome-like greenhouse is activated when temperatures increase in the noon sun, causing water to evaporate and rise. With the humidity contained, the top point of the structure catches this evaporation before it’s able to escape into the atmosphere. As night falls, the greenhouse top is then opened by pulling the ropes attached to the latch, exposing the collected droplets to cool air.

Those droplets then cool and condense, falling into a storage cistern. The collected water can then be used for watering plants, or as safe drinking water. This system can be repeated each day, allowing plants to thrive while excess moisture is captured and saved for future use.


Read more: Roots Up's Dew Collector greenhouse provides veggies and water in Ethiopia | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

That dew gathering structure looks beautiful and very neat. Here in Europe, in a colder climate, owners of such structures like to
use it as shelter, or meditation room too, which doesn't seem to be the case with this one, for the heat of day may be too intense.
This makes me wonder if the surface of the material is blocking some of the sun's radiance, in order to keep the vegetables alive.
I've got no idea how the sun's heat is perceived in that part of the world.



The backyard gardening dome

If you want to grow your own food even in adverse climates, and you have some room in your backyard, a smaller,
consumer-model dome greenhouse may be your method of choice. Although they're not closed eco-systems, fifteen-foot
dome greenhouses can be made quite cheaply from scratch or, for about $4000, from a kit that comes complete with water-
cistern-cum-fishtank and multiclimate operating instructions. A structure of this size can grow enough vegetables to supply
two to three people (depending upon how much they like vegetables) on a year-'round basis. That seems like a pretty timely idea.

To find out about dome greenhouses, we talked with Udgar Parsons, owner of Growing Spaces in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
His company specializes in the manufacture of dome kits for greenhouse use.

Wynn: What inspired you to start a dome business for greenhouses?

Udgar: I was involved with the Windstar Foundation, founded by John Denver, back in 1986, and we had a large greenhouse
called a biodome. It was a terrific structure, very inspirational, a five-eighths sphere fifty feet in diameter. It was growing on
three levels, and could grow plants all year 'round without extra heat, even in the Rocky Mountains.

I was totally inspired by this structure. But unfortunately it cost eighty thousand dollars to build, and so was not affordable by
the average person. But I thought I could make a structure that did the same thing for about two thousand dollars. So that's
what I did.

Wynn: How big was that one?

Udgar: It was fifteen feet in diameter. I called it a Growing Dome. Since then, I've developed five different sizes, from fifteen
feet up to forty-two feet in diameter. And they will grow all winter long, with little or no extra heating or cooling. That's the
amazing thing.

Wynn: With inflation, what does a fifteen-footer cost these days?

Udgar: It's now four thousand dollars, but it's much better than the older one that cost only two thousand. It's got many more
features, and it's much more long-lasting.

Wynn: I would guess that one group of people interested in this type of product would be survivalists. Is that true?

Udgar: Well, not so many now. Back in the Y2K days we had an article in Survival magazine, and we got lots of response.
But now, because so much of our food is full of pesticides and may be genetically modified, it seems that more people are
interested in growing their own food for health reasons. People want organic food, and they've decided the way to do this
is to grow it themslves. So today it's more about health than survival.

Wynn: How many people could a fifteen-foot dome supply with food?

Udgar: They did lots of measurements with the Windstar Dome, and found that they could grow three pounds of food per
square foot per year. So a fifteen-footer can grow four hundred to five hundred pounds in a year. Supposedly, the average
person eats about 200 pounds of vegetables per year, so that's enough for two or three people, depending upon how many
vegetables they eat.

Wynn: Can you grow everything in the greenhouse that you find in the stores? Carrots, broccoli, cauliflower. . .?

Udgar: Yes. People have even experimented with growing fruits like limes, lemons, figs, grapes, and berries. So it's not just
vegetables, but fruit. And also, of course, flowers — just for the enjoyment.

Basically, in a climate like Colorado where we get nights that go down to zero degrees, we have two climates in the dome:
summer and winter. Winter is when we grow our frost- and cold-hearty plants: the cabbage family, the onion family, kale,
broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, leeks, garlic, peas, lettuce, all of the chard family, spinach, beets. . . all those are frost
hearty, and they love the dome in the winter because it's cool. Even with sub-zero temperatures outside of the dome, the
inside will go just a couple of degrees below freezing. And as soon as the sun comes out, the plants just start growing again.
And that's without a heater.

In the summer, you have a whole different scenario, because now you have the heat-loving plants: tomatoes, squash, peppers,
zucchini, cantaloupe, melon, okra — they all love the heat. The dome actually stays much cooler than a conventional greenhouse,
where you'd usually have an overheating situation unless you spent lots of money on coolers. But the dome manages to grow the
heat loving-plants in the summer because it has more thermal stability than a normal greenhouse.

Wynn: So, in other words, the dome is warmer in the winter, and cooler in the summer than a regular greenhouse?

Udgar: Yes, and that is because it has a huge water tank that provides thermal mass, or thermal stability.

Wynn: How big is the tank?

Udgar: The tank for an average-size dome would hold a thousand gallons of water, and it would sit on the north side of the dome
wall, underneath the north wall insulation. This positioning regulates the temperature, and you can use the water container as a
wonderful pond for fish and aquatic plants. That's a nice feature. With or without the fish, it's the water tank in our domes that
causes them to significantly outperform regular greenhouses.

Wynn: Did Buckminster Fuller ever use domes as greenhouses?

Udgar: In the early days at Windstar, just before I got there, he was involved in helping them design their geometry for the first biodome.
So yes, he was involved in the process.

Wynn: At Windstar, did John Denver have much hands-on involvement?

Udgar: No, he was more the inspiration. He provided the finances and the name behind it. He put together the inspiration for people to
look at the idea of bio-sustainability on our planet. That was his function.

Wynn: How fragile is a dome greenhouse's growing environment?

Udgar: The environment in a dome is very healthful. Generally, if you give plants adequate water and healthy soil, they will survive.

I had this dome in Alaska — a gentleman had built it one October and then left for California. There was no one taking care of it,
but in the spring, when he returned, he found the biggest dandelions he'd ever seen in his whole life inside that dome!

Wynn: So from your experience things growing inside a dome are more hearty?

Udgar: Plants are at least as hearty as things grown in a greenhouse or outside, and probably more so. The plants love it in the
dome, it's like a jungle, you have to fight your way in there. I can go away for a week with my automatic watering system set to
go on every couple of days, and when I get back it's really amazing.

Wynn: How about efficiency of water usage?

Udgar: Domes use about one-fourth the water that regular outdoor growing methods require for the same amount of production.

Wynn: Does the dome focus energy, like pyramids do?

Udgar: I personally don't have any experience to comment on that, but we get reports from our users that they sense a high energy
in the dome environment. Some people sit in their domes and meditate for hours.

Source: http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/aug3/domes.htm


The geometric structure of the dome ensures a well balanced climate all over and great stability in strong gales. I've seen
systems where the rainwater was saved all around it and the water inside seems to be used and recycled in a way that fish,
plants and human beings benefit from it, It seems, from what I remember being told by Drunvalo, in his experience with
geometric domes, that systems for recycling of energy were invented, securing comfortable living all year round in hot and
cold conditions. In that way, the word "shelter" gains an extra dimension.

When the frame material is natural, like wood, the atmosphere is quite pleasant, also due to a lack of corners, as I found, when in it.
This pretty simple, geodesic domehome is made by www.gothicarchgreenhouses.com