for the first 3 weeks in september, i was intentionally living outside the realm of civilization, i was intentionally living closer to nature, i was intentionally living more sustainably, i was intentionally living communally, i was intentionally living less wastefully. i did all of that intentionally at the Mountain Homestead in Coquille, Oregon. the communities directory has this to say about the homestead:
Mountain Homestead is a developing, off-grid permaculture homestead located on 365 acres of temperate rainforest in the Coquille River watershed serving as a prototype for ecological forest management based on resident stewardship. [...] Apprentices are involved in design work and management decisions, working 35 hours a week for room, board and stipend.
Our neighbours, the Cob Cottage Company (cobcottage.com) has held Natural Building workshops here since 2001, swelling the population for half the year. [...]
Permaculture guides landscape use decisions. Consultants Tom Ward and Toby Hemenway have helped design our 4 acre homestead combining drainage, erosion control, fencing, access, and gravity flow water as the framework for an evolving solar bowl/food forest. Garden, infrastructure and housing design on the main homestead are based on supporting a dozen people. Buildings are made of mostly recycled or natural materials. Systems include photovoltaics, gravity flow water, wood-fired/solar hot water, wood heat, composting latrine, and greywater biofilters.
wow, that was a mouthful, but probably the best way to just get all that out of the way. now i can spend the rest of the time talking about ME! Yeah! i’ll break it down for you.
the sweat
i arrived to the homestead on saturday night, completely unaware that the monthly “sweat” the very next day. i was invited, so i threw caution to the wind and went for it. you know that episode of LOST where Locke joins that commune and then builds a sweat lodge? it was sorta like that but much more authentic and real.
the sweat was held at Barry and Bonny’s house and was a total culture shock for me. i hadn’t been at the homestead for more than 24 hours and was thrown into a sweat lodge with about 20 other people that i didn’t know at all, and… WOW. it was a really intense experience and literally impossible to accurately explain with words.
cathedral roof
during the first week i helped put a roof onto a a new cob structure: the cathedral. it’s not really a cathedral, but they already had a building called the “courtyard” and didn’t want to confuse.
there were already rafters and such, i was just putting the first layer of “bender board” down and nailing it in. “bender board” is just a homestead term for 6-inch wide, 10 to 15 feet long pieces of cedar and fur scrap wood that can be bought really cheap. it’s really bendy (hence the name) and works well for roofs.
eco-forestry
during my second week i chipped in on the “eco-foresty” team. we spent our time out in woods falling trees, bucking them up into pieces, and dragging them out of the forest with a tractor.
it felt really weird being a logger in a place that you’d think would be against logging, but it was different. from the perspective of the homestead, a logger can have the exact same interaction with the land as does a farmer. who says that just because you cut down trees that it’s always a bad thing? who say that the forest has to disappear when you log? all people throughout history have used the resources of the earth for survival, it’s HOW we use them that is important.
deer dressing
on our way back from the mill, we noticed a roadkill deer on the side of the road that wasn’t there on our way to the mill. we pulled over, poked it a bit, and loaded it onto the trailer. it probably wasn’t much more that 2 hours old.
on the drive back to the homestead ish and i talked about what was going to happen to the deer. we figured that someone at the homestead or a friend of someone would know what to do and would come take care of it. we were wrong. no one was into it but the 2 vegans. we made a few calls for advice and grabbed the homestead copy of Foxfire.
with help from eric (another visitor) we strung it up on the tractor barn and dressed it ourselves in about 3 hours. the next day we butchered it and then the whole homestead gathered around and watched the vegans eat meat. it was pretty funny.
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i could got on and on and on, but you know what they say: a picture is worth a thousand words. so click the picture of my room up there to see ALL the pictures of my trip.
