African Snow Goats & One Bored Sheltie

So I have this understanding or  conceit, guess, whatever, that my pets are in an eternal now, that they have no understanding of past and future.

They must be bummed, if not seriously devastated by all this snow!

Think of my poor goats, Niabi and Wicca, believing that our world is now permanently frozen and devoid of yummy plantlife, with oceans of  snow, above their heads, preventing them from reaching trees they could debark.

Think of my dog, Tuatha, who would love to fetch a stick. But if I throw it into the distance, I just have to rescue him in a minute and a half, when he realizes he’s not going to reach the stick, or return home on his own.

Instead, he and the goats are marooned, like the rest of us, in the trench system that connects human buildings but doesn’t go to any interesting pet places.

As the second blizzard hit its stride last week, I went to dig out my goats from their cob shelter, which is now essencially and igloo. As I shoveled from my hut to theirs, I called to them, “Mamma’s coming,” They answered back, which I took to mean, “That’s a good thing, Mom. Anytime now…” I had to dig a wide opening for the gate to swing. Then I saw that the large walking area I’d dug out for them the day before was now two feet deep in snow again. the narrow entrance to their structure, which is only three feet high itself, was nearly closed over in snow. I reshoveled a walking area for them on my way to their door.

Once I had cut a passage through the snow, they considered their options. It was snowing heavily. And, I suspect it’s true of all goats, but pygmy goats, a dwarf breed originating in Africa, especially do not like to be wet. First the leader, Niabi, stuck his head out to assess the situation. Then they both did. Then they went back inside and discussed it. Soon Wicca poked out, just far enough to say, “You’re kidding me, right?”

I assured Wicca I was serious.

He answered, “Hon, we’re from Cameroon. We’re not built for this. Close this door and when you open it again, I don’t want to see reindeer!” I pointed out his Baltimore accent, and he pulled inside indignantly.

After he and Niabi conferred within for another spell, Niabi took charge and led the way out of the goat house, through the walking area and out the gate. I assumed their only option was to follow the trench to my cabin, where they could pass the time under the house, which they always choose over their pen.

Always, until that day.

About halfway between the gate and my cabin, Niabi promptly turned around, passed the pliant Wicca, and led him right back to the pen, through the gate, past the newly dug walking area and straight into their tiny, windowless cob cave.

I left the gate open wide and later they did reemerge and make their way to my cabin. But at three to five feet deep, the snow is too high for them to make their own paths.

Normally Niabi and Wicca free range forage in the woods surrounding my cabin. They have a routine of places they go, from dawn to dusk, on paths they’ve long established, in a perameter of several acres. Most of the year, they’re not even curious about Heathcoters’ gardens or plantings because the undergrowth gives them their natural food source.

They prefer to sleep under my cabin, not because I feed them (I don’t most of the year) but because they seem to consider me, the dogs, kids and other Heathcoters to be their herd. The goats go on hikes with us and are often included in Open Classroom explorations of our land. The picture on the right, above, shows two students actually closed in the goat pen, enjoying a snack unpestered, while Niabi is loose, hoping for a renegotiation.

So while the snow dominates our layout, I’m trying to give Niabi and Wicca as many options as possible. They continue to base themselves under my house. But I keep my porch gate open, allowing them to basically make a huge mess while they access the timothy hay and bed down on bags of sawdust pellets.

Now the timothy is spread all over the floor and mixed with, shall we say, the goats’ favorite little decorator motif. (It’s okay, as infestations go, they’re cuter than the rodent that’s systematically pulling out all the insulation in my loft through five different holes…) I’ll figure some appropriate payback. The year is long, my furry little Cameroonians…

–WT

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One day, early on in my blizzard confinement, I traveled down my hill…Hm. I make that sound too easy. I pushed my way through waist high snow, pulling myself on not one but two walking sticks, sometimes wenching myself, using available trees, falling, disappearing below the ocean of snow, climbing up, retrieving my sticks, inching my way down my steep slope, digging my shoe spikes in with each stomp into virgin snow, until I made it down to Heathcote’s Mill, snow inside, between my jeans and long janes up to my knees, ready to find food.

The usual scattering of community members was about, along with a whole sporting goods store’s worth of snowpants, boots, gloves, jackets, vests, scarves, sweaters, and many, many wet socks.

And then I saw it: a tray of homemade, hot from the oven bagels! Nick, our newest full member and Heathcote’s patron saint of breads, bees and pottery, had just left them on the counter with this note: “There is abundance here. Eat when you are hungry! : )”

I was and I did! I got stuck on “A BUN DANCE,” though;  I saw little dancing buns. I grinned maniacally…Now I can confess, I ate more than my share…way more, considering that I’m supposed to be avoiding bread during my candida cleanse…

While many on the East Coast were rushing off to the grocery between snowfalls, I trudged the trench to Heathcote’s greenhouse, a plexiglas attachment onto a former corn crib, which is actually painted yellow, confusing many a visitor. the structure did used to be green, until then-member Mary Hall provided us with some fashion sense and now it’s yellow with periwinkle trim. I loved stepping inside our greenhouse, after pushing the door through the snow. Within were lettuces and chards in full color, next to plexiglas with snow banked five feet high!

When I took my turn to cook the community meal, I was determined to fill our giant soup pot with thick, crunchy vegetable soup, so our growing community would feel well-fed a-bun-dance. The fridge was full of leeks, yellow onions, red chard, purple cabbage…Along with green lentils, some fire roasted tomatoes from a can, and more, it was chunky, colorful and satisfying.

This past fall, Heathcote received a grant from the Koinonia Foundation to build a large hoophouse style greenhouse in our main garden. Many Heathcote members and friends contributed considerable labor to build it, in tandem with workshops, as part of Heathcote’s educational mission. Starting this spring, our hoophouse will significantly extend our growing season and increase the food available from Heathcote land, for both our table and market. Heathcoter Mike has been diligent about removing snow as it falls on the plastic sheeting, which wasn’t easy to put in place. Now snow banks up five feet and more around the outside.  The structure has held up well with Mike’s proactive care. It’s exciting to stand inside, the space is full of potential!

Yesterday, our monthly wholesale food delivery finally came, three days late due to road conditions, specifically our road, which had only just been plowed. Several of us gathered to unload the truck, count the boxes, inventory the order and put the food away.

Our diet is vegetarian and vegan, whole foods and organic as much as possible. At Heathcote, we grow what we can. (This year, lead gardener Betsy will be supervising interns in our Permaculture based gardens.) We also collect wild edibles, such as mushrooms, off our land. Then we buy what we can, wholesale and in bulk, using our collective buying power. What we can’t get from our distributors, we buy, usually at locally owned health food stores and grocery stores, such as Sonnewald, Saubels and The Natural.

It’s always fun to help put the co-op order away; It’s like opening presents. And it’s usually much easier to plan a menu for the community dinner after the order has arrived than while it’s due. But still, as we were waiting for it and living and working in our buildings connected by trenches in the snow, I never felt a lack.

–WT

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Well, I’ve lived through Snowmaggedon without expiring from despair. It was actually quite easy. Intentional Community is the place to be when natural disaster hits. I kept seeing news clips on my computer of urban dwellers worried about running out of food, living without power or heat, and I kept thinking, “Loaves and fishes, people! I’m pagan and even I know that bible story! What you need is probably right next door! Go introduce yourself to your neighbors…”

The first weekend we were snowed in, Heathcoters Greg and Juji invited everyone for a lovely Sunday brunch at Polaris, our strawbale group house. Even though blazing trails through the waist-high snow took some heroism, once we were there the building was toasty warm from the southern exposure and the masonry stove. The tea, pancakes and conversation kept flowing. Karen, who teaches at Goddard as well as Heathcote, showed us an impressive notebook on how to construct a homemade portable sawmill. One of her students had created it and the Heathcote construction team was very interested. I love watching things spread virally that way! I got out my handmade peg solitaire game and several tried, cooperatively or alone, to end with one piece in the middle. I think we got as close as three.

That same weekend we had our quarterly retreat for members. So being snowed in was little change in a way. Somehow, we managed to run out of propane in the Mill at that moment. So we lost heat to every space except our Conference Center, which is heated by a pellet stove. No biggie; We were planning to spend most of the weekend there anyway! The community dinner, homemade pizza by Nick, was shifted to the Farmhouse. The kids were a little grumpy at the loss of heat but they were included in a session of cooperative games at the end of our retreat. They led the adults in several group machines, an activity we frequently do in Open Classroom.

Since most of us work here at Heathcote, it was business as usual. Hammering, talking and NPR could be heard in the Mill bunkroom, where John, Nick, Betsy and Kwame continued renovations. Somehow they managed to get a load of drywall between blizzards. With Mike pitching in, they carried two sections at a time up the hill, into a second story door, and up to the third floor.

Mike, Larissa, Gloria and Betsy continued to work on Natural Awakenings Magazine. Paul worked on Cooptek software projects uninterrupted. Open Classroom was in session, with Gloria, Kwame and I meeting the kids on Tuesday and Thursday. The chess club met.

Although we did decide to cancel Visitor Weekend and last night’s Dancefree, yesterday was Mike’s birthday. So at the end of dinner cleanup, before we enjoyed several birthday fruit pies, Paul put his ipod into the boom box and Heathcoters busted a move to Love Shack.

Our monthly coop food delivery was several days late, waiting for our one lane road to be plowed by the county. But we had plenty of food to last. The big truck got in and out. And the usual sampling of Heathcoters came out of the snowbanks to inventory and put food away.

All this snow must be a culture shock for Kwame, our intern from Ghana. When he flew here in December, he was laid over in New York City for two days because of snow. And when he arrived at Heathcote, we scrambled to find him enough warm clothes. Now he’s experienced a record setting double blizzard. He shoveled most of my path, uphill! When he heard the Open Classroom students wanting to play in the snow, he said, “I didn’t know this was possible,” Five minutes later, he was performing flips in the snow, to the kids’ delight!

I, of course, took the snow play as an opportunity for a forty-five minute Earl Grey break in the always buzzing Mill kitchen, during which I consulted with several Heathcote carpenters on the bunkroom renovation. They always appreciate my input…

My main inconvenience was delaying a trip to the bank. Truth be told, I often live as if I’m snowed in here. It’s not unusual for me to go two weeks or more without driving or hiking out to “civilization.”

I had the comfort of community and simple living. If we had lost electricity, mine is the only residence that requires that for heat–My pellet stove had electrical components. If we had also run out of propane and heating oil during the blizzards, four out of nine of our buildings can be heated entirely by wood. And with games, hot tea, and friends who play guitar, I was never going to be cold.

Now that I’ve replaced my whining with bragging, I see we’re due for more snow tomorrow and Wednesday…Wow, karma is swift in snow.

–WT

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Former Maryland poet laureate Lucille Clifton has died. This poem seems a perfect way to pause and raise my tea mug to her. I met her briefly in Columbia, Maryland and I was moved, not just by her poetry and narrative style, but by the use of Lucille’s dramatic training in her delivery of each poem. I picture her bringing this one up from the belly:

won’t you celebrate with me

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my one hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

–Lucille Clifton

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For new HCD readers: I often forage the woods of Heathcote Community picking up trash, some of it decades old, left behind by, hmm…I’m going to say well meaning hippies who have smoked something that makes them think plastic has nutritional value for squirrels and other woodland creatures. This folding chair is my all time favorite find. It was just sitting there, rusted out, deep in the woods. It’s become something of a totem of solitude for me, appearing in several posts. I love Folding Chair. She might get her own Facebook fan page!!!

–WT

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Somewhere, under this huge snow cloud that spans several states, there is a wooded ridge, overlooking a narrow stream valley with a quaint mill and beautiful gardens, a pond and a playground. That wooded ridge is blanketed, no, quilted…no, comfortered…no, duveted in three feet of snow. Under that snow is a modest, cozy cabin with an A-frame loft. But you wouldn’t know it, because it’s under three feet of snow.

In that modest, cozy cabin is one bored sheltie, who has managed to tamp down a path to the nearest tree in the back yard, It’s a very well watered tree.

Under that modest, cozy cabin are two shivering pygmy goats, who have blazed a ten foot trail under the evergreen, whose branches are heavy with snow, so they hang low enough for bored goats to nibble–One well nibbled tree!

Around the edges of the roof, icicles line up like soldiers, or stalactites or predators’ teeth asking, “Don’t you wish you’d put those gutters and water catchment barrels on last summer?”

On the porch of the modest cabin is a plastic tree, covered in snow, perched as if looking out on the real forest like Pinocchio. Against the house lie two tons of wood pellets. And beside them rests a drop cloth which seems to say, “You should have spread me over the pellets before the snow came…”

Inside the cabin, surrounded by folk art decoys, Blenko glass and books on filmmaking, butt up against the blast of the pellet stove, is me, one barely coping Hippie Chick, warming her hands and thinking, “I hope they plow us out in time for my therapy appointment. I can’t miss my therapy appointment. Have they cleared out parking spaces downtown? I have a therapy appointment!”

I check the internet for a weather forecast. I see we’re in for another two feet! Two feet? We have three feet already on the ground, that’s up to my hip socket. Another two feet? I’m only five foot one, total. That puts the snow at my hairline, which, I might point out, is north of my nose. I’m gonna need a snorkel. I wish I liked snorkeling.  Then I would probably own one. Oh, this is unacceptable.

Can’t we be egalitarian about this? There must be other regions of the country to which we could truck our snow. My hometown, Louisville, only got a couple of inches. This is not fair to the children of Louisville, of all the Louisvilles everywhere. I can’t keep this abundance for myself. How about Los Angeles? Think of the little children of Los Angeles living without snow. Send a caravan of refrigerated trucks here and we could make their dreams come true!

A helicopter. I need to be airlifted out of here now. S.O.S.!

I can only survive so long. I started a candida cleanse before the snow came. I have no fun food in the house–no pasta, bread, cheese, chocolate. I like greens and quinoa but under threat of being buried alive, I want happy food, now!

Dad in Florida, if you’re reading this, this is your other daughter, the one who doesn’t live in Minnesota. Don’t let the photos fool you. I know Minnesnoweda only has two seasons–winter and July. But I’m your Maryland daughter. I’m entitled to four seasons and I graduated from winter early this year. So as soon as I can dig out, I’m coming to live with you for a while. Are pygmy goats allowed in your golf/retirement Intentional Community?

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From Wren: For my local friends, note that this is in Lancaster, UK, not Lancaster, PA…Congrats across the pond! The Mid Atlantic Cohousing Conference, Growing Smart Communities, is coming up March 20, 2010, in College Park, Maryland, USA.

PRESS RELEASE

Sustainable Living Projects Celebrate
£500,000 Grant for Halton Gorge Site

For Immediate Use

5/2/2010

Lancaster Cohousing, in partnership with LESS and Halton Community Association, has won a £500,000 grant to refurbish a derelict factory, install new solar panels, and develop a develop a community owned hydro-electric scheme at Halton Gorge near Lancaster, for the benefit of local people and local businesses.

The grant, which will be shared equally between the three groups, comes from the government’s Low Carbon Community Challenge (LCCC), a programme which aims to see ambitious cuts in carbon emissions at community level.

The Halton project is one of just 22 projects across the country to win one of these grants.

Lancaster Cohousing is a group of households who have been working and meeting together for the last four years. They plan to build around 30 cutting edge zero-carbon homes on the edge of Halton village. At the centre will be a common house with shared facilities such as eating and living spaces, childcare space, guest bedrooms and laundry facilities.

The site also includes a derelict engineering factory housed in an old Victorian mill, which will be refurbished to provide managed office space, workshop areas and studios for local businesses and arts and craftspeople. The grant provides for Lancaster Cohousing to fully insulate the factory and to install a biomass boiler, fired on wood products. Halton Community Association will install the Forge Weir Hydro, which will harness hydroelectric power from the River Lune while Lancaster’s environmental organisation, LESS (Local & Effective Sustainable Solutions) will provide solar roofs for The Mill, Boathouse and Out of the Woods buildings. The electricity provided from the Forge Weir Hydro and the solar roof panels will be sold locally, to the cohousing residents and others – and profits will go to develop new environmental projects in the village.

While many of the houses have already been snapped up the project is keen to hear from individuals, families or couples who are interested in taking up one of the 8 – 10 remaining houses, and from businesses who are interested in using the Mill facilities.

Jon Sear, Lancaster Cohousing project manager, said:
“It’s fantastic that DECC have recognised that we are planning something really special. But our project won’t just be a national example of low carbon living it will deal with the dereliction of the former North West Engineering factory so that the whole of Halton Gorge is a more pleasant place to visit. The local economy and environment will benefit because we will source food locally, not add to traffic congestion, and can approach the design of the site in a different way to a profit-driven developer. The business space should appeal especially to businesses who would benefit from being part of a vibrant working community, adjacent to a nationally recognised eco development.”
The project hopes to start work on the mill refurbishment this summer and be open for business by mid 2011. The houses should be ready in early 2012. Lancaster Cohousing hopes that this project will inspire others to seek sustainable solutions to working and living.
Halton resident Emily Jefferson said: “I think it’s wonderful that the village can use the power of the river that is so much part of this village and that it will help the community. Like many things that are right in front of you, it’s often the obvious that you miss – someone pointed out that perhaps we can use that power – and here we are able to bring it into fruition.”
Lancaster Cohousing runs regular site tours (please book in advance).

People are also welcome to the planning application preview meeting on Wednesday 17 February from 6.30pm at Halton Youth and Community Centre.

Regular Site Tours:
- 4.15pm on the last Thursday of the month (an opportunity to look at the proposed workshops/office/studio space in the mill.)
- 1pm on the fourth Sunday of the month (tour of the whole Cohousing project site, including the location of the proposed hydropower unit and solar panels).

Meet the Members – Open Brunch at the Whale Tail, Penny Street, Lancaster from 11am on the fourth Sunday of the month.

Website www.lancastercohousing.org.uk

Contacts:
Lucy and Huw 01524 65808
Kathy, Paul and Pete 01524 842924
Luke and Elizabeth (for families) 01524 599165
Managed Workspace, Paul 01524 842924 , Fiona 07778 737681
Or email info@lancastercohousing.org.uk

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Yes, this is a donkey checking out my dreadlocks. Animals are often drawn to me, but not usually in that nosy-stranger-at-the-bank kind of way. This one seems to be thinking, “Is it hay? Is it a bouquet of dead willows and petrified water snakes? What happened to the days when visitors used to bring me sugar cubes?”

These pictures are from a later visit. If my smile seems strained or forced, it’s because I know this donkey’s history. He and and two female donkeys lived at the very top of the mountain where my then partner Iuval had his bio diesel converted school bus parked, in glorious, nearly pristine Murray Valley, Arkansas.

After weeks of declaring that I would never live in Arkansas because, well, they keep it in Arkansas, I arrived and fell in love with the Ozarks. Iuval’s bus, Shadowslo, anchored a campsite on a shelf on the side of the mountain, six miles from the paved road. The owner had cultivated a large garden and orchard on the shelf for decades. It would have been the perfect site for the Intentional Community we wanted to start, but the owner wouldn’t sell.

But back to the donkey with history. When Iuval and I were first together, he would have to go to heroic lengths to contact me. He had no cell phone or internet reception at the campsite. He could drive into Jasper, where he got reception if he stood in the middle of the town square and cocked his head just right, or he could ascend the peak.

On one of his first calls from the top, Iuval described that he was enjoying the company of three donkeys that were kept in a field there. “I bring them apples from the orchard to make friends with them. I’m giving an apple to one of the females now, and petting her.”

That’s nice, dear.

“That’s strange. The male donkey has come up to us. He seems curious. Maybe he wants an apple but I don’t have any more. Whoa! Sweetie, this male donkey has the biggest hard-on I’ve ever seen! That’s some schlong! Hmm. I feel inadequate…”

Now, I grew up around farm animals. I know a thing or two. “Iuval, get out of there now! He’s jealous! Get away from his woman, I mean it!”

“What? No way. Why would he be jeal…”

What I heard next was

• hoofbeats
• Iuval running
• air whooshing past the phone mic as his arms moved
• Iuval screaming, “Omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod,  omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod,…”

Now in the seconds these sounds were in my ear, I was thinking, who do I call? How do I tell them where he is when I’ve never been there? Why do men never let me know something and listen to me when I do?

“I’m okay. I’m up a tree.”

“Is it an apple tree?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, good luck with that. Call me next week.”

Apparently these donkeys were polygamous, not polyamorous.

These shots are from a day Iuval and I hiked up to an overlook with our friends Nan and Dave. I had to laugh at all four of us–As soon as we got to the top of the mountain, in the donkey pasture, we all stopped conversing, whipped out our our cell phones and dialed the outside world!

Life isn’t going to be the same, is it?

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I hate winter. I don’t like the short days, arriving at dinner in the dark. I don’t like being cold and having to bundle up in layers. I feel like the Michelin Man, so bundled up that my arms don’t even rest at my sides! Since I hate being cold, I spend little time outside and I need you to understand–I live and belong outside! It’s like telling one of the wild ponies of Assateague Island, “For four and a half months of the year, we’re gonna put you in a dark, drafty box with a few books, an iffy internet connection and rations thrown in twice a day.” Not relevant, not nice!

One of my zen masters who helps me cope with winter is Leo Lionni’s mouse character Frederick, of the children’s book that bears his name. In this book from my childhood, the other members of Frederick’s little mouse family/Intentional Community are busy gathering grains, seeds and straw for winter. Frederick appears to be lazy, and claims he’s gathering other stores for the cold, lean times. Later, in the frigid darkness, when rations are low, Frederick warms his family/Intentional Community with memories of the sun’s warm rays, the colors of flowers and grasses and poetic, inspirational verses.

Since I’m a poet living in community with carpenters, gardeners, etc., I love this story for suggesting that even we useless dreamers have something to contribute to our tribes’ survival. So here goes: In February, I offer you, my readers, family and Intentional Community, memories of summer–forest walls of green, the endless salad bar for the goats, tie dye drying on the line and naked badminton–love and play in full flower!

–WT

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Yep, the ice age has arrived at my little homestead, Hina Hanta. I’m due at yoga in the Heathcote Mill in seven minutes. The Mill is four hundred feet down a steep hill and I’m surrounded by…wait, I’ll measure it with a broom…sixteen inches of snow and counting. It’s supposed to stop around midnight. I might skip yoga.

But I can’t stay snowbound all day. I need to slide down that hill for Heathcote’s quarterly retreat. I know the folks back at the Cabin and our new strawbale group house, Polaris, have longer treks to the Mill. But they don’t have my steep hill.

Ahh, that new pellet stove is cranking out the heat and my Milkbone pajamas are toasty warm. I’ll nurse my Earl Grey tea a while and pack a bag for spending the day at the Mill:

• house shoes
• a change of socks
• A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
• my candida cleanse herbs
• my phone, fully charged
• my peg solitaire game

That should do it. Heathcoter Gloria is bringing her dog Rochelle to my place for doggie daycare during the retreat. Rochelle and Tuatha can figure out together how to walk in snow that’s shoulder high.

Yesterday I went to Goodwill to finally buy a winter coat. Yes, mark the date. In the first week of February I have decided to accept the inevitability of winter generally, and that it has in fact come this year. While at Goodwill, I bought three plush toys with no hard plastic eyes or buttons. So Tuatha has new toys over which to resent Rochelle.

Here’s a picture of Tuatha last night, snuggled up and warm in the firelight  with one new toy, a teddy bear that had some battery compartment inside that said, “DEX Products.” So we’ve named this one Dex. Being the biggest of the new toys, it’s his favorite of the moment. Tuatha is a patriotic American in that way, and in wanting whatever the other doggie has.

I can certainly marvel at the majesty of nature during events like this snowstorm or a flood in our valley, even as I grumble pettily over my inconvenience. I notice how part of me is really a small, insignificant animal, who just wants every day to be predictable and containable. And then there’s some other part that can connect to the whole, pause in wonder, completely present in the moment of some event, grand or granular, and be aware of the energy flowing through all things.

When I get to the bottom of the hill, I am so going to have bootfulls of snow sending chill to my bones.

–WT

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