Sugar Time, almost.

Today, finally a day over 40 degrees. The previous week had been a typical 0-15 degree average, which by now I've felt really accustomed to. Well, this morning was a different story. Beginning with reoccuring gusts of 20 mph it sounded cold, but when I walked outside to feed the pigs I experienced a pleasant reminder that it will warm up, spring will come again.
On a snowshoeing adventure up the Loop Trail, me and my companions were faced with a marooning blizzard as we trudged through soft, melting snow. Coyote tracks and poop were scattered along the trail, which might have instilled some fear in our not to local visitor.
Along the trail the pink markers wrapped around Sugar Maple's just waiting to be tapped filled my heart with the warmth of a lumberjack and the smell of the sap's vapor rising in the air. We finally find our way to the end of the trailhead and there is the sugar shack and a beam of sunlight breaking free of the clouds overhead. This tiny little shack transformed the air of D Acres into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Cords of wood stacked up all around like soldiers ready to do their part when called upon. My hope for this years boil down is for us to be at least 25% more productive. We will have more trees tapped this season compared to last, especially since we didn't even get to use every one that was marked.

I feel good about these next coming months. Not only is there sugaring coming up, but I will be volunteering at the Vipassana Meditation Center in Shelburne, Mass. A great time for me to get refocused and clear my mind before venturing off to new and unexplored territories.
This day felt refreshing. The moonglow echoing off the menagerie of ice as the temperature drops to freezing. Even more now the wind is howling at 35 mph. A midnight stroll to the Creeker and I witness as it inhales and exhales with every sway of the trees supporting it's remarkable structure. You feel every movement of air as if it's alive. Weather like this reenergizes me and reminds me of how powerful and influencing mother nature really is.

Be sure to attend our Maple Sugaring Workshop here at D Acres

March 21 from 1-3 pm ($4-12 sliding scale)

learn how we boil down, tap trees the old fashion way and enjoy a taste of delicious NH sap

See ya there!

Coolio

Internal Consensus

My "list of work to accomplish" is getting longer as the season starts to change for us at the farm. New workshops, hostel guests, monthly food events, and on-going planning for the vision of this multi-faceted project are only a few of the pieces occupying our work time.

I made yogurt yesterday from milk we purchased from Robie Farm--leftover from our Farm Feast Breakfast. Later I'll work on a yogurt cheese with herbs. Sometimes I think it might be nice to have our own milking cow here, but I wonder if the land is best suited for a grazing animal. It takes a while for this forest land to become successful pasture. There is an unlimited amount of forethought that goes into farming. We double or even triple that forethought by being an educational organization--an experiment that models sustainability. An experiment that anyone is welcome to watch along with us.

And so, what is this work toward sustainability? Reducing fossil fuel consumption; growing vegetables, herbs, flowers? Flowers! For medicine and to attract insects and bees, birds too. Growing fuel, making cloth, living with others in community? But not just as neighbors, as folks to eat with, cook with, work and play with, struggle with through philosophical dilemmas like why maple syrup isn't on the table in February (even though one can purchase it in the store). Folks who will sit around a table for four hours in order to make key decisions about living together now, so that others will have a "piece of our pie" in the future. Folks who are willing to compromise. This action of compromising stems from the care we have for our selves and for the other, and is deeply embedded with two great virtues: patience and humbleness.

Imagine what could happen if we all agreed that patience and humbleness were a means to the radical subversion of corruption, oppression, misdirection, and miscommunication. Could a demeanor of compromise be an answer to power struggles? And how do we get there?

Lately I've been feeling like I haven't been doing enough work--I could be doing more. I could be working my mind and my body harder: read more books, carry more logs, split more kindling, knead the dough one more minute longer, spend more time with the chickens, the pigs, the oxen.

Today I worked with Neil to clean out all the chicken poop that has been accumulating these couple of months. It was a chore. It was lower back work--hauling and forking, scraping and shoveling. The moment we threw down those freshly chipped pine branches, I was glad I had done this work. For the feathery folks that live in this community--the chickens. Though some of them may be eaten in a couple of months, today, I shoveled their frozen mountains of shit.

I'd like to think we've made some kind of cosmic agreement with each other, some kind of compromise that allows us to cohabitate together.

Tomorrow, I will likely do some more work. I'm putting work first, because it's not a so called busy schedule that I'm looking forward to, it's the breakdown of all things conventional.

Because maybe some early morning, I will wake up to milk the cow out in the pasture.

just thinking,
Regina

Gettin' it goin'

I'm enjoying this winter. We have a bit more time to breath but are still keeping productive. There's a really cool tree house that is near completion north of the community building. The windows are 4 old sliding door windows screwed into place - great visibility out to the woods.

I've been keeping busy with creating and fixing tools in the blacksmith shop in preperation for this season, working in the woods, seedling related activities, indoor maintnance and meetings.

The meetings here are pretty cool. We had a four hour meeting this morning about our traditional arts fair Sept 12 and 13. I know four hours seems like a long time but we're using consenses here with 10 people who have fairly different upbringings, life experiences, and little practice in this method of decision making. When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that we make any decisions at all. Luckily we're all very passionate about what we're doing here and respect eachother enough to want to make decisions we can all be comfortable Living with. It's good practice in patience, compassion, selflessness, honesty, focus, communication... I really wish more people had the opportunity to experience this. It's been significal in my growth as a person over the past year and a half.

Anyway, I need to go to bed. I'm good and tired.

Make good decisions,
Joe V.

When a Chipmunk Stumbles Upon a Bear

Heave ho! It’s the farm life for me. The trees pile up. Rolled into place by steal bars after the oxen drag with almost all their might. August sometimes just does not want to move, letting you know he is tired by stepping over the chain connected to a log, putting his head down and dropping a huge load of crap your way. The snow is better with a slight crust on top, the oxen get better grip and the logs glide across the almost one foot snowcap that is resting everywhere.

Have not encountered any bears, must be off resting for the winter months before awakening to chase us all, in a polite manner of coarse, it is their land we are living on. Brings the question, who did come first? The bear or the native human? If only the world could behold such an epic battle between black bear and a native chief, a fight to the death per say to prove whose land this really is. (Maybe an answer to this question. In Perennial Vegetables, Eric Toensmier states bears have been on American soil for the last 13,ooo years.)

It seems here at D Acres we have a resident Chipmunk. His given name is Tyler and he loves nuts, spending many hours perfecting the technique of hand cracking pecan nuts. This man causes me to be perplexed on occasion. Spent a day in Norwich, Vermont recently attending the monthly farmers market, this time was spent along side my chipmunk friend telling folks about what goes on at D Acres while trying to sell a few hand crafted projects. After the market we all met up in Hanover for a night on the town, nice to get out and see that the rest of the world is still ticking away out there.

News of the snow lasting till April hit me yesterday. In coming from southern Ohio where six inches of snow causes panic, school cancellations, ditches filled with motorists and their carbon producing machines, the thought of over a foot of snow on the ground for five months of the year is something new to me. Looking forward to my continued stay in Dorchester, New Hampshire, where the sun wakes me up as it rises for the day from behind the White Mountains. Each day we say hello and each night goodbye, knowing more than likely the great star in the sky will return as a source of joy in the next morn.

Peace to your heart
Joy to your Spirit
and lots of love straight to yo face!
Wolfle

The Plan

I often find my mind wondering to anticipation of the spring and summer months. Green pastures, swimming holes, dandelions, and bees. It’s important to remind myself to live in the present and appreciate all that January has to offer. It’s a period of calm reflection and thought. A time to consider the past, and use it to plan for the future. A time of creation. A time to fill our heads with the books we didn’t get to during the warmer months. It’s a time to embrace the people around you, know them, learn from them.

Many of the past few months have been spent sorting out aims and expectations, as well as the logistics of both. Although we may appear similar on the surface, D Acres is blessed with a diverse group of people this year. With a group of about ten of us here at any given time, communication is vital to creating a way of working towards a shared goal.

A dozen piglets were born just last week. Those who survive the bitter winter will travel this journey with us for the next year. They will see our ups and downs, the obstacles we overcome and those that conquer us. They will celebrate our successes with us in the fall, and overhear us analyze our failures next winter. We anticipate all of this with a great sense of hope coupled with a fevered determination.

On a significantly lighter note, we look forward to the Democracy Dance Party on January 23rd. Black Bear Moon Rhythm Ensemble will be here, playing their energetic traditional West African drumming for us from 8 to 11pm. Come dance with us! What better way to generate heat on a cold January night?

Expectantly,
Jessie

To a New Year and new beginnings

The holidays passed quickly, if fairly quietly, here at D Acres. With most residents returning to their families for feasting and gift-giving, it was a small group that celebrated in the D Acres kitchen. It was a story of snow and shoveling, spiced up with snow plow adventures, ham cooked to perfection, and some vigorous chess playing. Now the D Acres diaspora is slowly regrouping, one by one returning to this wintry abode we call home.

I'll, however, be leaving for some wintry weather farther north and a jaunt up the Appalachian Trail come spring. Many months from now, I'll relish my return to these people, and these acres, just in time for the fall gardens - and more mulching.

A friend once asked how I felt about goodbyes. My response: that they are one more chance to tell people how much they, and our shared experiences, mean to me.

And so it is with D Acres. Like any community, I suppose, it has it's issues and struggles that never fail to emerge, but like few places it also harbors friendships, hard work, lots of learning, satisfaction, snowball fights, and laughter. For which I am grateful, and to which I will return.

I hope that in this New Year, you, too, are able to join us in our community events, our workshops, or your own efforts in local sustainability. Change begins with each of us, and when we unite in striving, so much is possible.

~Beth~

HOLIDAY GREETING FROM D ACRES

This years demise has also been the demise of an unattractive way of living for me, personally. It has been extremely refreshing to live away from the hustle of an over-consumptive lifestyle for almost a year now. I have to say it was hard at first to change some habits of mine, but by seeing other people's lifestyles here at D Acres, I have been inspired to live as simply as possible. The biggest factor is to just stop buying "stuff." If I do need, and I stress "need" something, it is a lot more rewarding to seek something out in a thrift shop or to buy locally. There is so much stuff already in the world that it seems futile to continue manufacturing more stuff. The best thing to happen is when I am looking for something I really need like boots, and it just happens that somebody I know has a pair they want to get rid of. There is such a feeling of gratitude to obtain something in this way.
I can't leave out my brother Brian, when I mention how my way of thinking has changed, because he is the one that originally planted the seed. I remember shopping in the Freehold Mall with him and my girlfriend a few years ago, and my behavior then was to buy my girl as much "stuff" as she wanted. My brother mocked me for spending $50 on a smell as I purchased her perfume. The ideals in my head back then were the more stuff I could purchase the better I looked or felt about myself.
The summer here at D Acres was amazing. I slept in a hammock in the Sugar Shack for as long as I could last in my sleeping bag. Now to be sharing Edith's studio is like the luxury sweet, since I have electricity. To be in the studio has some strange energy that permeates through the walls, as this was Aunt Edith's art studio back in the day.
One question that seems to reoccur at our meetings, especially at our Projects and Goals meetings, is "why are we here." I know that I came here because I wanted to live differently. The more aware I became of how globalized and destructive we are to this planet the more depressed and agitated I became. D Acres offers something that no commune has in common and that is an educational opportunity to truly explore a way of life that will outlast our race. Living in harmony with the environment and treating it like a delicate piece of glass.
Back to the holiday greetings. This is the first year that I am not purchasing any gifts for anybody. Not that I'm not giving gifts, because I love giving gifts, it is an awarding feeling to be able to unselfishly give something to someone. This year the majority of what I am giving will be made by myself. Since I've gotten into woodworking and blacksmithing I can handcraft some Christmas presents this year. Not to mention that for the first year ever I made organic Peanut Butter Balls. My mother thought it was impossible, but I proved her wrong and I will be bringing home proof that they are just as buttery and delicious as ever.
So, this Christmas or Hanukkah, try doing something different for a change. A friend of mine once told me that to make something means a lot more, because you are giving somebody your time. It's a lot better than giving someone a gift card or an I-Pod that will self-destruct in two years. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from me and everyone at D Acres.

Coolio