Acorn with Music

Here’s a quick little tour of Acorn Community to some folks trying to play Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”.

Diversity, Artmas, Hammocks, Pizza, and a Trump Question

by Raven

This week in mid-January on Facebook really did have a diversity of stuff.

It started with a proclamation from Acorn Community that they are now forty percent folks of color.

This got an amazing response: twenty-one likes, eight loves, and a care, four comments, and a full three hundred and forty-eight views.

East Wind talked about one of their winter holidays:

This post just did okay on Facebook, with four likes, two loves, and a hundred and nine views.

Twin Oaks Hammocks posted about one use of their product.

This did the least well of the week’s posts, with five likes and two loves, but only eighty-nine views.

What really got people’s attention was homemade pizza.

This did incredibly well on Facebook, with twenty-one likes, nine loves (including one from East Wind Community!), two comments, one share, and a whopping four hundred and eleven views. (Who likes pizza? Apparently a lot of folks.)

Finally, on the day that Trump was inaugurated, I asked how folks thought he would affect the communes.

Disappointingly, we only got six comments, but they were interesting.

Even with only six comments, this still did well, with four likes and a sad, and a good two hundred and forty-six posts.

Fire Cleanup, Foundation, Top Company, and Comtoil

by Raven

We’re now well into January Facebook posts and this was an okay week on FB: somethings did okay and some didn’t quite. Nothing did phenomenal.

Twin Oaks posted not one, but two posts about finally being able to do cleanup in Emerald City, their industrial area devastated by fire last spring. The first one focused on getting a local contractor to help.

This post did well enough with ten likes, one love, and a hundred and thirty-three views.

The second one focused on folks who were helping out.

Unfortunately, this didn’t do as well on Facebook (maybe because of the same subject, two days in a row) with five likes and a care, but only ninety views.

East Wind posted about a piece of their history.

This one did okay as well with ten likes and a love and a hundred and forty views.

Southern Exposure was recognized recently by Mother Earth News.

Here’s a link to the article.

This didn’t do that well either. Although it got five loves and two likes, it only got eighty views.

Finally, East Wind seems to have come up with a new word for some of their workers.

This one did okay as well. Maybe folks were intrigued with the new word. It got six likes, one love, and a hundred and thirty five views.

A Calf and a Couple of Workshops

by Raven

The first week in January (the beginning of this month and this year) didn’t have a lot to put in here. Due to a technological problem a Twin Oaks post that I tried to put in was replaced by Facebook by a post that I had already put in and I also reposted the same Match Game I had posted about earlier this month.

That leaves two Facebook posts from that week which were worth reposting here.

The first was from East Wind about a recently born calf:

This did okay on Facebook with three likes, four loves, and a hundred and seventeen views.

And Southern Exposure posted about two workshops that Ira was going to be leading.

This got one like, one share, and a hundred and twenty-three views.

Trailer, Cover Crops, Helping, Hammock Garden, and Pepper Relish

by Raven

Yes, we are still covering November, but this is the last of it.

Twin Oaks got a new trailer to help with their expanding work with seeds.

This did pretty well on Facebook getting three loves, four likes, and a hundred and sixteen views.

Southern Exposure posted about winter cover crops.

Here’s a link to the actual post.

Unfortunately, this post did really poorly on Facebook, with no likes or loves and just forty-five views.

Serenity Solidarity posted about a couple of mutual aid requests:

This also didn’t do that well. While it got a like and two cares, it only got eighty five views on Facebook.

Twin Oaks hammocks are a popular item in many communities.

This did okay, with six likes (including one from Twin Oaks hammocks), five loves, and a care, but only had a hundred and eight views.

Finally, East Wind closed off the month with a post about what they were doing with the extra peppers that they harvested.

This didn’t do too badly on Facebook,with five likes, one love, and a hundred and twenty-one views.

Pumpkins, Halloween, Harvest Fest, Lumber, and Garlic

by Raven

Yes, it’s January and pumpkins, Halloween, harvests, and planting garlic is long behind us. (Lumber seems to never go out of season.) But I’m reposting from November Commune Life Facebook posts which were reposts of earlier posts from the communities which often referred to even earlier events–which is why this January post sounds so much like October.

The pumpkin post was from Twin Oaks talking about pumpkin picking.

This did okay on Facebook with five loves, two likes, and a hundred and four views.

Also in November, East Wind wanted to show off their Halloween.

Maybe because Halloween was over (or folks were over Halloween by midNovember) but this got only one like and just eighty-one views.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (Acorn Community’s business) posted about a Harvest festival.

Normally I expect anything featuring Ira to do very well, but this didn’t. SESE liked it as did one other person, but it only got sixty-seven views.

Keenan at Twin Oaks enjoys building stuff, but taking houses apart can be satisfying too.

This did very well on Facebook with five loves, ten likes, and a hundred and fifty-three views.

Finally, SESE had a November reminder:

As usual these a pictures of links. Here’s the real links for the Garlic and Perennial Onion guide and the one for Onion growing.

Unfortunately, this didn’t do well at all, with just two likes and fifty-one views.

Louisa Communities Tidbits

by Raven

Louisa County, Virginia is home to perhaps a dozen intentional communities.  (And it’s not a very large county!) I’m not sure of the exact number because I’m not down in Virginia.  I heard of another one recently, the Bay Branch, mentioned in the October newsletter from Living Energy Farm.  I’m also very aware that communities fall apart or are discontinued and I often don’t hear about it until long after the fact.

But working with the communities that I knew of, at least a while ago, I created another Match Game, with eleven of the communities in the county.  The clues were tricky and unless you were in one of the communities or were paying very close attention to what we’ve been publishing on Commune Life, it would be hard to get them all correct.  So I thought that, beyond publishing the answers, I’d write a post explaining them–and putting out a little more (and sometimes obscure) information about these communities.

So, here, again, are the clues and the communities and where this information came from and a little more about some of them.

A loose association of ex-Oakers and other former communards: Bakers Branch.  Bakers Branch is a road about halfway between Twin Oaks and Acorn where, as it says, a lot of former folks from Twin Oaks and other communities live.  It’s not really a community but they do view themselves as somewhat connected.

A monastic community of song and prayer: Community of Peace.  On their website they describe themselves as “a monastic Christian community” and they mention that they hold “Sung Prayer” three times a day.

Community of Peace (from their website)

Heritage and heirloom seeds are now their largest source of income: Twin Oaks.  This was one of the tricky ones.  People who know a little about the Virginia communes hear “seeds” and think Acorn, but when Twin Oaks published about creating a new office for their Seed Racks business they specifically said that.  The clues are in the words “now” and “largest”–seeds have been Acorn’s only business for a long while.

Twin Oaks new Seed Racks office

It was founded by an anarchist from Richmond: Cuckoo Compound.  Mo Karnage, an anarchist who had been part of the Wingnut anarchist house in Richmond founded this and owns the property.

the Cuckoo Compound (from their website)

Living sustainably in downtown Louisa: Magnolia Collective.  A spinoff from Living Energy Farm, they try to demonstrate that you can live ecologically and they are located “just a few short blocks from Main Street.”

Making a building sustainable at the Magnolia Collective

Perhaps the newest community in the county, they want to be “weird in the woods”: Bramble Collective.  That’s how they open their website: “Let’s be weird in the woods together.”  And, given what I wrote about the Bay Branch, it seems like they are no longer the newest community in Louisa County.  It’s tough to keep up.

A building(?) from the Bramble Collective webpage

Their main members are an artist and an ex-priest: Little Flower.  Little Flower is a Catholic Worker Community run by a couple. Sue is very artistic and has decorated their community.  Bill is an ex-priest and they are both long-time peace activists.

Art on a building at Little Flower

They have a very visible boat that doesn’t float: Cambia.  Cambia went looking for a boat that didn’t float figuring that it would make a cheap and interesting place for housing.  The boat is in their front yard and very visible from the street.

The boat at Cambia

They only have one community business but they are the most prosperous community in the county: Acorn–of course.  Southern Exposure Seed Exchange had been doing incredibly well before the pandemic but it really took off when people were isolating and started thinking about buying seeds.  It’s still doing very well and Acorn has been generous in employing folks from the other local communities and involving the other communities in their business.  As it says above, the wholesale part of the business has become Twin Oaks’ biggest money maker, a case of a very successful offspring now supporting the parent.

The Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog

They’d rather do Easy Reaper than Easy Rider: Living Energy Farm.  LEF (which I’ve heard them pronounce as ‘leaf’) has developed a simple combine that they call ‘Easy Reaper’.  (I will bet it’s a play on Easy Rider.)  It was recently displayed at a conference in Iowa.

Living Energy Farm’s Easy Reaper

Working to build a BIPOC focused community in Louisa County: Moonseed Collective. With Serenity Solidarity having moved to New York State, Moonseed is the primary community in Louisa County focused on “the needs of Black Americans”.

A picture from the Moonseed Collective’s Facebook page

Again, this is not completely up to date.  I’m not there so I’m not certain about the current situation.  Some of these communities may no longer exist or have changed and, as in the case of Bay Branch, new communities may have emerged in the county.  It certainly makes Louisa County an interesting place to live.

Land Day, PR, Pumpkins, Brownies, and a Kibbutzim Question

by Raven

We’re still looking a couple of months back on Facebook and this week we have everything from pumpkins and brownies to a provocative question about the kibbutzim.

But let’s start off with Living Energy Farm. They’ve had their place for fourteen years.

This post did okay, just sliding in with six likes and a hundred views.

Twin Oaks was happy to get a bit of local publicity.

Unfortunately, this did do very well on Facebook, with three likes, a love, and a mere fifty-seven views.

SESE wrote about pumpkins.

I thought it was interesting but apparently not many folks did. It got no likes or loves and only thirty-nine views. This was our worst performer of the week.

And East Wind Nutbutters posted a recipe.

Okay, lots of pictures and a recipe for a sweet treat. Yes, it did well, although not as well as I would have expected, with only three likes and a respectible hundred and fourteen views.

Finally, I thought it was time for another Facebook question and I wanted something controversial and having mixed thoughts about the Kibbutzim (plural of the Kibbutz) these days, I decided to put out a provocative question.

I wanted comments but I only got a couple. (Some good thoughts, though.)

While I was hoping a controversial, provocative question would attract a lot of views, I had also been warned that Facebook was limiting the views of “political” stuff. And that seemed to be true, at least at first. There were only two comments and only two likes and after the first day there were less than a hundred views, and so I thought that was that. But something happened that I had never seen before. I’m not sure why (it didn’t seem to have gotten any shares) but it started gathering more views over the next couple of days and while a hundred and eighty-six views is not much for a controversial question, it’s a lot more that I thought we were going to get. I’m not sure what happened but this post did well after all.

Cody, Remodeling, Collards, and Another Match Game

by Raven

Because I took the month of December off, we are now way behind on reporting Facebook posts over here. Two months behind, as a matter of fact. (Actually a little over two months because the first of these posts was from the very end of October.)

That first post was from East Wind talking about one of their members. One of their more industrious members.

This post did very, very well on Facebook with eleven likes, five loves, and two hundred and twenty-six views. It was by far our most popular post of the week.

Over at Twin Oaks, they have been posting a lot about the transition from hammocks production to expanding their part of the seed business.

This also did well on Facebook (I think people like construction pics), although not anywhere near as well as East Wind’s post about Cody. It got two likes, two loves, and a very respectable hundred and eleven views.

At Acorn, they were harvesting collards.

Unfortunately, this post didn’t do so well on Facebook. It was the beginning of a rapid decline in viewers, and although it got three loves and a like, it only snagged fifty-two viewers.

Finally, since it was a slow week for commune news, I thought I would post another puzzle. They had been fairly well liked in the past (although for some reason, the original puzzle tends to get more viewers than the answers), and, even though it’s a lot of work, it’s also a bit of fun to create. This one was about the communities that are clustered in Louisa County.

If you want to play along, stop here and try checking out your knowledge of the eleven communities (or at least that’s how many I counted this past fall). The answers are a bit below.

But first…

Honestly this didn’t do so well, with one like, one comment, and only sixty-four views.

Ah, well,

And now, the answers. (I’m skipping a lot of the day’s post since it was only a repetition of the clues that I have above.)

Okay, I’ll admit it was a difficult and I will say that I intend to write a Monday post explaining the answers sometime soon.

I may very well repost it on Facebook again since it got so few views. As I said, these puzzles tend do better than the answers and since the puzzle did so poorly, you can almost guess that the answers did worse. And they did, with no likes or comments and a very meager forty-nine views.

Intercommunal Support, Season Extension, Green Eggs, Denver, and Alliums

by Raven

Unfortunately, this week last month, was the beginning of a slide in Facebook ratings for us. I’m not sure what is going on but we didn’t get a lot of viewers on Facebook, not even reaching my one hundred mark once this week.

I thought the posts were interesting, though. The first was a clear case of the Louisa communities relying on each other.

While this post didn’t do great on Facebook (it didn’t even nearly reach the hundred mark), it did the best of any of our reposts of this particular week, with three likes, a love, and eighty-eight views.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange wrote what I thought was an interesting article of ways of extending the growing season.

Here’s a link to the full article.

As I said, I thought it was interesting. Apparently Facebook didn’t. It got no likes, loves, or comments and only a dreadful twenty-nine views, making it the worst performer in a bad week.

We haven’t posted anything about the Baltimore Free Farm in a while and I noted that they have had some changes. The article is from April but it does reflect some of what’s going on there.

(I guess by “Olive-Egger” they meant a hen that lays olive colored eggs.)

For such a low viewing week, this didn’t do too, too badly, with two likes and eighty-three views.

East Wind’s nutbutter business travels to trade shows around the country, and this post was about them going to Colorado.

While this post didn’t do well by any means, it landed in the middle of a bad week for viewers with four likes and fifty-nine viewers.

And last, but not quite least, I reposted another piece from Southern Exposure about their allium shipments, an important part of their season.

And this wound up with just two likes and fifty-two views.

I would like to tell you that things went uphill on Facebook from here, and they did, but not incredibly well, for the most part. More about this next year.