Events, Wickerco, Festival, Pitcher Plants, and Beltane

by Raven

In terms of viewship, this week in late May was better than we had for a while. I also think that there were some fairly interesting posts.

First of all, there is a post that I’m not sure where it came from or why it’s entitled “Four Events”, since it refers to five Louisa County summer events, but we are now in the season.

Of course, it’s too late to attend Acorn’s Roots and Resilience conference, but there’s still plenty of time to register for the Women’s Gathering, the Communities Conference, the Convergence of Intentional Communities, and/or the Queer Gathering. But hurry, the summer is going fast.

And this did well, actually better than most events postings that we put on Facebook, with four likes, a share, and almost a hundred and twenty views. (I suspect that share helped get more views.)

Twin Oaks loves doing parodies of movies and loves celebrating Beltane, so why not combine the two?

This did pretty good on Facebook as well. Although it on got a ‘Haha’, it got a respectible hundred and thirty views.

East Wind Nutbutters travels around to promote their product. Here they are at a Spring Planting Festival.

This did very well on Facebook with nineteen likes (including from East Wind Nutbutters and East Wind Community), two loves, and two hundred and thirteen views.

East Wind also posted about a pitcher plant.

This did pretty good, with a like and a love and a hundred and fifteen views.

Finally, as I said, Twin Oaks likes to celebrate Beltane, usually with a May Pole, but also with costumes and face paint. Here’s someone in the process of having their face done.

Again, this did well enough, with four likes, two loves, and a hundred and fourteen views.

Mushroom Hunting, Container Gardening, Call for Presenters, and Poster Art

by Raven

This week in mid-May was up and down in terms of Facebook viewship. There were some really interesting posts, though.

East Wind posted about a member’s successful mushroom adventure.

This did pretty well on Facebook, with eleven likes, four loves, and a hundred and eighty views.

SESE posted an encouragement to container gardeners.

While I thought this was a useful post (especially for folks frustrated about not having space to garden) and it did get four likes, it only got eighty-five views.

Paxus posted this request for the Communities Conference:

(If you’re interested, you can see the original, with links that you can follow there.)

Important stuff as far as I’m concerned but it didn’t do well at all, with just one like and only thirty-eight views.

Finally, East Wind Nut Butters dropped this rather groovy looking poster.

This did pretty well, with thirteen likes, four loves (including one from East Wind Nut Butters), one comment, one share, and over a hundred and twenty views.

Conference Info, Ghee, Governance, Saving Seeds, and Starting Communities

by Raven

This particular week in early May on Facebook was unusual in the while it didn’t do well at all in terms of viewership for most of the week, it ended with a very popular question.

We started off with a post from the Communities Conference folks.

Click here if you want to read the rest of the article.

In spite of all the useful information here, and the fact that it got nine likes and two shares, it only got seventy-eight views, which was still better than most of the posts on this week.

At East Wind they found a use for the surplus cream.

Again, I thought it had useful information, and again, it didn’t do that well, with three likes (including one from East Wind Community) and a love, but only sixty-six views.

When I saw this post from the FIC, I really wanted to repost it, because I think that Yana Ludwig knows a lot about communities, including income sharing ones.

This post did even less well, in spite of three likes and a love from the Foundation for Intentional Community who also posted a comment thanking us for sharing this.

Finally, the week ended with a couple of questions, the first from SESE.

A good question and a lovely quote but it only got three likes and fifty-two views.

Finally, since I was running out of things to post, I thought I would try asking a Facebook question. They usually attract comments and a bunch of viewers and this one certainly did.

Here are the comments it got.

Ezra, a Twin Oaks member, linked to an enormous property for sale along the South Anna River in Louisa, Virginia, right between Twin Oaks and Acorn.

After a pretty poor viewing week on Facebook, this post did incredibly well, with only two likes, but fourteen comments and a share, and well over two hundred views.

Artists Wanted, Conference Themes, Squirrel, and Skill-Share

by Raven

Early May on our Facebook feed had some interesting posts, although none of them did particularly well there.

The Twin Oaks Communities Conference has posted their need for graphic artists.

I doubt that we were much help in getting the word out, since we had no likes or loves on this post and only forty-nine views.

The Communities Conference also posted about its twin themes for this year.

The themes are, first, “Resistance and Resilience: Confronting Challenges, Cultivating Possibilities”  and second, “Transforming Community Culture to support BIPOC and PGM Representation, Empowerment, and Long-Term Retention.”

You can click here to read the full article.

This did get two likes, but only forty-one views.

East Wind decided to try to sell their nut butter by using a squirrel.

While this post got four loves, two likes, a ‘ha-ha’, and two comments, it only got seventy-six views. I don’t think that we helped them sell their nutbutters.

FInally, Twin Oaks posted about doing skill-shares at the community.

This got two likes and two loves and was the only post of the week to go above a hundred–and, at that, just barely.

FEC Update!

We don’t usually publish on Thursdays but I just received this important update:

“Over the past year, the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC) has been working to get back on its feet after a period of relative inactivity and disorganization.

At present, the FEC’s full member communities are Twin Oaks Community (Virginia) and East Wind Community (Missouri). A number of other communities have recently dissolved or left the FEC. Alpha Farm (Oregon) has recently joined as a Community in Dialogue—a preliminary status for communities exploring full membership.

Alongside ongoing operations and smaller projects, the FEC has recently been focused on three main priorities:
1. Getting our corporate registration and tax filing in order
2. Reviewing and updating our policies
3. Regaining editing access to thefec.org website and updating it

The current delegates continue to work closely together with a renewed commitment to the FEC’s goal: to make egalitarian communities available to all who seek them.

We appreciate the patience and support of our wider network during this rebuilding process.

—The Delegates of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities”

East Wind’s 51st

Land Day is celebrated by many of the communes as the day they acquired their land. East Wind’s was at the beginning of May so naturally a May Pole is involved with the celebration. They write: “May 1st was our 51st Land Day. Filled with fun and lots of love. Special thanks to all our local friends and former members for coming out and making this land day extra special 💛

#beltane #eastwindcommunity #intentionalcommunity #ozarks “

Flowers, Tahini, Accomplishments, and Three Sisters

by Raven

This week we’ll look at what was on our Facebook feed the last week of April.

Twin Oaks posted about flowers and spring.

This post got six likes and three loves, but it also got less than ninety views.

East Wind Nutbutters was boosting their tahini:

Unfortunately, this didn’t do well at all, with no likes or loves and a mere thirty-four views.

Serenity Solidarity posted about what they did in 2024, and it was impressive.

In spite of all of that, this post got two likes, one love, and only forty-eight views.

And finally, SESE posted about the Three Sisters, a popular traditional planting scheme usually using some type of corn, some type of beans, and some type of squash.

Maybe it was all the pictures or maybe there were a lot of folks who want to try gardening with the Three Sisters, but this post did very well, with eleven likes (including one from the Foundation for Intentional Community), two loves, two shares, and over a hundred and eighty views.

Syrup, Talk, Renovations, Dinner, and Canning

by Raven

Here are some Facebook posts from mid-April looking at everything happening in the communes from boiling down maple syrup to encouraging folks to can their excess harvest.

Serenity Solidarity sent a little video along of them doing a “boil down” with an important message.

These are stills from the video. You can see the original ‘reel’ here.

Unfortunately, this didn’t do very well. Although it got four loves (including one from Serenity Solidarity) and a like, it only got thirty-three views.

We also published something from Serenity Solidarity about a talk that they were hosting on a book against prisons.

It sounded like a great cause but the post got no likes or loves and only twenty-eight views.

At Twin Oaks, they are still making the transition away from making hammocks and that is freeing up space for other things.

This got six likes and a comment but only ninety-nine views.

East Wind posted about a feast they had in March.

This post did very well on Facebook, with two likes, two loves, a wow!, and over a hundred and thirty views.

Finally, Southern Exposure wanted to encourage canning as a way to deal with surplus verggies.

The whole article is here. These are the pictures they put on Facebook.

This got six likes and a love but just ninety views.

Watering, Animals, Rebuilding, and Ira

by Raven

We’re now moving into mid-April on Facebook. During this stretch we had some posts that were barely seen and some posts with good viewing numbers.

Let’s start with a post from Southern Exposure, talking about garden watering.

I’m not sure how many of our Facebook readers have gardens to water but while it got both a like and a love, only forty folks saw it.

East Wind wanted to show off their animal life. Facebook now has something called “Reels” which are very short little videos that you can post (maybe they are trying to compete with TikTok?) and East Wind used this to give little clips of various creatures.

These are various stills from the video, which can be seen here.

And, here’s a still of Pigeon, the star of the show:

While two people loved this, it’s impossible to know how many folks saw it because, for some reason, Facebook doesn’t track its ‘Reels’.

I found this next post on the Twin Oaks Queer Gathering site but it really affects all of the summer events on the conference site.

This post did very well on FB with two loves, three cares, sixteen likes, three comments, and over a hundred and eighty views.

Finally, the FIC posted an interview with the amazing Ira.

You can read the whole interview here.

This also did pretty well, with five loves (including one from the FIC), three likes, a share, and over a hundred and thirty views.

Seed Saving, Potato Trenches, Twin Oaks Twins, and Butchering

by Raven

This was from the first week in April on Facebook and while it didn’t start out so well, in terms of viewership, it ended up pretty okay.

The start was with a repost from Southern Exposure.

Here’s a link to the guide from SESE.

Unfortunately, in spite of getting a like and two loves on Facebook, it only got forty some viewers.

They were digging for potatoes at East Wind.

This did a little bit better, with five likes, one love, and a still pretty low viewership of just over seventy.

Then, I reposted a very cute picture from Twin Oaks.

This got three loves, eight likes, and just over a hundred and seventy views.

Finally, East Wind now has lots of beef.

This also did pretty well, with two loves, seven likes, and well over a hundred and seventy views.