Once again, because of taking August off, I’m posting some two month old stuff. This was, however, a rather good week on Facebook.
And the first post was rather joyous. Two communards got married.
This post was incredibly popular–folks must love weddings. Twelve likes, eleven loves, a wow, two comments, a share, and an astounding six hundred and fifty views.
At Twin Oaks, it was communal anniversary time.
This post did okay, with five likes, a love, and a hundred and thirty-four views.
Ira is a communal treasure: Acorn founder, SESE spokesperson, and the driving force behind Monticello’s Heritage Harvest Festival. Now she has a new title:
This got four likes, fourteen loves, and over two hundred views.
Finally, when a community turns fifty, there’s a lot of history behind it.
Rather than trying to duplicate what was on Facebook or the East Wind site, here’s a link to East Wind’s History page.
This also did pretty well, with seven likes, five loves, two comments, a share, and a hundred and seventy-six views.
I operate Commune Life on an unusual schedule. I post consistently on the blog three times a week and on Facebook everyday for ten months of the year–and I take two different months off. I take December off to visit friends and family and to celebrate the winter holidays, and I take the month of August off, usually to travel. This year I’m hoping to go several places in August; first to visit the new home of Serenity Solidarity, and then attend, as usual, the Twin Oaks Communities Conference, which this year will be followed by a new event, the first ever Convergence of Intentional Communities (CIC). I hope to have reports on all of this when Commune Life returns in the fall. See you in September, folks.
News of the Oaks by Valerie Fire Recovery by Jason Common Wealth Seed Growers by Zoe Conference Announcements
News of the Oaks by Valerie
Our biggest news is that after a few years of low population, we are about to hit Pop Cap (our maximum population). If/when that happens, we’ll still be hosting our Visitor Program as per usual, but it may take a little longer for accepted Visitors to return.
Celebrations Our two big events recently were our annual Anniversary, with ex-members returning to help us celebrate Twin Oaks’ 57th year of existence; and also we hosted the wedding of community friends Ken and Irena, with a gathering including “Ken and Irena Jeopardy” and Ken’s brother who is an Episcopal priest officiating.
Sustainability: We’ve been busy with various projects. Our “eco-residence” that has 10 bedrooms, 2 living rooms and 1 bathroom off-grid, got an upgrade of new solar panels. Ex-member Debbie, now living at neighboring community Living Energy Farm helped install them. We had several members take a literal field trip, to help harvest sweet potato slips at a farm we are connected with a couple of hours away. They were working with our sister community Acorn’s business Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Ujamaa, a BIPOC-led organization that works to bridge the gap between prospective BIPOC seed growers and seed companies.
Summer Activities for Kids and their Kid-like friends: The “Twin Oaks Swim Team” is a group of kids and adults here who are dedicated to swimming in the pond every day! It’s a rotating cast of characters but has included Finley, Jessie, Nick, Indigo and Dave. Go team! Also a number of Twin Oaks kids are attending Shiloh Quaker Summer Camp an hour or two away from us. This year, several adults will also be participating in the camp as staff/support.
Second Edition: our member Pam Dawling, who has written two definitive books on farming/garden, has been hard at work on the second edition of her first book “Sustainable Market Farming”.
Fire Recovery by Jason
This March, a wildfire swept through parts of the community and destroyed our conference site, warehouse, sawmill, machinery, hammocks inventory and many other items vital to the economic self-sufficiency of the community. In the aftermath of the fire, we made the call to shut down the Hammocks business. With margins already thin in order to compete with overseas producers, and the loss of specialized equipment, making significant investments towards rebuilding seemed unlikely. We’ll finish up some hammocks using supplies which were off-site before the shop is converted into space for our Seed Racks business. This is a blow to the community in both an economic and emotional sense. While the days of hammocks being our main source of income are long gone, the business sustained the community for many years, providing work and creating a much loved product that made a name for ourselves. While it is hard to say goodbye to this era of Twin Oaks, we are also looking at our community economy going forward. The Process Team kickstarted a “CommEcon” process, in which members submit proposals for new business ideas that the community could use to generate income. We will spend the summer deliberating proposals, and decisions about where to allocate resources will likely happen towards the end of the year. Proposals include a pottery business, renewing our hammock-chair production, (but not regular hammocks), sewing textile goods, online teaching, tech support for local businesses, video game creation, building an eco AirBnB, and the expanding of the relationship between Twin Oaks and Common Wealth Seed Growers, a seed company run by one of our members with a focus on plant breeding and resilience in our seed systems. (see other article for more info on Common Wealth Seed Growers) While we have not been able to start the cleanup efforts at EC yet due to the need for fire investigations, we have been able to start the cleanup and rebuilding of our conference site. A group of communards from our sister communities in Missouri will come to help, and we are hopeful that this work can progress quickly. We are planning on hosting a full slate of conferences this year, including the Communities Conference, Women’s Gathering, and Queer Gathering. (See links elsewhere in this issue for more info.)
Clean up at conference site.The forest is likewise beginning its process of recovery. The fire was quick burning, passing through areas quickly and consuming leaf litter, but not catching the trees. Many large trees show some charring around their base, but it appears that they will survive. Many of the smaller saplings did not leaf out, leaving an empty and brown understory, which contrasts with the untouched canopy, and the forest floor which is vigorously sprouting new life.
Ex-member Alexis-LEF was a firefighter and has been helping us prepare for another disaster. He installed the fire hose hookups near our residences some 30 years ago, which were instrumental in saving Tupelo. Since the fire, he has hosted a tour of our firefighting infrastructure, gotten us more firehose to place around the community, transformed our old tofu wastewater truck into a firetruck, and is advising us on forming our own fire brigade that can respond to fires on the property and direct the local firefighters on how to assist us.
Common Wealth Seed Growers by Zoe
While Edmund is one of the more renowned farmers at Twin Oaks, he rarely works in the main food garden. Rather, he manages several fields off the farm. He is part of Common Wealth Seed Growers, a cooperative project that produces and sells regionally-adapted, open-pollinated seeds. They only sell what grows well on their farms in Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Common Wealth Seed Growers also use an open source seed promise for some of the seed varieties they’ve developed and their derivatives which promise to not restrict others’ use of the seeds they’ve developed or any of their derivatives to help combat corporate monopolization of seed varieties.
Edmund began breeding new produce variations back in 2011. Only three years later, Common Wealth Seed Growers received a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant to identify downy mildew resistant strains in cucumber, melon and winter squash. They also received grants from the Organic Farming Research Foundation in 2018 and 2019 for similar research. Edmund manages seed production as an income area for Twin Oaks. He sells seeds produced by Common Wealth Seed Growers, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and other seed companies. Edmund envisions Common Wealth Seed Growers expanding in the future, and employing many more Twin Oaks members. As it is, Edmund does enlist a few Oakers in the process. Seed saving includes planting, nurturing, harvesting, cleaning, packing, and shipping – all of which are labor intensive. Thankfully, many here enjoy such work. Arguably, the most notable of these tasks is harvesting seed from squash and gourds – something that is best done by hand, and is always messy. Common Wealth Seed Growers pays Twin Oaks by the hour as ‘outside work’ for tasks done by members that aren’t directly agricultural such as marketing, website, and inventory management. In addition to providing money, seed production and research, the work provides an abundance of organic food for the community including cucumbers, bell peppers, cantaloupe and winter squash. This has allowed the community to dine on varieties we have never had before, such as the Guatemalan Green Ayote squash that has forest green innards and a sweet flavor. Visit commonwealthseeds.com to view or request their 2024 product catalog by mail and find out more information about their mission.
Conference Announcements
Twin Oaks Queer Gathering Friday August 2 – Sunday August 4 A weekend of queertranstastic fun, learning, workshops, networking, revelry, and more! twinoaksqueergathering.org
Twin Oaks Women’s Gathering Friday August 16 – Sunday August 18 An inclusive gathering of women celebrating ourselves in the woods. womensgathering.org
Twin Oaks Communities Conference Friday August 30 – Monday September 2 (Labor Day Weekend) communitiesconference.org If you live or want to live according to the values of cooperation and sustainability, this conference is for you. The conference focuses on intentional communities and on the larger cooperative movement.
This reflects the second week where most of our Facebook posts lacked images. We didn’t too badly on Facebook, but we didn’t do great either.
It was East Wind’s fiftieth anniversary this year (here’s pictures from it) and East Wind’s main business had to mark it on their site, which we, of course, reposted.
Unfortunately, this did the least well of any of the posts this week, having only three likes and a love and less than a hundred views.
This was a slow week for the communes posting so here are two posts from Acorn (which tends to post more than any of the other communities these days) which was split on Facebook by a repost from this blog about Twin Oaks’ cows.
The first Acorn repost was about them painting pictures on the ceiling of their smoke shack.
This did well enough of Facebook, with three likes and a wow and a hundred and thirty-six views.
The other one was a picture of three folks and a rainbow, with a wish.
This also did just okay with four likes and a hundred and thirty-one views.
Finally, from Twin Oaks (the second most frequent community posting) comes this poster about their May Day celebration.
This again, just did okay, with a single love and just over a hundred views.
Jude Della Terra is a photographer who was at East Wind’s 50th Anniversary celebration and has given us permission to reprint some lovely photos. I plan to reprint more next week. Jude writes: “Glad to have celebrated East Wind’s 50th Land Day with you all! Thanks for all the good times. Lots of love to everyone who has been a part of this community over the past 50 years. “
Today I’m offering a kaleidoscope of memories from my first five years at Sandhill Farm, on the occasion of its Golden Anniversary.
Exactly 50 years ago today, Ann Shrader and I arrived at the 63-acre property two miles west of Rutledge MO (that we had just purchased two weeks prior for the grand price of $13,500) that would be the start of Sandhill Farm. We rendezvoused there with fellow pioneers, Ed Pultz and Wendy Soderlund, who had driven up from their home in Memphis TN to live near Memphis MO (our county seat).
Both red and white spirea were in full bloom, framing the outside of the modest white clapboard, one-bedroom house that the two couples took turns occupying (while the other lived in a tent) until we completed a 16’x30′ renovation on the south side that added two bedrooms and expanded the bathroom. Probably its most distinctive feature was the checkerboard pink & black linoleum tiles on the kitchen floor. (Hard to believe that could ever have been in fashion—excepting, perhaps, at a Good & Plenty factory.)
We were full of enthusiasm for our experiment in community living—which was a good thing, given the bottomless pit of our naiveté. As we had arrived just after the frost free date for northern MO, one of our first acts was getting the garden planted. I still recall Ann’s and my excitement at seeing the first shoot emerge from our carefully planted rows of vegetable seeds, only to discover later that it was milkweed, not sweet corn. Talk about a rookie error.
While the house stood on the highest point of the property (in the southwest corner), there was a house located directly to our south that was higher still—the home of Edna & Earnest Childers. They were in their 80s and the only remaining residents of Sandhill after Charlie Gilmer died in 1972. Charlie was the last person to have have lived in our house, which we negotiated the purchase of from his surviving son and daughter-in-law, Bob & Lilian.
It’s noteworthy that Earnest, our neighbor, was born in that house and had lived there his entire life. Amazingly, he was already two years old when the Santa Fe Railroad laid tracks nearby, in the late 1880s. The town of Rutledge sprang up at that point, as a service stop along the route from Chicago to Kansas City. Though Edna & Earnest both passed away a few years after we arrived, Sandhill has been continuously occupied since the 1850s. (Before that, we understand it was a seasonal camping spot for indigenous Native Americans.) In the years prior to the Show Me State being fully platted and the current county lines defined, Sandhill was something of a regional center, and the location from where a frontier circuit judge would periodically dispense justice in our corner of the state.
While Ann focused on gardening (something she still does today), Ed took charge of overseeing the house extension, working closely with Wendy’s father, an experienced builder/architect. I bought a copy of H. P. Richter’s Wiring Simplified (for $0.87) from the local Ace Hardware store and became the community’s electrician—while we were doing the house extension, we rewired everything (switching from fuses to circuit breakers) and reroofed the entire house. Laying concrete blocks for the extension’s foundation was my first foray into cementitious work, which also became a community niche for me. (Over the years I learned to do concrete work, as well as lay block, brick, tile, and tuck pointing—all flowing from that first summer.)
In the early years we tried all manner of homestead things, substituting labor for dollars. Example: raking leaves in the fall from the Childers’ massive white oaks (that were sprouts before the arrival of white settlers) and then packing them into circular bins we fashioned from scrap woven wire fencing. After a couple years of rain and snow we had our own leaf mold, for use as a garden soil amendment.
Our first dog was Rochester, a medium-sized stray that showed up unannounced one day and never left. He was with us for nine years and was the only dog in my life that was closer to me than any other human. Our first cat was another stray, Seymour, an orange tabby. I took it as a good omen (for a cooperative community) that the two of them got along famously. Both were outdoor pets and they would huddle together for warmth on an old blanket inside a plywood kennel on the front porch during the winter months.
Early on we acquired a Jersey milk cow, Rebecca. While we didn’t get gobs of milk, it was high in butterfat and we were self-sufficient in butter in those days. (Cream is most readily churned to butter at 62 degrees, and I did it often enough that I could tell by feel when the gallon we had taken out of the fridge had warmed to the right temp.)
Milking time was one of the highlights of the day for both Seymour and Rochester. Seymour would follow the milker down to the barn, where he could depend on getting some squirts of fresh milk for his trouble. While the distance from house to barn was only about 50 yards, as soon as Seymour headed down there, Rochester would make a game of overtaking the cat and putting his entire head in his mouth. Seymour would patiently wait until Rochester released him and then would travel several more yards until Rochester did it again. By the time Seymour made it to the barn, his head would be covered in dog slobber.
While the cost of living in our area was low (hence the bargain land prices), so were the opportunities for employment, and we scrambled to figure out a way to make ends meet. At one time or another, in the early years all of us took jobs off the farm. Some taught, some worked for the extension service, some did work for neighbors. As I recall, that first summer Ed drove a tractor for a neighbor, earning the not-so-handsome wage of $60 for a 40-hour week. After that we never worked for less than $2/hour (hard bargainers that we were).
For most of its existence, Sandhill’s signature product was organic sorghum, a traditional sweetener in the Midwest and South. The seed for that was planted when Ann & I stopped by the homestead of Joe Pearl & Eva Grover (a mile or two south of Memphis) to buy some sorghum during the fall of 1975. We stayed long enough to watch it being made and were fascinated by the process. They were in their 70s and it was obvious the work was tiring for them. We offered to help, and before we knew it we were back every day, lending a hand. They would only make about 7 gallons a day, yet it impressed us that every drop was sold about as fast as it was made.
Thinking that this might be a specialty product for Sandhill, we planted some cane the next year and traded our labor in 1976 for the use of the Grover’s equipment to process it. That went well enough that we took it another step in 1977 and had stainless steel cooking pans made for us at a metal fabrication shop in Quincy IL. We bought a sorghum mill to do our own pressing, and had labels made announcing the availability of Sandhill Sorghum. While we were somewhat concerned about being in competition with the Grovers (we didn’t want to bite that hand), it happened that Joe Pearl had a stroke in 1977 and they never made sorghum again, and thus we became the sole sorghum producers in Scotland County. For a period of more than 40 years, sorghum was the flagship product of the community’s agricultural portfolio.
Community was a tenuous concept the first five years, as Ann & I struggled to get beyond being one couple living with others who tried it out for a year or two and then moved on. Following Ed & Wendy, there was Pamela Johnston & Michael Almon. Then we had Jesse Evans, Lin McGee, and Linda Joseph (all from Texas, for some reason). It was something of a revolving door in the early years. After five years, it was down to just three of us: Ann, Tim Jost, and me.
Our breakthrough in stability came circa 1979, when Stan Hildebrand, Grady Holley, and Thea Page arrived. Over the ensuing five years the only change in personnel was Clarissa Gyorgy (who came to us from Twin Oaks in Virginia) while Thea moved to Twin Oaks, along with her 2-year old daughter, Shining. After that we were never fewer than 5, and it felt like we’d crossed the line into being a stable intentional community. Whew.
While losing members was always hard, those early years are largely happy memories, and I look back with amazement at what we were able to accomplish with sufficient pluck and luck.
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Commune Life editor’s note: Sandhill Farm is no longer an income-sharing community but they were one for well over forty years. The Sandhill folks write: “Sandhill Farm has historically been an income-sharing commune for the last 45 years. We are restructuring to provide private dwellings for family units and greater personal autonomy while also still collectively stewarding the land and infrastructure, held by a nonprofit.”
As usual, this is a summary of our Facebook posts from several weeks back. At that time, Twin Oaks was still dealing with the reprecussions of the fire.
The fire that effected Twin Oaks was started by a neighbor and burned a large area that included Twin Oaks conference site and their industrial area (also called Emerald City or EC). It also came with in a few feet of their Tupelo residence. This hand drawn map shows how far the fire spread.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t a particularly well viewed post. It got five cares and seventy-seven views.
East Wind Nut Butters published a hummus recipe using their tahini.
This got four likes and a care (the care was actually from East Wind Nut Butters), one comment, and a hundred and one views.
Acorn turned thirty-one this year and while I don’t think that’s such a big deal (especially compared to East Wind turning fifty), Acorn took lots of pictures and made a bunch of posts about it. We’ve already covered some of the posts, including one with a lot of pictures, but here’s more.
This got six likes, a love, and a hundred and twenty-nine views.
Finally, many people have worked over the years in the Emerald City industrial area, and a number of ex-Oakers came by for what I’m sure was a memory filled brunch and tour.
This got seven likes, four loves, and a hundred and thirty-one views. RIP EC.
There were five Facebook reposts on the week we are covering this week, but they were only about three different communities: two posts about Serenity Solidarity (at the beginning and end of the week), two posts about Twin Oaks, and one post about Acorn’s Land Day.
Serenity Solidarity is a very interesting community in formation, BIPOC focused, activist, community service oriented, and income-sharing. I’ve always been interested in them and wanting to support them. I was very excited when I learned that they had finally acquired land, not in Virginia where they were originally looking, but in New York state (not that far from where I am now). I republished their post about the new place, with lots of pictures and it did very well:
As I said, it did very, very well, with eight loves (including from Serenity Solidarity itself) and fourteen likes, two comments (including one from Ericka, one of Serenity Solidarity’s organizers, explaining what they do), and a lovely 263 views.
Which was great, but except for Ericka’s brief explanation in a comment, this didn’t say anything about what Serenity Solidarity was or what they did. So I found their website and did a post featuring it, starting with a selection of quotes from their website:
Unfortunately, this bombed on Facebook, with no likes, comments, or shares, and only thirty views.
I couldn’t figure out whether this was because it didn’t have a lot of pictures or because Facebook doesn’t like things that are too political. I tried something else a couple of weeks later–and I will report on that in the future.
Acorn just turned thirty-one. I’ve already put some of the reposts on here already, but here’s one with pictures from the celebration.
This did pretty good, with six likes, two love, and a hundred and thirty-two views.
Finally, a couple of posts from Twin Oaks.
Yes, they are still recovering from the fire but neither of these post are about the fire per se. One is however about something that was found during the work to stop the fire and one had absolutely nothing to do with the fire, except that it was lovely to take a break from all the work of recovering from the fire.
What was found during the digging to prevent the fire from getting close (ie, creating a fire break) was at first a mystery and then a communal historical find.
In the original post, Twin Oaks didn’t know.
Then Twin Oaks posted, as a comment:
The one that was found, once folks looked close enough, apparently said: “KATHLEEN KINKADE – ALL IS WELL”
This post also did well enough, with two likes, two wows, a love, one comment, and a hundred and fifty-seven views.
Finally, not long after the fire, was a solar eclipse. This gave Oakers a much needed diversion.
This post did very, very well, with eight likes, two love, and two hundred and fourteen views.
Ex-member Debbie, now living at neighboring community 
Clean up at conference site.The forest is likewise beginning its process of recovery. The fire was quick burning, passing through areas quickly and consuming leaf litter, but not catching the trees. Many large trees show some charring around their base, but it appears that they will survive. Many of the smaller saplings did not leaf out, leaving an empty and brown understory, which contrasts with the untouched canopy, and the forest floor which is vigorously sprouting new life.
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