Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Farm

When I took my cob course in Tennessee this past October I noticed that an eco-village training center I had seen online was a close drive.  We had one day off in the middle of our course and a couple of my fellow eco-geek girls came along to check out The Farm with me.

Now, as much as I am interested in intentional community and eco-villages I get a little uncomfortable with words like commune and fascism. Though, realistically if you dive into philosophy of fascism versus what has actually played out it really is full on interesting concepts, and really, what was Marx actually saying? Fun debates.

 I want to live somewhere that people share because they choose to, where independence is valued, but community flows freely as choice.  Somewhere that people are valued and supported to realize their full creative potential by rising above the rat race and ensuring basic needs are met; these are the strengths I see in a sharing community. These are things I have gained from intentional communities in the past, though I have never been a member of a common purse. And while I'm on a role, I think that it is more important to realize my own equality and see what flows from there than to assume "the man" owes me equality.  I do, however, have respect for those that strive for equality and create communes that work and create conscious change, but have seen a lack of individual "ownership" transfer to a lack of respect for property, and sometimes scarcity. This is where my mind flows when I think of "communes".

 Stained glass dome at The Farm
 


I am intrigued by the story of The Farm as it morphed from commune, to intentional community to become self-supporting. Googling for more precise definitions I found this fun link to explore the definitions at planetfriendly.net

The eco-village training center at The Farm has a number of natural building projects going. I bumped into Jason "the green resourcerer" and he explained one of the eco-village projects to me that included fun building techniques I am interested in like straw slip, in-floor heating, more cob, bamboo, cordwood, and sawdust for insulation.  They were using cordwood to tie together two layers of cob with a space in the middle filled with sawdust for insulation.

Lion sculpted out of cob


The Farm has so much interesting history to share with anyone interested in different forms of sharing economies from co-housing to full blown communes. Now it has a midwifery center (that I did not get to visit yet) and the visitor's center is full of interesting resources . . . I just wanted to take pictures of the bookshelves and start googling subjects & authors . . .and a bookstore where I got one of my new favorite books Ecocities, rebuilding cities in balance with nature by Richard Register. 

 Slip straw I have been told works well as insulation

Cob sculpted fireplace 

Compost toilets & solar shower with Dawn

I would love to go back and experience more of their eco-village training center, natural building, vehicle conversion, and midwifery clinic.






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