Baron Michael Mojohito John Richerson von Tchudi

October will be a fun month in Mendocino County! First of all, it’s C’mon Home to Eat, local food month: the challenge is to eat within 100 miles of where you live. There will be a couple of great local-food potlucks and other events, including a workshop called Acorns for Food – a pertinent topic considering that acorns were the primary staple of indiginous people in California for porbably thousands of years; considering the risk of food shortages in the wake of peak oil concerns, this information may be invaluable in the near future! So: Sepember 30th is Oz Farm’s Harvest festival (www.oz-farm.com/harvest_festival.htm) and the Hoes Down Harvest Festival is on October 7th at Full Belly Farm in Capay Valley (www.hoesdown.org/).
Emerald Earth (www.emeraldearth.org/) is having a work party the weekend of the 7th and another workshop around the 20th. There’s a real push to get roofs finished before rain comes, and the energy is really electric.
Of course, I won’t be at any of these events, as my priorities are elsewhere. Yesterday we made an offer on 45 acres outside of Lower Lake, California. Today, offer received, and we’re in escrow. I’ll be doing a lot of research and meeting people for perc and hydrological tests, learning about the legal status of a defacto easement and seeking to negotiate a modification if necessary. Reno will be home base until the house is sold, and I’m expecting a lot of travel to Lake county for preparations. I am officially on the payroll.
Heather and I leave EE in four days. We’re antsy to transition, but know we will miss this beautiful land and the interesting harmony of community living. It will be interesting to return to a city with all of my new skills and abilities acquired while living and training in the boondocks. Interesting Autumn indeed.

There are some really fun and interesting sustainability and natural living events taking place in Northern California (within a couple of hours of San Francisco) in the months of July through September:

In just two weeks, during the weekend of July 15th and 16th, we’re having a work party right here at Emerald Earth, where I’m living as a natural building apprentice. This is a great opportunity to check out a functioning intentional community, learn about natural building, get your hands dirty, have some organic food and meet some great people. We’re just outside of Boonville, California. Of course, you can visit me here any time, since I’ll be living and working here probably until October! www.emeraldearth.org

The Solar Living Institute is located on Highway 101 in Hopland, and features all kinds of classes and internships on permaculture design and philosophy, practical solar electricity, natural building, and the like. Once a year they host a SolFest, featuring lots of music and speakers (this year including the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, and Jim Hightower), workshops, and tours of their extensive facility. The dates are August 19th and 20th, though the place is open to visitors year-round. They could use some volunteers for the week leading up to and including the festival itself, so if you’ve got some free time, consider it. www.solfest.org

Mendocino is a quaint village on Highway 1, on the Pacific coast, and just outside of that is Old Mill Farm, a small-scale natural farm producing veggies and some fantastic meats for local restaurants and farmer’s markets. A friend of Cheetah’s from Olympia is the garden manager; I was just there over the weekend for a straw bale building workshop and had a really great time hanging out with the people there. They have a one day Sustainable Living Festival on September 2nd that looks like it will be a lot of fun. Many people party late and camp out on the farm, and help clean up in the morning – a fun community event. www.oldmillfarm.org

I intend to be at all three of these, volunteering if I can find space in my building schedule, so I hope to see you at one or more. Let your friends know about these events!