Fall Activities

We had our first killing frost on Saturday night and woke to a lovely, frosted world Sunday morning.  Sunday was a scheduled workday, and we were prepared for a cold day, but after sharing a tasty breakfast together (thank you Richard!) the weather warmed up quickly and it was a perfect day.  We have lots of ongoing activities at the site, including some fall landscaping and creation of an artsy fence to hide an electrical system on the north boundary of the property.  In addition, we had people weeding and mowing and splitting firewood and a few other tasks.  This month we also had a new roof put on our little log cabin, and Dave pulled LOADS of different varieties of sweet potatoes out of the garden.

Dave has an ingenious way of curing his sweet potatoes.... he puts them in his bathroom with a crock pot full of water to give them the right temperature and humidity to sweeten.  The only problem is getting in and our of the shower....

Karolyn weeding!  She and Richard moved in this month (YEA!!)

Kelly, Leslie, Meg, Mickey and Anna .... and a shrinking pile of mulch

 Dick has split up an impressive pile of firewood!

Nancy, Dick, Cheryl, Anne, Mike, Richard, Rosemarie at our Sunday evening potluck

Richard, Mikey and Dick dig the holes for posts that will support a cool fence to hide this electrical system.  Our electricity is shared (we each pay based on house size), which saves us almost $7,000 per year - and we don't have to have meters on individual homes (but we do have these larger systems that we try to hide because they are pretty ugly!)

Our woods provide some delicious wild mushrooms.  The most common is the chanterelle and it was a great year for those! But on Cathy's birthday, she found a lion's mane mushroom - our favorite and quite rare.  And quite huge!  Kate is checking it out - many people have never seen one.

A view of the common house - lovely fall day

Sunset at Bella vista over the weekend.

October Activities: Reveal party, workday and Halloween Jamboree!

October was a fun-filled month!
On Oct 22nd we had a REVEAL party for Mary's dog Riley.  She had Riley genetically tested to see what breeds she was, and we had a $5 pool for people to guess her top 3 breeds.  We played lawn games in the afternoon, had the REVEAL at 6 and then had a potluck.  Turns out Riley is Chow, Australian Shepherd and Akita, with some herding and terrier breeds mixed in.  Rosemarie came in first place and Cheryl took a very close second.  Rosemarie donated her winnings to a fund that is helping pets lost or abandoned in the hurricane.  Yea for doggie genetics!

The following day was a community workday, and we did a lot of site cleanup.  And the 29th was the annual Halloween Jamboree that has been put on by our sister community (Potluck Community Farm) for 26 years.  Elderberry is now a big part of that event as well.  We have a great band, roasted pig and veggie chili, hayride, pumpkin carving, bonfire and S'mores, cider making, singing, dancing and more.

AND, this week we had another family move in - welcome Richard and Karolyn!!!!  Their house was completed this week and is lovely.

Richard and Karolyn's house from the adjacent pasture

The North row of homes - now complete!

Common house (we call it the Hive - as it is a beehive of activity)

Riley - she does not look like a chow to me!!!

Playing croquet at the reveal party

 Sarabeth and Cheryl  (Sarabeth won!)

Jim and Dick taking on Mary and Vonda in corn hole (can't remember who won!)

Workday!  Barb and Joan clean out the old chicken coop

Rosemarie was lopping and Jeff was weeding!

Meg and Vonda - hard to mow in tandem

Cheryl teaches us her technique for log rolling (Vonda takes a more traditional approach)

Kelly always watches out for safety and comfort at workdays

 Barb and Joan!

Mary hauling logs with the tractor, helped by Cheryl!

 Dave.   You have to understand that we almost never get photos of Dave because he runs from the camera.  So this is precious!!!!