October Fun!

We just completed three days of working on the Elderberry common house - completing the soffit, putting siding on the laundry room, nailing hurricane ties and doing trim work.  Today we had our monthly meeting and had a great discussion about how we will use and pay for energy in the community (and we had some great potluck food and conversation as well!).

For those interested in meeting the Elderberry and Potluck Farm communities, you are most welcome to come to our 22nd annual Halloween Jamboree!  It is Saturday, October 20th from 4pm - midnight.  We have a band (The Gravy Boys), pig pickin' and vegetarian chili, cider pressing, hayride, pumpkin carving, and great singing around the fire.  Families are welcome.  It's a fabulous party and a great way to learn about living and playing together in community.  The Jamboween will be at 568 Potluck Farm Road, Rougemont, NC 27572.  Bring a potluck dish, a flashlight, a chair and warm clothes.

Our next workday at the Elderberry site will be Sunday October 28th.  Let us know if you would like to come out to see the site, meet other members, work with us or just have lunch and hang out!

September will be a busy month!

We had a great monthly meeting this month!  We talked about all the things we want to be able to have on Elderberry property (cold food storage, pool, smokehouse, bike and kayak storage, pizza oven, etc) and where all this might go.  We also rescheduled our September workday (was going to be Sept 23rd) because the carpenter who is helping us build the common house is coming back to work with us Sept 27-29th so we will have 3 workdays instead of one this month!  If anyone is interested in visiting or helping out with work on the common house (trim, soffit, siding, hurricane ties, site clean-up) please let us know and come on out!  Guests are most welcome.

Our builder has told us that the soonest she can break ground on the first duplex is Dec 1.  So we're aiming for that!

As always, feel free to contact us if you have questions or are interested in visiting.

Happenings in August

Well, our marketed efforts are paying off!  We just started spreading the word about Elderberry a few months ago and we have several new members and 5 tours coming up!  Now is the time to get on board!

We met with the architect again this week and are likely on the last revision of the home plans.  Members may use the plans as they are, or pay the architect to make whatever changes they wish.  We can also allow a handful of members to design and build their own home (we have promised the builder 10 of the 18 homes).  We'll put the designs on the website as soon as they are finalized.

We did a bit of site clean-up and some bush hogging around the site today.  This week we will be getting estimates for septic systems.

For those interested in meeting our members and getting a little exercise, our next workday at the site will be Sunday Aug 26th from 10-3.  We'll serve lunch!

Elderberry Progress

Well, in spite of my best intentions it has been several weeks since I've update the blog!  We have been working on the common house, and it will be a project that we will continue to work on over the next year, building as much as we can on our own and hiring contractors for the work we can't or don't want to do.  Our foreman, Tony, will be back in August to do some construction for us and we'll schedule a workday or two for those that enjoy helping out with construction.

We've been working more intensely with our architect and builder on getting the home plans finalized and we're close!  Hopefully within the next few weeks we will have some plans to put up on the site.  Members who wish to build a home can use these plans, can change them or can design their own home.

This past Sunday we had a great time with members of both Elderberry and Potluck Farm clearing the area that will be the commons (lovely space with old farmhouse and barns and lots of redbud and walnut).  We also spent time landscaping - weeding and mulching the many trees we planted last fall near the parking area.  The hot, dry summer has been hard on these new plantings, but most are surviving.  One member gave us some elderberry seed, but getting from elderberry seed to seedlings looks like a challenge!  One way or another we be sure we have elderberries growing at Elderberry!

We now have 18 members but most are associate members who are interested in building a home, but not yet!  We will be ready to begin home construction by the end of the year so are looking for members who are interested in building their home soon.  If you are interested in learning more, please contact us!!

We had an extraordinary week building the common house together!  We worked for nine straight days and only had rain at night.  The weather was lovely and we had many great helpers every day.  The main house is up and almost dried in. The next big job will be roofing shingles.  The laundry room is up and tied into the main house, but there is still a bit of plywood needed on the roof and we still need to buy and install all the doors!  I've sent photos to our great webmaster Judith, and hopefully we'll have something up soon for those of you out of town and unable to see the progress in person.  We will be having a workday at the site on the 4th Sunday of every month from now on to keep working on site beautification and to continue with the common house construction.  We're also expecting there to be an article in the Durham N&O in the next week (fingers crossed!) and this week we published a little ad in Mother Earth News and had our first booth at the Durham farmer's market.  The quest for new members has begun!

Great progress on the common house!!

We began work on the common house yesterday with lots of helpers!  We got half the walls up yesterday and the other half today.  Tomorrow at 8am we start putting up roof trusses!  Such fun.  I'll get photos up on the site as soon as I can.  For anyone interested in the house-raising we'll be working every day until May 24th - come on out!!!

Hi Folks!  We have a few new Elderberry members who have joined this month - Welcome to Amy, Rex, Meg, Kelly and Joyce!

I'm leaving in just a few minutes to meet the building inspector who is doing the inspection on the plumbing in the Common House slab.  Then we have to put in gravel, do termite protection, vapor barrier, rebar, electric and hot water pipes and THEN we can pour!  So it's looking like mid-late May to start construction of the actual Deltec structure.

We met a very cool film maker (he filmed Within Reach about a couple who toured the US on bikes visiting communities) and he is willing to come and film the building of the common house (which will be done in one week like a barn raising).  Should be fun!  Watch this site for start dates.

We have also contracted with an architect and builder to design and build the first set of units.  Things are very busy and we're having a blast getting this community off the ground.

Watch this space!!!

Elderberry Informational Meeting April 15th

There will be an informational meeting about Elderberry held on Sunday, April 15th beginning at 5:30. We will meet at Mary's house (568 Potluck Farm Rd, Rougemont), go to the Elderberry site for a walk-around, and then come back and share dinner together and talk about Elderberry plans and vision. Anyone interested in learning more is welcome to join us!

Elderberry Progress

It's been quite a while since we posted on our blog. Not because there isn't anything happening (there sure is!!!) but because we're not very techno-saavy and blogging has fallen to the bottom of the list. Going forward, we'll work to keep the blog updated regularly.

Most importantly, we are ready to begin selling lots at Elderberry! There are 15 lots (each part of either a duplex or a quadraplex) surrounding a common house. The common house, a Deltec prefab, will be built in May! We'll post dates here for those who may be interested in helping as it will be a week-long construction project with volunteer labor (and a very experienced foreman).

During this lovely weather we will be working on site clean-up and on a bit of landscaping. Late last year we had the road and parking put in, and then landscaped the parking circle with a nice variety of mostly native plants. Now we also want to plant berry bushes, fruit trees and, of course, elderberries!

Please contact us if you are interested in learning more!