GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?

12-12-2003, 10:33 PM

(paghat) wrote in message ...
I remember visiting a commune not terribly far from Eugene that pretended
to be an Eco-friendly self-sufficient village capable of sustaining a
hundred people, but usually had no more than ten to twenty unbathed
over-the-hill hippies in insufficient housing.

That's a well known commune here in the Eugene area.

The dream or plan sounded
lovely if a little bit cultic in that they would literally promise "inner
wealth" in trade for all the money you could bring their marginal outfit,
& used all kinds of far-left ecological catch-phrases mixed with
Rashneeshi-like promises of perfect happiness, in a shockingly
religious-sounding rather than environmental context. The fact that they
lasted thirty years instead of vanishing like all the other Eugene
communes of the 70s sounds impressive, until one realizes their
"self-sufficiency" is actually reliance on lumberjacks & saw mills as they
sell off the trees surrounding the place.

In part. MOSTLY, however, it's grants from the Univerity that pumps
money into the commune. They did experiments in a few things: Straw
bale housing and a small hobo type stove.

They found out the climate is too damp for straw bale housing to work
here.