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Day at the Dacha

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by Emma, Dacha Intern
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On Sunday, July 12 the The Dacha Project, with the help of IthaCan, invited folks of the community to take a tour of the homestead. Guests were welcomed to come throughout the afternoon, and each tour was tailored to the specific interests of the group. One family enjoyed exploring the garlic patch, and other groups were interested in the construction projects. Lily, was the primary hostess explaining the various projects such as the outside shower and solar panels.
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The outside shower, pictured above, is a project developed this summer to solve an on-going issue. The Dacha is something called an earth bermed home, meaning the earth is incorporated in the construction of the structure.Due to the participants of the Dacha being homestead beginners, moisture issues have developed after the construction that were not anticipated. The outside shower is a way to reduce these issues because less moisture will be created inside the house if more people shower outside. As an added bonus, the beautiful summer scenery makes for a relaxing time!

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As the tour concluded, guests were treated to fresh black raspberries, and red and black currants picked from the north garden. Since The Dacha is interested in biodiversity, every plant is chosen for a specific reason. In the case of berries, having a wide selection allows exploration of the nuances of different species, such as flavor, texture, and nutritional value. For example, did you know that black raspberries are different from blackberries? Blackberries, or Rubus allegheniensis, leave a differently shaped receptacle than the black raspberry, or  Rubus occidentalis.  When plucked, the blackberry leaves a flat receptacle rather than the cone shaped receptacle that the black raspberry leaves.

The Dacha Project hopes to invite more guests to the homestead for discovery and exploration. Stay tuned for information!


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Baby Garden Party

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Have you ever been to a baby shower and thought hey aside from these cute cupcakes this has very little to do with new life? I have thought this exact thing while munching on a delicious cupcake. I won’t do it, said I to myself! Then as I was sitting around wondering how I can possibly get done all those things I want to this spring a train of thought hit me, and it went like this.   I like my friends, I do want to celebrate with them, I/we can use some serious help in the garden, and my friends want to come get sweaty outside after a long winter.

After a bit of planning here at the homestead we invited framily from near and far for a Saturday of epic gardening. That day we crossed off of our list these things: prepping old garden beds, digging many a hole through tough soil, pounding black locust posts in for a new garden, clearing out trees for a baby fruit tree orchard, planting fruit trees, building trellises for peas, and planting early plants directly into the garden. We ended up getting that done and more. Other things that got done: bonding, new friend making, fixing tools, maple syruping, bon-firing and a ton of cooking.

Thank you to all who participated. It made all of us here at the DP feel so warm and fuzzy to celebrate a new life coming to the homestead with all of you. Like, Monica Fanya, one enthusiastic participant said, “It’s like planting baby food, just in the early stages.” So true!

Please enjoy some photos and videos of the event.

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Film Crew Comes to Dachaland

Cultura: art, film, writing, multi-media, energy system, film, media, video, visitors= we love you , , 2 Comments

Yes, yes, we love all our sustainable systems, but a lot of us here at the Dacha are also really into the arts. It is our hope to integrate the systems side of things with our love for music/art/writing..etc. Luckily for us, the arts have been coming to us.

Recently Lisa Marie Patzer from Philly came with her film crew to use the Dacha in her movie a.k.a. Profile Glitch. Check it out.

Part of the film takes place at an intentional community – and hey,we’ve got one of those (although I think the one in the film is a bit different). We got to watch the crew set up for scenes and re-arrange the place to fit their vision.

They also had to  deal with things like lighting with our giant windows, or sound with the generator/inverter making their respective noises. There was also the issue of energy – the lights used in the film needed a lot of power and we had to be careful to make sure the batteries were charged. We are proud to say that this part of the film was shot all off grid using solar and veggie converted energy sources. Helping out the sustainable movie biz – that’s right.

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Everybody’s working on the weekends!

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Hey Greater Ithaca Community, it’s mad nice out, and we’ll be working outside all weekend and today long. Come and join us today or Saturday or Sunday for getting your hands in the dirt and getting up close with squishy worms. Planting, mulching, cleaning and building. Let us know if you are thinking of coming out, by dropping a line. If enough folks wanna come out maybe we’ll bbq! Love, the Dacha.Hey Greater Ithaca Community, it’s mad nice out, and we’ll be working outside all weekend and today long. Come and join us today or Saturday or Sunday for getting your hands in the dirt and getting up close with squishy worms. Planting, mulching, cleaning and building. Let us know if you are thinking of coming out, by dropping a line. If enough folks wanna come out maybe we’ll bbq! Love, the Dacha.

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Video Series: Building the Straw Bale Cottage

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Wow, I miss the days when we still had time to make mini-films about what we were up to.  Maybe soon we will acquire a media intern to help us get back on that train!

For now, check out this series from when we had a kickin’ camera, and some time. It’s all about the building of our straw-bale cottage, named the Winter Palace. Each filmlette has its own style, so watch ’em all! They get funnier as the time goes on. Let us know if you like them, and maybe we’ll make more now!

Beware- after watching these, you should be fully equipped to start thinking about building a straw bale cottage of your own.

Winter Palace Pt 1- Let’s Dig- The start of our first building. A tool shed that emerged as a palace. Here we see the first steps (well after leveling the ground anyways) of digging the rubble trench.

Winter Palace Pt 1- Let’s Dig from Lea LSF on Vimeo.

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Oct 2nd – The Dacha joins the Green Building Tour

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On Saturday, October 2nd, the Dacha Project will be opening it’s doors to the public, as part of the Ithaca Green Building Tour. If you’ve ever wanted to visit and walk around with us on a tour, this is the day for it!  Come see all the recent developments and fun projects we’ve got going on, from mushroom logs, to our waste vegetable oil tri-generator, to our passive solar earth bermed home.

The open house will run from 10AM to 4PM.  For more information and directions, email us at dachaproject [.at.] gmail [.dot.] com.

The Green Building Tour is put on by the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, and the Ithaca Green Building Alliance.  Thanks to all of them for the work they’ve put into this!

(photo credit: Beer Nuts)

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Contemporary Prairie Schooner aka Gypsy Wagon Visits Dacha + Makes Us Happy

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Friends Libby & Tristan built a gypsy wagon, or as they’re calling it a Contemporary Prairie Schooner, on a trailer bed and towed it from New Mexico- The Land of Enchantment– to the Northeast- The Land of Abstraction behind their Hyundai. It’s now their very own little house!

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