dacha project

Mushroom Logs

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Yesterday was the perfect day to inoculate some logs. We ordered spawn and a cool inoculation tool that puts sawdust spawn into pre-drilled holes. We cut down the sugar maple wood 10 days ago. That was the first step.

Then we drilled a lot of holes with a special drill bit that attaches to an angle grinder. 

 

Here is Matt working hard. We used 2 strains of shiitake spawn – one that fruits in late Fall and early Spring and another that fruits during the warmer months. This will extend the harvesting season.

Maple with spawn in the holes:

We used hot wax (with mineral oil in it) to seal the inoculation sites so that other fungi wouldn’t have a chance.

Now we have about 48 logs and hopefully some will fruit this October! See the stacking method Matt used below:

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Mutant Corn Call for Collaborators!!!

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Triforce Triangular Formation, Activate!

Mutant Corn is a collaborative, agricultural art project that wants well…collaborators.  The project is inspired by the genetic, economic and social history of corn, and is in many ways an experiment in cross-breeding corn.  More importantly, it is an experiment in crossing the social boundaries of agriculture, science and art, which is something that can be achieved only through getting more people to join in.

Mutant Corn is looking for folks to come in, get inspired by the project and people involved, and then to add something of their own creation to the foundation that has already been laid.  Collaborators will get the chance to show their work at the gallery exhibit that will happen at the Dacha Project during harvest time. Learn more about the project and how you can get involved below, and read the full project statement.

For the summer of 2015 the Dacha Project (Freeville, NY) and  artCodex (Brooklyn, NY) have teamed up to lay the framework for a project that will gather a community to discuss corn in all of its natural beauty, as well as the many problematic issues that surround it.

(diagram)

At harvest time, we will have a gallery exhibit at the Dacha Project during which people can observe the effects of cross-fertilization, and also to see the collaborative projects that have been born out of the discussions that Mutant Corn has generated.  For example, one recent collaborator has decided to plant three chestnut trees in a triangle formation nearby the triangular beds of corn, in a sort of protest to growing corn altogether. The collaborator will do a write up of why she esteems chestnuts to be a superior alternative to growing corn. The write-up will be available at the gallery opening. Other ideas for collaborations include: an illustration of corn genetics, maps of where GMO is banned, and a timeline of the history of corn. The possibilities are all exciting and infinite, and more people are needed to generate and execute those possibilities in time for the opening, which is set for sometime in September.  Other ways of getting involved include planting, de-tasseling, and caring for the corn all summer long, as well as getting the word out.

The next meeting and work party is schedule for May 30-31, and you can check the Dacha Project website closer to the time to see a more detailed schedule.

If you would like to be involved, please contact Lea LSF from Dacha Project at   dachaproject at g mail dot you-know-what.

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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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Documenting Dacha: My first day on the homestead

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Hello! My name is Julia Nelson. I’m one of the new Media and Communication Interns for the Dacha Project. A recent graduate from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, I studied sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, video and sound. I found my way to Ithaca due to my enrollment in the Community Herbal Intensive at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine.  While it is exciting to be learning about the vast world of plants and how they interact with the body, helping the Dacha Project gives me an opportunity to utilize and continue to develop my artistic skills.

I feel very lucky to be seeing first hand how a community like Dacha works. I am fascinated with process of what it  means to build sustainable living practices starting from the ground up. Even if an individual wasn’t necessarily interested living the path the members of the Dacha Project have taken, there are so many aspects to the projects they do here that can be incorporated into many lifestyles. It is the DIY aspect that intrigues me, and I am happy to help share their savvy with the world.

My weekly updates to the Dacha Project’s website will offer online followers an opportunity to learn more about building practices, gardening, and various ideas about how life unfolds here. Keep on reading for photos from Sunday, June 8th!

My first mission is to finish this fence made with saplings and branches from felled trees around the property. The saplings and branches are still “green” meaning that they haven’t completely lost their living moisture. By weaving these flexible branches and trees we can create a sturdy, tall fence to keep out those pesky deer. Another trick to keep deer out of the garden is to plant aromatic herbs like garlic around the perimeter. There are few herbivores that like the taste of these plants.

The fence will also act as an armature for some pea plants that are growing along the edge. These climbers can get to be around six feet tall! They will look beautiful intertwined with the natural wood of the woven fence.

Here is a photo of some thriving gardens next to the homestead. There are salad greens and herbs growing here. I had the pleasure of picking some for my lunch.

Marina, a resident of the homestead, is starting an herb garden on the side of the house. She is also attending the Community Herbal Intensive and my first visit to the Dacha project was at a potluck she organized for the members of the herbal class and the Dacha residents. That gravel is meant to prevent any vegetation from growing next to the house’s foundation, which can compromise its stability and keep moisture where it shouldn’t be. It will also help to catch rainwater falling from the gutter and send it to the plants. Marina built a raised bed because the soil is too clay heavy for the herbs. With some wood she found lying around, and a rich horse manure mixture to fill the cavity these herbs are set up to thrive.

It was a full Sunday familiarizing myself with the homestead, working on the fence and talking to the Dacha Project community members. I can’t wait to get back to work next week. I hope to investigate beekeeping and gather footage for a series of video shorts. Tune in next Friday for the results!

 

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Dacha Internships: Meet Emma!

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Hello, everyone! My name is Emma, and I am proudly the new edition to the Dacha Project as the Sustainability and Media Intern. My objective is to document and articulate the lived reality of a do-it-yourself egalitarian community works and functions. I have a background in political science and philosophy with a degree in Politics Philosophy and Law from Binghamton University. I have come to work with the Dacha Project with the intent to explore how intellectual theory becomes a lived reality, specifically how living collectively with a sustainable orientation can be a successful alternative living lifestyle. I will be posting interviews, photographs, DIY explanations and philosophical musings about the Dacha Project and the people involved. IN the spirit of an interview post, I decided to interview myself about my interest in the project what I intend to do.

Question: Why are you interested in the Dacha Project?

Emma: I’m interested in the concept of taking an ideal and turning it into a lived reality. Right now our society is talking a lot about climate change and how, if at all, that should cause change to our public policy. There is a lot of controversy, a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of resistance to changing the mainstream way of life. People are upset because they do not know what this means for themselves and their families, but they are also confused because they do not know what they personally could to  contribute to the remedying of this problem.

I see the Dacha Project as a conglomerate of ideals, but one aspect of it is challenging what it is to “live” and exploring the idea of “living”, as going beyond what is commonly done. Most people wake up, go to work, living in a house, don’t talk to their neighbors, go to a grocery store. It can be like sleeping through life to an extent and not thinking about why it is significant how a person lives. I don’t believe our society has thought of “living” as a concept yet, but it will come up due to climate change. As our society is now, we’re very isolated, we don’t share, we don’t make group efforts as communities to go beyond our personal desires, and this has culminated in a lot of materialism and consumerism that has negatively impacted the environment. Instead of letting desire and materialism run rampant within a person, the people in the Dacha Project have consciously made the effort to sacrifice some luxuries and work to make an ideal of benefiting the environment real. The Dacha Project has already been exploring this concept for several years, and that makes it interesting to me.

Question: What concepts within the Dacha Project are you looking to understand?

Emma: There are two components I am looking to understand; the philosophy and the practicality. The philosophical aspect being the ideals, goals, and desired outcomes of the Dacha Project, and the practicality aspect being how those ideals, goals, and desired outcomes are formed into actions and implemented into reality. I’d like to explore the progression and evolution of the philosophy, as well as how and why those ideals may have changed.

Question: Why do you think the Dacha Project is important?

Emma: I think its important because there need to be alternative ways of living to our industrialized system. We’ve made everything into a commodity and caused dire environmental ruckus as a result, we’ve made a lot of problems and don’t have very many solutions. The Dacha Project is looking to go beyond the assertions the mainstream society has put out about how individuals should live by exploring the idea of what makes a community and way of life. I believe the Dacha Project is important because it has been successful due to a group of dedicated people, and the ideas/ideals behind it are especially relevant to the greater issues of the modern day.

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Vision + Mission Statement Community Word Cloud

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Thanks to those who participated in our Vision + Mission survey! We used your answers to the question “How would you describe the Dacha Project to someone?” to create this word cloud.

We used a survey sent out to oru community to ask "How would you describe the Dacha Project to someone?"

This visualization played a big role in our first Vision + Mission meeting, which we had this morning. We are using it alongside our own list of words and ideas to create a Dacha Project tag line. So far there are many in the works that we like. If you didn’t get a survey, but would like one reply with your email address!

We will surely share our new tag line and mission statement as they solidify over the next two weeks. There might even be a community vote regarding the tag line!

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Photo Archive: Energy, Dedication, Warehouse

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September 27, 2009. Photo by David Korman

This photo was taken at the Lake Street house in Ithaca well before any of us moved out to the dacha.  Outlined on the blackboard were three words to describe our agenda for that specific meeting: energy, dedication, warehouse.  Gawd knows what it meant to us back then, but let’s have a stab at it.

“Energy,” could have been referring to a generator, but then again it could also be referring to human power. Yes, looking at the date, I think “energy” refers to the personal energy we all needed to have to button up the shell of the common house.  We had worked all spring and summer, and the cold weather was descending, eventually.  Therefore we needed to discuss “energy!”  I’m pretty sure at this exact moment Joe is saying, “And, why not? We’ll just keep building.”  Go Joe!

“Dedication” well I think that went really well along with the first agenda item.  Case closed. We hardly had to discuss that after talking about “energy,” and that is why Danila looks so happy.

And of course, “warehouse.”  If I remember correctly, its referring to that crazy idea we once had of opening up a magnetic toy company, and needed to decide on the type and size and color of the warehouse we’d need. Oh wait, that was something else. This actually refers to the time when a lady invited us to scoop odd things like industrial sinks and brand new wooden doors from her warehouse in Ithaca, and we needed to vote on whether we wanted to trade her raking leaves for the stuff.  The next few weekends saw us raking leaves on her various properties around town.  The doors are now protecting our bathrooms from unwanted intruders, but something tells me new leaves have gathered on her lawns. I think we know who got the better end of the deal, and that is what I, Lea am sitting there smirking about as I look into the future, or just into Joe’s ear.

Everything is possible in the past.  And what does the future hold for the Dacha Project? Stay tuned in 2012 for a brand new season of this Brand New House.

-Lea LSF

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In an effort at organizational transparency…

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A group of people having an important meeting.

…we are posting our notes from our last meeting, held yesterday Dec. 14, 2011.  The notes should mention that the meeting was concluded by each member drawing a name out of a hat for Secret Santa, and that the whole affair was followed up by a sauna. Please no inquiries about who got who for Secret Santa, as our byway-laws forbid us from ever divulging anything that might ruin a surprise, and hence cost someone a burrito.*

Dec 14 2011 All Dacha peeps present.agenda:

agenda

bulk buying
internet media
grant
little bathrom
stacking wood
garbage run
permaculture plan
kitchen
solar panels
emanual
driveway
turning off genny
secret santa
chore review

solar panel:
friend says 135/watt, 240watt – $324 a panel.  Rack can fit 2 more panels. No other wiring required. $644 for 2 panels plus tax. Lea says she will buy one panel. Do we need LED bulbs so that the batteries will make it? When will we get the batteries? Maybe Spring, maybe August. We agree that we should buy both then. Yey!

grant:
monthly grants each of 1,000. Could this be a DIY lighting grant? We are using CFLs but we can take this from good to awesome. We can contrast the two realities. Metering systems for Dacha might be a possibility.

It doesn't look so bad here, but don't let that fool you! Photo by Katya G.!

Driveway:
Driveway sucks – ruining lives. 125 feet of material joe has left over. Can we use that? It’s not enough, but how about for walkway?
Joe thinks crushed concrete would work best. How long is the driveway? 425 long is the length of the roll. $488. do we need to try to get people to park other places in the future?Can we do something before Spring? Prob not. Should we have a driveway fund? Or just put that on the shopping list? Maybe! Buy a foot of the driveway dance fundraiser? Maybe mid-March?

Little bathroom:
Danila is going to tile the shower. Yey!

Bulk buying:
We will try the putting in money thing and if it doesnt work then we’ll revamp.
What do we want to have on common things list:
salt
olive oil
toilet paper
nutritional yeast
Lea will make a bulks list on google docs. We can pay at the time we pay taxes?

Garbage Run:
Cubies and glass need to go to dump. Joe and Lea and Marina will load and take on Friday.

Kitchen:
Open boxes above crappy table part of kitchen? Maybe the boxes don’t need to be too deep. Lighting, maybe at top of shelf? Push over stove to make full length. Make some low shelves slide. And drawer for utensils, too. Magnetic knife rack and spice rack. Hanging stuff for pots and pans.

Internet Media:
How can we make the best of the site? We can post even links to articles – easy! Pre-spring time media party? We should also give Ari veggies and make a meeting with her.

Permaculture plan:
Next year will be more agricultural. Maybe we print maps and give to everyone, set up perma-library, and people can put ideas down. You don’t need to be an expert!

Action list:
Lea will make bulks list
Joe will contact solar friend
Sharon will look at grant application
Price real driveway cost – Joe?
Put tractor chains on.
Stack the wood – this weekend
Marina will mark the water level.

Everyone's left to go SHOPPING! Let's get some shoes!

To buy:
solar panels – 330
thing for tractor – 30
125 ft of
dump run – 30 and some gas.

old shopping list:
One more window for sun room – $100
drywall – $28
plywood – $15
another bag of insulation – $16
door for hallway – $125 look at sig elements
radiant floor – pump (AC) – $200

* burrito– a form of currency. ie. I will bet you a burrito that it will take longer to finish building the bedrooms than three months. To date- the author of this post is owed a burrito from Lily. Marina also deserves a burrito from Lily, and Danila is owed a burrito by me, and by Lily. Joe probably owes all of the people here burritos do to a health dose of positive thinking, and it won’t be long until Sharon is owed some burritos, even though she just moved back to the area.

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We’ve been good, here’s our list…

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& remember, we don’t power with coal. Yey! We’ve updated our donate page & added an Amazon wishlist! Scroll to bottom for more info and options regarding donations.

Please help us out an make a donation!

note- don’t see the wishlist? Enable “ads” on your browser.

Dacha Angels Pose After A Long Day of Doing Good Deeds

Money does not grow on trees, but it can help plant them! If you’ve got some spare dollars, consider helping us fund the growth of this organization. To donate any amount securely, using PayPal, click on the button above. We have 501c3 non-profit umbrella status, so any donations are tax-deductible. Or check out our BRAND NEW Amazon Wishlist above.

More info
All gifts from Paypal or via Amazon Wishlist will go directly towards improving the homestead and expanding our infrastructure to better be able to build, accommodate and inspire our community of neighbors, builders, artist, partners and friends. Much of what is on our wishlist is specially designed to work with minimum resources to help a homestead like ours to power, heat, cook, garden and function efficiently.

Money is nice, but we like things used at least twice!
(Building materials, tools, furniture)
Besides donating money or buying gifts there are plenty of other ways of contributing to our efforts. We are always in need of building supplies and tools. If you know of any just laying around, we’d love to hear of it! Example- an intern/friend of ours, pulled an abandoned wheel barrow out of public brambles, and delivered it to us. Since then we’ve used it countlessly to transport kindling and straw. Thanks Matt!

Now that we’ve built a house, we could use furniture. If you have couches, tables, or chairs in good condition that need a new home where they will provide years of exciting service, let us know and we’ll arrange a pickup or drop-off! You can contact us at dachaproject-at-gmail-dot-com.

Upcoming Needs: Kitchen
As many people who have visited here know, we are in dire need of kitchen carpentry. This winter we will be building more shelves, counters and cabinets. If you have skills, or any material (ie. tile) that can be specifically great for a big farm kitchen, it would be put to good heavy use here, and directly go towards feeding many awesome people. Also if you have skills in kitchen building that you’d like to donate, we’d love that, a lot.

Thanks for your consideration and support of the Dacha Project! For updates regarding ways to support the homestead visit our Donate page.

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