About Emma

Posts by Emma Guz:

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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Space Utility: Vertical Strawberry Tower

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For the first article in the new series “Space Utility”, I decided to explore a seemingly simple but innovative gardening technique the Dacha Project uses in their gardening system: the vertical strawberry tower.

The idea of utility, defined as usefulness, is important when creating an egalitarian community. One of the goals of an egalitarian community is to maximize each individual’s potential into realized energy and seen consequences. In the case of the Dacha Project, the egalitarian goal is to allow each person’s everyday life to contribute to a greater collective effort.

While observing the way of everyday life for the people at the Dacha Project, I was reminded of thte reading I have done about the philosophical ideals of utilitarianism. The ideal of classical utilitarianism is orienting actions that maximize happiness while minimizing pain. What is defined as happiness is the source of debate for a lot of philosophers, however, the concept is a lot more concrete in the Dacha garden. Happiness in the garden is observed by seeing plants that are flourishing and yielding maximum output. The Dacha concept of garden happiness is also evaluated on how many pests are present in the garden and how much destruction they cause.

The extra-dimensional strawberry tower maximizes happy gardening. Through the use of vertical, as opposed to strict use of horizontal space, the number of plants can increase while also increasing the likelihood that the plants will do well. This is achieved by evaluating the proper amount of soil, nutrition, and water each individual plant will need. With the design, another beneficial aspect is that the roots grow down within the soil as opposed to having roots that are sprawling. This is nutritionally beneficial to the plant since they get more nutrients from within the deeper soil.

Using the corner of the garden was a deliberate choice because that was the area of the garden that would be the most logical to construct a vertical and triangular gardening unit. After defining the proper area of the gardens, the right materials were needed for the vertical strawberry tower. The boards are made of black locust which is naturally rot resistant wood. The strawberries are also fed with compost consisting of soil form around the homestead and local horse manure. When the strawberries send runners, they will fall over the side of the trough they are planted in so that harvesting them is easiest and efficient.

This is the first vertical strawberry tower the Dacha Project has implemented, so it is an experiment in progress. Expect updates about this project!

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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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