Heartwood Cohousing in Top 10

Heartwood Cohousing has been selected at one of Natural Home Magazines top 10 Green communities. How Cool!

Here's some of their list.

Common area includes guest rooms, laundry and exercise rooms, library, game room, kitchen and dining room.
■ Solar-powered pump and gravity-fed water system move irrigation water to landscaping around homes.
■ Residents grow food and raise animals.
■ Two natural gas wells
■ All community and private homes are Energy Star-qualified.
■ Straw-bale workshop uses sustainable lumber.
■ Pathways and roads increase water permeability.

http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/People-and-Places/Natural-Home-Top-10-Green-Cohousing-Developments.aspx

Heartwood Food Sustainability

Several of Heartwood's members are working on building out the food sustainability of the neighborhood. While this video is not about us, it is a great video showing what is possible.

Garden Common Meal at Heartwood Cohousing

Bevan and Mimi have spearheaded a push to have food grown on site here and recently celebrated a successful start to that effort. They hosted a common meal that included locally grown food from Heartwood and LaBoca Ranch.




Great weather and a great meal.

Natural Building

Heartwood has seven alternative construction home. Three straw-clay, four strawbale, one straw-clay & strawbale hybrid, and one pumice-crete. Some features of these homes include earth plasters, timber-frame, earth floors, breathable walls, deep window seats, wooden ceiling.

Draft Horse Soil Preparation

Eric Husted and his team of draft horses preparing the pasture soil for reseeding, May 2008. A group of dedicated people reseeded the pasture, revitalizing the fields. They are green and beautiful!! Eric loves working the land and is spending the summer at the LaBoca Center for Sustainability growing food. (photos by Mario P. Manzo)

And Tennis Lessons too

After some delay... (Cough Cough)

The Tennis court is now up and running. Recently we have had some Tennis Lessons start for the kids. I stopped today and took a couple of shots for all to see.

New Chicken Fence (More room for the Ladies)

We expanded our Chicken Enclosure recently. We probably doubled our number of chickens by adding a bunch of chicks.

We probably quintupled the area available for the chickens to roam. Here are a few pictures of the hard working crew who showed up on Saturday to put up the fence. Now the chickens are happily chasing grasshoppers all over the ET beds.

Passing Thunderstorm with Rainbow at Heartwood Cohousing

Just last week we had a passing thunderstorm to the south of us. It created this beautiful Rainbow that I was able to catch from my front deck.

It is "Monsoon" season here. That basically means that we have bright sunny morning (often cool and crisp). Then it warms through the day and there is then a chance of a thunderstorm in the afternoon.

New Fence Posts for the Chickens

One of the ongoing projects here at Heartwood Cohousing is an expansion of the chickens. Right now there are about 15 chickens is a small pen. The "yard" is next to an ET bed (evapotranspiration bed). So we are expanding the outside yard to include the ET bed as a place for the Chickens to roam. Ultimately the ET bed area will be compartmentalized so that the Chickens will be rotated through different areas of the ET bed.

So yesterday We took an auger and cut about 15 post holes into the clay around the bed. Next step is to get the fence up and let the ladies roam.

Kite Flying at Heartwood Cohousing

We have started a new group here at Heartwood that is focused on he boys and dads. Not to oversimplify it, but we get together to interact in an organized way.



So a couple of weeks ago we got together and built kites. I have to say I was worried about it myself. I didn't really think I was going to be able to build one successfully.

Well I was wrong. It was awesome and all the kites flew. None survived the flights, but they all at least flew well once.

Check out how much fun this was.

Willie Wonka in Durango

The Durango Arts Center has a children's program called "Applause" This season, Nichol, Robin and Kate all took part.

CandyMan, Grandma and an Umpa Lumpa. (How the heck do you spell that anyway?)

Massive Work Party day at Heartwood Cohousing

Was this one of the biggest work parties we've had? Don't know, but it was big.

We

• Cleared huge amounts of Oak Brush
• Pulled 100 year old Barbed wire
• Replaced Irrigation Pipe
• Cleaned the Common House
• Seeded some of the pasture and
  
• Fixed fence

On top of it all we had breakfast prepared by another resident and lunch was a hoot too.

Foxy Resident

Where is the camera when you need it!??

Running this morning down Heartwood Lane, 7 am ish, the sun just coming over the ridge. Out of the corner of my eye I see a henna colored critter scampering out of our preserved wet lands, across the pasture and across the road right in front of me!

I stop, the henna colored fox stops, we look at each other. Off he/she scampers on to the neighbor's property, stops and looks at me again! It took my breath away.

What a magical moment.

Reseeding the Heartwood Cohousing Pasture

Lots of work going on down in the pasture. More to come on that as we just had a HUGE work day that was a blast. Food, Fun and work.

Back to the Pasture. One of the big projects we are working on is reseeding large sections of the pasture. Right now we have a group of people working several hours a week getting the field turned over so it will be ready for the seed. This is part of our 5 year plan to get the pastures up to our standards.

Flip Flops and Sun (At least for now)

No pictures. Just me LOVIN' a 70 degree day. Flip flops and jeans. I love Spring here.

March Greenhouse

Isn't this a beautiful site? Thanks to Bevan, one of our newest members and his partnership with La Boca Ranch we have lots of life in our greenhouse.

Don't Touch My Stuff

Just another day in llama world at Heartwood.

Thank goodness the snow is melting and by the way, keep away from my stuff.

Oh really says white boy Kiowa. I don't want your darn stuff!

Whatever........

Bald Eagles over Heartwood

Caught these photos as I worked this afternoon. Right out my back window.

Four Legs or Two?

Here is one cute female who insists she is a two legged creature (like us). Daisy is her name.

Daisy has done an excellent job of wrapping us around her little paw(s). But this day her cuteness was to no avail.

She is requesting that she come into the retreat room with the rest of us so she can put her two cents or four paws in the conversation. No go.........

Getting to Know You..........

Remember the song: Getting to Know You, Getting to Know all About You?

Well, last weekend Heartwood had their annual "retreat". We've been holding these weekend marathons since sometime in the mid 90's and they always bring us to a deeper understanding and acceptance of each other and ourselves.

Our first home was built in 2000 and last year, 2007, our neighbors finished their home, the last one in our cluster of 24 households. Now that we are up and running, we were investigating the possibilities of how we could take ourselves to a new place in expressing and sharing Heartwood Cohousing with the rest of you.

It was a full and rich weekend, with lots of great ideas. Watch the blog and we'll keep you posted on what we finally consense on. Soon you will be able to Get to Know Us a little better.

Cabin Fever?

I'm very excited that our slowly melting snow will soon reveal spring time, my most favorite time of year.

It's been a banner year for snow accumulation in the high country in Colorado and something that is greatly appreciated even though the digging out and the soon to be pools of mud can be a real pain.

We still have a few feet of snow at Heartwood, but each day as the sun shines, I see a little more of the fence tops, a little more of the sleeping shrubs, baby trees, gardens and the birds.

Enjoy the picture of my front garden, it is a joy to have that a part of our summer viewing here at Heartwood. It is one of my gifts to our community.

A Different Kind of Neighborhood.

This from someone who lives here at Heartwood Cohousing.

It occurred to me the other day just how much interaction I have with
my neighbors that I usually take for granted. Here is how my day
went. Could this happen in any other sort of neighborhood?

It was snowing-again.

Our car is no good in the snow and I needed to get to Durango.

I asked to borrow Ted and Martha's little four wheel drive car.

First I used it to take 2 of my kids and kids from 2 other families to
school.

While this went on Beth was taking Hugo to the high school for me and

Teresa was taking Al to the elementary school.

While I was in Durango I dropped off the cardboard recycling that was
in the back of the Pasternack's car.

After my time in Durango I picked up the same kids I took.

Beth brought Hugo home and Teresa brought Al home.

I headed over to the common house to help Sondra with the meal because
the other cook was sick. She already had help from Aurora and Sue so
I went home.

On the way home Aurora stopped me to give me some homemade soup
because I casually mentioned I didn't feel well.

I went home and ate that, felt better and then went to a fabulous

common meal that was cooked and cleaned up by more of my neighbors.
If you ask me the give and take that happened in that one typical day
is utterly amazing.

Thank you to everyone who lives here and contributes to my life
everyday in a thousand small but significant ways.

Love,
Sandy

Heartwood Cohousing Greenhouse pictures

Exterior of the Greenhouse





Here are some photos of the Heartwood CoHousing greenhouse. We have a bunch of starts that are in or are "starting" to go in. I'm going to try to get over there and show the progress of the starts /seedlings and then when we begin planting the garden I'll get photos of that as well.

I think Many of these starts are destined for LaBoca.

Common Meal and Visitors

We had our usual Wednesday common meal tonight. Yum....Fajitas



Visitors included Raines from www.CohousingCoach.com and the Lippers (Who also helped cook).. Way to go.



Following the meal the kids played a game in the main room.



And we don't want to leave out Jeff, and remember that there is "some" work to be done. He did a bunch of the cleaning. Thanks Jeff...