Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage is holding its 2nd Annual Winter Fun Open House on Sunday, January 10th, from 2-4pm at the farmhouse on 45 Edgecomb Rd in Belfast. This event will feature a slide presentation about cohousing in general, and an update on the growing Belfast project in particular. Children (and the young at heart!) are especially welcome to join in weather-permitting sledding, skating, bonfire and hot cocoa taking place at the same time and location.

Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage is creating a 36-home multi-generational cohousing community that is rural but just 2 miles from downtown Belfast, will cluster its homes, practice sustainable agriculture, and be an innovative housing development model for rural Maine. Living in community is the centerpiece of this project with sustainability and the many benefits of a vibrant, old-fashioned neighborhood among its goals.

The project currently has 21 Equity Member households (committed to the project) and an additional 22 Exploring Member households (not yet committed), as well as an interested “Friend” list of over 600 individuals nationwide. The goal is thirty-six households of families with children of all ages, couples, and single adults. For more information go to www.mainecohousing.org or call 207 338-9200.

On Sunday, December 13, Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage will host its second annual Holiday Family Festival. The event, from 2-4 p.m. at 45 Edgecomb Road, features live music, cookie decorating stations, and a make-your-own decoration activity. The Holiday Family Festival is free, and all are welcome.

“Last year’s festival was a big success,” said Sanna McKim, the community’s project manager. “As soon as it was over, we knew we wanted to do it again. ”

The festival coincides with an open house hosted by the cohousing community. Members of the community will be available to talk about the project and its development.

“We’ve spent a lot of time reaching out to new members—especially families,” said McKim, “and we’re seeing results. Cohousing is designed to encourage gatherings like the Holiday Family Festival. People really respond to that idea.”

Featured musicians include guitarist Steve Chiasson—a member of Evergreen—and fiddler Chuck Markowitz, who also works as an emergency room physician.

“If you need a snack or a gift or something for yourself, or just a reason to get into the holiday spirit, this is as easy as it gets,” said McKim. “We’ve made the cookies, we’ve got the toppings, and we’ve got the materials for making decorations. We’ve also got a lot of spirit.”

On Sunday, November 8, from 2-4 p.m., at 45 Edgecomb Road, Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage will host an open house. The event will feature a game of Frisbee golf; a tour of a model home built by G•O Logic, the project’s design/build firm; and an opportunity to talk with project members and walk the community’s land.

“This level of activity is actually pretty typical of our community,” said Sanna McKim, one of the project’s leaders. “We get a lot done in two hours. We talk, we plan, we build—and we have a lot of fun doing it.”

At 2, Frisbee golf players can tackle an informal nine-hole course spread across the project’s land. “The community owns 30 acres,” said McKim, “and we’re planning to preserve the surrounding 150 acres as farmland and open space. If you play the course, you’ll get a good workout; you’ll also get a good feel for the land.”

At 3, Alan Gibson, a partner at G•O Logic, will lead a tour of one of the firm’s model homes, on Crocker Road. “It’s a super-insulated, passive solar house,” said Gibson. “It’s designed to reduce the cost of heating and powering a house by as much as 90%. It’s also a kind of rough draft of the housing we’ll build for the Cohousing & Ecovillage project.”

At Edgecomb Road, visitors can inspect the project’s house designs and site plans. Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage has spent two years planning an environmentally sustainable, multi-generational cohousing community.

The event is free, all are welcome, and delicious snacks—a hallmark of the Belfast Cohousing experience—will be provided.

We’re looking for players — no, not the jet-set kind of high rollers, but participants for a full scale Live Chess Game on Sunday, Sept. 13, from 2-4 pm at the Farmhouse on 45 Edgecomb Road.

Live Chess uses 32 real people as chess pieces playing on a huge outdoor chess board 32 feet square. Ray Estabrook of The Game Loft characterizes the game as “Chess meets Worldwide Wrestling.” It is fast, funny, and ferocious… and not to be missed! Chess players of all ages and abilities are welcome to join in the fun. Actual chess experience is irrelevant. The kings (team captains) will be played by “Bloody Red” Russell Kahn, local chess and art teacher extraordinaire, battling Warren “Dark Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” Falconer. The public is invited to watch the game or to participate as a chess piece—both roles are expected to be engaging, if not educational! Hand-crafted chess attire will be provided to players starting at 2:00 pm followed by an orientation to the game, with the match itself commencing promptly at 3:00 pm. “It really has nothing to do with our ecovillage project,” says organizer Elizabeth Garber. “It just seemed like a fun thing to do in a big beautiful field before fall sets in and we all get bundled up.” Refreshments are provided. The event is free and open to the public. To reserve your place on the chess board, please call Elizabeth Garber at 338-9936 or email ewgarber@adelphia.net.

The Game Loft, Belfast's downtown youth center, has been staging Live Chess for more than 12 years. To learn more about them, visit www.thegameloft.org.

Join us on August 9th, noon - 4 pm at the farmhouse at 45 Edgecomb Road in Belfast for an Open House & Yard Sale (14 households worth of stuff!) and a free workshop, Introduction to Working With Draft Horses.

Kids are encouraged to sign up, and all are invited to try their hand at harnessing and driving single or possibly a team of well-trained older Norwegian Fjord horses. This breed is much smaller than many of the draft horses you see typically around here, so it's a great way to get started! Depending on the interest (space is limited so please do let us know if you want to participate rather than just watch), we may get to try a little obstacle course with a small log as well.

Steve Ackeley, equine dentist and teamster who owns 10 Norwegian Fjord horses, will lead the workshop. Don't miss this hands-on opportunity! And if you are curious about the breed in general, here is a link to some excellent info and nice photos of Norwegian Fjord horses. (we'll have some good shots of Steve and his team after the workshop).

http://www.willowsedgefarm.com/norwegianfjords.html

Call 338-9200 or email info@mainecohousing.org to reserve a space.

Looking for an opportunity to hang out with some great folks, wear a fancy hat, play lawn games, eat hand-cranked ice cream and paw through tables of yard sale treasures looking for that next great find? Then join us at the Farm on 45 Edgecomb Road in Belfast on Sunday, July 12, from 2 - 4 pm. There will be a special prize for the best party hat, so go ahead — pull out the stops!

No Early Bird shoppers, please. We're late sleepers… AND we'll be in a meeting 'til 2:00 pm!

The buildings on the old Keene farm (a portion of which is the site of our community) have been a work in progress for equity member Alan Gibson and his construction crew for many months. There's much to do yet, particularly with the barn, but the farmhouse itself is finished enough for us to begin using it for regular community meetings. We've also begun making the space available to outside groups whose mission and purpose are in harmony with our own — a practice we hope to expand on once our Common House is built.

The first such event, "Stone Age Economics," will take place on Wednesday, July 8th, at the farmhouse (45 Edgecomb Rd, Belfast). This presentation by the Newforest Institute is the third in a six-part series called "Permafeast!"— hands-on workshops that demonstrate the principals of permaculture and natural farming. The session will be held from 4:30-7:30 p.m. The cost is $20 ($100 for the entire series). Advance reservation is requested; class size will be limited to 15.

For more information or to register, call 207-722-3625 or send an e-mail to andrea@newforestinstitute.org.

Join us on Sunday, May 10, from 2-4 pm at the Farmhouse at 45 Edgecomb Road, off Rt. 3, two miles west of Belfast, to celebrate Mother’s Day with a Nature Walk with Naturalist Mike Shannon at 2 pm, and at 3 pm to join in a May Pole Dance with live music. Take a look at plans for the Common House and the individual home designs for the community. Find out about our affordable, environmentally-sustainable, farming-based neighborhood-in-the-works. The event is free.

Mike Shannon, a member of the Cohousing community, has taught ornithology and natural history courses at Unity College, and natural history at Senior College at the Univ. Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast. He will lead a nature walk at 2pm. across the 150 acres that border the Little River, formerly the Keene Farm, where the Cohousing homes and gardens will be situated on thirty acres.
Maypole dancing is an ancient European folk dance with where dancers circle a tall pole holding onto colorful ribbons, which intertwine and braid around the pole. Maine musicians and community members will play a variety of folk songs and the dances will be taught, so family members of all ages can joy in the fun at 3pm!

We're at an exciting stage in our develpoment, and at this event the public will be able to see the results of two years of planning. There are now plans for one to four bedroom individual homes and duplexes as well as a beautifully designed Common House, which will be the thriving heart of the community. The layout of the highly energy-efficient homes, situated so that they preserve agricultural land, is in the final stages of engineering reports and planning approval. The group envisions breaking ground in the Fall of 2009 once the spaces for the remaining households are filled. To reach their goal of a mixed-age, mixed income neighborhood, young families and first-time home buyers are particularly encouraged to get involved.

Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage members invite the community to join us to decorate Easter Eggs and plant seeds on Saturday, April 11, from 2-4 pm at Waterfall Arts Center at 256 High Street in Belfast. We'll be decorating Easter Eggs in the Eastern European way (psanky) with many colors of dyes and painting on beeswax in fancy patterns. Additionally, farmer and orchardist Anne Hallee will be planting seeds with kids. It’s a perfect way to have a fun afternoon with your children and friends, and find out about our environmentally sustainable, affordable, farming-based neighborhood-in-the-works. We are 14 households with 16 more considering it, and have a few spaces left for families who share our vision of community, a smaller ecological footprint, and greater self-reliance in today’s economy. Is this for you (or someone you know)? Check it out!

Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage presents “Ecovillages: Where They Are, What They’re Doing, Why They’re Important”, a slide presentation and discussion by Diana Leafe Christian, on Friday, March 20th from 7:00-9:00 pm at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast. Author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities (2003) and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community (2007), Christian’s talk will feature the ecological, economic, social and cultural aspects of sustainability, with over 400 photos of 30+ ecovillage projects worldwide. The presentation will explore how finding community is as critical as obtaining food and shelter, since the need to belong is what makes us human. The isolation and loneliness of modern life have led many people to search for deeper connection, resulting in a renewed interest in intentional communities. These intentional communities and ecovillages are an increasingly appealing choice for like-minded people who seek to create a family-oriented and ecologically sustainable lifestyle. Ecovillages that thrive do so because of the combined skills and resources of their members.

Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage presents Keith Zaltzberg, a leader in Permaculture education and planning, for a talk on Sunday, March 8, from 2-4pm at Waterfall Arts Center at 256 High Street in Belfast. The focus of his presentation will be “What our world might look like if we lived in close relationship with our food, neighbors, and nature.”

Permaculture is a whole systems design perspective that can guide us to this kind of harmonious integration of ecology and community through thoughtful design. With real world examples from New England, this workshop will explore theory, strategies and techniques for integrating perennial polycultures, low maintenance food systems, animals, alternative energy, and waste systems into ecological communities for a more vital, beautiful and truly sustainable future.

Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage community members will host a reception at 4 pm where the public can learn about the latest progress in the creation of Belfast’s family-friendly, environmentally-focused cohousing community. A $5 donation is appreciated (waived for young families).

The Valentine's Open House event was incredibly wonderful and well attended by cohousing folks, kids and our community. Music filled the air with Steve playing guitar and singing with Barbara. They, along with Paul on hammered dulcimer, were imagining how much music will be played in the Common House. Donna and Neill were baking Valentine cookies to keep up with all the beautiful decorating going on at the crowded tables, which were covered with an amazing array of Valentine's card-making supplies for a steady stream of creative families, kids and adults. Wendy and Tom set up the display, and Wendy and Hans and many other cohousing members talked steadily to many interested guests. Tina Shute, the photographer from the Republican Journal stayed a long time taking pictures of cutting and pasting hearts, happy folks singing, and little kids dancing to the music.

This quote from Mark Twain makes me think of our Common House and about the energy we are already gathering together:

Our house had a heart and a soul and eyes to see us with;
and approvals, and solicitudes, and deep sympathies;
it was of us and we were in its confidence,
and lived in its grace and in the peace of its Benediction....
We could not enter it and be unmoved.

- Elizabeth Garber

Belfast Cohousing and Ecovillage invites you to a Family Valentines Open House on Sunday, February 8, from 2-4 pm at the Waterfall Arts Center on Waldo Avenue in Belfast. Join us to make traditional and unusual Valentines, decorate cookies, and enjoy musical accompaniment with your family and friends, as well as learning about the newest developments in the creation of a cohousing community close to Belfast. The event is free.

In case you can’t make it to this Open House, every second Sunday of the month there is another one. In March we’ll focus on Permaculture, April we’ll have an Easter Egg Hunt on the farm, and May we’ll have a Maypole and music to dance to.

The number of committed members is rising rapidly toward our desired thirty households of families with children of all ages, couples, and single adults. For more information go to www.mainecohousing.org or call 207 322-0001.

Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage invites you to a bonfire and winter fun on Sunday, January 11, from 2-4 pm at the old farmhouse on 45 Edgecomb Rd. in Belfast. Bring your skates, sleds, snow shoes or skis and join us for a bonfire and winter activities of sledding, ice skating, snow fort and snow people building, and learn about new developments in the creation of a cohousing community close to Belfast. Hot cocoa, marshmallows for roasting and popcorn will be available. The event is free. For more information, or in case of inclement weather that day (all wind, rain and no snow or ice), go to www.mainecohousing.org or call 207 338-9200.