3-11-05

High on the ridge above Dripping springs wash and the Windspirit farm.

The Windspirit farm. Low cost living community focused on music and spiritual awareness. For those who would like to know more please go to their website, www.windspiritcommunity.org  

What a beautiful day. I went down late morning and had a nice visit with Don. He had gone to Tucson and visited two Home Depot stores and  was totally fried from the experience. His health hasn’t been that good and he is still recovering from an ordeal where one of the origional members of the commune died this  winter. All the police, corner, family and funeral bull shit completely wiped him out. He is on the mend though, so that is good news. I asked Don if I could wander around and take a few photos and he said that would be ok. Don is sort of running the place right now as the other members are away or busy with other things. He is trying to get a lot of  work done on the place while he has the young work force available. I didn’t ask how many workers he has now but I have met maybe  ten or so that are staying here now.

Don at the compost piles. He has gone to the slow method of  composting where you just pile it up and let it compost itself, rather than turn it all the time. He said he does go in an gently puff it up some. This gets some air into the pile and helps speed up the process. The old ‘approved’ method of turning the pile every so often is a lot of work and this slow method works just as good. We did the same thing on the farm with this minimum work method.

This is the semi subterranean greenhouse.

There are lots of little seedlings that will be planed in the garden soon.

Flowers are an important item here and I thnk these were inside to wait out the winter. They will probably be headed outside soon.

It looks like someone is making some fruit wine.

This is a nice little planting as  you come in the gate. It is such a welcome sight after coming in from the desert and I am sure when they really get started growing they will fill the bed.

One of the things that Don bought in town was a new composting toilet. I didn’t get a chance to really look it over good up it has a electric plug in and what seems to be water connections. I will have to ask Don about it.
This is the shower house where I took my shower yesterday.

On the way down to the farm this  morning I went past the Mexican farm and saw this boy walking along. There are several Pea fowl around the farmstead. They don’t have chickens at the Windspirit farm because they would be getting into the plantings and the dogs might help themselves to a chicken dinner.

The notice board. Projects that need work, events that are up and coming,  etc are posted here.

These are the solar water distillers. The far one I noticed had a full five gallon water bottle. Don said that he had put a new bottle under it yesterday, so five gallons per day is a lot of distilled water. That is Valentine keeping an eye on me while I was taking the photos here.

She is a really nice young dog but she evidently had some sort of reaction to a dog food and had some rough spots on her fur. They had been treating her with colloidal silver and it has been healing her up. She likes pets.

There are cool little sculptures around.

A mother figurine.

I really like this bamboo grove.

I came across a solar food dehydrator.

And looked inside.

There are nice little paths all around the place.

And  contemplative sites where a person can sit quietly.

The fruit trees are in bloom.



And the orange and other citrus trees are loaded.



This is the main communal gathering circle. This was where last year at the annual meeting, all the members gathered and discussed what was needed for the foloowing year. This is were everyone was yesterday I guess. I think someone is a massage therapist, but not sure. Last year there was going to be one come for the weekend but was a no show. That was when I had fallen off my bike and I could have really used a treatment.

I really like this pottery piece. It says a lot for the type of place this is.

I met this little lady on her first birthday. She is one cute little redhead.

Mom and Dad with their prize.

This is the new underground sauna that is was built since I was here last year.

I really like the looks of this tent. It has a nice new wood deck/floor. It is canvas and has a wood stove in it evidently. I hope to find out more about this.

I met this little dog and he is  very friendly.  They noticed that he had gotten into a cactus and were pulling out the spines. He was being a really good dog about it.

An old dog that doesn’t get excited about anything but was hanging out at the cook shack in the shade.