These are a few places I have visited and learned a lot from :

Three Roods Farm
Three Roods Farm is a 23-acre non-certified organic family farm. We operate a CSA of 9 shares. We keep laying hens in an innovative permaculture facility. We rotationally graze Shetland sheep, and Robin spins and weaves the wool. We keep several colonies of bees. We are reforesting an 11-acre field, largely with trees we raise from locally gathered seed. We recycle leaves from the adjacent village and participate in the countywide Earth Day Celebration. There are recreational opportunities nearby on the Flint River, in the village of Columbiaville and on an adjoining 120-acre nature sanctuary. Robin is an RN who works part-time at the local hospital. She also teaches Integral yoga and the Dances of Universal Peace. Greg is a homeopathic physician and teaches classes in Homeopathy and Organic Gardening.

I was at this magical place May-June 2008

Strawbale Studio Natural Building Project
Located on 50 acres in rural SE Michigan, the Strawbale Studio Natural Building Project features a thatched roof, straw bale construction, cob benches and sculptures, earthen plasters, natural paints and finishes, and solar electricity. Experience hands-on training while working on the current natural building & sustainability projects and gardens. Projects planned for 2006 include: A Start-to-Finish Children's Cottage (featuring strawbale construction, light clay, compressed earth blocks, thatched roof and round pole framing), Rocket Stove Heated Bench (finishing plasters), installation of a 12x18' greenhouse, a radiant earthen floor for the Strawbale Studio and permaculture and native plantings in Zone One and 2 beds. Take part in (and help prepare for) workshops and exhibits planned during your stay. Some assistance with maintenance and site improvement is desired. Foraging is taught & encouraged, and gardens are under development for vegetables, permaculture, native plantings and perennials. Year-round volunteering. The Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center ~~ a wind & solar powered, earth-sheltered building with a living roof, Bald Mountain Recreation Area and Seven Ponds Nature Center. Contribute to the development of a sustainable place as you both learn and help teach others. Meet interesting people, take part in local sustainability events, have access to an extensive library and video collection on natural building and sustainability and have fun.

Ok, I only was here for an afternoon but this place was also really amazing.

Flannel Duck Gardens
Flannel Duck Gardens of Wilson, Michigan in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan seeks WWOOFers to contribute work on our 3 acres of vegetables and flowers. WWOOFers will participate in the garden work (planting, cultivating, organic pest control, harvesting, and marketing) and can help take care of the animals, ducks and chickens. There may be occasional other farm projects to participate in, greenhouse work, building maintenance, construction projects, etc. There is a swimming pool on the property as well as a refreshing river. We are 20 min. drive from the shores of beautiful lake Michigan and a longer drive to lake Superior, many gorgeous hiking trails and parks like Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore as well as Isle Royale National Park.

I was here July of 2008.

Teaching Drum Outdoor School
This one-year experience will greatly advance you towards being earth-sufficient, rather than self-sufficient from survival to living, from spectator to dwelling in attuned immersion. At times, you'll be gathering most of your food and drinking wild water, you'll be making your own shelter and skin clothing, you'll learn what to use for soap and wounds and intestinal cramps. You'll be walking silently and seeing more than you ever knew existed. You'll learn first-hand the spiritual life of the native. You'll know, from their direct teaching, the ways of Wolf and Raven, of the elder Trees and healing Herbs

I stayed a quartermoon with the Seekers early August. They will be on MTVs True Life; I am Living Off the Grid on October 5th (the link wont really work until then).

Common Ground Relief
Common Ground started with 3 volunteers and $50 dollars. We have grown to over 40 fulltime organizers and hundreds of volunteers including health care workers, community organizers, skilled laborers, techies, legal and housing rights advocates, gardeners and more. In addition to the programs below we have built alliances with other relief and community organizations, developed a network of over 700 volunteers, secured over 150 bikes for area residents and volunteers, and produced a new promotional video called "Solidarity Not Charity."

I got to go the lower ninth ward and see the destruction and their wonderful work first hand. Again I just visited but they need more help so I posted it.

New Orleans Women's Shelter
The objective of NOWS is to provide transitional housing for homeless women and children in the New Orleans area and allow them to stabilize their lives while assisting them in establishing an independent, self-supporting and productive lifestyle.

I was here for a week in August and left just before Gustav hit. I don't think I am ready for that kind of work yet.

Future Adventures
The Arivaca Community Garden
The ACG is located in southern Arizona. We are a non-profit social service operation that works to improve food security in our community. We are a well equipped, staff-run garden which produces a variety of crops for sale at farmers markets, use in community projects and donation to local food banks. We offer am opportunity to learn gardening as a mode for social work. There is plenty of work in and out of the garden.

next week

Terrasante Village
Located in the sunny Sonoran desert on 8 of 160 acres of Terrasanta Community. Growing organic garden, permaculture, solar energy projects, electric cars, earthbag building, sculpture, etc. Incredible sunsets, hiking, biking. Several mountain ranges, Saguaro and Ironwood National Parks, Desert Museum within 20 miles. Visitors accommodated in a yurt, earthen dwellings, or tent camp/RV. Terrasante Village is to serve as a living laboratory for sustainability through development of low carbon living.

Then I am going here, then California. The WWOOF Directory has like thirty pages of farms in California so I don't know where next now but it won't be long until I do. There are also lots of Eco-Villages to vist there too, so I might just stay.

List of adventures I am saving up for...


Year in Wisconsin Wilderness Teaching Drum Outdoor School

Darkness Retreat in Thailand Universal Tao Garden

Forty Day Pilgrimage in Spain The Santiago de Compostela Camino

Mycorrhizal Research Volunteer in Spain Sunseed Desert Technology

Permaculture Design Course

WWOOF Hawaii and Internationaly

Volunteer AmeriCorps

BSc in Integrative Ecosocial Design Gaia University
or

BA in Individualized Studies Goddard College

Land, windows, trees, chickens and goats of my own

They felt my presence that first day,
Sensed something different and stayed away,
Then one day they all got bored,
And circled round like a raging hoard,
Their faces so innocent there words so vile,
I was on public kindergarten trial,
As some passively watched my soul in plight,
They had the expression of wondrous delight,
They knew not what they said,
Only that they wished me dead,
They stole from me parts of my very soul,
I feared I never could again be whole,
What I did to deserve this fate,
I do noth know to this date,
But by the disapproving glare of the faculty,
I knew they also wished to be attacking me,
They fear the children, who are not at ease,
For their responses to these atrocities,
They know what can happen when the lonely fight,
Against the masses and their might,
The anger wells up deep inside,
Something we can never easily hide,
I know I in this I am not alone,
That the entire planet has not hearts of stone,
The teacher pats the heads of her pets,
They do her work so she has less regrets,
Sniff out the “bad ones” and destroy,
Is the function that they employ,
The rewards of doing her evil work,
Come in the in the form of self worth,
A gold star there, a great work here,
Leaves them felling superior,
Confidence is all you need,
In order to succeed,
I must tell this tale entirely,
It is not the teachers who conspiring,
It is those who we are to find inspiring,
Rockefeller, Morgan, and Carnegie,
Plotted long ago in pretence of philanthropy,
To ensure a century of wretched monopolies,
Why couldn’t they have just let me be,
When all I did was think freely?

This looks terrible compared to the original because the formating options are so limited on this thing. Before the lines went diagonally so they looked like stitches over red lines that looked like claw marks. I wrote this last spring when I was first discovering books on unschooling.