Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Marty Kraft <martyk@allspecies.org>]

Last weekend my wife and I visited Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage outside of 
Rutledge MO, northeast of Kirksville. They are a group of about 25 
people who's intent is to live sustainably on the land. Most of the 
buildings have small gardens next to them and they have a couple of 
larger gardens. Much of their personal energy has been taken up in 
building dwellings at this time. The people there did not seem like the 
laid back hippies that I remember. They seemed involved in work 
activities to maintain either themselves or the community. We were only 
there for a day and a half but it seems that they are working out 
problems that most people in our society will have to deal with, 
perhaps sooner than later.

They have a land trust that owns 280 acres and their intent is to build 
a sustainable town of 500 residents. Most are straw bale construction 
covered with clay and sand plaster. We stayed in a very nice two room 
house with neither electricity nor water. Although it was hot during 
the day it was nice and cool inside the house. Residents can lease a 
warren of land from the land trust to build on. You can own the 
building but not the land.

They have a four seater outhouse down the path where your deposit goes 
into a five gallon bucket and you sprinkle sawdust on it. Very little 
odor. The buckets are dumped in a separate compost pile where it stays 
for two years. They are testing out their composting process to make 
sure it's safe. They assured us that the human compost was not used on 
food gardens that visitors might eat from until their process is 
completely safe.

We ate in a community building that has running water and electricity 
from solar panels. Each morning they post the amount of energy that has 
been stored in the building's batteries by colors. On a green day you 
can watch a movie. On a yellow day you can't. With each color toward 
red you can do fewer and fewer things that require electricity. We were 
there for a yellow day and then a green one. The building has showers. 
Down by the swimming pond they have an outdoor shower with water heated 
by the sun in plastic bags with hoses extending down to the stalls 
below. Graywater is diverted through purification systems of plants to 
clean it up before it enters the streams.

When you decide to live there and they decide to accept you you must 
sell your car. They have three motorized vehicles, a diesel rabbit, a 
truck and a tractor. If you want to use the car or truck it costs 50 
cents per mile. The high price is to discourage burning fossil fuel. 
They try their best to use bio diesel in the vehicles.

They seem to be working out things as they go. They seem fairly 
flexible once you have accepted their sustainabity covenants. These 
people are really trying to live in an environmentally responsible 
manner and they are trying to share their model with others through 
their visitor program. Their work might be a place to get ideas.

http://www.dancingrabbit.org/

Marty Kraft 816-361-1230