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| Highest ever population! February 1st marked a milestone in Twin Oaks history—we reached our highest population ever! We started out in 1967 with 8 members, and as of February 1 have grown to 93 adults and 15 kids living here. If only one more member joins, we'll have reached our maximum capacity, and we'll have to start a waiting list. [4 Feb 2004.] | |
| Non-Violent Communication (NVC). Living as closely as we do here at Twin Oaks means we talk about issues a lot. NVC is a process that uses various tools to help people communicate more effectively. An NVC practice group meets once a week at Twin Oaks, and interest is so high that we're about to form a second group. We meet to learn more about how to resolve conflicts, by listening empathically to each other, identifying people's needs, and making respectful requests of each other. For more info, http://www.cnvc.org/. [4 Feb 2004.] | |
| Sauna finished. We recently completed a new approx 200 sq ft wood-fired sauna and are having saunas sometimes several times a week. It's conveniently located right beside our pond; we use scrap wood to heat it. With temperatures below freezing, last night we had a "breaking the ice" sauna. Once people were heated up, they could cool off really fast by breaking the layer of ice on the pond, and jumping in! [Posted 18 Jan 2004.] | |
| New Greenhouse. Large new kit greenhouse near main garden was completed. There are two plastic layers with a small pump that inflates the space between layers. Photos and more story here. [Fall 2003.] | |
| Vegetarian Festivals. In late July 2003, a group of Oakers volunteered at the Richmond Vegetarian Festival. For their work handing out free samples of vegetarian fare, processing the festival's recycling and trash, and other tasks, they received shirts bearing the festival logo (foto to right.) At the Sept 27 2003 Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival we had representatives from our soyfoods business as well as an outreach booth for Twin Oaks Community. Viva las vegetarians! | |
| Homemade Organic Apple Cider. Adults and kids work together to press early season apples harvested from our orchards. The freshly pressed cider is so good! [August 2003] | |
| Good year for berries! Now that the drought has truly ended, all over Twin Oaks there is a profusion of berries ripe or ripening such as the exotically named goumi berry planted next to Kaweah. Goumi (Eleagnus multiflora) is a tasty berry related to the native autumn olive. Gooseberries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and others are all heavily laden with fruit this year. Strawberries though are suffering from excessively wet ground. [Jun 6, 2003] | |
| Shitake mushroom logs. We've started again cultivating shitake mushrooms for our own consumption. Dozens of white oak logs were prepared and will be cultivated in the moist woods near Zhankoye. [Summer 2003.] | |
| Oakers on the Road. A grand total of fifteen Twin Oakers descended en masse on the recent conference at The Farm intentional community in Tennessee. (We made up ten percent of the total attendees!) The conference was triple-themed: Community, Sustainabilty and Activism. Twin Oakers presented five workshops at the gathering, (including Radical Resource Sharing, Living in Community as a Form of Activism, and Radical Intimacy) and made many wonderful connections both with other participants as well as members of the Farm. In the spirit of a little healthy competition (which actually ends up being cooperation) we challenged the Farm to send equal numbers of representatives to our Communities Conference on Labor Day weekend. [May 23-25, 2003.] | |
| Passover Seder. On April 16 2003, the first night of Passover, a group of Twin Oakers joined together for a Seder. The Seder was held in Degania, one of our buildings that is named after a kibbutz in Israel. There were some traditional elements--Elijah's cup, matzoh ball soup, the Seder plate with the usual offerings, such as bitter herbs, a roasted egg, and shank of lamb. However, we also celebrated the Seder as a living ritual, modifying it as many people do, to focus on liberation for all who are oppressed. Our table included a cup for Miriam as well as Elijah, a beet on the Seder plate to include vegetarians (it "bleeds" as well), and an awareness of groups of people in our culture as well as those in other parts of the world who are currently suffering under oppression. We concluded the evening with various songs of liberation. Next Year in Utopia! | |
| The Vagina Monologues at Twin Oaks On March 8, International Women's Day, Twin Oaks celebrated by producing its own home-grown version of The Vagina Monologues. Following several weeks of rehearsals, 15 Twin Oakers read monologues, including 2 that we had written ourselves! So many members and friends came to see the performance that we cracked some floor trusses in the dining hall where it was being performed. During the week preceding the performance, each night had a special vagina-themed activity—self-exam night, art night, video night, writing night, and a women's ritual and dance. Women's culture is thriving at Twin Oaks! To read the monologues yourself, ask at a library or bookstore for The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler. | |
| ClassSpeak (One of a series of events held by a culture group called The Junction). Here's part of a short article by Valerie, the faciliator: "At this Speak, we were naming class reality in our lives. There are many ways to do this, we were doinga particular way which is pretty middle-class in format. This related to the meta-issue of how class is—the people who name something always bring their worldview bias to the naming, and it is the people with power who get to do the naming. We wanted to be aware of this as we were speaking." Read the full article about this Twin Oaks cultural event. [February 2003.] | |
| Little Hammock Shop of Horrors. As part of a long time tradition of putting on stage plays, Twin Oakers recently performed a parody of the famous musical. Photos. [Jan 2003] | |
| Impressions of Twin Oaks. Long term friend and frequent Twin Oaks guest Joan Mazza writes poetry about her experiences here. [Jan 11, 2003.] | |
| Wood and ceramics arts thriving. Stella does a lot of work sculpting ceramics and Woody does various crafts in wood, etc. See photo gallery and search under their names. | |
| The hammock shop calendar tradition. Every month a (random, by signup) community member volunteers to make a new page for our shop wall calendar. This tradition has continued for many years. There've been some amazing much-praised creative efforts (and one controversial enough for members to request that month's page be covered from public view!). The Jan 2003 calendar had a movable sledding santa and pop-open windows for each day of the month with short sayings. Created by Heather. [Jan 2003.] | |
| Moving through the yearly cycle: Many friends and family members joined us for our recent festivities to celebrate the New Year of the Gregorian calendar. Activities included a kids' performance of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, an excerpt from the upcoming Twin Oaks-modified production of Little Hammock Shop of Horrors, a coffeehouse featuring the talented performances of many of our members, a New Year's Eve yoga class, the Temple of Oracles, the Black and White Ball (big band music, colour-themed wardrobe encouraged), a quiet party, a kids party with fireworks at midnight, and of course an all-out rock-n-roll dancefest. New Year's Day featured a polar-bear dip in our pond, and annual Members Room Tour. [8 Jan 03] | |
| A new webstore has opened offering products made by crafters at Twin Oaks and other intentional communities. At launch communitymade.com offers for online sale Cleo's quilts (sample below) and products made by community members at Tekiah, Acorn, Earthaven and We'Moon Land. [8 Jan 03.] | |
| Sauna. Lynn and crew have been working steadily
on the new sauna by the pond. [Jan 9, 2003.] |
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| Drought report. A few months of abnormally high rainfall have now ended our soil moisture deficit though the deep water table probably needs years yet to recover. We had to hand dig potatoes as the soil was too wet to use the tractor digger. [Dec '02] | |
| International Flavor: During the year 2002 Twin Oaks welcomed participants in our Three-Week Visitor Program from various parts of the world including Canada, Germany, South Korea, Norway, Russia, and Spain. [7 Nov 02] | |
| Gwen born to Thea and Tom. [Oct 16, 2002.] | |
| Twin Oakers in the "Haul of Justice" Current
member Sean, ex-member Elliot and Three-Week visitor Heidi representing
Twin Oaks transformed themselves into 3 characters
of the 2002 Haul of Justice: Purl Roshi, Yankee Rose and Dynamic
Accumulator. The Haul of Justice is an annual bicycle
tour in which participants become superheroes, complete with capes and jerseys,
and bike from town to town volunteering at nonprofits and community projects. The superheroes are self-funded, though by buying organic food in bulk and cooking simple meals costs are kept low. The Haul of Justice is not a formalized nonprofit, but rather a collection of friends interested in service, community, and travelling mindfully through a region. See helping-others.org |
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| Twin Oaks 35th Anniversary weekend celebration. June 16th is the official day. Many dozens of exmembers gathered here for the tours, talent shows, music, rock 'n roll dances, etc. | |
| Rainbow hammock and chair. Stella got inspired, made a lovely rainbow hammock which hangs in front of Llano. Now she's making a chair. We have no current plans to sell such a product but who knows? Meanwhile, they're fun to look at. [May 2002.] | |
| Annual Dumpster Dive event. For some years now Keenan and others have taken a few vans to the local university to pick through the student end-of-term discards. By tradition there is a Sunday afternoon mob scene behind Zk as interested Twin Oaks scavengers pick through the take. Costumes, junkfood, shelving, clothing (sometimes brand new), lamps, even working computers have been recovered for reuse. And it's really fun! [May 2002 .] | |
| New well drilled. A local well drilling company sank a new water well for us to replace declining output from our old agricultural well. The same family-owned business drilled Twin Oaks' two other main wells 30 or so years ago. Besides putting on a great show the chosen site produced more water by far than any of our other wells drilled in the past. At a rated 70 gpm we should have sufficient water pumping capability for many years to come for irrigation and the Dairy. [May 2002.] | |
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