Saturday (4/27) at Living Energy Farm (intentional living community visit)

OVERVIEW

(I can’t fix the formatting for some reason so for a prettier trip description check out this doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bC_fIwu9DgcJPGstAsGOugAxO9xrWd9z0XNXjJ_vETQ/edit?usp=sharing)

Hello my friend

If you are interested in experiencing intentional living communities but while living your best self-sufficient solar-punk life, you should join us for a day trip to Living Energy Farm! LEF is yet another intentional community in Louisa County that focuses on sustainable and cooperative living. Of all the Louisa communities, I found LEF to be the most technologically innovative (both energy production & usage) and self-sustained (food growing & preserving). They are a super inspiring example of our future possibilities for living both comfortably and sustainably while also saying goodbye to the typical 9-5 life sad in an office chair. If you are interested in sustainable living, engineering, and community building, this is the trip for you my friend! (& if this all sounds like gibberish/you have no idea what we’re talking about, you should totally come and learn about it! It’s so awesome source: trust me i would never lie to you <3) This trip will compose of a tour around the community (list of epic things to see below), a hands-on cooking demonstration (hopefully with their solar cookers if it’s sunny, but they also have homemade BIOGAS woah), dinner with the community (with help from us to clean up afterwards), and then some time to talk with community members and/or just wander around and explore the area before returning to Cville. I recommend you check out their website: https://livingenergyfarm.org/ &/or their newsletters: https://livingenergyfarm.org/past-newsletters/ Cool things to look forward to seeing/hearing about: Fruit trees Gardening Farming (larger scale, field crops; growing seeds as a business) Simple Harvester (an accessible technology invention for harvesting grains) DC microgrids and direct-drive solar electric power Plumbing, pumps, and storing energy as pressure Heating buildings and water; storing energy as heat Activism, decentralization as sovereignty, support of partners in the Caribbean Refrigeration with intermittent power, and convincing a company to produce something that doesn't maximize convenience Food preservation with dehydration (solar thermal energy) and canning (with heat from burning wood) Doing laundry Cooking…both in the sun and the rain; insulated electric cookers Tractors and alternative fuels: biogas and woodgas Appropriate building design based on local climate Energy literacy (why shouldn't I just put solar panels on my house?) Basic electronics (volts, watts, and amps; AC vs. DC) Batteries, and how to use as few as possible for as long as possible Schedule: 12pm: meet at echols 12:45pm: arrive at LEF! 1pm: tour of the community 4pm: hands-on cooking demo 5pm: dinner w the community (: 6pm: lingering, talking, informal q&a, wander around the community ooh-ing and ahh-ing until we’re ready to leave 7pm: head back to cville 8pm: back home! What to bring: - snacks & water - extra treats to contribute to dinner (very optional) - curiosity & an open mind