2019 Minnesota Mineral Club

[Ludwigia]

6 hours ago, Bev said:

@Ludwigia WOW! What a great life of giving!  I am in TOTAL ADMIRATION of your life of service. THANK YOU  for sharing!  :-D

Thanks, Bev. I did have some fun along the way as well, although it can become somewhat challenging at times. To each his own, I guess. I certainly also admire what you've been able to create with your life. Individual initiative is just as important as community activity and you sure seem to be committed to social entrepreneurship.

[Bev]

6 hours ago, jpc said:

what a great fossil and community discussion.  I first heard of wwoofers 30 years ago in New Zealand... met some folks who were traveling around the world doing it.  

 

And I need to know... what are fisherites?  It looks like a receptaculites.  

 

Receptaculites were renamed Fisherites about 25 years ago.  New name, same fossil.  :-)  Yes, I too have met people who are traveling around the U.S., North America or even the world through Wwoof! Great program!  :-D

[Bev]

@Ludwigia Thank you! I have been very active with community building among farmers. In the 90s I was the Coordinator for the Sustainable Farming Assn. of Southeast Minnesota. Small farms here are really struggling. I am still active in that arena as this place is a tiny organic Permaculture farmette. Airbnb in the U.S.A. is actually more successful in rural areas and bringing city folk to interface with country life. 95% of my customers are wanting to have a "farm" experience. I put that in quotation marks because they don't want a "real farm" where there is manure, animals being butchered or big scary tractors. Here they get a taste of the country, pet a horse or donkey, feed the chickens or ducks by hand, watch the white doves fly. I have a stocked trout stream on the property, so they can fish and of course FLOWERS.  I have my fossil gardens set up and they can even go fossil hunting!

 

And right now I am working on building a sleigh! I hope to have it done by the end of today. I've had it all tore apart and in my kitchen for painting. This is a tight budget project, as all of mine are. FYI, I totally love my new battery operated chainsaw!

 

 

 

 

 

[Ludwigia]

@Bev Looks like you and your guests are gonna have some fun in the wintertime! Do you have a quarterhorse to draw the sleigh? Our farmers and gardeners are very active in the biodynamic and ecological movements in southern Germany (but we do have manure and big scary tractors, although the butchering is done elsewhere ). It's no coincidence that we have a provincial government run by the Green Party in Baden-Wuerttemberg, since this is one of the most ecologically stable areas in Europe.

I told one of the gardeners about the Wwoofers today and it turned out that they already know about them. They'd be glad to add them to our list of volunteer services, but we have the problem that we don't have enough room to put them up. We're hoping to build more houses in the future to accomodate this and other things, but we'd need to get started with fundraising in order to do that and the institution has other priorities at the moment. 

[Bev]

@Ludwigia yes the plan is sleigh riding in a one horse open sleigh! I have a ride and drive grey mare who is half Andalusian, quarter Arab and a quarter Appaloosa. Here is a pic of her getting tuned up at the local Amish trainer.

 

I've been working at remodeling my barn and here she is in the front stall.

 

 

I've started Christmas early in the barn!  LOL  :-D

 

 

Wwoofing farms often provide just a place for the wwoofers to camp or RV parking with no or limited electric. Earlier in this thread I showed pics of the 95% recycled wwoofing garden cottage THEY built out of pallets - by wwoofers for wwoofers! Here is an evening shot with the solar lights.  :-)

 

 

Another source of income for Camphill would be Airbnb (or whatever venue is popular there as I also do Hipcamp) camping or in tiny houses!  I'm out of photo space on this comment, but will add another!  :-D

[Bev]

@Ludwigia I have a little private camp in the back of my horse pasture called Woods Edge Camp. I, and some of the wwoofers, built (remodeled significantly) this old ice shack into a dry tiny house! Sometimes it is used by wwoofers, sometimes I rent it out, sometimes it is for me to just get away and camp in comfort. I have $2,700 in it! It is on wheels! This summer a Naturalist from Mystery Cave/Forestville State Park stayed in it all summer when he was working at the cave.

 

My wwoofers want to learn to build. Having them build out of donated, recycled materials, cottages they will use or can be used for short term rentals to spread the word about Camphill, or for the family of your disabled residents when they come to visit, would, in my mind, be a true WIN-WIN! You would be surprised the amount of material you can get donated by big home improvement centers, etc.!

[Ludwigia]

1 hour ago, Bev said:

@Ludwigia yes the plan is sleigh riding in a one horse open sleigh! I have a ride and drive grey mare who is half Andalusian, quarter Arab and a quarter Appaloosa. Here is a pic of her getting tuned up at the local Amish trainer.

I've been working at remodeling my barn and here she is in the front stall

 

Friendly looking creature

 

1 hour ago, Bev said:

 

Another source of income for Camphill would be Airbnb (or whatever venue is popular there as I also do Hipcamp) camping or in tiny houses!  I'm out of photo space on this comment, but will add another!  :-D

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but since our institutions here in Germany are mostly government funded, it's too complicated or almost impossible to take this route because of the accompanying regulations.

 

1 hour ago, Bev said:

 My wwoofers want to learn to build. Having them build out of donated, recycled materials, cottages they will use or can be used for short term rentals to spread the word about Camphill, or for the family of your disabled residents when they come to visit, would, in my mind, be a true WIN-WIN! You would be surprised the amount of material you can get donated by big home improvement centers, etc.!

Maybe you'd like to get in touch with one of our communities in NY or PA with this offer. Sounds like a nice idea. Here's a link.

 

 

[Bev]

35 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

Friendly looking creature

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but since our institutions here in Germany are mostly government funded, it's too complicated or almost impossible to take this route because of the accompanying regulations.

 

Maybe you'd like to get in touch with one of our communities in NY or PA with this offer. Sounds like a nice idea. Here's a link.

 

 

Done!   :-D

[Ludwigia]

4 hours ago, Bev said:

Done!   :-D

[Bev]

And the sleigh is almost done!  :-D

 

[Ludwigia]

Jingle Bells.....