Installment #2 on Great Oak Cohousing: Their Work Program

The members and prospective members of Prairie Hill Cohousing have been curious about how other cohousing communities get their work done. We're all assuming that we will cooperate in many ways to make our community run well. And we're also assuming that there will be some things that we just hire out.

  How this will all develop is a bit beyond our imaginations right now, since we are not yet living at Prairie Hill (though some of us go to watch the construction so often that we might almost be residents!). So when I interviewed Sarah Ross last month about Great Oak Community, the work program was one of my biggest interests. Here's what Sarah told me:

At Great Oak, members are expected to put in 5-10 hours of community work a month. Rather than closely tracking whether this in fact happens, they have an honor system, trusting that members will pitch in to help as much as they can. If someone is sick or under stress, for example, the work from that person may drop down for awhile. And others fill in. It is interesting that on our recent field trip to Arboretum Cohousing in Madison, we found that they had a similar system. They recommend that members do at least 4 hours of community work per month, but they don't monitor this. As it turns out, some people end up doing relatively little and others do a lot. This may not be ideal, but they have decided that it works OK and is less stressful than trying to enforce hour commitments. It's like life in general. There are always differences is what people can do at a certain time. And if the community is healthy, with good communication and a caring atmosphere, members can trust each other to do what they can manage.

At Great Oak, interests and skills are taken into account when assigning jobs. Members take a computer survey to identify these. Then this survey is used to set up the community-wide work schedule. In the beginning, there was some tension around accountability and fairness, but over time that dropped away. New job assignments are done every 4 months. Some jobs are seasonal and others are year-round. Here are some examples of tasks assigned to members at Great Oak:

• bookkeeping
• check writing and depositing
• billing of common meals to members
• reimbursement to cooks
• childcare during community meeting
• taking minutes at community meeting
• facilitating community meeting
• snow removal
• landscaping

When we Prairie Hill folks talk about what kinds of things will be on our own list, we assume that cooking and clean-up will be among those tasks, as well as taking care of the two guest rooms, group work days on outdoor landscaping tasks or indoor cleaning. And once we begin to live at Prairie Hill, undoubtedly we'll discover other tasks that need to be included. All in all, though, many cohousers say that they end up spending less on these household tasks in cohousing than they did in a private home. So we're not worried, and actually are looking forward to working together on things we once did on our own.

Benefits of an Infill Development - More Progress on Prairie Hill

From the beginning of our project, I heard the phrase "infill development" used in reference to our prospective community at Prairie Hill. It made me think of using dirt to fill a hole, and though I was wrong about the dirt, I now realize that in a way we ARE filling in a hole, a hole in the network of housing and other buildings in the city. Until recently, the 8 acres we bought several years ago were used for farming, even though they are surrounded by housing neighborhoods. Our development of this property for more housing is good for the city because it is not contributing to urban sprawl, something that cannot be sustained indefinitely. Being an infill development is also good for us, the future occupants. For we have an easy connection to electricity, phone, sewer, water, and all those convenient amenities. Instead of bringing these services for miles to a rural setting, they are all right at our doorstep. See the pictures below of yesterday's work, digging down to the old (close to 100 years old) sewer access and replacing it with new pipes that should last a long time!

One friendly worker told me that they estimated the old line was put in around 1930 and certainly it looked a little worse for wear (see below).

On Tuesday, the crew got the new piping covered on the east side of Miller Avenue (below).

And then they started digging a long trench on the west side of the road (Prairie Hill land). The road has been closed for the duration of this sewer work.

 Here's a close-up shot of the huge shovel as it digs deeply right along our eastern perimeter.

Each day brings new progress. We make sure we stay out of the way of these hard-working men. But we can't help but keep watch as changes take place!

Finally! Infrastructure Work Has Begun!

Both yesterday and today, land is being moved around on the lower part of our property, the area where our buildings are going to be. 

Guided by the stakes our engineers carefully placed weeks ago, a small bulldozer is pushing dirt into a high pile.

The large and small pipes are waiting at the east side of the land.

Trip by trip

Up to the top

And back down again.

Field Trip to Arboretum Cohousing in Madison - This Coming Weekend!

Again members and prospective members of Prairie Hill Cohousing are making the trip to Madison, Wisconsin, to visit what we call our sister cohousing community there. Arboretum Cohousing has relatively recently gone through the development stages that we are experiencing now, and it has been heartening to hear their stories and see how they have achieved a thriving community in just a few years. Our commonhouse committee will be especially interested in how "Arbco" has planned and used its common spaces. We'll also be able to see the variety of housing units, hear about their daily way of life, how they get the community tasks done, how they make decisions, and all manner of other topics that come up when thinking about how this particular cohousing community works.

This field trip is still open for interested participants. We will leave at 8:00 a.m. this coming Saturday, 2/18, and carpool to Madison. Our meeting place is the OLD Hy-Vee parking lot on Dodge Street (not the new and thriving store about a block further south). We'll make this a day trip, getting back by mid-evening. If you are interested in joining us, email Nan Fawcett at nanjfawcett@gmail.com.

Fun at the Worm Talk

 Gummy worms in a cookie-crumb soil

 Partaking of the gummies

More worms for dessert

Find Out All About Composting with Worms! - Sunday, 2/12, 4:00

The unseen miracle-workers in the soil (and in your compost pile) will be the subject of this month's friends-of-cohousing meeting. As we look toward our future engagement with the dirt under our feet and in our gardens at Prairie Hill, this program will help get us started. And everyone is welcome, not just our members!

Scott Roser has been composting with worms (vermicomposting) for five years and has found it to be an amazingly simple and rewarding hobby. He has made his fair share of mistakes, but the worms have always been tolerant and forgiving of his errors. Vermicomposting is a great way to continue composting kitchen scraps throughout the winter. It is also a great method for those without space for a compost pile or those who do not produce enough kitchen scraps for outdoor composting. When managed well, a worm box produces very little odor and can even be kept indoors. Scott will give a presentation on the basics of vermicomposting and will teach you everything you need to know to get started.

This worm presentation will start at 4:00 on Sunday afternoon, February 12th at the County Extension Building at the Johnson County Fairgrounds, 3109 Old Highway 218 S. Come and hear about Scott's experience, then stay for an update on the Prairie Hill Cohousing project, and finally share a potluck dinner with us. Dessert will include our traditional Valentine's Day chocolate fondue (you can bring something to dip).  It's been awhile since we had a friends-of-cohousing meeting. They are great times to meet our members and have a chance to hang out with us over a meal. If you're considering cohousing, think about joining us on the 12th!

Interview with a Long-Time Cohouser - Installment #1: FOOD

The folks of Iowa City Cohousing have had the pleasure of spending time with Sarah Ross over the past week. Sarah lives at Great Oak Cohousing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is considering the possibility of moving to our own cohousing community sometime in the future. She's been at Great Oak for 14 years and is enthusiastic when she talks about what it's been like to live in cohousing for that long. In fact, she says that if she ever moves, it would only be to another cohousing community.  I interviewed her this week and filled so many pages of my notebook that I've decided to post this interview in installments. This one is about Great Oak's common meals. Food is about as important as anything in people's lives, and Great Oak's practices around food are something we can learn from.

What It's Like: Sarah says that Great Oak has a robust meal program. They started with meals in the commonhouse five nights a week, but more recently changed it to four. Participating in these community meals is one of the most successful ways for members to interact. There is a team of people preparing the meal, a team cleaning up afterward, and a friendly social atmosphere during the meal itself. Common meals are a time to visit with others, catch up on happenings, and enjoy the children of other households. Parents get a chance to visit with adults as their children go off to play in the children's room after they eat.

Who Can Come: Anyone who participates in the cohousing work program (which means about everyone) is invited to join in the common meals. (There will be a separate post about how Great Oak distributes the work of the community.) Usually there are 20-40 people at any given meal. 70-80% of the members go to at least one meal a week.

Signing Up: A menu is posted ahead of time. Great Oak has an online sign-up so that people can check the menu and their calendars and then sign up to be at a given meal. That way the cooks know how much to prepare. There are different costs per meal depending upon age: free for the very young, a little more for bigger kids, more for teens, and more for adults. A member tallies up each household's meal bill regularly and sends it to the members.

What Kind of Food? Sarah says that in general, the food is very good and high quality. There are regular community discussions about the kinds of food people prefer, the menus, the quality (i.e. how much should be organic, meat and vegetarian entrees, etc.) and the quantity. Different cooks, of course, have their own specialties. One favorite is an inventive food bar so that people can pick and choose to put together their own combinations.

Celebrations: Although members decided awhile back that they did not need to have desserts at every meal, a special dessert is made for birthdays and other celebrations. On these occasions, all members (even those who did not attend the meal) are invited to come for the dessert/celebration after the meal.

The Core: Sarah says that mealtime is the core of how Great Oak cohousers connect. That makes sense. So as Prairie Hill members think about the future, much focus will undoubtedly be placed on our times together in the commonhouse dining room, perhaps eating from our gardens, certainly enjoying a variety of creative cooking our members come up with. It should be a food adventure!

Sarah camping on Isle Royale