Garden

Last weekend we had a wonderful turnout of helping hands in the garden. It was planting day and neighbors came out to get to work weeding, amending, pruning and yes, planting. Saturday morning turned out to be perfect weather for the work, with a light breeze and not the hard hitting heat.
We planted lettuce, peas, parsnips, beets, radishes, carrots, chard and much more! What a feast we will have available to us come this fall. For those of us who lingered, we were rewarded with a violin and piano serenade coming through a neighbor's window. I wish I had a sound bite on this page just to give you a feel for what we got to experience that morning. It was like none other and I have to say, it was a cohousing HIGH in my book!
Many thanks to the men and women of the community who helped.

Some Memorable Events...

Over this past year, we have had the privilege of participating in some really neat events here at La Querencia. I wanted to post a few pictures of the events related to the kids, since that is what my world is at this stage in my life! :) There are 3 events in particular that stand out to me and my family-the first being the Rocket Launching party!



George had the idea that the kids might enjoy building and then launching their own rockets. Why not, right? Well, the kids LOVED this idea! Each child who participated built and painted their own rocket. The day of the launch each kid got to shoot off their rocket and then go catch the parachuting top.


I love this picture, you can see the smoke from the rocket and the initial reaction from each person as they look to the sky!


Here is the crew of rocketeers! A memorable morning was had by all. Thanks George (and Neil for helping!) for making it happen!

The next memorable event here at La Q was a Kid's Water Day. Several families were returning from different vacations as well as new families joining our neighborhood. We thought it would be a good idea to get all the kids out on the lawn and have them meet and interact in a fun way.

First we had all the kids meet and tell us their names and one thing the LOVED!


Then it was time for the slip-n-slide. We also played a water balloon toss, and water balloon tag. Then it was time for a dip in the pool.

We not only had a great turnout of kids, but many of our other residents came out to enjoy the fun and watch the kids get wet! We finished the night off with popsicles for everyone.

Finally, though I know there will be more memorable moments to come yet this year, was our Movie by the Pool night. George came through again with another great idea: why not have a movie night by the pool? Awesome! We had a great turn out and the kids swam into the night while watching Toy Story 3.




My family just loves living here at La Querencia! My kids have found a home where they are accepted and loved for who they are. We see them interacting with people of all ages and learning life and social skills that will take them far beyond their years here at La Q. As a parent, that is a wonderful thing to watch. Cheers!
-Jen Schultz

Fresno Earth day 2011

April 30 – 11 am & 4 pm FREE and Open to the Public
Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno 2672 East Alluvial Clovis, CA 93611

Join the Fresno Earth Day Coalition for Earth Day 2011 at Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno.

This is the second year the Unitarian Universalist Church has hosted Fresno Earth Day. This successful event was well attended last year and has expanded this year. 2011 activities include over 75 participants, live music, local food, practical workshops, tours, exhibits, films, kids' activities, green car show, free e-waste recycling, solar cooking & bio-fuel making demonstrations, green car show, bike ride, walking tours - xeriscaping, green building tour, bird watching, vermiculture (earthworms), composting workshop, care for garden tools workshop, children’s activities, vegetarian cooking and paper making workshop, valet parking for bikes, Free Bike and Helmet Safety Checks and much more.

Additional Details:
Live Music includes: Lonesome Jem - Jem Bluestein and friends - Master of many kinds of American and European ethnic musics; Soul Kitchenette - organically-raised, free-range musicians who play highly sustainable rock/pop/soul music that you will find delicious; Heartland Harvest - Mixing traditional and contemporary folk, blue grass, old-timey, and other Americana - including funny stuff; Bound for Oblivion - a blues influenced rock trio. They do lots of original music, but also have lots of covers in their repertoire; Roscanna - a terrific traditional Irish music group

Practical Workshops: Paper; Raw foods; Composting; Care of garden tools; Bio fuels

Demonstrations / Displays: Vermiculture (garden worms); Solar cooking; Bio-diesel processing; E-cars; Wind turbines;
Bee hive; Solar power generation

Bikes: Bike ride to Fresno Earth Day from Tower Velo; Bike ride to Woodward Park; Bike helmet check; Bike safety check; Free valet bike parking.

Tours: Native plants / xeriscaping; Birdwatching: Green features of the Unitarian Universalist Church & Fresno Cohousing

Exhibits: Green businesses; Non-profit organizations; Faith -based organizations; Government agencies

Kids' Activities: Zoomobile; Hula Hoop weaving using old T-shirts; Seed Bombs; Coffee grounds; Recycle relay; Paper making

Green Car Show: Bio fuel vehicles; Electric and high fuel efficiency motorcycles; Hybrids

Free E-Waste Recycling (no additional wording per Steve)

A partial list of participants include: Food and Water Watch, San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, City of Fresno Water Conservation Program, California Native Plant Society, Green Hope Veterans, ALA in California, GRID Alternatives, Fresno Chaffee Zoo, Save the Foothills Coalition, Fresno Audubon Society, Sierra Foothills Conservancy, Master Gardeners/UC Cooperative Extension, Tree Fresno, Sierra Club – Tehipite Chapter, Fresno Recycling Program, Fresno Chapter of Green Building Council, Fresno Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, National Parks Conservation Association, Healthy Dairies Commission, Coalition for Clean Air, Community Food Bank, Heifer Int., CCROPP, Roots of Change, CSUF Organics Program, Critical Mass, Fresno Bike Coalition, Birchwood Conservancy, County of Fresno Recycling, Clovis Botanical Gardens, Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation, Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District, Sun Mountain Solar Cookers, Sierra Cat Haven, Mokichi Okada Association, Fresno SPCA, Restore the Delta, ReStore (Habitat for Humanity), Fresno Bike Kitchen, S.I.L.O., CSUF Organic Farm, LUCA - Latinos United for Clean Air , League of Women Voters and ABC Cooling and Heating, A La Mode - children's used clothing, Charlotte's Bakery, Hart's Haven, Intermountain Nursery, OFFLINE Solar Co., Real Goods Solar, Rustica Kollection, Shaklee, Squaw Valley Herb Gardens, T&D Willey Farms CSA, The Center for Mindfulness, Three Springs Community & Garden, Tower Velo, Urban Salvage Central Valley, Whole Farms Market, Educational Employees Credit Union, Holistic and Integrative Family Medicine, Halloran Dentistry, Casa de Tamales, Lucy’s Lair, Food Not Bombs, Revive Cafe and MANY, MANY MORE!

Autos confirmed for the green car show include: 2011 Nissan Leaf all electric 2005 biodiesel VW Beetle 2005 biodiesel Mercedes E-320 2002 Veggy oil converted VW Jetta 20?? Prius Plug-in Hybrid 2 X 2010 street legal Electric Carts Valectricar 2011 Chevy Volt plug-in electric hybrid 19?? Motorcycle to electric conversion 2012 Honda Insight Hybrid 2012 Honda Civic gas, high mpg 2008 Vectrix Motorcycle 2011 Smart Car Solar Toyota Prius CART High School Biodiesel Processor

Fresno Earth Day Coalition includes: Fresno Betsuin Buddhist Temple • Fresno Co. Bicycle Coalition • Fresno Metro Ministry • GreenFresno.org • Interfaith Social Justice Collaborative • Fresno Cohousing/La Querencia • San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust • Sierra Club Tehipite Chapter • Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno.

For More info: www.fresnoearthday.org or 559.322.6146
Completely Solar Powered!
http://www.fresnoearthday.org/
559.322.6146

Please help us make this a well-attended event - post it on your facebook and twitter accounts.

Loving Cohousing

I just love living in cohousing. Here is a glimpse of a morning here in our community:

I wake up to the sun shining through my windows and the geese flying overhead to rest in the ponding basin just behind our community. Getting the girls off to school, I visit with Heidi who has just come in from walking her dogs. Barbara is walking along the pathway and stops to visit as well. Samantha is trailing behind me and decides to stop and say good morning to the dogs. The morning air is finally cool and we feel at ease taking our time and enjoying the fresh air. more

Extracted from the Shultz family blog. Friday August 27, 2010

Would Your Neighbor Show Up With a Truck?

Last night, after attending Back to School Night at my son's school, my husband and I went out to our car and it wouldn't start. While waiting for what turned out to be the first of three tow trucks (the auto club dispatcher just didn't seem to believe that we were unable to put this hybrid car with electrical problems into neutral, nor could it be jumped, so we needed a tow truck with a dolly or with "go-jacks". Yes, this is much more than I wanted to know about car towing, too!), my husband called our neighbors Bev and Neil to see if they could be available to drive us home from the car repair place after the car was towed there. Well, they had an even better idea. They both showed up, Bev in her Prius, and Neil driving the small pickup truck that belongs to the community. Members of the community can use the truck to haul stuff, or for occasions like this when an extra vehicle is needed. Neil handed us the keys, both of them said some words of encouragement, and were on their way. We stood there in the twilight, feeling so grateful that we live in cohousing. Posted by resident Lynette Bassman

Editors Note: Neighbors helping neighbors is a wonderfully common theme in cohousing communities. The days where you popped in at a neighbors' house for a cup of sugar are almost only a memory. The exception seems to be the 150 or so cohousing communities across the United States where neighbors are still stopping by to share tomatoes, or beans, cook a meal or wash clothes for someone recovering from surgery or offer a kind word of encouragment. Cohousing is the future of community today.

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Hawaiian Marinara, Peach Upside Down... Fit for a Prince and Princess

What’s it like to cook dinner for 35 people? Well, actually it’s not bad—and to be truthful, it’s exhilarating and I’m coming down from a high! George and I cook twice a month (the community expectation is once a month, but we love to cook….), and I feel like this each time after we prepare a community dinner. Tonight we had spaghetti with a special marinara sauce (a recipe I got from a Japanese woman I worked with in Hawaii—go figure!), regular meat balls and veggie meat balls (thank you, Trader Joe’s, for both), tossed salad with veggies from the community garden, hot garlic bread, freshly grated parmesan cheese, and fresh peach upside down cake baked this afternoon by George.

Usually we do a lot of the prep work a day or two before the dinner, but this week our schedules were packed and we just couldn’t do it earlier. I did most of the grocery shopping yesterday on my way home from work and then started in on the sauce this morning around 8:00 a.m. I chopped the garlic and onions here in our house and then took that to the Common House to load into a big pot. Once I got the sauce put together and simmering, I set the tables while George picked the veggies from the garden and made another trip to the grocery store (eight more people had signed up after I had done the initial grocery run—fortunately, TJoe’s is just around the corner!). I showered and went to work, returned home around 3:30 and even got in a 45 minute nap before heading back to the Common House to finish the last minute things. George baked the cakes while I was napping so that they would still be warm when we served them.

Almost everything was ready when people poured in at 6:00 p.m. Michael helped George get the spaghetti in the serving dishes and tossed with olive oil while I ladled out the sauce. Without a shred of modesty, I say that it was all delicious! There were good conversations going on at each of the four tables. George plated the “late plates” for Joe and Heidi before Michael, Cindy, Jenny and Candy took over the kitchen for clean-up. I saw Chris wiping down the tables, even though he wasn’t on the clean-up crew.

People strolled on the walkway after the dinner, chatting. Jeff pulled Kara and Sean in Kara’s wagon, with the two of them looking like the Prince and Princess of La Querencia! The evening light started to fade, and Venus was lit up brightly up in the western sky. The squadrons of geese took off from the ponding basin (our own “Lake La Querencia,”) passing over our houses, with another squadron coming in for a landing. What a sight!

George and I went down to the pool about 8:15 to join a smaller group of residents, ranging in age from 15 months to 81 years old! Four year old Tessa wanted George and me to stand in the pool “right there” so she could swim over to us. Addie urged George to do an underwater flip—and he did! I tried it, too—and couldn’t!

So—that was my day in cohousing—and I know there are more to come! I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Written by resident Pat Looney Burman
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Come by and see us Sunday 1-3pm

ice cream, wedding & world class soccer

What a great cohousing time it's was, and what a success! Almost everyone turned out for the ice cream and play, and the last people went home about 9:00 p.m.
People probably would have stayed longer, but it got too dark for the kids to play their games on the green lawn.
We had decorations up congratulating Jeff and Lisa on their marriage and had
a card signed by community.
The kids had an impromptu soccer game. Everyone played from the very little ones to Don Gaede and Bev and Neal's 18 year old grandson all playing together.
Wish you could have been here!

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Ice cream social... yummy!

A child plays in the front yard or grassy area with an older youth, while a parent or two or three neighbors casually gather to converse on a front porch. Generally there is a bit of a breeze. That breeze transports curry or basil, garlic or orange blossoms and the occasional swallow tail or variety of hummingbird across the yards. Yards are filled with Yarrow, Coral Bells, and Lavender, Artichoke, Basil, Peaches, Kiwi and Grape. A goose or two (or thirty) can be heard at the pond behind the houses, greeting their friends, or leading a gaggle of new chicks to water. If the day isn't too hot a friend or two will be collecting tomatoes, beans or potatoes or tending to a weed or two in the vegetable garden. The veggies will likely find themselves served up in some delicious community meal later that day, and nourishing the families.

There is plenty of work to be done, a new craft room requires some paint, a floor needs sweeping, a toy or two placed out of the stepping areas. All seem to be accomplished with quiet respect of sharing responsibility with others. Most often from a place of appreciation - for the homes, the neighbors, the quality of life.

Perfect? Heck no... there is the occasional conflict - talked out. The occasional misunderstanding - clarified. The occasional desire to be alone - respected.

When the weeds are all pulled (and often when they are not) there is a delicious, often amazing meal, simple and satisfying - shared with friends.

Some days there is a movie to share, a picnic and concert to attend and even delicious batches of homemade ice cream to try. All in all it's a really good life.

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Joining neighbors - feeling good

We had a good work day on Saturday, thanks to a lot of people, including Scott, Julia, Lynette, Jenny, Susan, Violette, Ruth, Valerie, Rebecca, Bryan, George B, Pat, and probably more!

My opinion: being part of a Saturday landscape crew is an ESSENTIAL part of the cohousing experience. Joining your neighbors while working out the fresh air and making your community more beautiful --it's a feeling obtained no where else, and if you havent done it, you're missing something good.

Holiday Activites

Much happened over the recent few weeks - Starting with a breadmaking class, followed a week later by a cookie exchange in the morning of LaQ folks then a lunch for a large group from our new neighbors the Buddhist Church - two doors down. A week later there was a Holiday Open House, then Christmas Day Potluck, and New Year's Day a Polar Bear Plunge into a 50 degree pool - followed fortunately by hot cocoa and a dunk in the hot tub. This Saturday there will be a Lance canales concert(tickets are still available) Steve and Cindy Concert (tickets on sale now) movie nights, more dinners and so many fun things you won't want to miss any of it!

See the photos on our flkr site & the plunge video on YouTube - plus of course the brief account of the events here - Enjoy! Don't forget to Stop By any Sunday between 1-3 to see the houses and the community and have a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Bread Making
I just got home a few minutes ago and got down to the CH for the Tasting
Section of the workshop. Wow--what bread! Pat

Holiday Open House
That truly is one of the best, most joyous holiday parties I've ever been to! Thanks to Don Gaede for this terrific idea. I hope this was the "First Annual," and that we'll continue with Second Annual, Third Annual, etc.

We're sitting in the Sacramento Train Station now (with free wi-fi--yaaay!), waiting for the Zephyr to Denver. Thank you, Bryan, for the early morning ride to the Fresno station. Everything has been on time so far.

Back to the party: our dog-walking friends that we see when we take the boys and girls out walking were totally impressed with our community last night. As they left, Jan said they had lived in Napa for almost 30 years and had never had a connection with their neighbors like we have.

So many thanks to all--Joe, our violinist, the accordion play from Don, all the people who set up, cooked, opened up their homes, greeted people, cleaned up--it was one of my most memorable and enjoyable times in cohousing!. This is what it's all about! Happy holidays to you all! Pat and George

More on Holiday Party
It takes a Village to raise a child and it takes lots of LaQ Villagers to put together a fantastic Holiday Open House!. Got some more people to thank:
Candy, and Barbara Cutright for helping with the Common House decorations. Mary, Candy, and Jenny for organizing the Cookie exchange. Barbara Cutright, Joe, Ana, Ruth, Lilly, Sean, and Emma for making the Paper Candy Canes and using them as CH decorations. Mary and Susan for taking on cleaning up and organizing the Children's room (looks wonderful. Christmas Elves who cleaned up after the party (these are only some of the names I could remember ) Bev, Bryan, Mary and Jared... It was so much fun, Thank you Don and Jenny for your wonderful ideas :) - Violet, for the social committee.

A big THANK YOU to all who helped out last night to make it a BIG success!
Kudos to Joe Syverson (the next Joshua Bell??), Violet and Mary and their helpers for decorations; Susan, Scott and their crew for preparing the common house; all those who opened up their homes; all those who brought snacks to the common house; and the Christmas elves (you know who you are) who cleaned up the common house after the party. Way to go, everyone!

Don Gaede

Polar Bear Swim
We had our first LaQ Polar Bear Swim (George's idea) around noon today, and you can see the brave souls that did it. Fortunately, we had our cheering section as well, and Violette brought out hot chocolate for all of us. The pool temperature was
50 degrees! The Syverson family went in twice, and Scott came running in at
the end, while we were all in the hot tub. Pat

Chocolate, a flag and messages for a son

From a resident, Barbara
My son, Kevin, returned for a second assignment in Iraq. He left from Ft. Bragg, SC on Aug. 19. There was a ceremony on the evening of Aug. 18 on my front porch. We hung a flag, shared his history in the Army, and ate one of his favorite foods, chocolate. There were sheets of paper to write messages to Kevin.

I especially appreciate the support for me of this community. They are giving me things to send to the Kevin and the other soldiers. Also, we are planning to send things for the Iraqi children when we have a connection established.

Childcare a Community Thing

Written by Bryan - cohousing resident.
Reliable childcare is a recurring theme in the cohousing experience – from folks taking children to school to help with a scheduling problem or as a matter of convenience or for a few days as shared here by Bryan. In a couple of weeks, Rebecca and I will celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary (and 30th anniversary of meeting each other). We're going away for a 4-day weekend. Pat & George are going to look after Joe for us, so we can fully enjoy the Esalen Institute experience. Just last Monday, I needed to go to class in the evening but Rebecca was on-call and working late. Violette looked after Joe "no problem" and Joe wound up helping Lily with hours of homework.

Joe's concert and the flat tire

On a Sunday, a bunch of cohousers went up to Sequoia Lake to enjoy a concert and a picnic. Joe, who plays violin, was finishing a week of camp at Lake Sequoia Symphonic Music Camp and his ensemble was one of those performing a concert at the lake. Rebecca and Neil made a picnic to share. Ruth, Ana, Neil, Bev, Candy, Emma, Sharon, and George all came along.

On the way back from a concert and picnic, Neil & Bev had a serious tire blowout. They called us and, cohousers to the rescue! We caught up with them and picked up their passengers, and left George there to make sure Neil didn't try to fix the tire himself before AAA came. (Neil was there to make sure George didn't, either!) We also left them with an umbrella and water to go along with their chairs.

Moving Day

So, I sprained my ankle Friday afternoon. Frankly this event rendered continuing to prepare to move and to move boxes-o-stuff problematic. To our rescue on Sat am came a bevy of marvelous community members (Bev, Violet, Heidi, Good Don, Scott, Lorenzo, Lynette [I don't think I have left anyone out, but frankly it was a blur of activity so if I did, please forgive me]) who swept in, ignored the mess, and carted over a bunch of boxes and assorted stuff over to our new house and UP the stairs.

I am / we are very blessed, indeed, to be part of such a community.
Susan C.

Moving is not fun

We haven't moved for 20 years. Now, we are sorting, giving away and packing "stuff" so we can move to our new La Querencia home. We called and Disabled American Vets came with a big truck and picked up boxes and boxes full of our former stuff a week or more ago. Very liberating. And we do hope others come across that stuff (books, clothes, knick knacks) at the thrift stores and find it useful, or beautiful, or funny, or thought provoking. We bought a lot of it, especially books, at thrift stores and used bookstores, over the years ourselves. Now we are trying to do as our friend Bev wisely says, take only what we love. Easier heard than done. However, we are looking forward to a less cluttered, more full life. Dichotomy? Not at all. Less clutter of stuff, more full of living.

Things happen in 3s

We've finally got a sunny day again, and we need it. Although things continue to go well in our cohousing community for the most part, we've had 3 recent incidents of sadness. Dexter, Barbara's dog, escaped from his back yard and was run over by a car in the rush hour traffic on the street going by the community. Dexter was one of the dogs that George and I would walk every morning (along with 4 others)--and we miss him.

The second incident was the loss of our beloved cat, Nina, whom we had to have put down because of kidney failure. She had lost about a 1/3 of her body weight and could no longer groom herself. She was still purring, though, and sleeping on our bed at night, but the vet said she was too far gone to try to keep. Nina would have been 15 years old in January. She was named after Nina Totenberg (and we named Nina's sister from the same litter Cokie, after Cokie Roberts).

The third incident occurred just yesterday, when Neil and George were doing some work on the laundry. George was cutting a board with his saw and asked Neil to help him stabilize it. As Neil walked around George (who was on his knees) to get to the other side of the saw, he tripped over George's feet, fell and couldn't get up. In less than 4 minutes, there were about 6 cohousing residents at Neil's side, with blankets, pillows and any other aid that could be useful, as we all waited for the ambulance to come. Neil's hip was broken, and he'll have his surgery on Wednesday. The hospital peeps have finally found a pain killer that works for him (morphine didn't), so he's dopey but more comfortable. Bev is a rock and doing well--but you can be a rock just so long! I'm glad we can be here for here--and Neil.

Six weeks in Cohousng

Where is the time going??? My body feels like it's still last January, but the calendar tells me that it's Nov. 7 and that we moved into our new cohousing community exactly six weeks ago today. You'd never know it to look at all the boxes and piles around the floor...our neighbors put us to shame! Last night, though, I realized that being a procrastinator has its benefits: we've had six weeks for reality testing to truly know how much we really don't need and how much we can do with far less than what we had before. I'm speaking primarily of kitchenware. We moved here from the World's Greatest Kitchen, one I vowed never to leave...but here we are, and I really like the new one! The peninsula is actually larger than the island in the old house. The new one is a one-person kitchen, rather than the two-person space of before, but I can work on one side of the peninsula with George on the other, and it all works out.

I have never slept so well as I do now in our new house--and that's been every night! The cats are missing the fireplace, I think, but now they spend more time on the bed with us at night. We couldn't find Nina last night when we went to bed. She's a creature of habit, but last night she broke her mold and disappeared to places unknown. She has seldom ventured outside for more than 30 seconds, so I had no doubt that she was still in the house--but I looked everwhere--and no Nina. George turned over in bed around 5:00 a.m., and there she was, in her usual place next to me on the bed, in her usual sleep--totally unconcerned that she had added another gray hair to my head!

Welcome to the Fresno Cohousing Blog

It's a beautiful day to live in community, today is election day and full of possibilities.

We start this blog as an opportunity to share the antecdotes, stories and recipes of cohousing. Stop by often & see what we might be up to... sometimes it'll just be a conversation on how the tomatoes are doing, the pattern of the geese, my day trip to Yosemite, Monterey, Napa Valley, what was enjoyed for dinner or an event we're attending. Other days we may be talking about Fresno city policy, a book or movie we read and recommend. Maybe it'll be the solution to the Sunday crossword puzzle, or what cute thing my dog did.

Who knows! The conversation promises to be as diverse as the interests of the community.

Enjoy and come back often, and if cohousing looks to be your cup of tea... come by our Open House on Sunday & take a look at our homes.