Gorgeous new moon tonight, which brought about 10 of us out to sit and watch it rise, contemplate what it would be like to live in a world with 11 moons, like Jupiter, sing moon songs, enjoy the breeze coming off the ponding basin (our own "Lake La Querencia!") and enjoy each other's company--a cohousing moment!

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.

Easy Cheesy - What's Not To Love?

It was La Querencia’s first Common Meal by the kids! It was George’s idea. After consulting with the parents, who all agreed, George asked for volunteers, got many enthusiastic participants, and the planning began.

The first task was creating the menu. All easily agreed on mac and cheese, chicken, salad and dessert (the last one was easy!). George googled “Easy Mac and Cheese,” and, lo and behold, up popped up a very easy recipe! There are just four ingredients: macaroni, cheese, sour cream and one egg. None of this Kraft box stuff for our community! George proposed ice cream sandwiches for the dessert, and everyone enthusiastically voted for those.

Prep work started yesterday after school, with the kids coming to the Common House to bake cookies. Fortunately, we had an abundance of cookie dough that had been sold to community members by several of the girls for their school’s fund raiser. Armed with ice cream scoops, trays and parchment paper, all took turns scooping the dough onto the paper, putting the trays in the oven and then, not so patiently, watching the cookies bake.

After a break for dinners at their homes, the gang reassembled for the great Ice Cream Sandwich Assembly Project! It got a little messy here and there, as the ice cream melted, but all was completed without a hitch.

George did the grocery shopping while the kids were at school. It was an early dismissal day, so when the kids arrived home, they all trooped down to the Common House to set the tables (34 people had signed up!), and combined the ingredients for the mac and cheese. It was off to play, then, with a return to the Common House at 5:00 p.m. for the finishing touches: filling the water pitchers, putting the salad greens in the salad bowls, putting all these plus the bottles of salad dressing on the tables and sautéing the chicken (already cooked and in bite-size pieces from Trader Joe’s) briefly in olive oil and mixing Trader Joe’s pesto sauce in with it.

Still a half hour to spare before 6:00! Belinda and Lilly, to fill up the time, choreographed a dance to do for dinner entertainment. The girls also practiced taking a group bow to acknowledge the “Three Cheers for the Chefs” that was sure to come from the impressed diners!

Show time! There was a special Chefs’ Table reserved for the crew. The food was hot and delicious, and everybody raved!

It was a fun evening, a great collaborative meal—and one that we’re all looking forward to having happen again!

Submitted by resident Pat L-B
Stop by for Open House Sunday 1-3

A book and a bear, vision realized.

I recall that at one of our first organizational meetings, back in 2004 (I think) we were asked to describe an activity that we would be doing when we were in cohousing. My vision was that I would be sitting on my front porch reading a book to some children.

Well, today, that came true! Ana, Tessa and Elijah wanted to sit on my porch swing with me, so we did. Tessa ran home and brought back a Berenstain Bears book and I read it to them. What a wonderful moment it was for me, and I hope, for them.

From home owner - George

Comments from the cohousing neighbors:
That's the coolest!!
Thanks for sharing George!
What a wonderful grandpa and role model you are:))!
Agreed. We're grateful for your influence on our children. We believe strongly that our children will have a greater development as human beings because of the connections with others, especially adults. So thanks for caring about our kiddo's, it is appreciated.

Weekend Highs

From the Shultz Family Blog - A family living in the Fresno Cohousing Community.

Our last couple of weeks have been busy getting back into the school routine. We are slowly finding our rhythm and discovering the homework load/busy-ness of Clovis schools. We walk to school every morning and really enjoy the time to talk and spend time with the girls. Chris gets to walk with us on Mondays and Fridays and we love doing it as a family. We also walk to school a couple of mornings with our neighbor friend, Lilly. Her brother Sean walks home with us because he is in afternoon Kindergarten.

Weekends are always fun around here in cohousing. There are a bunch of kids to play with. Last Saturday our house was filled with little people! We had my niece and nephew over, and neighbor kids filling the house with laughter and noise. Thankfully they all get along very well.

Read more about their experience in the Fresno Cohousing community

What A Day in Yosemite!

What a day! Yosemite was perfect in every way: clear weather, comfortable temperature, very little traffic, easy parking, and a great group of cohousing hikers!
We all chipped in for a 15-passenger van that Bryan rented, and Chris and Jen drove their own van with their four girls. One of our 15 couldn’t go at the last minute, so we were a merry band of 20, ranging in age from 18 months to 70 years.
Bev swears she had the best time of all, holding Winnie the Poodle and watching us all, especially the teenagers, stuff ourselves into the van at 7:15 a.m., some awake, some not so. We picked up Mark at his house in Coarsegold and zipped on up to the park.
Rebecca and Bryan planned a great hike that was do-able for all: first to Sentinel Dome, then to Taft Point where we had lunch, and then a finale of Glacier Point—all in all, 5 miles on our boots. Violette had been to Yosemite just once before and had only a fleeting glimpse, so the views for her were spectactular. The young kids did great. Sammy, the 18 month old, was the envy of us all, especially at the end, with her dad, Chris, carrying her in a baby back pack.
We made it all back to Oakhurst for dinner at El Cid’s and then took Mark back to his home. Mark invited us in, and we topped off the day with a whee of a time on the zipline he and Marilyn have installed behind their house!
We headed home, arriving about 12 hours after we started, tired and happy—a great day for being with our neighbors!

Submitted by resident Pat Looney-Burman
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Open House every Sunday 1-3

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