La Casa Grande Colectiva

Category: house

  • Moona…luna…tuna… Heather and Maria’s cooking night!

    I am smiling because cooking is one of my favorite things to do at La Casa, and tonight was my night to cook! Potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, wheat flour, soy butter, bouillon, curry, and nutritional yeast in a pot equals… moon soup! Over dinner, we decided that the soup resembled the surface of our lovely luna (which is one more word that rhymes with tuna and Unah, woohoo!) Although it’s not the most photogenic pot of soup I’ve ever made, it hit the spot on this cold night along with Maria’s mother’s recipes for egg tuna and tuna salad on fresh bread. Between these two entrees, and some delicious leftovers from Ronna and Andrew’s feast last night, we accommodated the vegans, vegetarians, and fish eaters of the house in one meal.

    heather stirs soup
    soup
    red lentil kofte
    egg salad sandwiches

    photos by JP

  • do we use 1,4-Dioxane?

    I found this in my inbox today from the Organic Consumer Association.

    the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) released a new study that exposes levels of the petrochemical carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane in leading conventional as well as “natural” brands of personal care and household cleaning products. This cancer-causing contaminant is all too frequently found in products directly applied to the skin, but it is not listed on ingredient labels, making it difficult for consumers to avoid potentially dangerous products.

    To help protect us all they created this handy pdf of popular products, both good and bad.

    The pdf doesn’t cover laundry detergent, but we use all kinds of cleaning products and this may be a good way to start understanding why we use specific brands.

  • Bamboo

    webdsc_5218
    I saved some of the bamboo and it’s in my room, hanging out next to the aloe plant.

  • New Blog, First Post

    Hi,

    Welcome to our new blog.  We are a group of people living in a big house (casa grande) together (colectiva) in Urbana, IL.  This blog will be a place for us to document our habits, decisions, accomplishments, and thoughts.  We will use this as a tool for understanding ourselves and our relationships with the world.  Expect this site to change as we find better ways to organize and share our media.

    -JP

  • Three photos from Spring 2005

    Three photos dated April 23, 2005:


    (1) bamboo shoots the first year of bamboo regrowth


    (2) American Currants under a Peach tree — this is a common assosication of Prunus species with a Ribes underneath


    (3) Rosa rugosa and Comfrey growing through straw mulch

  • 2003

    Here is the one and only blurry photo of Bob Cook in the La Casa Garden in the Fall of 2003. Bob partnered with me (Rob Scott) to start the garden that year, with lots of help from Willow and Sarah Kanouse.

    Profile photo of the garden, summer 2003: