La Casa Grande Colectiva

Category: stories

  • perennial emergence

    Would anyone like to trade some images for some words? How many words are these pictures worth? ~JP

    I meet your five pictures with five poems.  Brownie points to those who guess th constraint. ~AndR

    bamboo shoots
    Bamboo Shoots

    blasting aggressively, my bamboo oozes out,
    striking hard only once: three shoots

    hops coming up
    Cascade Hops

    “climb! a skyhigh clamor! away, dread earth!”
    (how ordinary: pursuing sun)

    Apple buds blossom
    Apple bud blossoms

    a plump pink leafy existence
    but under drunk
    billowing laughter of some smiling ovary: my spectacle

    older asparagus bed
    Asparagus

    aerodynamic sunfed plant, arousing rustic “awwww’s”: give us splendor

    stinging nettle
    Stinging Nettles

    spines touch. i never go in nighttime gowns
    never ever tattle try like embers: sigh

  • Beer Dig

    Yo! La Casa hosted a BEER DIG yesterday, which means we bribed our friends with alcohol to help get our pit ponded!  Something like 40 people showed up, some of them with shovels, for a muddy-fine time digging, grunting, drinking, heaving, hoeing, and drinking.

    Some La Casans went out round about 10AM to imagine a desirable curvy shape for our pit-pond to take, wiggling our garden hose and some electrical cords around until everyone ok-ed it.  Maria threw down some white spray paint to make it official.  “Dig here.”  We made a design with two shallow, wiggly fingers and a mound in between.

    Pond shaping up

    In the picture above, Liya (purple shirt and fabulous overalls) stands in front of the mound and between the two fingers. You can see how high the water table had gotten from the night before!  We bailed out the pit more than once, and it quickly filled back in with fresh water from the ground.

    Towards the end of the day

    Above: Towards the end of the dig, you can see even the new fingers filled with a bit of water.  The north finger is the close one, and on the other side of that soggy mound, you can see a bit of the south finger.  We made a lot of progress, and we have more digging to do yet!

    Bonnie in the low contrast of the sunshine

    Anna, Brett, & Bonnie in a dramatic pic!

    Many beds were prepared as well

    Above: Meanwhile, some of us worked on digging new garden beds and raising them up with soil from the pit-pond.  We carried sod to the front yard to replant it in a strange patchwork under a tree, hence Vinnie with a wheelbarrow of sod.

    The hungry laborers

    Post-dig din: whole wheat macaroni with tomato sauce, quinoa, (leftover) delicious chili, and home-made bread-machineless bread.  The sun going down, and the crowd dwindling a bit.  The alcohol finally catching up with me….

    Post dig bonfire

    And finally, as we digested our elbows and beer, we enjoyed a big-ol’ bonfire, the first of the season.

    Post dig bonfire 4

    Thanks for digging with us, those of you who did!  I, for one, thought it went swimmingly, pit-ponds, garden beds, soddy jigsaw puzzles, bowls of quinoa, and raging fires considered.

  • Jacob, white bread

    Jacob told me yesterday that he was going to bake bread everyday this week.  Pictured below is day 2.
    Jacob baked bread

    Tired of so many a bread machine failure loaf this year, I decided to take failure into my own hands.  Bread, like mayonnaise and kombucha, is something La Casa knows is way way waaaay better when you make it yourself, unquestionably worth the extra effort. This half-whole-wheat loaf was hand-formed with my trademark ineptitude™ and includes sunflower seeds and rosemary.  Maria (my protégé) has assisted greatly with kneading and baking.

  • Make Mountains

    Last Friday I made it to the U of I quad during an event by local artist Bonnie Fortune called Make Mountains. Participants were instructed to assume a stance similar to downward facing dog.  I participated as long as my wrists would let me, and then went on my way after snapping this photo.
    Make mountains

    We don’t have any mountains here, and the flat land seems boring and barren sometimes. This performance gesture was a nod to those communities suffering from mountaintop removal practices.

  • Unintentional Pun of the Week

    And then you’re in trouble.

    – Jacob, while we were discussing this best-of-craigslist post, which states that you can conserve water by peeing into a 5 gallon bucket and dumping it into the toilet without having to flush.

  • Domebook 2, Geodesics: futuristic design meme of the past

    A geodesic dome made of glass
    A geodesic dome made of glass

    The Library of Radiant Optimism is a project by Let’s Remake, a group of local artists/activist that live in our hood. They write: “The Library was begun to catalog a groundswell of optimistic and visionary activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We gathered a handful of books that embrace grass roots exchange of information and themes of self and community empowerment.” They put up a PDF of a book titled Domebook 2 and I’ve been fascinated with it the last couple days.

    Domebook 2 was published in 1971 by Lloyd Kahn, at the height of geodesic dome excitement within the counterculture.   Geodesic domes were evangelized by Buckminster Fuller as being cheap, easy to construct, and structurally superior.  Sounds super-cool, right?  After spending some time reading through the book I did a bit of background research on domes, this book, and the author.

    It turns out that Domebook 2 was taken out of print by Kahn a few years after publication after continued frustrations with dome building.  After building some 19 domes, Kahn abandoned domes altogether and shifted his inquiry towards elegantly built homes made from local material.  This new work was published in the books Shelter (1973) and Shelter II (1978).  However, he had created so much hype about domes that he continued to be asked about their construction for years and years.  He finally wrote up this piece, Refried Domes, along with a comparison of dome/rectangle construction.  His arguments against domebuilding are many and seem to have been earned through the pain of experience.

    Reading Kahn’s later words killed some of the excitement I had upon discovering the book.  Over a hundred pages of beautiful people trying new and exciting ways of living resonated with my current view of the world.  Domes might make bad homes, but they certainly seem appealing when the rest of the world is so square.  I also love the idea of starting with a stack of triangles and a group of friends and building an object of wonder together.

    Kahn, now 72, lives outside SF, CA.  He has a blog and wrote a new book, Builder’s of the Pacific Coast.

  • Intentional Pun of the Week

    You ungrateful piece of metal!

    – Ronna, about the grater that wasn’t cooperating with carrots.

  • Recycling House Mates

    Hi, my name is Don Thorsen and I’ve recently moved into La Casa, here in Urbana Illinois.  Maria put up on our wall a poster of C-U from around circa 1972(?).
    Urbana-Champaign poster
    And I was able to pull from my just moved belongings a drawing from 1974 of “Earthworks”  the co-op grocery store also shown on Maria’s historic poster.
    Don's drawing of Earthworks (1974)

    The ideas and ideals of community, versus say commodity, have been around longer than any of us, but I’m pleased to once again be a part of a household of active, interesting folks!   Be seeing you around.

  • Fowl Pox – Avipoxvirus, not chicken pox

    About a week ago I noticed some black crud on the comb of one of our ISA browns.  At first it just looked like some dirt, but then I saw it the next day and the next.  I’ve read that people new to chicken keeping can get caught up in the excitement and novelty of their flock and overlook the health of the birds.  I’ve been trying to avoid that mistake by routinely checking each bird and noting any apparent changes.  After doing some online research and finding photographic examples of different diseases, I went out this morning to photograph the sick chicken for comparison.
    Fowl pox? on ISA brown comb Fowl pox? on ISA brown comb

    The black crud went away and now there are small white lesions on both sides of her comb.  This tells me that she has fowl pox, a very common viral infection in poultry around the world.  From what I’ve read online there is no treatment for fowl pox and it usually runs its course in 3-5 weeks.  [USDA info page] I’m going to make a call into the local Extensions office on Monday to seek advice and see if she should be quarantined form the rest of the flock. My inclination is yes, but I don’t where we’d put her at this point. Prevention through vaccination seems to be the only way to deal with fowl pox, which makes me wonder which if any of our birds were vaccinated.

  • A gift in the mail – fire salt

    I received a letter this morning from a longtime friend, Chris Juby.
    Gift from Juby
    I was hungry…
    EggsCooking eggsCkicken and the eggs
    In general we are a low-sodium house, but I always put a bit of salt on my personal meals. Of course he was correct: the fire salt goes great with fresh eggs. Made of: chiles, habanero, citrus, garlic, shallots, cumin, salt, allspice, and vinegar, good on popcorn, potatoes, and eggs. Someone’s getting eggs for easter, thanks jubes!

  • Urbana Chicken Effort – 5 Year Update

    extreme-chicken1Lately we’ve had several revelations about chicken keeping in Urbana, IL.  It started when Ronna dug up this 2004 article from the New York Times while doing research on Urbana city ordinances.  The article begins, “A movement is underfoot in Urbana.”  Well, this is an update on Urbana chickens 5 years later.

    The article titled “From City-Reared Chickens, Farm-Fresh Eggs” (10/4/2004) quotes city attorney Steve Holz (*arrested development chuckle) “There is no restriction on livestock or poultry in the city [of Urbana].”  It goes on to say that “the city can take action against owners if they keep the animals in a way that hurts the health or safety of the neighborhood.”  So thats it. Keeping chickens in town is %100 legit, until they become a problem.

    I joined the yahoo group Urbana Chicken Effort awhile back, which I presume was the original communication tool for the “movement” that the article mentions.  With 32 members signed up, the list is still used to coordinate feed and chick buying.

    The other revelation occured when Heather ran into Danielle Chynoweth at the IMC.  According to Danielle, our oldest chicken, Ginger, was originally owned by Molly Stentz and is estimated to be 8 years old!  The 2004 NYTimes article quotes Stentz as saying, “There are so many people in my neighborhood who are doing it.  It’s low-maintenance and fun.”  This means that our elderly Ginger is one of the original Urbana Chicken Effort chickens, and she’s still ticking!

    So, La Casa is curious to know more about the history of Urbana Chickens.  How many people are keeping chickens in town these days?  Do they take as many photos as us?  How can we help each other and encourage more chicken cooperation?  Please comment and let us know how your ladies are doing.

  • Jacob Bounces Layup Off Shed on 8th Hole at Lohmann, Animated Gif

    My housemate Jacob threw his first round of disc golf today at Lohmann Park in Urbana, IL. He impressed us on the 8th hole with an awesome bounce shot off the shed that earned him his first duece. I’ve been making photographs at Lohmann Park for several years, but I’ve never made an animated gif, until now.

    Jacob bounces his second throw off the shed and nicely lays up for a duece.
    Jacob bounces his second throw off the shed and nicely lays up for a duece

    Thanks for making it out to play Jacob 😉