Max and Jack built a mailbox so you can send us letters!
156 Joe Young Rd.
Burnsville, NC
28714
walking up the drive to the Bus Stop, you pass the lower barn and our neighbor Gwyn and her yellow bus Elsie
our front yard...a breakfast gathering around the fire pit Max built, Kaley doing dishes at the dish station she and Jeff set up.
Jack painted on a table she found in the barn, and Max made a chandelier out of bike parts and some pretty jars he found in a barn
Jeff the Baller.
Rabbit made the back deck of the trailer beautiful with some vines and fallen branches
Max and Jack built the outhouse for the composting toilet. Saloon doors so you can feel like a cowboy :-)
This is Max's scarecrow friend. He protects the blueberries and strawberries up in the field.
The other day, Jackie let Brit go to town with the scissors before she shaved her hair off.
The good life. (Dogs, wine and basketball)
What do you do for money?
ReplyDeletei'm not all that sure this kind of lifestyle requires "money". homo sapiens did survive a long time without it after all.
Deletein my opinion money is for those who have it so they can enslave those without it.
Deleteclassic carrot on a stick routine
DeleteSo...Money. A good question, though many of the replies are close to accurate. We do need some money...we can't get all the food or building supplies we need from the farm. Many people have helped us out by donating things we need, and we've found many things to make stuff out of that people are simply getting rid of or someone already put in the trash (it's amazing what some people consider trash!) I was conflicted about accepting charity for a while (why don't some of us just get a paying job? We are all skilled and perfectly capable. But the reality is, to be committing ourselves to what we are doing...creating a community according to our own ideals, building it and growing it with our own hands, we cannot also dedicate ourselves to a 9-5 schedule working for someone else. So. Our money comes from a variety of activities that fit in better with our schedule here at the farm: sale of crafts and art (soon we will be able to display them in town at a gallery Jared is renting out), busking (trips to asheville pay well when the crew brings instruments and sets up on a corner), work trade situations (work for food), and a couple of folks on the bus currently have foodstamps to make sure no one ever goes hungry. The projected vision is to have enough of a relationship with other farms and the community and to have enough food coming out of this farm, so that we are not relying on welfare that can go to support someone else.
DeleteThe pay it forward attitude is also very important to us where money is concerned. Whenever we can afford to provide for others, especially fellow travelers, we will. Sharing as much as possible. That is what makes the young and musical and traveling communities around here so wonderful...there is an understanding in each of these families that what goes around comes around, and it doesn't make sense to keep something for yourself if someone else is in need. We couldn't believe how many people invited us home for dinner who we met downtown in Asheville. And now that we have a place to stay a while, we have the opportunity to cook for and give back to other travelers. As long as this law is upheld, I don't think any of us will lack for what we need to get by.
We have spent as little as 400 dollars a month on food for six. Right now, since we are working much harder, it's looking more like 600. Made 90 last night at a gig in town...had a whole pizza parlor singing oldies and listening to some of the new sounds Jeff and Jared and Jay and Max and Brit had been composing! So many smiling faces. Busking one day in Asheville can make anywhere between 60 and 100 dollars. Other than for food and the occasional run to the hardware store, we don't use money. It's pretty much everyone's least favorite thing to deal with. But it's a reality, so I figured a response was in order.
Are you kidding me right now... you're living like this and not working and you're on FOOD STAMPS? Good to see where our tax dollars are going.
DeleteThough I am curious about what your opinion is of how we are living despite your clear disapproval of how we manage it financially, I will respond to your stated concern.
DeleteWe are seeking through this trip our highest potential for giving and good, and also to build a lifestyle that enables us to use that fully. In my opinion, the primary function of tax dollars (and welfare, while we are at it) is to support the health of the community. I sleep well at night knowing the bus crew I live with is consistently giving back to our country, through thoughtful collaboration, assistance, and our unique creative gifts to each community we pass through. Our lifestyle, including mobility and the luxury of creating our own schedule, is more and more so allowing us to give more to, have greater impact in, and learn more from the communities we've lived in than any of us have experienced in a stationary job, school experience, or another lifestyle that didn't involve a job or school.
I suppose, therefore, I do not feel the shame you seem to think I should, that some of the bus folks are in the government sponsored EBT program. If we were to stay in one place and commit a large chunk of our time to someone else's work schedule, we would certainly not be able to afford to learn and give as richly as we can in Buslife. Because we create our own schedule, are transient, and open to most new experiences, we can regularly accomplish a lot that we believe in:
In the past four months, the Loki crew has volunteered our time and labor to upstart farms, community and family gardens, local non-profits, local festivals and community houses.
Created gifts of paintings, sculpture, construction projects, installations, music, landscaping, poetry and food to people or communities.
Expanded and mediated a growing network of creative people seeking sustainable and respectful lifestyles.
Flourished individually, finding deeper creativity, determination, self-understanding, open-mindedness, and sense of community, direction, place and purpose. We are one happy bunch. Isn't that what every person seeks?
Ultimately, we will not need welfare to support ourselves. We see ourselves on a path towards the greatest self-sufficiency possible. Help from the government is one of the first things I want to see off the list. A tangible goal we seek on the bus trip is the right space on which to start a farm and arts/music/cultural venue. That will create our business, and in greater percentages as each year goes by and the farm produces better, our food source.
The artists on the bus are gaining valuable experience and expanding their reachable network; we are becoming better at using our artwork, writing, music and food to support ourselves financially. If the learning keeps happening, we should be able to build the presence and clientele necessary to completely self-support as an artist, writer, musician or chef.
If you have more questions, or more specific concerns, please feel free to continue the discussion. I think this is all good stuff to think about, and a good platform on which to collect diverse perspectives, expand our thinking.
FAN ART!
ReplyDeleteBAHAHAHAHA!
DeleteYou guys gonna be in one place long enough to get mail in that lovely mailbox?!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWe will be here long enough to receive mail!
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ReplyDelete