UPDATE: THIS SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9th, 11am-4pm, WE WILL HOST A COB EARTHEN BUILDING WORKPARTY. MORE DETAILS HERE: https://www.facebook.com/events/208156862937361/
 
Hi everyone!

I’ve lived at the Farm for more than 11 years now and my favorite time to be on the land is during workparties! I love the vibrant connections to people and places that form when we create together.  And so I am inspired to celebrate TLC Farm’s ten-year anniversary by improving the physical beauty and functionality of the land.
 
Do you like physical work? Are you inspired to create magical places? Want an excuse to visit? Do you play music? Are you addicted to perusing Craigslist for concrete pier blocks? Do you have a truck? Are you an engineer? Curious about any of this? You are invited!

Read on for details and how to get involved! In this special building-focused newsletter:
Workparties! Every other weekend!
Project plans
Materials wish list
Skills and wisdom wish list
Other ways to help
Detailed list of the projects

Email, text or call me if you want to help out or get on a smaller email list for more frequent workparty updates and projects. Also check our website and Facebook page for updates.

in community and ready to build,
~Jenny~
jenny@tryonfarm.org, 503-548-8459

Natural building workparties! Almost every weekend!

*Some workparties will only be on Saturday, so please watch our website and Facebook page, or get in touch with me to confirm exact days and times for each weekend. Our Garden Team is also hosting workparties on the second and fourth Sundays of each month!

Bring your own snacks/lunch and work gloves or tools if you have them. Please park in our driveway, not the lot at the road!  All skill levels welcomed. If you have carpentry experience, please let me know ahead of time!
 
Musicians and other entertainment or fun is welcomed at the workparties, too!
 

Project plans
We have a lot of ideas, so they are listed at the end of this email.  The overall idea is to make TLC Farm more functional and beautiful, with creatively and consistently tended places to gather and places to store materials.  One part of this plan is to build new sheds and create effective storage area for things that are now along the driveway or stacked under trees and next to buildings. Then we can beautify!  We also want to take our sauna, outdoor kitchen and yurt to the next level with improvements small and large. ADA accessibility is important, as is nicer lighting and easy-to-use amenities.
 
And the doozy: our driveway!!  It’s not only time to smooth out the potholes, but it’s also time to create a turn-around loop and more parking. Driveway access and parking are some of our biggest constraints so this project is key to our future success. I am affectionately calling the driveway project “we saved paradise, let’s build a parking lot!” Don’t worry, we are planning to do this without cutting important trees or impacting the visuals from the Village Green too much!

See the bottom of this email for more details.
 
 
Materials wish list
Do you have building materials you want to donate? Know of a source? Do want to peruse Craigslist for specific items?  Would you like to be on-call for helping get materials in your corner of the city once we locate useful items from Craigslist and other sources?
 
Seeking:
* 25 Concrete pier blocks
* 4x4 posts at least 3 ft. long, pressure treated or not
* 2x4s, at least 4 ft. long, but 8-16 ft would be great!
* Any big lumber that can be used for posts or beams for sheds
* Pallets for shed walls and floors
* Roofing materials (cedar shakes or corrugated metal or something creative), for sheds
* Path making or edging materials
* Lighting options – rope lights, solar lights, other – for paths, composting toilet, inside sauna, in outdoor kitchen and on yurt porch
* Gravel for temporary pothole filling
* Whatever you think we need!
 
 
Skills and wisdom wish list
Creative dreamers and skilled professionals are welcomed to share advice and ideas!
 
* Shed design: seeking cool ideas for shed designs and for cool ways to organize things like tarps, buckets, sand, clay, wood of all sizes, tools of all kinds.
 
* Path design: we have a zillion miles of paths, or so it feels sometimes when it’s muddy and our wood chips decompose once again. Do you have ideas for materials we can use to have low-cost, low-maintenance, high-use paths in the Village Green or across the expanses of the land? What have the permaculturists figured out?
 
* Lighting design: We want to light more of our paths and buildings without stretching extension cords across vast expanses of land. We also don’t have great solar gain. Who has great ideas for us?

* ADA accessibility: We want to build accessible composting toilets, paths across our uneven land and access to the yurt. Want to help?

* The Driveway!!  This is a big one. We need a civil engineer to review our plans for creating a turn-around loop and additional parking near the Village Green. This is the year to dive into this big project!

* Other ideas? Is there something that you have been wanting to see happen at TLC Farm?
 
Other ways to help
TLC Farm is community-based through and through. That means we are fueled by love, inspiration, and creative use of materials. That also means that donating materials or money to these projects goes a long way!  If you are able to give $20, $50 or $500 towards these land beautification projects, it would mean a lot to us. Seriously. Twenty dollars buys a box of 3” deck screws, and that builds us a new shed!  A hundred dollars buys the sealant. Five hundred dollars insulates and water-protects the bottom of the yurt. Everything counts. Can you donate?
 
As I mentioned before, other great ways to help are: picking up materials for us across town, playing music, carpooling with people to a workparty, and sending well wishes for a successful year of building!  Thanks!!
 
Detailed list of the projects

* Barn materials shed: The idea is that the south side of the barn, above or incorporating the goat barn path, becomes a materials shed. This becomes a main materials depot for the land.

* Shedlandia:The idea here is that we build sheds along the path between the Moon House and the road (where the little wood shed is and to the south). One shed becomes wood, another becomes other materials, tarps and tools.

* Driveway cleanup/prep for new parking flow: It’s time to completely clear the piles of materials from the big swing to the outdoor kitchen so that we can begin visualizing and experiencing the new parking and car flows. This means finding a new place for sand and clay to be stored and moving a lot of wood to the new wood shed.

* Gravel the driveway: Get some gravel to pack into the potholes while we plan for deeper renovations.

* ADA toilets: Build new composting toilets!

* ADA yurt access: We either need to build some removable ramps (at the correct angles) to connect with the front porch of the yurt, or build the big wrap-around ramp to the perch.

* Yurt fix-ups
1. replace the outside 1/8" plywood edge so that we can get a bottom seal on the wall
2. replace the stove
3. wash the inner and outer walls
4. dig a drainage ditch and install vapor barrier and floor insulation
5. consider better storage/flow for the stuff inside

* Lighting: Install better lighting along the path from the driveway to Village Green, toward the sauna, in the composting toilets, on yurt porch, and in the outdoor kitchen. All kinds of possibilities!

* Paths! Let's discuss some long-term possibilities for our paths. How can we get out of woodchipping everywhere?  We need creative, cheap, beautiful borders for the paths.

* Signs! We have an artist designing the large educational signs on the land, but we also need directional signage.
 
* Outdoor kitchen (ODK): There are various short and long term projects we are considering for the ODK, including nicer evening lighting, replacing the stove, re-organizing cabinets, and eventually re-designing the cabinets altogether.

* Woodshed at bonfire: I want to see a low, long woodshed next to the bonfire area, not taller than the benches.

* Sweat Lodge changing area: Robert Van Pelt, who has been pouring sweats at TLC for over a decade, has asked for a structure for both sitting and changing, especially for elders.

* Perch finishing touches: We need to sand down and re-finish the wood surface, and maybe add some lighting and art to the area.
 
* Tool Tree/Greenhouse storage areas: We are considering moving all of the tools and garden supplies to the north side of the greenhouse so that we can completely clear the area under the beautiful Doug fir and create seating areas with a view from the Village Green through to the garden.

* Trash/recycling area: We want a shed for our trash/recycling area, with special shelves/slots for cardboard boxes and the yellow bins.

Join us for TLC Farm's 12th Annual Holiday Open House!
 
On Sunday, December 13th, come share food and drink, conversation and cheer with the broader TLC Farm community.  This year's event will feauture a slideshow highlighting the changes over the past ten years - starting when our lovely Village Green was just an unused field and taking us through the evolution of the built environment and educational programs.
 
We'll also have a tour of the land, live music, and many opportunities for your generosity to flow!
 
On this  special occasion, you can drive right to TLC Farm (11640 SW Boones Ferry Road), where we'll have a valet parking service.  
 
Please call us at 503-245-3847 with questions.