ONE PIC FROM TODAY

ONE THING I DID TODAY (well, it will always be yesterday, but you get the drift)

Explored a small Cohousing community about 30 minute’s drive from the city, Miller’s Corner.

I was part of a group from an inner-city eco-village being hosted for the afternoon, along with residents from the even-more-rural Aldinga Arts Eco-Village. A couple of years ago, we had invited people from the other two villages for a chat about how everyone went about living so closely; kept sharing well; built with alternative materials like straw bales or hempcrete; and dealt with practicalities like cats, parking and building funds. Last year, Aldinga hosted both groups, with Miller’s Corner returning the favour today.

Aldinga, near the seaside about 45 minutes away from Adelaide, is by far the largest community with around 320 residents and 181 lots. They are very self-sufficient with their own sewage works and a shared farm with vegetable crops, orchard, chickens and goats. There are arts studios, a climbing wall that the teenagers in the community persuaded a community meeting to fund, and a project to make and sell bio-char. There is even have a Natural Earth Burial Ground, which permits them to bury people who die in the village.

Miller’s Corner was long dreamed, but only recently built. On retirement, the couple who owned the land decided to build a community, rather than just sell up and move away. First came the circular(ish) community space in the centre of the village, with circular fireplace of stones to match the masonry of the house already there. Then, with guidance of the same architect, passive solar houses were built in a circle around the community room, with no front fences and rear yards. Community members are from 8 to 80, with eventually 13 dwellings.