Getting our hands in some dirt

Note to Coe students: residence life will not listen to you. Because you, as a student, are not important. Solution: create a team.

Finally we are able to get our hands in the dirt at the house. Saturday morning (10am august 8th) we will be breaking ground outside and will finally be able to plant some very sad plants who have been confined to terra cotta all summer. I personally am excited about my very hearty lemon balm plant which has many helpful qualities. The crushed leaves rubbed on the skin are a natural mosquito repellent. In tea it exhibits anti-bacterial/anti-viral properties. Of course it has a nice lemon scent. We will be having a picnic on Saturday to get work done. I've already whipped up a batch of lemon balm infused hummus snack and will be making a cold lemon balm/peppermint tea.

Work is getting done on the solar energy front. We are in the preliminary stages of grant proposals and hope to make it a demonstration the whole campus can enjoy.

I hear sodexo has some large water bottles to get rid of. We are working on securing these to make indoor terrariums for the winter time. Residence life has removed the bar that existed when the deltas lived there. Which is kind of sad because we could have used the counter space for more plants. But they don't seem to care what we think. But they are removing the awful mirror that covered the large window there which we will weather proof for the winter. We're thinking of a combination of emergency blanket and old screen based on a design found on the wonderful DIY instructables website.

Ayla

Coe College Setbacks

Well the herbs are sprouted. Cilantro, basil, chives, chamomile, lemon balm, oregano, thyme, and peppermint. But they currently have no home. We have gotten word from the residence life office that it is "not economical" to house people in the ecohouse during the summer. This is very disappointing as we were led to believe we were going to be able to work something out. This decision is not conducive to our goals. First of all I am currently living in a tent (which is actually really fun and sustainable and I always smell like campfire ). But the site is in Marion so it is not realistic to commute between the tent and the garden everyday. Consequently all planting operations have been halted. We were unprepared for the college, who was so excited about this project, to be our biggest obstacle in our goals for sustainability. We also will not have the opportunity to improve the energy efficiency of the house before it gets cold. Furthermore, the planting season is passing us by. We are currently at a standstill since residence life is untimely in answering emails and lacking in all areas of communication. It seems you have to email them several times and ask for their bosses before they pay any attention to you at all. So only one ecohouse member will be living on campus this summer and while the rest of us will be hanging out in town we will be far away from the house. As we cannot assess the house for problems we also cannot plan the budget, again all plans are halted.
I am disappointed to be treated like a business and not a person here at Coe, and I am also saddened by the apparent apathy of the residence life office. I guess Coe just wants to look green and not actually be green. Sounds a lot like a certain Kyoto accountability issue.

Ayla "medicine woman" Crosswhite

We're here!

After a year of discussion with the Coe administration, the EcoHouse is a real place. So now of course, the EcoHouse needs a blog.

This delightful electronic tract will cover the journey of EcoHouse. Our renovations, forums, workshops, and other various doings will (optimistically) be recorded here.

Refer to our shutterbug account for all our tasty pictures.

Yours sincerely,

Johanna "EcoHouse grandma" Schnell