Hi Friends,
I have so much to share with you this issue.

As we face an uncertain future of skyrocketing food costs, peak oil and energy shortages, the breakdown of the family and a societal numbness that puts us further out of touch from the reality at hand, life in community offers answers and solutions.

This spring is loaded with events and opportunities to explore life on The Farm. I hope one of them is just right for you.

Think we're too far away? Most of our guests travel from afar and in fact the majority of are from out of state. Just this year I have had people attending my retreats from Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida, one from South Africa, with one on the way from Denmark, another from Korea. It's all about setting your intention. No place is too far if it is where you want to go.

I worked for over a year with the producers of a new documentary, "40 Years on The Farm," and I am very happy with how it turned out. With any luck, it will appear on PBS in the next year. However there are additional hurdles to cross before this can happen. Find out how to get your own copy.

After 10 years in the works, The Farm has created a new legal document to hold our land in trust.
More about this historical transition that can serve as a model for other communities below.

Water is an essential element of all human existence and it should be no surprise that it occupies a critical segment of The Farm's history and its current infrastructure.

This latest excerpt from A School of Change explores the dynamics of water and how it has directly affected and continues to play a central role in our community.

I hope to see you this spring!

Douglas
Douglas@thefarmcommunity.com

The World Peace Diet Conference May 3-6

* Are you concerned about our culture's mistreatment of people, animals, and the Earth? Do you feel called to help create a positive future for our children and the world? Do you long to untangle the hidden roots of the dilemmas we face as individuals & a society? Do you aspire to develop skills to embody, share, and teach healthy and compassionate living for service, fun, and/or your livelihood?

Join Dr. Will Tuttle and friends in this unique gathering to explore the future of plant based culture and powerful ways to help create a world of peace, sustainability, and freedom. Activities include: Lectures & Workshops, Vegan Cooking Classes, Role Playing Exercises, Community Dinner followed by a piano & flute concert by Will and his wife Medeleine...and much more!
Click here for more information

Documentary - "40 Years on The Farm"

My friends Randy Rudder and Ed Lamberg, producers of the documentary "40 Years on the Farm," have launched the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to cover music licensing, voiceover, syndication fees, post-production, etc. PBS is interested in airing this summer but syndication also carries a hefty price tag.

For your donation you could receive a copy of the documentary, a copy of the book "Voices from The Farm: or even an all expense paid trip to visit our community!

Check out the trailer and help move this project along. Please forward to your network of friends. Thanks! Watch the trailer

Farm Family Fest May 12 & 13 - and Nashville Studio Performers

Tours, music, camping plus dinner and breakfast the next morning! You won't find a more fun (or more economical) way to spend time on The Farm.

The music line up has some great new announcements. Ms. Charlie, a new teacher at The Farm School, is well connected with studio and touring musicians from Nashville and she has persuaded some of these friends to grace our festival with their talents. I have checked these folks out and they are outstandingly good! It's gonna be a great night!
Learn more! Register!

The Farm Conference on Community and Sustainability, held over Memorial Day Weekend, May 25-27, is a unique opportunity to gain direct experience in the tools of community building.

It takes many parts to make the whole, from green construction to alternative education, organic gardens and altruistic outreach, wrapped in a nurturing of mind, body and spirit that makes all other things possible. Come to learn...and leave inspired.

Whether you are searching for a community to join, have a vision for the community you'd like to build, or seek tools to build and strengthen community right where you are, this weekend offers you insight and access to experience. No matter what you are looking for, you will not go away empty handed.

The energy peaks on Saturday night with the All Farm Barbecue under the Dome, bringing together the conference attendees with a hundred other community activists, members of the Farm spanning three generations. Great food, great music, great people... the total package. Register Today

The Story of Water and The Farm
excerpted from A School of Change by Douglas Stevenson

Like so many other aspects of The Farm’s History, even water is intricately intertwined into The Changeover. It is not without a certain bit of irony that while Farm members were in Guatemala installing water projects for villages in several parts of the country, the vast majority of the dwellings in the Tennessee community were not connected to The Farm’s water system.  

In the beginning, when the land was first purchased, the original house built buy the previous owner had its own well. This supplied water to the home’s kitchen and bathroom. In addition to the bathtub/shower,

The House (as it was named in true Farm style) also had the only flush toilet and it would remain as the sole flusher on the land for many, many years.

The primary residential section of the community was over a mile away from The House, so establishing a water source closer to the residents was an early priority. A spring was located on the side of a hill in the center of one of the main residential area. A small, used water tower about 35 feet tall with a several hundred gallon tank was purchased and set up at the top of the hill.

Since there was no electricity nearby, an engine pulled from a VW Bug was set up adjacent to the spring that ran a pump to fill the tank. A water spigot was at the bottom of the tower for filling jugs and a second spigot was installed about ¼ mile away next to The Farm Store where food was distributed, a central gathering place. It became the job of several men to sit next to the engine in 4 hour shifts, keeping it filled with gas and the tank filled with water. With the engine running almost non-stop day after day, it’s life was short. Fortunately, new hippies joining the community would arrive almost weekly driving VW beetles, and so a replacement engine was always kept on standby. Because the small engines were air cooled (rather than water cooled with radiators as with most cars), the dusty, dirt roads of The Farm made them unsuitable for transportation, justifying their application as a water pump.

Because springs are water present at the surface, they can be easily contaminated by surface ground water. They are also more susceptible to droughts, and likely to go dry after long periods of no rain.

The next step for the community was to drill a well. As might be expected, we wanted to be able to do this ourselves and in the early 70’s an old well drilling rig was purchased. The first well was drilled near the store area where electrical power was now available, hitting water at about 50 feet.

A second water tower was installed closer to the well by The House. This was a true water tower about 50 feet tall with a 5000 gallon tank up top that was salvaged from an old railroad yard. The tank and tower were hauled to The Farm on the back of a flatbed truck created from one of the original school buses, the back portion of the bus removed with a steel cutting torch, leaving only the cab.

Transporting the tower and tank to the community was relatively easy. Returning the tower to its upright position was another thing entirely, especially without a crane. Fortunately one member was an engineer graduate from MIT and he devised a leveraging system consisting of 3 telephone poles to function as the fulcrum, with steel cables fixed to the rear end of several vehicles to provide the power doing the lifting.