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COMMUNITY COHESIVENESS:

Echowood is currently made up of six members, from a variety of places in the United States, ranging from a Texas native to a Woodstock alum from West Virginia.  Three are the original members from the community’s inception in 2007, and the other three have since joined.  This group size works very well for them, as they are working toward creating several cottage industries including soap, incense and a market garden; and thus, they can quickly and easily assign daily tasks simply by hanging out over breakfast and talking about the needs for each day.  They easily work through the small hiccups, which have included the goats getting into the garden, and certain personality traits coming out too strongly at times.  How do they do this?  They are very open and honest with one another about what is going on for them.  There is no organized or guided manner in which this is done, but the entire group seems to tolerate and even expect that it will happen at will, and when it needs to.  This style of community living requires a lot of patience, and that is a common trait amongst all six people.  Mandy experienced this firsthand while tacking up chicken wire in the new greenhouse.  The staple gun wasn’t working properly and the task was taking much longer than anticipated.  But the other person working on the project just took it in stride, didn’t get upset or throw anything or even bitch and moan.  Instead, she simply continued to try to get the job done, no matter what it took.  This is a small example of something much larger going on at Echowood, and that is a fine balance of energy between six hard-working farmers.

SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS:

The community grows all of their vegetables using organic practices, and does not treat any of the goats or chickens with hormones or antibiotics.  In addition, they are very keen on “reduce, reuse, recycle” principals in much of what they do.  There is a lovely greenhouse made of salvaged lumber and chicken wire, fences are all made from felled trees and reused materials, they are planning a papercrete barn for the goats made from recycled tires and paper (and cement, clay and lime), and the soaps and incense that they make and sell are made with all natural organic ingredients (and did we mention that they smell WONDERFUL!).  While their personal diets and habits to not necessarily revolve around self-sustainability, they are advocates for environmental conservation, organic farming, and living with a very light carbon footprint.  Sharing is an obvious part of community life at Echowood, given they live 30 miles from the nearest town, and that they live together in two homes and a restored 1970’s trailer.  This lessens their need for as much “stuff” and gives each person the opportunity to share what they have with other community members. 
      
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HOME:   This community does not call itself an ecovillage or co-op, or anything for that matter.  It is more likely to be called a small farm community, with intentions of growing into an egalitarian (income sharing) community to include more people interested in building community on the land and stewarding the farm operations.  The 30 acres is home to nine buildings – two houses, a 1970’s restored trailer, a huge salvage yard cover, a workshop, a commercial kitchen, a soon-to-be ceramics studio, a greenhouse, and an office/media/hangout barn.  Most of these structures were already on the property when it was purchased by two of the members in 2007.  The “Little House” (2 bdrm, kitchen/living, bathroom and loft) was unfinished, however, so the community has taken that on as one of their main projects.  One couple lives in the main house, which also hosts the community kitchen.  The most interesting building is certainly the office/media lounge, which is where a majority of time is spent when not working on projects.  This is where the thinking, dreaming, planning, and chilling out takes place.  During our time there, we witnessed the following activities all take place within that one building (which is really just one large room in a barn-like structure): movie night, games night, computer games, checking email, answering business calls, knitting a quilt, eating meals, planning meetings, Jeopardy, loving on the cat and dogs, feeding the dogs, reading books, stretching out, and of course...filming interview for Within Reach Movie!

RESOURCES: At this point, the water, electricity and gas all comes from the city.  Therefore, they are extremely conservative with water use (and it’s also Texas where there is little rain to begin with!).  There is talk of one day drilling a well and going solar, but that is not the main priority right now.  Building materials used are mostly salvages from existing structures on the property or from items dropped by or found outside of the community in the garbage.  They joked that people tend to drop their used stuff of to them, and that they therefore have a growing collection of wood scraps, worn out tires, used doors, windows and more.  This reused stuff comes in handy when project arise, and it is neatly organized under a beautiful rooftop built of trees and salvage 2x4’s.  Most other resources needed to sustain the community and operate their business comes from Costco in Austin or any one of the nearby hardware stores.

FOOD: The food grown at the farm and sold at the farmers’ market is 100% natural.  The food eaten by the farmers is mostly purchased at Costco in bulk about once a month during trips to Austin.  This is then mixed with veggies grown on-site and eggs raised organically on-site.  They cook dinner together every evening, rotating cooks and clean-up.  During my stay, we had gourmet Indian food night, as well as a variety of other meals - mostly vegetarian.

ECONOMY: The community attends the Bastrop farmers’ market where they sell their handmade soaps and incense, and organically grown produce.  This brings in anywhere from $200 and up per week. There is one member who is a professor and his income provides much of the rest of the financial support for the community.

CHILDREN: For the first five years, the group has decided not to allow children to move into the community.  This is due to the newness of everything, and the general inability to predict wether or not there will be enough stability to give a child a healthy place to be. 

SPIRITUAL COEXISTENCE: Other than one former Mormon, we did not hear of any group or individual spiritual practice within this community.  They acknowledged that there is no desire to have any sort of group practice, so I suppose that means they do coexist beautifully, and possibly have individual practices that are not discussed openly.

WELLNESS: This was the most difficult area to assess here.  Two of the newer members have each lost 20 lbs since moving to Echowood because there is so much physical labor, and they are constantly outdoors, walking around the land, and working hard.  They use traditional Western doctors when needed, but generally stay healthy just by working their bodies and getting good rest.  Three of the members smoke cigarettes, and they do not necessarily eat all organic food.  We ate balanced meals and the cooking was excellent!  However, there is certainly room for growth in the wellness category, as each individual seemed to have some unhealthy habit preventing them from achieving complete mind-body-spirit wellness. 

LINKS:

1. * Main Website: http://www.echowood.org
   

2. * FIC Directory listing:  http://www.directory.ic.org/Echowood
   

3. * link to video on how to make Tofu: