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A Walking Tour
of Four Quarters
The Farmhouse Tour
The Farmhouse
Tour
The Camp Tour
The Camp Tour Too
To begin, take a look at what
brought you here.
A view of the ridges to the South of Four Quarters, from the Labyrinth.
And your Welcome Home.
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The South side
of our Farm House, as always, under construction. Probably built
around 1890 and abandoned in the 1960's, then returned to use
in 1994. At that time driving to the Farmhouse was an adventure,
and getting stuck in the dirt lane was part of the fun.
Since then we have put in over a mile
and a half of graveled roads, well and septic in the camp, and
planted over 100 trees around the Farmhouse and its gardens.
The grape vine wrapping its' way around the front porch is as
old as the house.
We live here tied to the seasons and
rhythm of The Land. Heating with wood, and working hard to minimize
the amount of "stuff" in our lives. We are very "Peak
Oil Aware," and believe lifeways of group sharing and ecological
living are the best way to prepare for the looming age of limits.
Turns out that's easy, because we also
live as a monastery, an Earth Spirited Community of Service
that shares a common treasury. Means that none of us receive
a wage or salary for our work here. The people here are either
living under professed vows of poverty and service to their
community; or under simple room and board arraignments. But
we are not living in want, we are rich indeed.
We live out of three buildings here
on the land, two of which are church owned. We refer to our
lifeways as "commutarian," meaning we share everything
that it makes practical sense to share, and that's a lot! All
of our food is processed, stored and shared out of the common
kitchen in the Farmhouse, and our everyday 8:00AM morning meeting
(and Farmhouse coffee) is the stuff of legend for the summer
interns who have lived with us. Our vehicles are church owned
and we make do with just three registered vehicles for the use
of our live-in staff; try that to reduce your carbon footprint!
In every decision we make about what
to buy and use we ask: Will it last? Will it reduce our resource
footprint? Does it increase our commitment to each other and
to our Community of Service?
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We have been planting and digging
and building since 1995; always with the view of minimizing our ecological
footprint and maximizing our ability to sustain the way we live. The
picture above is of just a part of our orchards, berries and grapes;
planted with a mix of new and traditional slow growth varieties. Every
year we plant more.
We call this real wealth! Makes us smile!
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 We
raise a large part of our food in the gardens, and it's preservation
and storage are a large part of our fall routine. In 2007 we put up
about 1,200 quart jars of garden produce, cases of jams and jellies
and mounds of root crops. Our beef and poultry are raised here on
the land as well, and our pork is local. It is a huge job putting
up all this food, much work and ends in the satisfaction of cases
of food tucked away in every corner of the Farmhouse through the winter
months. And during the summer, much of our garden produce is served
up in the camps' "Starvin' Artist Kitchen."
Raising and sharing our own food is the most
radical social statement of spiritual ecology that we know how to
make.
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Happiness is a full woodpile.
And it heats you three times, when you cut it, stack it
and burn it! We heat all of our buildings with wood, much
of which we harvest from the land. And our permanent buildings
have been constructed to take advantage of wood heat and
our southern exposure. New construction incorporates earth
berm and "thermal envelope" design; with the
result that they are cool in summer and naturally warm
in winter. As we build, we lay in provisions for the future
addition of active solar thermal and photovoltaic collectors.
Building to live sustainably is a process that is never
finished.
And we are (we believe) the only
church in Pennsylvania to have a winery license. We cottage
craft our wines, and it is a labor of love. Our winery
is a big part of our economic "Localization"
efforts, a key component of sustainable living in the
"Post Peak Oil World" that is fast approaching.
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Taking a stroll
down memory lane, we recall the transformation of the Farmhouse
as we removed the first floor and excavated the old stone cellar
to create the church office. This was the summer (and winter,
brrr) of 2003-4. At one point, the only access to the farmhouse
kitchen was by ladder.
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 But
all's well that ends, and by winter of 2005 we were warm
and toasty within the new church offices, as the snow
fell outside.
We are pretty good with
a hammer and saw, a required skill if you intend to resurrect
a long abandoned homestead for a multi adult community.
Even more so if you intend to live there sustainably,
because that does mean you are doing what has rarely been
done before. Designing and building from the ground up
for a very long-term view of the future and your place
in it.
With this in mind we broke ground
for our first completely new building in the summer of
2007. Our shop and sleeping dorm.
The lower shop is of course essential
for our operations and contains our equipment repair,
a small machine shop and a complete woodworking shop.
We build our own doors, can mill moldings and tongue +
groove plank. The southern exposure gives it plenty of
light and most of the foundation is earth bermed.
Upstairs is the sleeping and meeting
area. Built with 16 foot sloped ceilings, an r-5 sealed
thermal envelope on the outside skin and R-20 on the walls,
natural West-East ventilation and exposed beams and braces;
it will be an inviting open space. This winter (2008-09)
we will be finishing this space to accommodate 16 to 20
people in comfort, with lots of open space for meetings.
We hope to have it ready for our Members use by Yule,
and it should be fully finished in time for the 2009 camping
season.
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Breaking ground
on the 48x36 foot shop in August 2007, with the roof trusses
going in during a November chill. The roof goes up just
as snowy weather hits, December 2007. The interior trusses
with a view of the thermal envelope sealed to the outside
of the structures framing. Notice also the sloping roof
line to each side of the front windows; pitched and framed
to take solar thermal and photovoltaic panels.
 
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We complete the Farmhouse
tour with a view of our newest project, "The Lifeboat."
This addition to he Farmhouse is designed
from the ground up to support 8-10 adult living as a commutarian
community. The foundation level will accommodate an eight-fold
increase in space for the Four Quarters Winery and a doubling
of our office space. The large room off to the right is a root
cellar, sized to hold two years worth of stored food. Unseen
is the foundation for a three story Scandinavian style masonry
wood heater, far more efficient than conventional wood stoves.
And on the south side are the vaults for a built in, two story
composting toilet system. Can't let that waste go to waste!
The first floor of this addition is
focused on food. It will house a huge kitchen, mud room, community
living and dining space. 10 foot ceilings, passive East-West
ventilation and a generous southern exposure in winter; should
make this space friendly and comfortable year round. The second
and third floors will be given over to shared living spaces,
private rooms for our live-ins, and guest quarters.
With the use of the shop/dorm, we hope
to be able to accommodate 30 people in comfort for weekend intensives;
offering our city dwelling friends a taste of the compromises
and joys of sustainable living.
We do not pretend to have found the
"answer," but we think we are good at asking the right
questions. Consider us to be a test tube experiment in finding
good questions and answers for the "Age of Limits"
that we are now entering into, together.
On
to The Camp Tour
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