It pains us to watch. We try to help by giving advice and offering to mediate. From our perspective, equanimity could be easily arranged. Community could be restored if only a few simple steps were taken. It would begin with an agreement to move forward as a democracy wherein all tenants have a say and every vote counts.

We lived at Oilseed when it was a thriving community of friends and helpful neighbors. We had weekly potlucks and monthly meetings. We didn’t always agree but we were able to make decisions as a group and more forward. The driveway got graded. We vetoed the wedding and long-term camping in the woods. The guineas were approved and came home to roost.

We remember well the painstaking care with which we crafted a pet policy and the evening we spent deciding what to do with one of our members who was behind in their rent. Better remembered are the laughs, deep discussions and warm hugs. Oilseed once meant music nights, craft nights, bonfires, shared meals, long walks and community projects.

We brought what we learned about community with us when we moved down to the bend. We take turns helping each other. We purchase, own and share community assets. We sit on the porch and discuss ways to build neighborhood resilience. We share projects, meals, bonfires, long walks, laughter, deep discussion and warm hugs. Our lives vibrate with positive energy and purpose. Life is good.

We met the latest horror story with disbelief. The situation had escalated beyond mistrust to outright disregard for personal privacy. It can best be described as a violation of human rights complete with illegal searches and legal threats.

What was once a cooperative community has become a not-so-benevolent dictatorship. As sad as this is, the level of outrageousness has actually given us hope. Hope that the community has bottomed out. That it can’t get any worse. That this time, remedial action will be taken to turn things around.

Or, if no fix can be had, hope that our friends at Oilseed will finally walk away. That they will survive this experience and, despite the bad taste in their mouths they will have the nerve to attempt community living again at some point in the future.

In 2001, when the original lease was negotiated, it opened up much-needed affordable housing and provided a revenue stream to support the broader community we call the Bubble. Since then, Oilseed Community has been home to college students, farm and fuel interns, and people who worked at The Abundance Foundation, Piedmont Biofuels and Chatham Marketplace. Oilseed provided a soft landing portal into the Bubble.

Abandoned houses on land awaiting development became community housing and revenue. It was a triple win. The developer was happy. The tenants were happy. And the Bubble flourished.

Bob and I moved to Oilseed in November of 2007 after approval by the community. Because Oilseed was more about community than cheap rooms, we were screened like everyone else. We were very grateful to move into the trailer, which we cleaned up and renamed “Camelina.” On many an afternoon, it wasn’t unusual to open our door to find see either Matt or Greg and the fresh, new face of a prospective tenant.

During the two years we lived in Camelina, we formed lasting friendships with many wonderful people including Simon and Jessica, Link, Matt, Dana, Greg, Kathryn, Jack and Adah. Revenue from Oilseed rents fueled the bubble, helping pay for Biofuels Coop remediation projects and helping Lyle and Tami keep their many philanthropic projects afloat.

None of the original tenants live at Oilseed today. We bought Trouts Farm. Greg moved to Michigan. Simon and Jessica bought a home in Durham, Link in Siler City, Matt in Bynum. We all fledged.

Although we know many of the new Oilseeders, I have yet to meet them all. Most of them are snugly plugged into the bubble. But sadly, the Oilseed revenue stream that used to benefit the bubble is over, dammed up by the tenants themselves. In a bold move, the new crop of Oilseeders re-negotiated their lease with the developers.

When I first heard about this, I assumed they had discussed their intentions with the current lease holders. Given that assumption, I accepted that they were taking their destiny into their own hands. Empowering themselves.

It sounded like a positive move except for the part about removing all financial support from the bubble. Making payments instead to the developer when they weren’t asking for money seemed like a waste. But hey, if this was the new direction of Oilseed, who was I to protest?

Come to find out, no one knew except for the tenants themselves. It was a surprise to everyone else. The bold move began looking more like a mutiny.

We all assumed Oilseed would die at the hands of the bulldozers one day. None of us could have guessed it would have come at the hands of the community itself.

…”Hayseed”.

There I said it.

Many of us “Oilseeders”  have been musing lately about the past (and future) of Oilseed Community. The original order with the cosmic waiter, as I understand it, was for our small community of three houses to demonstrate the feasibility of growing an oilseed crop as an accoutrement to country living rather than another golf course.

And so a crop was planted near the pink cinder-block house, over on the other side of the 83 acres. Matt, Lyle, and Kim (among others I’m sure), planted an acre of canola after tilling the pasture grasses under. Unfortunately, this trial helped support the notion that a single tilling of pasture grasses won’t keep the aggressive ones from coming back and choking out your canola. And so it was….

Then, without really knowing how it might relate to the initial goal set forth, that of coaxing an energy crop out of the red North Carolina clay, Greg contracts with a local hay farmer to come and bale about 75 acres of pasture grass, because as we learned above, that’s what grows well here. Oilseed has a hay crop taken off, dozens of 950 pound bales that provides part of the biomass required to produce beef and milk here in Chatham.

And a year passes by. And another hay crop comes ready for baling, and again Oilseed provides biofuel for Chatham cows and goats.  And this is why I’ve been thinking lately that Oilseed should change its name to Haybale. Clearly, growing hay has been a winner for our community – very little work on our part – and tons of hay roll off the line every year.

But now, a newcomer is emerging on the Oilseed scene, pushing its way up in the red clay, liberally amended with Amanda’s worm castings. This year I followed my first wheat crop with a crop of soybeans in two varieties.

So with an oilseed crop coming along this summer, that  puts the current iteration of our community’s name at Hayseed. And I for one, think it fits.

I never actually expect winter to happen. After living in the tropics for eight years, I kind of got out of the habit.

I’ve heard people say that we don’t really have winter in the south, but that’s not my reality. I know that North Carolina is considered part of “The South” but it feels like the north to me. For one thing, there are no avocados growing here. No breadfruit, either. At 35.622 degrees north of the Equator, Moncure is peach country, not mango country.

Maui – January, 2003 and Moncure -January, 2009

And here its happened again – we’ve got winter. No matter how deep I am in denial, winter keeps happening. It’s been cold for months and then, just like the weather service predicted, we got snow. I looked out the window and saw it swirling around the garden and blanketing the lawn. I couldn’t believe it, so I propped the door open with my foot and took a picture.

Later, I saw my friends playing in the snow, but still I didn’t want to go outside. They were romping like kids in the stuff. It looked cold and wet – two conditions I try to avoid. Finally, I forced myself outside. With a leaf rake, I cleared our back steps. I took a whisk broom and dusted off Christine, our faithful car.

Lauren and Val walked by, dragging branches from the woods to burn in the stove next door. They were planning on making snow cream. Meanwhile, a pot of coconut cream potato/corn chowder simmered on our stove. I tried not to think about how nice some breadfruit chips would go with that soup.

As I chatted with Lauren and Val and saw how happy they were, I found myself enjoying the day despite myself. The sun felt good, the sky was bright and clear and the air was fresh. I let down my guard and embraced it for a moment and then I ran back inside.

This morning, Bob and I got out of bed when the first rays of sun began trickling across the tops of the trees. We took our cameras and walked to the high point of the property. Along the way, we saw a hawk on the power lines, deer leaping away into the trees and heard the croak of a blue heron as it winged its way east. We watched the steam rise off the pond waters and marveled at the beauty of tiny, perfect spiders webs, strung with dew drops in the long grass.

And of course, we took pictures of bales from every angle, with every kind of background. Our feet got wet and we were a little chilled by the cool morning air, but the pleasure of sharing this unhurried look at our beautiful world stayed with us all day.

The high was supposed to reach 99 degrees, just like it has been all week and they had decided to get an early start to avoid some of the heat. So we found ourselves up an hour early after getting to bed an hour late, packing a lunch and some dry tee shirts.

They drove off and I went and lay down on the bed. I was looking forward to going for a walk with Dana and Jessi in three hours and had plenty of time for a nap.

Thirty seconds later, I got up to bring my phone into the bedroom. On my return, I looked down at the unmade bed, remembered today was laundry day and decided to strip the bed. I figured I could lay down on the comforter while the washer did its thing. And then I thought I’d take out the compost.

When I got outside, I decided to water the garden while it was still cool. By the time I finished the outdoor chores, the washing machine was ready for a second load. And so it went, right up until I found myself hanging clothes on the line.

That’s when I had one of those “Ahhhhhhh” moments. I had crossed over into the timelessness of an age old activity. I felt Amish. I was so absorbed in the process of picking up each pair of shorts, each tee shirt and pinning it to the clothesline that I felt like an artist.

The sun was warm on my shoulders, the sound of the birds chatting in the trees made me feel a part of nature and I was thankful that the sun was going to dry these clothes for me on this day. I live for the Ahhhhh moments and sometimes they are as simple as drying clothes in the sun on a hot day.

The Sunday night potluck is one way our eclectic and busy group stays current with each other and our ever-evolving ideas. There are eleven of us living at Oilseed Community, six at Biofuels Coop two miles down the road and another half dozen regulars from other neighborhoods.

The food is always interesting. Among the offerings last night were tamales made with rabbit and pigeon and a variety of fermented chutneys and slaws. One night the gang at the upper house surprised us with a freshly butchered guinea.

Most of the food is locally grown or intercepted from the locally landfill. We really enjoy the variety and look forward to tasting new dishes although we have to admit we have not sampled any of the meat.

Ping pong, fooseball and the latest rage – a board game called Settlers of Catan are standard after-dinner activities. Settlers, in which players build roads, settlements, and eventually cities is appropriate for our group in the same way Monopoly was appropriate for our parents.

And for the non game players, there is always conversation, ranging from silly to serious. Lately we’ve been discussing the future of our community. All of us seek to reduce our dependence on petroleum products and some of us fantasize about creating a new settlement. Each week we share tips and stories for reducing our ecological footprint.

I always look forward to Sunday evenings – to the people, the food, the games and the conversation. When all is said and done, we return home with full heads and hearts and an empty pot.

I try to pretend that it is just Simon in his bone outfit. I try to carry on like normal, but I keep a wary eye on him. My brain tells me that it’s Simon under those old bones, but my gut tells me to run. If he gets too close, I lose control and take flight.

The first time Simon blew the lid off my cool was at Potluck Sunday. Dave was there with Giant, his dog, and Giant started barking furiously, all the hair standing up along his back. I jumped up and didn’t know what to do for a second. Then I went over and put a hand on Giant to calm him. Dave was surprised I didn’t get bit. Giant has a reputation.

There was a big going away party for Chris over the weekend and we were encouraged to dress up. Bob dressed as an Arab and I wore my chi pao. He introduced us as representatives from the country that supplies our oil and the one that helps pay the bill. And Simon wore his bones.

So, over peanuts and beers, they filmed this:

Something tells me this is just the beginning…

In the case of “The Trailer,” it took about twenty hours of Bob’s hard work before I would even consider living there. He wiped down the walls, shampooed the carpets, killed the mice and replaced the refrigerator and stove before I was won over. At that point, we renamed it “Camelina” after the oilseed plant.

I had been talking with Jessi, Ian and Greg about renaming our new home and we bandied about a few names, the most amusing of which was Ian’s “The Tackle Box.”

When I told Bob about this conversation he immediately suggested Camelina and I took to it right away. After all, we are living in a community which calls itself Oilseed. I also like the name because it sounds like Camille and Camelot.

With that, we moved our stuff in, including our houseplants and started putting pictures on the walls. With a little bit of effort, we managed to haul off the residual piles of trash. Bob installed under the counter lighting in the kitchen. Then we started cooking, made a compost pile and put up a couple of bird feeders.

Camelina really feels like our home now. A home we can be proud of. So much so that we’ve invited houseguests and are hosting the first phase of a triple house oilseed party this weekend.