Our farm is not a commune, it is a work-oriented cooperative, and we can guarantee that we'll get along famously, as long as you stay home and we stay here, smiling and waving at each other across the internet waves. You may now skip the rest of the letter, and go directly to the Fear Section below, which deals with what we are most afraid of: crazy people, stupid people, and dumb lazy jerks. Nothing personal against dumb jerks, by the way. I remember being a real jerk myself, when I was seven. When I was eleven, I was still a nasty kid. I am embarrassed about it. Actually I am ashamed of it, and I will not tell you the nasty dumb jerk things I said and did. With all sympathy and understanding for them, we do not want to live and work with folks who are still 7-11, going on 3. So, Mr. and Ms. 7-11, please skip all the nonsense below and go directly to the FEAR and LOATHING section.

Cooperative businesses often suffer from that type of personality conflicts which are easily solved in regular businesses by the device of firing. But you can't fire your partner. So we thought that buying another farm would give us greater opportunities as well as provide a solution for expected personality conflicts. We bought an old farm thirty miles from here, on a very quiet, seldom traveled road. It's 70 acres and a house, on both sides of the road. We have also bought a third piece of land, 100 acres of wilderness half an hour due north, in bear and coyote country, with a house, the only one in a four square mile block of land. We dream of building here some cliff dwellings, basically caves with doors and windows, perfectly dry due to a ceramic layer, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Here we could also start a maple syrup business and expand our small plots of woodland herbs, and when we find able and willing partners, we are going to rent out cabins where quiet folks, recommended to us by quiet friends in NYC, can enjoy silence and watch bears, turkeys, and coyotes in our forest. Until now the farm has been based on selling herbal products made with herbs bought from wildcrafters who dig wild ginseng, echinacea, and goldenseal. Our main farm, the Galway farm, is three miles from Great Sacandaga Lake, 20 miles from Saratoga Springs.

FINANCES Our Galway farm will be shared by co-operative owners in the following way:
A corporation owns the farm. There are 200 shares. Sixteen hours a week go into maintaining the farm and providing for basic subsistence, food, electricity, firewood, basic clothes and boots of Salvation Army quality. That might include the materials for building a simple small cabin and could possibly include basic liability insurance if you have a car and even health insurance, as soon as we show profits. Everyone who does 16+20=36 of work per week is issued 2 shares after six month. People who work 16+10=26 hours of work per week are issued one share in six months. More work gives you your shares faster. You can sell your shares, but the other co-operative owners have the first option to buy. When you decide to join us, we sign a contract in which we promise to deliver earned shares six months from contract signing.
Here is how we will divide the mythical profits. Say we plant 10 acres of ginseng. Suppose we sell the crop for $540,000 in four year . If expenses are $40,000, and we have 20 shareholders who own 10 shares each, then a partner ought to get 1/20th of $500,000, which is 25,000. If we plant only one acre, and the expenses are still $40,000, then profits are $14,000: you get $700. If we mess up and let the ginseng spoil a bit, and we sell it for $40,003, and expenses are still $40,000, then, lucky boy, you get 15 cents. Which would not be so bad, after all, 15 cents, and a piece of a farm, for a few years' work. Figuring that on a regular job, between traveling to work, fixing the car, and doing your hair, you spend more than 50 hours a week on the job, what can you show for the past five years of your working life? You were really working for the taxman, the banker, or for your landlord. They got something to show.

IDEOLOGY A difficult task will be that of blending the concepts of community and co-operative: we want people who join us to be interested in being actual owners of the land but we do not expect, ask, or hope for any cash contribution. That creates trouble in the mind of some commune ideologists who reject private property and refuse to own stock, even though that gives them security from being kicked out in a communal coup- - sometimes the nicest people get kicked out of families, tribes, and nations; if you think that just being nice, hard-working, and competent is going to protect you, you are wrong. On the other hand, people steeped in the ideology of capitalism might become suspicious of the idea of owning stock without exchanging cash for it. That's too bad.

GOVERNMENT Our system of government remains a primordially soupy, slippery slop of democracy and labor aristocracy. The majority has great moral authority but those who do more will have more authority--and more corporation shares--than those who get less done. We like free market competition between different methods and ideas: you stack the wood your way, we stack it our way, pretty soon we'll see which stack falls down. That is clearly better than consensus compromise, at least we'll have one good solid wood stack. In many situations, however, we can't take the chance to try different ways. We want you to back into the driveway when you come in, and drive forward when you leave the house. I know that most people drive in and back out of their driveway. Problem is that they can cause accidents, and would tick off the neighbors when they see some dumb jerk backing onto the roadway. We can't wait till the snow crushes the roof you are building, just to be able to say, "We told you so." The roof has to be done right the first time, and those who are here and who have the experience will have to make sure you do it right. The same holds true when we deal with issues of waste and of the environment. We can see the catastrophic results of doing it in the standard way: this time we have to do it the smart way, which has not been set in stone yet. For example, we have tried five different methods of heating our houses with recycled fuels . They all worked well but we keep looking for the cleanest and most efficient method.

BUSINESS If appropriate technology is your thing, we could start a cooperative business, such as manufacturing and marketing solar ovens or water heaters, items for which there is a definite need, at millions of farms and camps. A condition: when you use our tools you have to follow our rules. We are pretty flexible on most things, but we do insist on safety for humans and for tools. If you insist on misusing a welder or a chain saw, we are not going to get along too well. Is it too much to ask that you use our tools the way we use them?

AIRSHIPS Yes, I am all for building an airship, a sixty foot rigid blimp, I am not putting you on... but before we let you start on that kind of project, we would have to see you working full time to build the hangar. We have too many unfinished projects here. If you are unwilling to protect your work and our tools, then we can trust that your entire project will fail, and it's better not to start it.

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE vs. COMMUNE If you want to try egalitarian income-sharing on a business you start, that's fine with us. If you want to start your own private business here, we would probably agree, provided it is legal. If there are any profits, we subtract our expenses, such as energy and real estate taxes, and divide the rest into your 90% and our 10% share. As for those who have obligations to make payments or need cash at once, everyone who has ever tried to get a job in this area, has found work without delay, as long as he has a car--or is willing to use bicycle. We do not want any share of the money you make working outside.

Working 17 hours a week means putting in 2 or 3 hours a day, or two full days. That's the minimum we could agree to accept, but only from people of special skills, from a mechanic or an engineer or a professional, from someone who is developing some alternative energy project of her own. Working here on weekends only might be sufficient, from someone who has significant skills to contribute. But if you propose to come here and play farmer for two or three hours a day, then we can tell, from our experience, that your real objective in life is rest. Farming is not a matter of two-or-three-hours days. You will have to propose how many hours of your time you can spare.

We do not expect full time dedication, so we have the right to ask you to be efficient during those hours you devote to the common good. There is a difference between sweeping the floor and throwing dust in the air. If you do not know how to sweep without making dust, we'll show you how, or we'll ask you to do something else. If you are broom challenged, it might be better if you leave that arduous task to us. If you disagree, if you really must sweep and you would feel insulted at being told that you can't sweep, then you should dedicate yourself to a community that is more caring and tolerant. We do not go for dividing chores, like you clean the bathroom, I clean the pantry. That's because some folks believe in "central cleaning", which means that they sweep the center of a room and hide trash in the corners. That's why they are able to proclaim the kitchen clean in three minutes.

Our income in the past has come from the sale of herbs to healthfood stores. We have grown medicinal herbs like goldenseal and echinacea, have bought the same from root diggers who find them in the woods; we also have sold bee pollen and herbs from China and Korea. We have no official diet except that we get our food for free or wholesale. It would be nice if we could produce most of our own food, but it seems more practical to concentrate on expensive foods, such as mushrooms, tofu, or fish, and buy wheat from our Amish neighbors, who can grow wheat better than we possibly could.

OUR OWN LITTLE HANG-UPS We prefer using dumped or surplus materiel, such as paper, envelopes, steel, lumber, bananas with brown spots. We'd rather pick firewood at the town dump than cut down trees. We respect all religions/spiritual paths, propose herbal medicine as an adjuvant, not an alternative to modern medicine.We take very seriously environmental degradation,the destruction of indigenous cultures, cruelty against humans and animals, television, waste, war, peace, and science. We take a bit less seriously astrologers, therapists, political correctness, the New Age, disco, and Black Helicopters, by which we mean that astrologers, numerologists, kinesiologists, iridologists, and even phrenologists ought to expect some good humored kidding if they come here. We believe strongly in conserving energy and avoiding waste. We produce very little waste and hope to eliminate even the need to take our plastic garbage to the landfill: we are going to melt it under concentrated sun heat and turn it into posts and raised bed garden boards. We reuse, recycle, compost, and in winter we cook with wood. We appreciate animals, have chickens, geese, pigeons, cats and dogs, but you will have to be real nice and offer some particularly significant contribution to convince us to accept your pets. Pets belonging to friends have given us too much trouble, more on that later. We have a gym, a few VCR and DVD machines, a few computers, lots of movies, a good library, bicycles, a couple of oscilloscopes and other electronic equipment, two sailboats, and a windsurfer. Lake Sacandaga is pretty big, with more than 100 miles of coastline.

Most folks who visit us are very dissatisfied with parents, teachers, bosses, and government, but are otherwise very conservative. We keep trying to find more efficient ways of doing stuff, but notice resistance against innovation, or even against experimentation. Most rebels prefer to limit themselves to novel hair styles, nose rings, and alternative clothes styles. Political radicals become very conservative when dealing with cats: most prefer to use kitty litter and change it when the stench becomes unbearable--we use sawdust and change it every day. Most folks insist on normal raised wood floors, and get really upset when we propose stone floors. Stone floors keep the house cool in the summer. Stone floors release some of earth's heat into the house, soak up heat from the stove during the day and release it at night. Stone floors do not catch fire.

We are not normal. The normal choice is to drive to town and shop every day, we prefer going out once every ten days or so. Of course, if you have your own car, we are not interested in controlling your car use. But if we have to pay for it, then we are interested. Shopping often, throwing all produced trash--paper, kitchen leftovers, cans, platic, and metal--into a plastic bag, and paying some guy to take it elsewhere, that's behavior favored by hippies and bankers, while us raving ecologists prefer to drive less and to recycle everything.

City folks sometime expect to find perfection in the country. Sorry, not here. We cannot offer you happiness, health, enlightenment, or spiritual teaching. All we have to offer is a share of our food, some good medicinal herbs, a share of our farm, and an ecologically sound and sustainable future. We are really committed to eliminating waste and to base our economy on renewable energy and resources. We mean it. All the good people who cannot reuse clean plastic bags, who overfill their dish and dump the leftovers in the garbage, who want us to buy a new truck, who object to keeping heavy steel scrap for welding jobs and old cars for parts, who want to widen our narrow paths winding among the trees, we invite them all to go to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. Same invitation to the people who enjoy getting drunk: you may be great, real cool folks, but we can't afford you. The WEF boys in Davos are waiting to hear your report. They need more waste specialists, more dumb drunk jerks, to hasten the demise of our planet. The weather is changing, clean water is getting scarce, but our main interests are still partying, driving, TV and video games, war, getting high, and watching the rich and famous get high.

BIG PLANS Some folks ask about our ideology. Is it non-violent, non-sexist, non-racist? Is this an egalitarian, New Age community? We are not opposed to any of the above concerns, but we prefer to leave others in charge of philosophy and theology, while we concentrate on doing something useful today. Our purpose here is to create ecologically sound businesses and to eliminate waste. We are just interested in getting something done, something that is fun, is interesting, and is even good for the planet.

You might say, "Be real now, what are you doing about changing the world right now?" Our answer would have to be: nothing much, today, but we have a few things on the fire. If you are adventure-minded, you can join a couple of us, over there, in Kosovo, for a few months. Andrea and myself went to Albania, and from there I went to Kosovo. I observed that the Rom (Gypsies) and other minorities there have had their water cut off. So we are now going through the legal steps to organize an NGO whose purpose is to build ferrocement cisterns for collecting rainwater. Sometimes next year, this new NGO will go to Kosovo to give a hand to the Rom. They are locked in ghettoes, they are not allowed to leave town, to work, or to trade with the outside world. Most of them have not eaten fresh vegetables since June 1999. They are trying to grow food in their gardens without the benefit of running water, which would seem, to an American gardener, a pretty depressing endeavor.

In the long run, when a few more folks join us, together we will be able to grow herbs on a significant scale and make some pretty good money. Maybe we could then afford to give some of our profits to financing the manufacture and free distribution of solar ovens in places like Haiti, where the need for firewood or charcoal for cooking has caused massive deforestation. It would be fun as well. An acre of ginseng in Galway could probably buy quite a few square miles of rain forest in South America, and keep them from being burnt down. Of course, nothing mandatory, nobody is going to tell you what to do with your share of the farm profits. Just an idea. These are not community projects, they are private projects.

Another project that might be of interest to some people, would be an Internet site on lost animals, state-wide at first, which would get data from animal shelters and people who have found lost pets and make the data available to people who have lost their pets. Personally, I have a serious problem with the fur industry-- not with trappers, who are just poor country folks making a little extra cash--and other cruelties or idiotic dysfunctions of our society, and would like to work with like-minded people on expedient, practical solutions. It seems that a few people using modern tools such as the internet, can initiate actions which change the world for the better. That is what a few people did for the land mine issue.

We have been thinking about another issue, one in which we could see immediate results. It is the quiet unobtrusive hunger of old folks who refuse to be institutionalized but who are getting weak or blind and increasingly unable to shop or cook. They may also have to choose between paying real estate taxes and buying food. There is a waiting line for meals on wheels and it's not a daily program anyway. We could set up a stove in one of our vans and deliver a plate of rice and veggies or noodles, hot off the wok, to old folks in the area. So we can grow herbs, we can build solar collectors and domes, we can share some of our energies with the wretched of the earth, and we can make an honest living that we will not have to try to justify when we are older. We can have fun or even adventure, while we beat a new path to more rational ways of living on this Earth.

FEAR and LOATHING I must admit it, we are worried about inviting you here. We have seen some loose eggs rolling our way, we have had our crazies. You, no doubt, are a very nice person. Problem is, quite a few very nice persons have damaged brains, and will manage to make life very difficult for everyone around them. So, if a shrink has advised you that you are suffering from paranoid schizophrenia or from bipolar affective disorder and the like, and if you think that your shrink is a jerk, we are ready for compromise: your shrink may very well be a jerk, but you still do have some loose wiring up there. Wiring that needs a little soldering job. So maybe you don't believe in medical solder: in that case we are not going to allow you to afflict us all with your little brain short circuit. In other words, if you are "different" but you do not want to take the little yellow pills your shrink prescribed, we do not want you here.

Now suppose you come here as a cool and pleasant person, taking your pills every day, and we like you, and we invite you to come back. So you move in, and one happy day you decide, on your own, without medical advice, to go back to lunacy and quit taking your medication. If you do that, you go back home. Lunacy not allowed here. Low level weirdness, like taking food from the pantry and hoarding it in your cabin, in our experience may just be a first sign. Where once we had friendly discussions we might get screaming scenes. You might become convinced that we are looking at you wrong. If we dare to tell you, that the way you are installing the roofing allows the wood underneath it to get wet, instead of thanks for the tip, we might get rage. Thinking that your friends want to put you down, that they are out to to get you, that's a kind of thinking shared by drunks and by people off their medication. If the radio has personal messages for you, if you can affect the weather, if you are touched by evil eye, if you are under surveillance, if you suspect radio transmitters were implanted on you, if the CIA boys are following you, you can rest assured: we will at once report your arrival to our Special Friends. Over there, just past them there hills, you might be able to hear them humming, buzzing in the distance, they are hovering, listen, yes, it's Them, in their Black Helicopters. No problem, they will take you back to Kansas.

As for stupid people, we worry about the arrival of missionaries who bring us freedom and democracy. They travel from far away at great expense and discomfort. They are kind, they are eager to bring us civilization, teaching us to use pliers as wrenches and wrenches as hammers. They want to prove to us that finish sanders can well be used as wood shapers, fine cleavers as hatchets, and wood chisels as cold chisels. They are ready to show us that carpets belong underneath wood stoves, that a couple of fleas is no serious problem, that water does not really crack pipes when it freezes. "It might happen, but it won't happen to our water pipes." "Why not?" "Trust me, it won't happen here." Our Amish neighbours can go away for a weekend and leave their house, store, cash box, and barnful of animals in the hands of their teenage kids. Our other neighbours would not dream of doing that, because their sons and daughters, just like you, our lovely prospective visitors, are the result of a modern educational system. Schooling and therapy praise and encourage confidence in one's own innate wisdom. We tremble at the thought of having to meet your innate wisdom. We cringe in fear, hoping not to hear the line, "Trust me," from a real cool and confidence-inspiring guy who has decided to turn our dirt-floor cellar into a... laundry room. The cellar has no drain system for the wash water. No problem, our cool guy intends to overcome any merely physical obstacle in his path. The decision has been made, he will see the project through, he will move a 30 inch washing machine down the stairs and through a 29 inch doorway. "It will fit fine, but if there was a problem, I would just take out the door frame." The door frame, by the way, is 150 years old, very solidly built, and they did not use screws to build it. Whether you are eighteen or in your fifties, would you please leave your inner child at home? It's that spoiled brat who knows what the priorities should be in his own as well as in other people's lives. He has the poise of the statesman and the gift of command. He will argue with geese, with the car brakes, and with the weather. He will test himself in arguments with policemen, he will find a challenge in lumber-stretching projects. That inner child might throw a fit if we don't buy into a physics-denying project of his, and is seldom available when work needs to be done, especially before 3pm. Leave him home, please.

Talking about people who never appear before early afternoon, one day Brett was working in Brooklyn outside a house, at about 8:30am, and a charming lady opened the window and hollered out, " We are all artists and intellectuals in this neighborhood, and we need our sleep, please!" So if you, like so many other solid citizens, need the night to attend to art and intellect, and the day for sleeping, feeding, TV education, and resting, you ought to warn us in advance of visiting.

If you believe that water at a roiling boil is hotter than simmering water, or that boiling gives water a healthier level of energy than simmering, we ain't gonna put you down. If you think that the sun rises in the south, it's no problem. If you think that people catch pneumonia from planting under an April shower, if you are positive that planting when it rains brings bad luck to plants, there will be no guffaws heard here, no finger pointing. If you believe that you must put aloe vera on the skin, not cold water, immediately, if you burn your finger, then we will give you another version of reality, but without any snickering. Our Snickering Department has been disbanded, under pressure from our SVA, the Snickering Victims Associatioan. We only worry whether you came to your stupid conclusions yourself, through observation or intuition, or whether you were told by your dad, who very reasonably trusted Grandpa. In the latter case, there is hope. In the former case, there is little hope that you may fit in here, since your mind is in Random Access Mode. Your eyes see something, an inquiry is made by the brain, and the first random explanation that comes in, as long as it is positive for your self-image, is accepted and internalized. In that case, there is great hope for you in the foreign policy establishment, in advertising, or in the public relations field. You could have a glorious preaching career, you could get to occupy the Oval Office, you could even start a new religion and achieve great wealth and power. The reason that we do not want you here, is that our experience tells us that intuitive carpenters and electricians leave leaking, burning, and collapsing buildings in their wake, while intuitive farmers and mechanics leave behind dead trees and stationary vehicles.

After reading this, Sara wrote us that she got the feeling that we are getting disillusioned with the idea of community. Actually, it's not so. It is still the most efficient way of living and working. Sara questioned whether we are angry and pessimistic. We are not angry with our lunatic graduates at all, we do not feel they took advantage of us. They did not mean to start those fires. No, it's just that we recognize that cooperation and compromise are difficult arts for the sane. For the insane, they are impossible.

Fighting over the most popular wheelbarrow is not the road to cooperative gardening success. "Why did you take it?" "It was just sitting there by the garden so I took it." "You had to know I was using it all morning!!" "OK, it's all yours." "Why couldn't you ask first?" "There is no need to scream, is there?" "*@#&!!!" Speaking now just for myself, I like people, but I know that we all suffer from domination instincts, which makes cooperation between equals very difficult. Lucky for me, I have no need to impose my will here, all I want to do is to go away, as soon as possible, leaving behind a successful farm, with a good machine shop, safe carpentry workshops, and irrigated fields. If brand new buildings leak or collapse under snow load, if they catch fire because of sloppy work, it's not a successful farm, it's a fools' playground.

I admit that in our group here, we are fearful of drunks, schizophrenics, and pushy teenagers in their twenties, thirties, and forties. Why should we have to waste our time arguing with folks who come here to prove Dad wrong? Sorry, Dad was right. Jack should not try to fix the tractor. Jack can't fix tractors, all he can do is take them apart, lose pieces, and try to cover up his mistakes by whining that we are too cheap to buy a good tractor. We can still live and work with Jack, as long as he does not insist on proving that he can do things he can't do. He is a nice guy, he is not really stupid, he just has a fixing fixation. He might still learn to fix tractors, but he should not take up such a job by himself for a while. By the way, if you do not like Click and Clack of Car Talk, a show heard on National Public Radio, if their humor annoys you, you will not like us.

Here is a story about lurking lunacy. At one time, there were just Mike and me at this farm here in Galway. So Mike asks me for the keys to move the van. The next day I tell him I need the keys. He says he already gave them to me. Sure, I could have forgotten it, except that if he had given me the keys, they would be in my keys pocket, the little pocket above the right front pocket in my jeans. They are not there, so I can be pretty sure he didn't give them to me. Mike insists. A few hours later he finds the keys on his own shelf. Now Mike is a very smart person, a cool, very funny guy. He is not crazy at all. On this day, however, he says, "You put the keys on my shelf to make me look stupid." Now Mike is a good friend, why should I care to embarrass him? If I were such a jerk, what would the point be? Yukking it up with chickens and geese at Mike's expense? It makes no sense. So the next day I can't find some paper I left on the desk. Wouldn't you believe that the first thought that comes to my stupid mind, is that Mike hid the papers to pay me back. Paranoia is lurking in everyone's brain. Lucky for both of us, Mike shrugged off the idea of me hiding the keys on his shelf, while I just said to myself, "Nonsense!" I did not accuse Mike of taking the papers, I rejected the possibility, I did not speak my mind, there was no argument, and soon I found the papers, of course. Please accept the reality: living in close proximity with other people creates the conditions where Paranoid Personality Disorder may develop, even if you are a cool person. If you are unwilling or unable to reject paranoia when it pops up in your mind, we do not want you here. We do not want to be in a situation where we have to prove our innocence: we cannot prove that we are not out to get you. See, we even admit it, we cannot prove you wrong. So you are not wrong, not at all, you are right, we have been plotting against you from the start. We are plotting. We plot to plot against you before we hear of you.

This is not a therapeutic community. This ain't no politically correct community. If you want silence, if you want to be a hermit, it's feasible. We have very few social pressures here. If you don't want to come to meetings but you are doing your share, it's fine. If you are scaring people with your weirdness, it's not fine. If you are sick in the head and deny it, we do not want you. If you see angels, we shall be inspired. If you talk to angels, we shall marvel. If you argue with angels, we shall make discreet inquiries. If you scream at angels, if you have to fight back angels with bat wings, then we will ship you off, to be crazy elsewhere.

We are really worried, but if you are still interested in visiting we'll send directions and some more info about us. Plan to visit us for a few minutes, or hours. If this place is tolerable, you might want to extend the visit to a few days, and then go check out other opportunities, for a couple of days. While doing your rounds, think about it, and then call us up, and let us know if you want to give us a try.