Lost Valley Educational Center

  Now that you know how we are finding communities (thanks for reading the previous post!)  :) ...here is more about Lost Valley Educational Center.

Lost Valley is located in Dexter, Oregon, about 18 miles outside of Eugene.  On the way, we crossed this totally awesome one-lane wooden covered bridge.  Check this thing out!

We arrived at Lost Valley at around 7:30 in the evening and began the search for Melanie, our point-of-contact. It was raining pretty hard and starting to get cold.  

The entry point when you first come into Lost Valley.  It has some maps and a sign-in book.    Neat that it is made out of cob, though!

After asking around, we found Melanie and immediately began to discuss sleeping arrangements.  Originally, we had said we would tent camp, which was the cheapest option at $10 a night.  Lost Valley was the first community that we have seen that charges visitors a fee to tent camp.  However, due to the weather, we asked if any other accommodations were available.  Lucky for us, they had a cancellation and had a townhouse available.  This was a far cry from tent camping.  It was a furnished two bedroom, one bath townhouse with a full kitchen, known as their Solplex building.  Since we hadn't eaten and didn't relish the idea of trying to prepare dinner in the rain on a camp stove, we decided to part with the extra $20.  Below are some pictures of what the Solplex units look like.  We did not take pictures of the unit we were in, but these are a few pics from the Lost Valley website that are extremely similar.

We were a little put off that Melanie was insistent on having the rental fee paid right then and there.  Maybe they had some bad experience in the past, but in this type of community it isn't like people to do the "dine and dash."  Before settling in for the night, Melanie took us up to the common house (they call it the "Lodge") for a quick tour.  This is where the main kitchen is and common meals are prepared.   

Although everyone had finished eating, there were just a few remnants from dinner still sitting out.  It looked like maybe a few stuffed green peppers and maybe some rice, but it was all cold and looked like it had been sitting there for a while.  Melanie suggested that maybe we wanted to save the effort of cooking and just eat those items?  Although the food was cold, we both looked at each other with that look of "man, we're hungry and this would be easier!"  But alas, our shared but unspoken thought was interrupted as Melanie finished her sentence - "we'd only charge you $5 apiece."  Nevermind.  So we headed back to fix dinner in our comfy townhouse.  Here are some pictures of the Lodge, which was a cool building to see.  The things hanging from the rafters are garlic bulbs that are drying.

After a good night of sleep, we met Melanie the next morning for a more official tour of the grounds.  Lost Valley is a lot smaller than I expected.  From what we saw, there are only a total of four individual houses on the site (two of which are yurts), the Solplex townhouse complex we were staying in, an office/classroom building, the Lodge, a few cabins for students taking classes there, a machine shed, a barn and a few other small odd buildings.  It is actually rather spread out and oddly organized for a permaculture demonstration center.  We couldn't figure out where the various zones were supposed to be.

The chicken coop.  What a cool mural!

About a million different bins for various recyclables.

Hopefully that is non-toxic paint being washed off and draining straight onto the ground?

Chris' house, a Lost Valley resident and former resident of Dancing Rabbit

 

Several yurts in the background.  Note, they allow driving all through the community

They do chlorinate their drinking water.

One of the gardens.  I recall seeing three - this one which was close but not their main garden; a large garden that was comparably far away on the other side of the creek, and a food forest that was right in the middle of  all the buildings.  I'm not sure that is truly in line with the principles of permaculture?

A barn with an outdoor kitchen on the back side.

The path to the main garden - you cross a bridge over the creek.  The bridge looked a bit scary!

The Solplex didn't seem to employ any environmentally friendly designs.  It was completely on-the-grid for power.  The kitchen was made of cheap pressed wood cabinets with laminate countertops and linoleum floor.  The bathroom had a conventional fiberglass tub/shower with a normal flush toilet.  The whole unit was heated with electric heaters built into the wall.  It had a traditional stove, refrigerator and electric water heater.  This seemed like a missed opportunity to demonstrate permaculture principles to visitors.

After the tour, we visited with former Dancing Rabbit resident Chris.  We had a wonderful chat about the Missouri climate and comparisons between the two communities.  I think there was a unanimous desire to bring all the wonderful Dancing Rabbit folks to Oregon and we could all live happily ever after.

At this point we thought about leaving, as there wasn't much else to see.  However, it would have been very difficult to find a motel room for cheaper than the $30 we were paying, so we decided to stay the night and leave the follow morning as originally planned.

Aside from all the things I mentioned above, our chief complaint with Lost Valley is its system of governance. This was the majority of our discussion with Chris.  In 2008, Lost Valley decided to move away from a total consensus model and turn over much of the decision making authority to the board of directors and an executive director.  This in turn backfired and the community nearly fell apart.  Many folks left and the current residents are almost all new, having arrived after the turmoil.  To repair the damage, they are still adapting their governance structure to move back towards a more inclusive style. However, even today there is still a board and an executive director that holds, in our opinion, more power than we are comfortable with.  The executive director can veto any decision the community makes, and the community is not allowed to make any decision that involves money or legal matters.

As I had mentioned in my last post, we felt the FIC directory entry for Lost Valley was somewhat inaccurate. The information about their governance stated that they used the consensus method.  Had we known all of the above, we would not have visited.  However, I don't regret having seen it.  It helped us realize Lost Valley is not the place for us.  So on we go!