Green Valley Village and CRIC House

So, yes, we are a little behind in updating the blog. As I write this entry about Green Valley Village/CRIC House, I am 30,000 feet sitting on a plane bound for Hawaii. But, in the interest of documenting what led up to being on this airplane, let me catch up the ol' blog.

When we left off, we had travelled from southern Oregon into northern California, through the beautiful redwood forests, and into the heart of wine country - Sonoma County. After we departed from the house of our friends Holly and David, we headed to the last intentional community on our journey - Green Valley Village (GVV). GVV is located in Sonoma County near the city of Sebastopol. We were super excited to see GVV for two reasons -- first, the awesome geographic location. GVV is close to San Francisco and an excellent climate for growing food. Second, GVV is home to CRIC House, which we have heard and read a lot about. More about CRIC in a moment.

I really hate to speak badly of any community we have visited, but I have to be honest about a few things that really turned us off about GVV. So, I'll just refer to them as our GVV "disappointments." It wasn't all bad by any means, though. Hang in there, keep reading, it gets better!

GVV disappointment #1 was first finding out that they charge visitors to camp there. Okay, I can understand there may be some minimal costs involved in hosting visitors, but other communities treat it like a timeshare pitch - you give away a few days free camping in exhange for finding new members for the community. GVV's fee of $10 per person per day to pitch a tent just seemed excessive. $100 for two people for 5 days of camping? This was our first hint that living there was expensive. More on that later.

There were some initial problems in coordinating an arrival time at GVV, as our "visitor liason" was at the county fair with her family. We were instructed not to come onto the property unless she was with us. Of all the communities we visited, this level of security was unique to GVV. After doing our best to kill time, we were finally permitted access to GVV at around 7pm.

GVV disappointment #2 - how do you find this freakin place? We put the address in the GPS and proceeded down the curvy country roads typical of all the rural communities we have visited. However, unique to GVV was a lack of directional signage. The GPS directed us to a closed and locked gate with a "no trespassing" sign. That couldn't be it! After driving up and down the main road, we found four possible driveways. Which one was it? Given the warning about coming anywhere on the property without our escort, we were paranoid about choosing the wrong driveway. Where's Monty Hall?

We decided to just pick one that wasn't locked...and it turned out to be the wrong one. The driveway led to a gravel parking lot full of beat up, inoperable, rusting vehicles and old travel trailers, and various other junk everywhere. If that was the main entrance, yikes. We made our way back to the main road and chose another driveway. This driveway led to a barn and another parking lot. We found someone wandering around and so we asked him if we were in the right place. The fellow we met was, for lack of a better or nicer word, really strange. He spoke very slowly and quietly, with no emotion or inflection whatsoever. Oooooooo-k. So, of course this was not the right driveway either. Two strikes. As I mentioned before, one driveway had a locked gate, so that left only one other choice.

Finally, we arrived at the "main entrance." There was no signage whatsoever that would lead one to understand that you had just arrived at Green Valley Village, or any community for that matter. It just looked like the driveway to a farmhouse. Waiting for us was our visitor liason Elise. She gave us a very brief tour of the immediate area around where our car was parked, then had us get back in the car and follow her back to - guess what - the parking lot full of rusty old vehicles and travel trailers! Believe it or not, that was part of GVV! (GVV disappointment #3 - there was junk piled everywhere you looked!)

Maybe a hundred feet from that junkyard was CRIC House - the main reason for our visit. CRIC (short for the Cultural Rehabilitation Internship Center) is a sort of community-within-a-community. I may have this all wrong, but it seemed like CRIC needed land, which GVV had plenty of, so they chose to start their little subcommunity there. The CRICettes (hahaha) are a group of freegan anarchists. Freegans often rebel against consumerism and salvage food from available sources, mainly through dumpster diving. Anarchists are those who rebel against authority or order and choose to live without a defined leader or organizer, which often results in disorganization and/or chaos.

We immediately recognized the house from the pictures on their blog. Finally, we had reached CRIC! Whoo hoo! However, a brief setback - it seems Elise had failed to inform the CRICettes that we were coming. (GVV disappointment #4- the visitor program was pretty disorganized). They were in the middle of a very emotional meeting. The timing couldn't be worse. Elise stuck her head in the door to announce our arrival. They hurred to wrap up their meeting and dry some tears. I felt bad for the timing - I'm sure they were in no mood to host guests at that moment.

Upon meeting the CRICettes, it was as if all the other nonsense from GVV had melted away. They warmly greeted us and welcomed us into their home. They were preparing a nice warm vegan dinner and were happy to share. Their hospitality was AMAZING! We felt right at home. Everyone was SO nice to us. I don't know how they were able to be so nice after such an emotional meeting, but they somehow managed.

They were surprised to learn that we were being charged to camp. We told them we were willing to work trade or help out in any way we could. They immediately offered us an extra unused bedroom in their common house. This was luxury compared to camping! After a DELICIOUS dinner and some great conversation, we retired to our bedroom for the night. We already felt like part of the CRIC family!

A baby field mouse who was rescued by one of the CRIC house members

The next morning, we got up early to help out with their CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. We helped pick beans and kale and then washed and boxed up all kinds of vegetables headed for the individual CSA subscribers. The veggies looked so beautiful all washed and boxed up. There were reds and greens and oranges and yellows...kale, squash, beans, carrots, blackberries, salad greens, and basil.

We spent a total of three nights with the CRICettes. Over the remainder of our time there, we helped tend to their garden beds, build a solar hot water system, make a futon bed from scrap lumber, and of course got to know one another better.

The CRIC gardens

On our last morning there we got quite an unpleasant surprise at breakfast time. As I mentioned, these folks are freegans, so anything is fair game. They cook mostly vegan with milk and cheese from their cows and goats available to those who want it, as that's what is readiliy available, and they use veggies that they grow, buy from the CSA or source from local dumpsters (all equally delicious). This day, however, one of the members had happened upon a deer killed by automobile (shall we say, roadkill) and cooked it up for breakfast. EWWWW!

Our only other interaction with the larger GVV community (the part outside of CRIC-proper) was a community-wide potluck dinner. This was the strangest intentional community potluck we had ever been to. It was held in the home of one of the GVV residents. The house was very conventional - it would look more at home in the suburbs of Portland than on a farm in Sebastopol. Very fancy and well appointed by intentional community standards. It felt like we went to someone's house for a dinner party, but we didn't know who anyone was. No one seemed interested in meeting us, so we hung out on the porch by ourselves. Elise found us show us a two page list of "community rules" (such as don't go visit the pond without a resident escort, who must accompany you at all times and you must carry a walkie-talkie) and have us sign a liability waiver. Again, this was a first. We were happy to get back to the CRIC folks, who were a little more like us.

Overall, I don't think GVV or CRIC was right for us. CRIC comes very close - the people are wonderful, and we liked the whole vibe and attitude of CRIC. But it is still located inside GVV. So without further ado, here is my brief analysis of GVV and CRIC, as it pertains to what we are looking for:

1. It is expensive to live there. By far, the most expensive community we have visited. Rent for a small plot of land to put up a yurt would be $300 per month, plus other community dues/fees totaling several hundred dollars more. BUT-they are not taking any more yurts. Or really any new stuff for that matter. They have recently been cited by the county government for failing to meet zoning and building code requirements. So they are more in a 'demolition' mode than construction. Rent inside one of the existing buildings would push $800 a month for two people.

2. Things are pretty disorganized. To be fair, it is an anarchist collective. For instance, no one seemed to know who was making lunch/dinner for the group. Sometimes, it happened late. Other times, not at all. Sometimes we jumped in and just started cooking for fear that no one would eat at all if we didn't do something about it. This was a stark contrast to Dancing Rabbit's pretty regular schedule.

3. There isn't a lot of time taken for "community building" stuff. For instance, there is no "circle up" before dinner. Because food is irregular, some folks appeared to hunt for food at other kitchens instead of everyone eating together. We never saw any time taken to organize, "check in", or anything like that. It was just sort of a free-for-all.

4. Junk, junk and more junk. EVERYWHERE. Some of the “junk” was sleeping quarters for various members, including treehouses, hostess trucks, boats, old vans, sheds, playhouses, etc. The rest of it they could probably sell and make a fortune in scrap metal to pay off the entire mortgage. Enough said.

Beehives on the hill near CRIC house

5. Contrary to what we were told, the land is NOT community owned or in a protected land trust. It is owned by ONE community member who put it in a revocable trust for tax/estate purposes. This is a VERY different from having it in a land trust. That one community member holds all the power in regards to the land and any decisions related thereto, which scares the bejesus out of me as a real estate expert looking for a place to invest and settle down. Everyone just said they "trusted" the guy (we never met him). All the rent is paid to him personally.

In short, it wasn't a bad experience, but we did determine it wasn't for us. The CRIC folks were wonderful - very friendly, hopitable, warm, loving. But the community itself did not fit what we were looking for. We are very thankful to have gotten to visit.

BUT - we did get some good news while at CRIC. Rebekah got a job in Hawaii!! The timing couldn't be better. We had just finished seeing our final community, and weren't sure where to go next. So we headed off to be tourists in the San Francisco area before flying off to our new home in Hawaii!