Month: October 2017

Hey all!

I finally published my website – or, at least the outlines of it! If you go and visit it, you’ll see my contract and then an about the author page. There are options in the menu, but nothing in those options as of right now. I plan on adding some more to it tomorrow.

I don’t have much news on my front, as I’m still waiting to have another interview. While I wrote down the previous interview, I did not record it in any way. I hope to conduct the interview in a different way this time so that I can either record it or videotape it. Hopefully I will hear back from Quinn soon.

Since Dr. Schact and Dr. Schleef always ask us if we have or had any problems with WordPress, I’ll say that what I posted today included a learning process. Most of the work I did today was just messing with the options on WordPress and looking back at the website to see if I liked its appearance. There weren’t any problems, though I did have to make some notes (i.e. this button will do this). But I think WordPress is not as daunting now.

There’s still some things I don’t know how to do with WordPress (and inevitably, other things that I’ll have to learn), but I think I like the way my website looks right now.

See y’all Wednesday!

-Lane

One thing I wanted to talk about in this blog is the farming that Garden of Eden conducts. Although there are plenty of herbs and berries already on the land, they plant and irrigate much more. Their largest crop is their salad greens grown year round in raised beds.

Another part of the food production at Garden of Eden is their chickens. There are also two goats, five rabbits, and a couple of dozen chickens. A shelter was built a few years back to house all of the animals, made out of re-purposed pallets, with a billboard tarp serving as the roof. This can house 100 chickens, four goats and a dozen rabbits.

Like I said, they plant their own berries; however, there are often berries that have already grown on the land that they utilize. The video below shows Quinn Eaker, leader, tasting some berries on the land. He gives some information on the plant and describes how it tastes, etc. It’s interesting to watch.

Although it’s not a long video, this is a part of series that the community puts out once a week. This series talks about a variety of topics and happenings at the community to help outsiders up to date.

(Also: while this video is posted on Quinn’s personal YouTube account, there is also a YouTube account for Garden of Eden. Both accounts post frequently.)

 

I thought it was interesting that both articles looked at how the influence of religion could actually lead to the success of a community. I liked that they pointed out that the right amount of pressure would lead to success, but with too much pressure on a community, it would eventually lead to the failure of said community.

I particularly liked Kanter’s article, as that article mentioned Freud. It said that leaders were like fathers, and that some communities would even refer to their leaders as fathers, and that the community members were children.

That article also talked about slow periods of building, which I thought was particularly important. It mentioned that some communities started as groups, then moved to a slightly larger group, and then formed as a community and turned out successful. It was interesting in that it compared that success to communities that formed quickly and failed.

Out of both articles, I liked the idea that religious guidelines (like morality, perseverance, etc) with or without the presence of religion, will lead to the success of the community.

I think that’s something that Reece hinted at, especially with the Shakers, as they had a prolonged success. However, I like that the articles stated that was one of the chief reasons communities succeeded and/or failed, or succeeded and then failed.