Fall is here and I wanted to get out into the woods with my daughter one last time! We headed up just north of the twin cities and spent a night at a local state forest...the weather was rainy which lent itself to some nice fog on the Snake River in the morning...s'mores were a must and I practiced my marshmallow roasting skills by maximizing the number of marshmallows I could get on the roasting stick.

Back at home we are preparing for our upcoming talk on density in co-housing. We continue to make progress and strides forward and I look forward to sharing my love of nature and the outdoors with my co-housing community!

This was at Wabun Picnic Area in Minnehaha Falls Park, Christina's comments in previous blog. Didn't get any photos of the food- Most was from Cecil's and was very tasty.  Plenty of room to visit with safe distance...

 Oh my has Covid left us all in a whirlwind this summer! Despite all of the craziness that has hit the U.S., Minnesota and Minneapolis in particular, we here at Cedar CoHousing have still forged on and have spent time in community, fostering friendships and getting to know each other as we prepare to build a co-housing community!
One thing we have done this summer is to get together at the park for picnics social distance style. It has been a great way to feel connected and to get to know each other while staying safe. We have a few more coming up this summer and are opening them up to anyone interested in learning more about Cedar CoHousing!
Please free free to stop by and join us. We are busy increasing our numbers, searching for sites and meeting with people to further our mission. We welcome any and all

Nov. 2nd at the Palace Community Center in St Paul, we held a potluck brunch and information session, hearing about Stefan's trip to Boulder Colorado and his meetings with Jim Leach who helped develop at least 20 different cohousing communities.  As of November 16 the group has 10 participants in Site Search. When we get 15 households we'll be ready to put down roots.  Contact us thru the website or email and we can talk!
Becca - bcrk@cohousing.org

August 24, 2019 at Southdale Library a Cohousing/Energy Education.
Philip Adam on the left and his friend Greg Laden presented the case for getting an electric car as soon as possible!  Their presentation was very much appreciated.  On screen there were graphs and data that showed how switching to an electric car will not only cut your green house emissions, but improve the local economy as in  "Buy Local"

As people switch to electric cars the price of gasoline may also go down for the continued gas users. Who would have guessed that?  Technology is being developed to allow idle electric cars to give power back to the grid at peak demand and then be charged at night, thus evening out the peaks and valleys of electric use over 24 hours.

They discussed that some petroleum sources are "dirtier" than other sources, and the tar sands, where Minnesota gets most of its petroleum are some of the worst.  They explained how petroleum is "cracked" into different molecules, gasoline is one of the lightest,  Then at the very bottom is the bunker fuel oil used on  ocean ships.

At the end there is "residue" which can be in asphalt, and can end up burned in Coal Plants to make electricity -  but yielding  much toxic air pollution with lead, mercury, and cadmium..

In Minnesota  the electric generation is getting cleaner as more industrial size wind power is brought on line.  Information about the advantages of electric cars is found here from the Fresh Energy website: 2lwej44565rn2mmjlk31pmwq-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Electric-Transportation-web.pdf

We then followed with a presentation a discussion of our urban site search project. The emphasis  was on our goal of building to the Passive House Standard, and locating close to transit.  Building a multifamily building with many common walls reduces  heat loss. 

​The audience was engaged and had suggestions and questions.
Those attending might be our new neighbors!  Here are some California cohousing kids fooling around:
Becca Brackett