Grace Bachmann ’17 shares 30 reasons to love the Homestead:
- The smell and sound of burning wood every day, and smelling like wood smoke on winter mornings.
- Coming in from the cold to warm up next to the fire.
- Weekly meetings with time to check in with others, discuss the homestead and take care of one another.
- Consensus.
- Spontaneous, late night music-making.
- Control over my living space. If I want to paint on the walls I can. But this freedom comes with responsibility over my living situation.
- Home-cooked meals cooked on a wood-burning stove.
- Fresh eggs from our chickens.
- Our chickens
- Walking to campus over the river and through the woods with morning mist and chirping birds.
- Neighbors and roommates who respect your space and privacy.
- The most interesting plumbing system in this area code.
- A lesson in self-sufficiency.
- Early morning walks through the trees.
- Solitude.
- Mountains of flannel.
- Bookshelves galore.
- Music for the masses.
- A community of respectful, creative, absolutely wonderfully weird individuals.
- Cats cats cats cats.
- Every Saturday morning, being able to split wood, garden, make breakfast, and complete general tasks outdoors, while finishing with wrestling in the mud and driving in the back of a beat up pickup truck to campus.
- Coming home at all times of the day to a place I helped build, both physically and emotionally, as well as nine other people I love and care about.
- Discovering new things whenever I venture into Cabin 1/the costume closet (the only original building remaining at the Homestead).
- Being able to fall asleep underneath a skylight and look at the stars before going to bed.
- Seeing the Moon, Milky Way, and Jupiter all in one night.
- Being in sync with the seasons.
- Walking to and from class with the sound of snow crunching underneath my feet
- Having insightful and meaningful conversations on a daily basis
- Retreating from the stresses of campus and instead entering a place of love, funk, music, shenanigans, and tranquility.
- The prospect of taking a solar shower this spring.