Page 6 - C.A.L.L. #27 - Summer 2006
P. 6

We at the desk have made contact with Jindibah Communtiy in New South Wales, Australia.
    These are excerpts from their last newsletter:

    Welcome to the annual newsletter from the residents and non-residents of Jindibah intentional community. The
    events of the past 12 months at and around Jindibah have been – to us at least - eventful.

    Our community is growing: this year we add another new member to our cast: Pippa Markham, who will arrive from Lon-
    don to take up residence in Harry Fowler’s old wooden farmhouse.

    Christobel and Christopher – who have been living in the classic century old Australian farmhouse – are building a
    brick and tile home on the ‘mezzanine’ level of the community (next to the old water tank on the hill), and plan to
    move when the house is completed, possibly in January. Living for a decade in the Sleepy Creek valley, C+C’s house
    has been a kind of ‘gate-house’ to the community. Moving away from this key cosy creekside position to face the
    windy hills will be a radical change for them, as will January temperatures in the 30s for Pippa (after London’s win-
    ter!) As a community, we are keen to make sure there are special places on our property where individuals can relax
    and enjoy our rural environment. In 2004, we restored the roof of the community shed in the property’s south-
    western corner to make it more usable. In this past year, our major community project has been to restore the old
    swimming hole located next to it.

    You probably know by now that at Jindibah, we are an eclectic lot, into a
    diverse range of activities, with some fascinating past-times.
    •      This  year,  for  instance,  Stephan  and  Bettina  Kahlert  decided  to
    join 2,000 other Harley Davidson motorbike riders in a ride to Uluru and
    Alice Springs. Taking time out from their “normal” life, teaching yoga and
    meditation,  the  pair  drove  9,000km  in  three  weeks.  The  highlight  was
    participating in a procession of thousands of Harley Davidson bikes from
    Australia and NZ riding round Uluru at dawn.
    •      Tania  Evers,  Jindibah’s  not  quite  resident  barrister  (currently  in
    Sydney) was a speaker at a seminar in Paris, France, mid-2005. (Her talk,
    based on a specific case she’d handled, traced the connection between a prescribed antidepressant and a homicide.)
    •      Keira Dott, our horserider extraordinaire, celebrated her 10th birthday on 1 August (she’s a Leo) with a gym-
    khana on the property, organized by her tireless mother Penny Cooke.
    •      It must have been a fertile year for Jindibytes. Our Melbourne partners, Danny and Vikki Lee, had their first
    baby in September 05. Christobel’s daughter Sasha gave birth to a son, Harrison, in December (causing this newslet-
    ter to be postponed by a few weeks), while Maggie Mulham and partner Paul Donovan are expecting their first baby
    on 17 January.
    •      Resident novelist and freelance writer Jesse Blackadder, launched her book AFTER THE PARTY, in Sydney and
    Byron Bay this year, then promptly turned her skills in other directions, taking to ballroom dancing like a duck to
    water. We often find Jesse and friends hot-footing it in the ‘Building once known as the Dance Hall’.

    To keep it all together and in good repair, a community needs ongoing, diligent maintenance of all its assets. Our
    assets include a paved internal road of 1.523km. Alas the enormous July 05 floods channelled huge quantities of
    flood water from a neighbouring property across our internal road, causing the bitumen to buckle like orange peel at
    one point. Again we called on Mark Hajjar from Mullum Pools, who brought in his team to upgrade the drainage of
    the rock wall along our western border, then we patched up the damaged road.
    With more houses being built, we decided it was time to widen our internal road at a certain point, to make it safer
    for two cars to pass.

    Thought you might like to hear how our various planting projects have been getting on. Well, we are pleased to be
    able to report the very high survival rate of all our buffer and screening plantings, planted both to “enhance the vis-
    ual amenity of the landscape” and to “reduce the impact of the community on neighbouring properties”. You may -
    or may not - recall that Jindibah is a primary producing farm, with 24 cows, one contented bull and their offspring.
    This means our beef cattle (who provide us with an income to pay for property maintenance) need access to fresh
    pasture. To protect our plantings while allowing the cattle to graze, we use solar powered electric fencing around our
    plantings until trees are mature.

    Jindibah Community, Sleepy Creek, Bangalow, NSW 2479 is a 12-house site Multiple Occupancy intentional commu-
    nity  located  on  a  46  hectare  farm  in  Fowlers  Lane,  Bangalow.  For  more  information,  see  www.jindibah-
    community.org, or email DIY@jindibah-community.org



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