Fire Recovery at the Rill

It’s been over a month now since the Glass Fire took our homes and scorched our land, and we are busy doing the healing and recovery work, sustained by relationships with our broader community and by our connection to this land.

Thea writes: life is already coming back to the land. and new ideas are germinating for how we can renew and restore and revitalize our intentional community after wildfire. we are dreaming about mycoremediation and forest stewardship, replanting our garden and a new south-facing orchard, building a greenhouse and a barn that are more functional and spacious than what burned, bringing animals back to the land, and making heaps and heaps of biodynamic compost. we are dreaming about new homes with flexible floor plans that allow for different household configurations over time, built with cutting edge materials that are ecologically friendly, fire resistant, and support energy efficient heating and cooling, with rainwater catchment on every roof.

We are also working with fire ecologists, our local Resource Conservation District, and CoRenewal to learn about the way fire moved across the land, and to heal the land through bioremediation.

NRCS helped us tested the water infiltration for the soil on our burned chaparral hillsides, and were relieved to find that the water soaked in pretty quickly. Here’s hoping for gentle rains that soak into this bare slope and allow the soil to stay put while the plants regenerate.

Tomorrow Taylor Bright from CoRenewal will be guiding us in the placement of a novel technology called mycowattles. These will help researchers (and us!) understand how fungi can protect sensitive aquatic ecosystems from the toxic ash and debris of buildings burned in catastrophic wildfires

We held our first post-wildfire community workday this past weekend, to dig a trench and lay a new spring line. It felt so good to all of us to be together on the land, and return to the rhythm of community work and gathering that has been established for more than four decades. The nature of the work and the topics for discussion have changed dramatically, but the heart of Monan’s Rill is still alive and well. We will be working and meeting on the land every Saturday for at least the next month, and welcome helping hands to join us. Workday is 9am-12pm, and you can stick around for BYO lunch and afternoon meeting if you like. We hope to get an organized volunteer sign up process in place soon, but in the meantime please contact info@monansrill.org if you would like to join us. We’d love to have you!

And sign up here to receive our Monan’s Rill newsletter, when we get it going! https://mailchi.mp/f27c758d4d3d/monansrill

Lastly, if you have already made a gift to help us recover and rebuild @monansrill, thank you! And if you haven’t yet, please consider a generous contribution today. You can help us build a model for fire adapted, climate resilient, and joyful community living in healthy relationship with each other and the land. https://www.gofundme.com/f/SupportMonansRill

#lifeatmonansrill #wildfirerecovery #intentionalcommunity #intentionalliving #firerecovery #climateresilience