Hello, I am Rev. Maryse Verkaik-Anand and would like to introduce myself -and the project of Culdees:
8 years ago I bought Boreland farm, 140 acres, overlooking Loch Tay in Bonnie Scotland, to start a 'School of Human Values'.
It is not a school-school, but a 'school of life', where Nature is our Teacher.
We started a charity and the Culdee Vision Statement is:
"To create a space in which children experience first hand the living of Human Values and ethics in order to become balanced individuals, capable of being responsible role-models of the future"
The Culdee Mission Statement is:
"To create a Universal Multi-faith Ecovillage with zero-waste, zero-energy, re-use, re-cycle, re-claim policy where the people adhere to the Human Values of Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Love and Non-Violence and aspire to inspire our children and our children's children, to look what is lacking in our society and instigate a change by setting an example how it can be done;
To create a "school of Life" that encourages us to look beyond-and break through- the limitations of our belief system and embark together on the journey of life: since we all have abilities far beyond what we use, we disicover and joyously investigate the limitless possibilities we are endowed with; to create a buddy-system to stimulate and encourage us to perservere on the chosen path; to find one's own space but be responsible for the whol; to foster children who are 'dealt a wrong hand' in llife and share our abundanc with them"
We have help from volunteers
from all over the world; some stay a couple of weeks, others a couple of months, even years.
None of us is experienced in self-sufficient living, but with the help of many Permaculture books and video's and masses of energy between us (or rather, I should say 'them' as I myself am of the older generation and do not have the same 20+ energy as those 25 youngsters surrounding me)
We have pigs:pig:
for digging, hens
for the obvious, and a goat
for milking. We make yoghurt and cheese. We adopted four ferral cats
but aparently they decided they do not want to stay ferral any longer, as they started depositing presents in front of the door: mainly moles but also rats.
We used to have horses
(Boreland farm used to be a horse-riding centre) but I did not like the way the horses were treated by the staff and decided to close the riding part until we have attracted people with the right attitude towards animals: Respect. We do not (yet) have a dog: I am waiting for the right one to come along; one that can cope with an ever-flowing stream of visitors and children and animals without feeling the need to chasing them away and barking it's head off.
There are sheep
and cows
(not ours) in the fields and when they are removed, we can grow or own rice (yes, it is true: RICE) and oats and barley and hemp
and of course loads of vegetables
, for own own use and for the organic market garden we hope to create and for the organic farmshop and coffeeshop we hope to open -once we get more participants in the ecovillage and more shoulders to carry the workload.
We are continuously experimenting: we built a north-facing barn wall from 2-litre softdrink bottles and we just started to make a wall with shredded paper and drinking cans: it looks fantastic!
Well, that is us. If you have any questions, just 'fire away'.
Topic: Introducing the Culdee Project (Read 5019 times)
