Don's Bio

I grew up in the Northeast and was privileged (I'm a middle-class white guy) to attend a "good" college. I got into cooperative living while in school, and afterward it seemed natural to me to live with friends, new and old, while I figured out what to do with my life. I didn't realize that people did this more permanently until I ran across the Communities Directory one day. The more I read and thought and dreamed, the more sense it made to me. At the same time, I was getting sick of living and working in cities (I'd been doing bookselling and environmental activism) with all the unhealthy air, water, traffic and attitudes. I had previously spent most of a year hiking and backpacking around the States--I wanted a livelihood that would allow me to spend most of my time outdoors.

All this led me to try organic vegetable farming, which I fell in love with right away, and to Birdsfoot Farm, an intentional community in northern NY where most of us made our living farming organically. But I left Birdsfoot after several years, because I wasn't yet ready to deal well enough with my own biggest challenge in community: people (me included) can be a real pain in the ass to live with! It's taken a lot of reflection during some time away from community, and a truly fantastic group of folks here to teach me to stay as open as I can, listen, take responsibility for my own emotional baggage and speak constructively.

I'm excited by DR's commitment to working at resolving interpersonal problems, by our feminism (which to me means unlearning my/our misogyny and empowering women), and especially by our "radical sustainability" vision. I love growing food for the community, and I hope others come who want to grow for a living so we can start providing healthy food to the wider community.

My other interests right now are playing more gigs with our fledgling contradance band, my love life, and cleaning my room!