From Charlotte:

Nice community event which my family went to in Alstead, NH . . . Orchard Hill Farm has a bread bakery and permaculture farm. Tuesday is pizza party night in the summer, with bring-your-own toppings. You assemble your pizza with dough provided, and it’s baked in the wood-fired oven. Money supports a charity each week. A local band entertained (six musicians from a family of 10). Wonderful timber-framed shelter over it all!

Rocky Corner is one of many organizations using new forms of governance. Recently, the on-line, Amazon.com-owned company, Zappos adopted a self-governance system called holacracy which is very similar to Rocky Corner’s dynamic governance. You will see that they have “circles” (committees) that hold very structured meetings just like us.

Read (or listen) more about it at this NPR story here

The Rocky Corner property sits at the top of the West River watershed. So it’s exciting news that the West River is now officially a Connecticut Designated Greenway. The West River Watershed Coalition has worked for months to make this a reality, and they deserve congratulations.

New Haven alderman Adam Marchand writes, in his constituent newsletter,

Designation as a greenway enhances the ability of municipalities and non-profits to obtain funding in support of resource conservation efforts, environmental education programs and recreational development. Think about more trails and recreational facilities along the West River. Imagine better signage and easier public access. Think about what it would mean to have a cleaner river nearby. The possibilities are great.

Here’s the definition from Connecticut General Statutes:

“Greenway” means a corridor of open space that (1) may protect natural resources, preserve scenic landscapes and historical resources or offer opportunities for recreation or nonmotorized transportation, (2) may connect existing protected areas and provide access to the outdoors, (3) may be located along a defining natural feature, such as a waterway, along a man-made corridor, including an unused right-of-way, traditional trail routes or historic barge canals or (4) may be a greenspace along a highway or around a village. (CGS section 23-100)

Lake Chamberlain, downhill from Rocky Corner, is a reservoir for the New Haven water supply. It is at the head of the West River. Because of its sensitivity, we worked closely with the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority to protect Lake Chamberlain from any adverse effects of our development. Our stormwater management plan, developed by the Cheshire engineering firm Milone & MacBroom, is fully consistent with low-impact development (LID) principles. One water authority official indicated that our design is the first development in the region to fully embrace LID, something the authority has been urging developers to adopt for a couple of decades but that most developers have acknowledged mostly with lip service and token features.