Making and decorating a gingerbread house took the kids to the Candy Jar to pick out decorations
Baking goodies to give family as gifts has been a tradition in our family for years. This year, I felt compelled to make 6 different kinds of treats and bake 2 pies to compensate for a COVID Christmas. 😂😂😅😅 Its a good thing Annaliese likes to bake with me- we made quick and fun work out of baking, decorating and packaging for delivery!
–Megan
The Gingerbread Man
Tor and Aurora’s cookies ready to be iced
Glazing cookies
The annual Christmas Stroll looked much different this year. But Chad and Megan created their own little family fun outing. They have been walking the stroll since they first moved to Bozeman and have loved sharing the tradition with Annaliese.
Downtown is so beautiful this time of year!
Ida and her brother, Sorin, finished putting together the family’s 1000-piece Christmas puzzle, an annual holiday tradition in their household!
Aurora and her grandmother deliver presents to Cuban refugees. She helped plan the gifts for the kids of five families and wrapped all their presents. She says that meeting them was fulfilling and she was happy to give gifts to kids who wouldn’t have gotten any. She even got to speak a bit of Spanish. 🙌
Getting Outdoors
Mark, Denali & Lochlan find a choice candidate
Cutting down a Christmas tree at Brackett Creek
Ida and her dad, Jed, getting the Christmas tree! This tree came from Crosscut, because they’re asking folks to cut down trees in the area where their new lodge will be built! Note Ida’s classy dress for the occasion…
Taking a walk on the ranch, looking for caves. We found animal bones and guano and lots of curious deer.
Chipping away ice to go “ice fishing” in Bozeman at a local stream by our home
It’s getting real, folks! Last week Bozeman Cohousing members convened for not one but two marathon “Design Development Workshops.” Our amazing architects from Studio Co+hab brought the details large and small into focus. The drawings are almost final, and we’ve reviewed their recommendations for everything from roof trusses to door handles–in all over a hundred separate components in the common house and private homes.
Studio Co+hab architects introduce the Design Development process
Now I can much more vividly imagine myself working in the kitchen of the common house, enjoying the glowing afternoon light. An induction stove begins heating water for the pasta the moment I turn it on. While we slice veggies at the bamboo-topped kitchen island, kids play in the room next door. When the meal is over, cleanup goes quickly as we feed dishes through the industrial sterilizer. We mop the Marmoleum floor and we’re done. Going home, the recycled carpet keeps our toes warm, and my wife, Jodi, can play her viola without disturbing our neighbors, thanks to a sound dampening system in the floors and extra insulation in the interior walls.
Show and tell gave us all the pertinent details and specs of recommended products and finishes
Underneath all these materials and finishes, the defining characteristic of our new neighborhood will be mostly invisible when we move in. That’s because state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies and constructions methods permeate the entire design. The overall goal the community set was “Net-Zero,” which is a fancy way of saying, “We want our buildings to have the smallest possible carbon footprint, all the way down to none.” That is, after all the energy goes in and out, there is minimal ongoing fossil fuel use.
Four major aspects of the planned design and construction aim to get us as close to net-zero as we can given our necessarily finite budget.
First, the Bozeman Cohousing buildings will be all-electric. That’s right, no natural gas will be used or available in the future. Even though our utility provider, Northwestern Energy, is being slow to transition the 40% of its generation currently coming from fossil fuels (looking at you, Coalstrip), as the grid eventually and inevitably moves to all renewable energy, our energy use will become renewable instead of locked to a fossil fuel infrastructure. Not burning fossil fuels for heating and cooking can also significantly improve indoor air quality in our homes.
We want our buildings to have the smallest possible carbon footprint, all the way down to none.
Second, we expect to have full photovoltaic installations on all the buildings as part of initial construction. These solar arrays will be fed into the net-metering system that sells excess power back to the grid, and all of the homes will share the savings in power costs.
Third, the home designs fanatically reduce the need to consume energy to begin with, following the Passive House standard, which defines how to make a home consume minimal energy for heating and cooling. Along with double pane windows and maximal insulation in the walls, floors, and ceilings, each building’s exterior envelope, or skin, will be completely sealed using the AeroBarrier system to prevent drafts. Just like spraying a sealant into your flat tire to patch the hole, AeroBarrier fills even the littlest gaps in the outer walls before the inside is finished.
Also, a thorough analysis of the natural light in every space helped the architects adjust window and solar tube placement to minimize dependence on artificial lighting during the daytime. When it is needed, all built-in lighting will be LED, using a fraction of the power and being much more durable than even compact fluorescent fixtures.
In-depth analysis provided insight into window placement and overall lighting strategy
Finally, the mechanical systems will also be as efficient as possible. Heating and cooling with heat pump technology is just the start. Even our clothes can be dried and our hot water can be heated with heat pumps. And a heat recovery ventilator will circulate fresh air from outside, but use the stale air leaving the house to heat or cool it as it leaves. What’s all this fuss about heat pumps? In essence, they move existing heat from one place to another — either from a hot place to cool it down, or into a cold place to warm it up — without burning additional fuel to generate more heat. We don’t just have to obey the laws of physics, we can take advantage of them, too, and it turns out this is extremely efficient.
Taken together, these thoughtful designs and sophisticated features will help us reduce our energy consumption to the bare minimum. When we’ve put that much effort into sustainable construction, why not be recognized with LEED certification? We decided that the time and money required to be formally LEED certified would be better used in actually making our homes efficient and sustainable, and Studio Co+hab has certainly delivered. The designs actually do incorporate several LEED standards around daylight, material choices, and indoor air quality. And of course the net-zero goal is an objective target rather than a vague aspiration.
We’re excited for our upcoming feature article in Edible Bozeman, which highlights our hopes and dreams for community gardening, harvesting, cooking, eating and general merry-making together!
Sometimes the secret ingredient is… MUD. Couhouser kids prep their own “community dinner” at the property’s mud kitchen. Earthy!
Thanks to members Megan and Chad for arranging the shoot at their current digs. We carefully staged some shots with Covid precautions in mind, but it made us long for the days of real gathering and meal-sharing which can’t come soon enough!
Keep an eye out for the Winter issue, at news stands around town soon!
Baking
We’re doing a lot of baking these days, and this year Tor initiated daughter Aurora in the family tradition of making julekage, a Norwegian Christmas bread. The cardamom spiced bread with candied fruit and raisins is a breakfast treat around the holidays. Almost as good as Grandma Torvik’s 😋
Sunset on the Bridger Mountains, a stellar view from the property — courtesy of member, Garl
Between the pandemic and winter coming on, it’s easy to find oneself feeling like one of the last remaining humans in Wall-E: living in an artificial space liner, riding around on a hover couch, and consuming all our calories through a straw.
Since when did going outside become a chore? What can cohousing do to help?
Even here in Bozeman, Montana, arguably the capital of extreme outdoor sports in the Northern Rockies, it seems like there are always plenty of excuses: “I’m tired — I don’t want to drive somewhere — I have to cook dinner.” And those excuses multiply for our children: “It’s too cold — my friends aren’t around — there’s no wifi — you’re not safe by yourself — there’s too much traffic.”
This litany is, according to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, a sure sign of a classic case of “Nature Deficit Disorder.” Our sense of emotional well-being and physical health suffer when we don’t spend enough time outside in an environment with other growing, living things. And for many American kids living in typical housing developments, the obstacles are real: There is no easy safe way to get to a park; there are too many cars on the street; parents are over-extended juggling work and chores.
What if we could magically live somewhere built from the ground up to remove most of these hurdles? Imagine a neighborhood where there are no cars driving between houses; where just outside your back door there are gardens and animals to be tended and enjoyed; where friends to play with are just a few doors away. That’s the reality of the physical design of our Cohousing homes.
Further, imagine living in a genuine community where connection is baked in; where someone else will cook us dinner several nights a week; where a child knows they can turn to any adult for help. This is what we envision for the shape of our lives in Bozeman Cohousing.
And finally, picture a location where a wildlife-friendly creek runs near your home; where you can get on your bike and be in a network of trails without crossing a single street. These are the blessings of the Bozeman Cohousing site.
Taken together, living in Cohousing means that just about the only excuse left for our kids when we tell them to go outside is “It’s too cold.” Then we can remind them that there is no bad weather, just bad preparation, so they should put on their coats. For more on the proven benefits to kids (and grownups, actually) of spending more time outside, visit the Children and Nature Network.
What’s your hometown & current location? I grew up in Portland, Oregon and went to college at the University of Oregon in Eugene. In my last year, I got to live in one of the cooperative houses there, and was introduced to large-scale vegetarian cooking and consensus-based decision-making. I spent the first four years of grad school at Cornell living in one of the long-time co-ops, Stewart Little. I honed my group cooking skills and deeply appreciated the sense of community, but also experienced the pain of poor group dynamics and interpersonal conflict. Living in community can be messy!
Jodi and I met when both of us were in Washington, DC, completing our graduate programs. DC was exciting, but we could feel ourselves turning into Yuppies. When she got offered the job of University Archivist at UM in Missoula, we eagerly came back west. Missoula’s vibrant arts and community service culture kept us there. Twenty-three years later, we came to Bozeman in the summer of 2020 for Jodi to take the same position at MSU. We live less than a mile from the cohousing property on Enterprise Blvd.
I’m excited to live in a place that has been deliberately designed, both physically and institutionally, to nurture people and relationships in place.
— Steve Allison-Bunnell
What are you doing in your life now? Settling in here in Bozeman and joining co-housing has been a full-time job! I’m currently the house-spouse, taxi driver, and assistant cat coddler. I’m also rebuilding my educational media consultancy.
What subjects/ ideas/activities are you passionate about? My memoir will be called, Zen Dad, Ninja Dad. I have benefitted enormously as a spouse, parent, and friend from growing a mindfulness practice in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn. For me, Buddhism is as much a psychology as a religion, and it has given a shape to my desire to make meaning out of the world and do the right thing in the service of others. Before the pandemic, I received my black belt in Aikido, which has been called the “martial art of mindfulness.” The physical, non-violent nature of Aikido perfectly complements meditation. I really miss training right now.
What aspects of the cohousing model speak to you most? I’m excited to live in a place that has been deliberately designed, both physically and institutionally, to nurture people and relationships in place. As someone who has felt challenged to initiate relationships, the co-housings premise that we all want to be connected and are committed to building community means a lot to me.
What is something that makes you hopeful for the future? My children have a wonderfully cosmopolitan and inclusive world-view given that they grew up here in Montana. Camas is a thoughtful and kind young man who is generous almost to a fault. Cedar’s vision as an artist is breathtaking. I have confidence that their way of being is making the world a better place.
Describe something you’re naturally good at & how you use that strength. I may not be Irish, but somehow I kissed the Blarney Stone. Putting words together in text or in front of an audience comes perhaps too easily to me. I’ve written mostly non-fiction and poetry—everything from a children’s book to a PhD dissertation. Because with great power comes great responsibility, I try to use my eloquence to inform and inspire other people.
What one word would you use to describe yourself? Explain why. Loyal. Once I commit to something or someone, I really hate to give up. My first instinct is to try to be helpful.
Name a favorite place you’ve lived & what you liked about it. I loved living with my grandparents for the first two years of college. They had a huge garden and orchard, a cozy house they built themselves, and were the ultimate do-it-yourselfers. Whether it was helping my grandpa cut firewood or working with my grandma in the kitchen, I learned a lot about making things and eating home-grown food.
