The first semester of the EcoHouse is over and the next is quickly approaching. It is time, I think, to take stock and think about next steps. I must say first of all, how much I enjoyed living in the house and in an environment that had me reflecting upon sustainable living and design every day. There is so much potential in the vision and the house as a model. We have an opportunity to make some significant waves.

The first semester was characterized in my mind by three things: fix-ups, food and reporters. The first signifies the fact that the house was just being finished when we moved in, with many little improvements, upgrades and check-ups throughout the semester. From concrete work, a new kitchen cabinet, pipe insulation and sticky locks to check-ups on the solar thermal system, there were many details and kinks to be worked out in the house itself. Partway through the semester we got an Energy Detective device that measures the whole-house electricity use and near the end, a water and gas meter were installed to measure our hot water system. These are the first few steps towards our goal of a housewide monitoring system to collecct cost-effective data on energy and resource use in the home.

The food aspect represents the modest, though meaningful significance of buying and eating most of our food from locally producers, either from the Mississippi market coop or farmer's markets. We set up a schedule where we traded off cooking for each other 4 times a week and made most food from raw and simple ingredients. We had two sourdough bakers in the house and reveled in this and other delicious homemade meals.

The last and certainly not least, was the press that the EcoHouse attracted this last semester. Starting with an article in the villager a week before we moved in, we hosted a number of reporters and others and we talked about the house a lot. There were articles published in the Villager, The Mac Weekly, The Mac Weekly Magazine, The Mac Today and finally on the front page of the Star Tribune home section. Minnesot Public Radio also came down, as well as channel 4 Fox news and both did short pieces on the house.  In addition we were a site for the Minnesota Solar Tour and traded off showing the house elements to community members.  For the most part,  questions focused on the history of the project and what had been done to the house. Later on they began to ask us what it was like to live in an "ecohouse" and we were prompted to think deeper about the meaning of what we were doing.  The vision and definition of what the house is and what its goals are has been defined over the semester, certainly for me, though our promotion of the house has been through interviews and not proactive. The press certainly has done well to make our presence known and we have the opportunuty to drive the momentum forward into concrete events and a vision forward. We certainly have much more to do.

My next entry here will be about this coming semester and what we might accomplish. I will say, in-short that I see it including a mural, tilemaking, community workshops, experimental college classes and a growing web of community connections.