CURRENT MISSION

living gently on the earth, building our retirement home (by hand!)

ABOUT ME

We're a couple whose five young adult children are on their own now. We live simply, and care deeply. We're busy developing our gardens, focusing on edible plants-especially perennials, so you're likely to get a garden tour while you're here. We are strict vegetarians. Please don't cook meat in our kitchen, but otherwise you're welcome to use the kitchen if you'll clean up after yourself. If you want milk or cheese, you'll have to bring that yourself. We don't eat it. Most of our time and energy are devoted to building our new home (straw bale) and homestead.

PHILOSOPHY

Life is joy. Live simply. Live well. Connect with others. There's always more to learn.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hosting and surfing as opportunity and life allow. When Mary travels, she is accompanied by a well-behaved large poodle-mix service dog partner. We welcome well-behaved service animals and will discuss other potential pet visitors.

I've had some challenges logging into CS in recent months- hence the low response rate. We're pretty busy with building our house, and last minute requests are difficult (not impossible, but less likely). Please include your phone number in your request so we can connect even if I can't log in.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Visit and host friends and family around the world. We've hosted many individuals and groups, and have enjoyed making new friends through this group.

Interests

Bicycling, hiking, GARDENING, sustainable lifestyles, languages, various types of music, voracious readers, contra dancing, but mostly we're building our house and planning new gardens these days.

• animals
• pets
• dogs
• dancing
• cooking
• cheese
• gardening
• homesteading
• music
• hiking
• surfing
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Where do we start on this??? The personal library used to have over a hundred shelf feet of books, with more in virtually every room of the house. We're all readers, and use our library cards regularly. We've started to fill our Kindles and pass on the hard copies as we simplify our surroundings.
We love folk, country, world/ethnic music, and musicals. Samuel prefers jazz drumming. James enjoys techno. And Mary has to listen to both of those from another room because the volume gets too much. We don't do movies or tv much, but when we do, it's thought-provoking movies.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Mary: Rode a camel and an elephant, petted a lion, and "tackled" an emperor before my sixth birthday. Hike across the top of Molokai (Hawaii).

James likes to jump out of perfectly good airplanes.

Teach, Learn, Share

Sustainable/eco-friendly gardening practices. Bits and pieces of lots of languages.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary

Countries I’ve Lived In

Eritrea, Japan, United Kingdom, United States

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