Potlucks Thursday Night @ Sunwise

Thursday nights are potlucks at Sunwise!  You might find a slightly bigger crowd and a couple more children around Sunwise if you stop by our normal 6:30 dinner on a Thursday evening.  In addition to preparing our usual meal for housemates and guests, our Thursday cooks Alex and April have extended their invitation to bring a simple dish and join us for a dinner that has become popular with Marina's school friends and more.  All are welcome!

Fun with clay walls at OpCo site

Stopped by the OpCo site before tonight's board meeting, where all the currently selected new residents were busy finishing up the clay walls over a pizza dinner with Ben, warmed by the glow of the spiffy new gas fire heater:

Check out the awesome tiling for the bathroom sinks:

Max and I ogle the wood flooring that will soon go in:

Kitchen counters in progress:

 Residents Jay and Molly tag team the clay wall compacting:

Brian -- one of our awesome contractors and the vision behind the the American clay walls -- oversees the work, while Chris and Max consult in the next room,

another awesome SCHA Board Retreat at Max's cabin

Here is a good pic of us all at the cabin.  It was great weather for snow fun and we think that we accomplished some of our goals (ask about the naked snow angels). There should be some kind of report that will go out for those who are interested.  The New Houses at J street should be coming online soon!  It should be a fun and exciting new year.  See ya'll soon,
Charlie

New housemates at Sunwise!

We're very happy to welcome Alex and her daughter Marina to Sunwise!  We're already seeing some changes and learning a lot from them: our dinners have been moved up to 6:30p, and now we have the first indoor pet at Sunwise for some time: a charismatic rat named Marshmellow. 

Olive harvest!

It's olive harvesting time in Davis! Last weekend housemates at Sunwise joined the community picking efforts around campus and gathered 42 Lb of olives, enough to make 3 quarts of fresh olive oil. More olive picking for drying and eating now underway! Below, Erica and Ashely perfect their harvesting strategies.

Cats and Meetings

Another great reason for making it to those long board meetings at J Street:

Yes, that's right, a cute and friendly cat will curl up on your lap and fall asleep purring softly.  This is Coo, who has been a J street resident for a couple months, making him by no means the newest J street resident but certainly the envy of every Sunwiser (including those too allergic to live with such cuteness!)


Rumor has it that there's a lot going on in SCHA right now, building a new co-op and managing interns and outreach and all.  Apparently there's even a new fancy-smancy web-page being built: currently you can preview it at http://www.schadavis.wordpress.com before it goes live on the web at the official http://www.schadavis.org address; but you've all ready found the home of the real news in these houses.  Bike rides to Winters, picking and pressing olives for oil, and a Sunwise early thanksgiving all coming up.

Halloween and other happenin's

It's been an exciting Fall at the Sunwise Co-op, somehow haven't managed to sneak into the journal with some updates for a while.  Halloween is always a special time in the community -- when a young boy stopped Derek in the garden and asked for an encore of last year's vomiting pumpkin, Derek delivered in style:

This pumpkin is feeling a little sick....

Our three pumpkins greeted more children than we had candy, before they wandered off to join the Village Homes annual pumpkin parade of all the neighborhood pumpkins, amid kids and popcorn the following evening:

See more in the Derek's Sunwise photos from this fall, with narrative-style captions.