Another weekend, another meeting

[greenstorm]

So, a budget turns out to be a way of communicating about what-ifs and whens.

I think that was a really good talk. The budget with numbers in it was the structure I needed to be able to communicate, "what happens when this is this number? What can we do to change this other number?" and they were able to meet me there. We also got to an emotionally honest place for I think all of us, at least E and I, which is where we need to begin I think.

I had done a very rough budget using their expense numbers, put it through a year, and then added some scenarios. We were then able to talk through some scenarios and see where different ones got us.

They went away to input a couple different sets of numbers overnight (what happens if we don't build in buffers, what are some reasonable income assumptions, things like that). Then we'll talk again today.

I definitely have this cycle of feeling reassured when we talk, then finding something else that needs work within a couple days. I guess it's the difference between short-term goals (get our expenses on paper, discuss X) and the longer-term goal (have a general plan for finances for the next two years, decide on dates and fencing locations)

Incidentally, E came up with a really great fencing plan based somewhat on my sketches that I sent over and my input. It bounced back and forth a little and now is probably settled, and then she clearly asked me to give her an ordered list of priorities around perimiter fencing, clearing, internal fencing, etc. I am very reassured and feeling comfortable on that front. <3

We don't fight, we do get where we're going, we seem to be willing to open up about stuff, it's just going to take time to develop a communal shorthand I think.

Also I feel like the community needs a name. Apocalypse Insurance is the farm, Cor Viriditas (sigh, I was hoping it would be Cor Viridis, figures) is the land (I think for E it's Refuge), but the group of us is as yet unnamed. A has us on a fb chat as "The Sayward three" which I believe needs more vision.

Comments

[greenstorm]

Are SR accountability mechanisms something you're willing to talk about?

[yarrowkat]

sure. we operate by modified consensus process. one of the things that this means, is that if someone is regularly having to abstain or even block (none of the 4 of us have ever exercised a block) it means that person is out of alignment and the group as a whole needs to come together to hash it out. what, exactly, has come out of alignment and why? have your desires, goals, vision for this place or yourself changed? how? what does the group want to do about that?

i'll pick a concrete thing, though. it's summer of 2019. jenny had this dog, zippy. it was a murder machine, a carolina yellow dog. a hunting breed, literally bred to kill, very smart, very fast. she loved it to pieces. it got banished from our sister property for eating a chicken. then it attacked the chickens here. then it attacked Elliot and hurt his rear end in the process of trying to get his tail. he recovered, after a while, but he was injured. by consensus, the dog was banished from freely roaming the land so that there would be no more poultry assaults. jenny built a dog-yard in an agreed-upon spot, a big fenced in field for zippy. okay. the field was set up so that it would in fact keep the dog in, so that worked okay. a few months later, J and T are just coming home from something and zippy pours out of the car with them. i'm standing by the hot tub talking to J, when suddenly my cat Arisilde comes flying past, followed within seconds by zippy the murder dog. i fly after them, my bum knee notwithstanding. i caught the dog by the collar as her teeth were millimeters away from closing around the body of my cat. my cat was too dumb to dive through the cat-door, behind which he would have been safe. (that cat is dumb. it's not usually a real problem.) J came around the corner and took zippy from me and i got Arisilde inside, unhurt. but unhurt by a matter of SECONDS.

the group called a special meeting to decide what to do about it. i said, i can't live with an animal that will harm or kill my cats. i can't do it. if that means i have to leave SR because this place is for murder dogs now, then fine. (context: i was still married and very well knew i needed to not be and leaving SR was the primary way i was envisioning getting out of that, too, and that informed my willingness to make this level of issue over the dog. AND, i can still feel my breath come short and my heart racing when i think about that animal.) and, Jenny LOVED this dog. absolutely loved her. Tristan said, i wish i'd gone with you to the pound that day because we agreed on a small dog and instead you came back with this big problem dog. tristan didn't really like that dog either. the poultry killing was a big important issue for him; we're a poultry farm. he needed us to not have to constantly police our animals. rev likes dogs in general as little as i do, for all the same reasons, but in this conversation, he mostly mediated (he is great at that).

tristan said, are we willing to break SR apart over this. none of us were, includign me and J. but it couldn't stay as it was. so dialing back from that he asked, what are we willing to do, then. and J agreed to a) work on training the dog not to chase cats and hens and keep her rigorously under control while in this process. and then b) if that wasn't successful in a time frame we agreed on, to rehome zippy. we all agreed to that, and wrote up a contract with the timeline. so that we wouldn't all remember different things. she enrolled zippy in dog school and they did that. zippy really really really wanted to chase everything in the world and could not be taught to only chase a ball. jenny learned that she doesn't have the attention or focus to really do a great job training a dog right now while also homeschooling an elementary-age kid and co-running a farm. Jenny gathered herself together and found another home for zippy. with a family that had another carolina dog and no other pets at all. in Washington. they drove halfway here and J met them halfway, in Utah or someplace, to ensure the dog went to a beloved home. they all still text and are in contact with dog updates with each other. Jenny went to the dog rescue with Tristan a month later and adopted a mutually agreed on dog, who had mutually agreed on characteristics including a history of not chasing other animals. that's Arrow, who is actually a good dog, who we still have. (he's part pit bull and part basset hound - a pitbull looking dog on short stumpy legs with long floppy ears and woeful eyes. he is lazy and quiet and very sweet; he's scared of the cats and peacocks, he ignores the chickens, and he doesn't chase anything, even balls.)

it boils down to: situation by situation, we hash it out. that i think is a good example because it was very emotionally challenging for all of us and we were all very upset and angry. and yet we worked it out succesfully.

[greenstorm]

Thank you. I appreciate your stories and input so much; without our interaction over the past couple years I wouldn't be able to consider this step today, let alone know how to go about it.

[yarrowkat]

i was just thinking, you asked for a process and i gave you a story. i hope the story illustrates the process! i think in anecdotes. relationally.

you are so very welcome. and thank you - that feedback means so much to me.

[greenstorm]

It was the story of the process - and it sounds like the process is somewhat fluid?

We both seem to think in stories, it's one of the lovely parts of this communication.

[yarrowkat]

yes, that is lovely. :)

the process is "we talk this out, no matter what it is," and the structure of that reverts to consensus process as needed when tensions run high.

we as a whole did not talk it out with alan, because i as an individual was unable to do so. i had reached the point that i did not even want to try, i just wanted to leave. and i said, i will leave, or he can leave, and it will break my heart if i leave but i will do it because i cannot live like this anymore. and tristan said, "well, there's no contest in my mind. if it's him or you, i choose you. he hasn't even been here really for the last 7 years and you've been here every day. and that's just one part of it." he has said over and over, "i cannot imagine SR without you." and that means the world. and then, y'know, he did the real-world work to back that up - he co-signed the home loan with me that made the whole thing possible.