Here we are now!

And 6 years ago!

The membership of the community evolves. Sadly, five members have died and two have had to move to living arrangements where they can receive more care.

On the other hand we have new members who bring their contributions to the community and change it.

Landscaping, Gardens and Patio

The most obvious change is outside the Lodge. The trees have grown tall. The landscape team has planted and tended flowers and shrubs. They have established our vegetable gardens. Here are some "before and after" or "then and now" pictures.

Difficult to believe but this is the same view. And, yes that's Magdalene watching a hummingbird.

Now raised beds and a deer fence.

What worked well and not so well

The concept of the Lodge, as designed by the early members, has generally stood the test of time. As we showed in last month's newsletter, members have made their homes their own in selecting furnishings, fittings and decorations.

Our common meals program established itself in the first few weeks and has continued on as a key part of the life of the Lodge. Some cook teams have settled on favorite dishes others continue to experiment. We have the opportunity to eat together three or four times a week.

We continue with our 8:00 am (or thereabouts) coffee group and the Friday night social hour. Our widescreen monitor gets much use for movies on Friday night and now also on Wednesday. A team chooses the Friday night movie. On Wednesday it's "Jim's choice"

We have retained our consensus based decision making processes. Our monthly General Meetings are generally uncontroversial but not always. The process team has become more skilled at keeping things on track.

For some reason we do not use the Petanque court as much as was expected. It still might happen. We just need a critical mass of enthusiasts to create some momentum.

The spa is used but again not as much as the original design team envisaged.

Surprise

Very early in the life of the Lodge a member constructed a stairway of 180 steps leading down from the Lodge to Wolf Creek.

There at the bottom of the steps you leave the bustle of Grass Valley behind and find yourself in a rustic environment. To the left there is a trail accessed over a stile built by Butch to clear an old mining water pipe.

Towards town on the right there was no trail.

In 2016 the town decided they needed better access to the creek for service vehicles. They constructed a dirt roadway from the water works to the edge of our property. Subsequently a public cleanup effort by citizens introduced many people to the special scenic aspects of that part of Wolf Creek. A decision was then made to construct a paved bike trail from the Mining Museum at Jones Park to just past Wolf Creek Lodge. A contractor has been hired and we wait eagerly to see the work begin.

There has been a long standing desire in Grass Valley to build a trail along Wolf Creek though the middle of town. This bike trail is the first part of the longer trail.

Additionally in January 2017, after exceptional winter rains, there appeared a 100 foot sink hole. This is about 200 yards north along Wolf Creek where Little Wolf Creek, flowing from the Empire Mine State Historic Park, joins Wolf Creek proper. Indeed it was the failure of a culvert conveying Little Wolf Creek under the roadways that caused the sink hole. The town undertook a major project to grade the hole and build an access trail down from Freeman Lane joining the dirt roadway - the precursor of the bike trail.

No one foresaw this bike trail six years ago.

Homes for Sale!

Our Carbon Foot Print Gets Smaller

From the beginning the Lodge was conceived to offer a sustainable life style. In 2011 McCamant and Durrett Architects was awarded the Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award for Wolf Creek Lodge.

Our 30 homes are far more sustainable then 30 McMansions.

However, we have done more. We added solar photo-voltaic panels on the Freeman Lane wing to complement the solar thermal panels on the McKnight wing.

Members now have four plug-in electric vehicles.We are studying ways to improve the charging infrastructure to encourage more electric cars.

Flower of the Month

Once again Susan has been prowling the gardens taking remarkable pictures of our flowers, fruit trees and leaves. There were 15 pictures in all. I really encourage you to click on the link below to see them all.

www.wolfcreeklodge.org/flowers

Our members had difficulty selecting their favorite picture. The votes were spread over many of the pictures, There was little consensus but this picture of our persimmons was the eventual winner.