Before turning a shovel of dirt, it took years to get Emerson Commons through all of the pre-construction hurdles. But now construction is underway big-time!
 
Here’s a panoramic view of it.

And some more photos of the site work.

Other than construction, we’ve had lots of activity in the past couple months:

New member families!
You can see our growing list of biographies. Two of these families, who joined just in the past two weeks, still need to post bios as of this blog entry, but they will be up soon. Another joined in October. All three are from out of town (Boston, Fredericksburg VA, and the DC area). We have had quite a few member families who got involved from out of town. Video conferencing and meetings by phone have helped them become a part of the community from a distance. With this new influx, we are down to five homes not yet reserved or purchased.
 
Contract Signing Party
As per Matt’s wonderful earlier post, you can see we had a fun contract signing party.
 
Groundbreaking Ceremony
The group ventured out to the construction site on a cold December day to kick off this next phase of Emerson Commons. Community members took turns to dig a shovel-full and say a few words. We all enjoyed hot apple cider on the cold day. Here are some pictures from the event.

I hope to keep you all more updated via the blog as we climb out of these busy times. We'll still be busy, but also having more fun as we begin to physically live in the same community in just a few months.
 
Happy New Year!

Peter

A couple of weeks ago we gathered for a fairly mundane reason: to sign some paperwork. Of course, those guys in the wigs were doing the same thing, only with considerably less distraction from their children, judging from the picture. And while our own putting of pen to paper may not have been quite as heroic, it did feel revolutionary, in its own small way (as well as very clearly occasioning bigger smiles and more adult beverages).

Why? Because these house contracts were more than house contracts. To me, at least, they felt like the culmination of a radical commitment: a signing-off on reimagining our values and priorities, a stand against the forces that drive us apart, and a leap of faith in one another. Maybe a "Declaration of Dependence" would be putting it too strongly; here in the land of liberty, dependence is something of a naughty word. And yet there's something most definitely liberating in the recognition that we are stronger, wiser, and more complete in community. In any case -- now that we're here -- I can tell you that loving these people, and looking forward to our journey together, does not feel radical in the slightest. Cheers.