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KINSTONE - OASIS DE VIE
Hello friends, family and followers! It has been a while since our last post as we decided to move our agricultural exploration to the USA to check out some of the unique and inspiring farming systems it has to offer! We have had a lovely month of august visiting friends and family on a road trip from the East Coast to the Midwest and of course stopping at inspiring farm sites on the way as well! By the time we are done we will have driven over 4000 miles and stopped at at least 5 different farms and ecovillages! Stay tuned to check it all out!
Where: Fountain City, Wisconsin USA
Who: Kristine
What: Megalithic garden and permaculture site
When: Sep. 11-12 2017
Website: http://www.kinstonecircle.com/
The Roots: Kinstone is where Kristine practices ‘land listening’ to create a sacred space by placing large stones in particular arrangements and creating contemplative areas and natural building structures, all bound together by a large scale, permaculture inspired site design.
THE PROJECT
Background: After starting and managing her own software company, Kristine felt a desire to reconnect with the earth and purchased a 30 acre parcel of her family’s existing farm in 1994. Kristine is the 4th generation on this land and several of her siblings still live on adjacent parcels where the family used to raise dairy cattle and cultivated grains and hay to feed them. When she purchased the land in 1994, 15 acres had previously been used for oat and corn cultivation, hay and pasture and the other 15 was forested. Because the dairy herd has become much smaller and the land was no longer being used for production, Kristine decided to try something different…
Kristine spent the next 17 years working on her software company, but also planning and ‘listening’ to the land of Kinstone and what it wanted her to do there. Kristine had found much inspiration and spiritual connectedness in her visits to the United Kingdom and many other areas of the world exploring megalithic and ancient architectural sites. Then in 2011, she decided to start the Kinstone project to create a space where people could come, enjoy nature, explore their inner selves and connect with the earth and universe. To embrace this concept, Kinstone is open to the public and Kristine gives guided tours every Sunday in season.
The Plan: Kristine decided to leave 15 forested acres of the property, for all intents and purposes, untouched save where the Earth may be asking for the addition of a standing stone or group of stones. She followed the Kinstone motto (Regenerate, Relearn and Revive) for the other 15 acres that had been under cultivation for the dairy herd. As Kinstone is a long term and large scale project, Kristine was, and still is, working with a few key individuals to accomplish this: Wayne Weisman, is a well-known permaculture designer and had worked with Kristine to plan the layout of the land in a regenerative fashion, Ivan McBeth, is a 'creator of sacred spaces,' Jarad Barkeim is the site’s stone mason, builder and site manager and master of constructing Cordwood Buildings (a technique which has been practiced in Wisconsin since the mid 1800s).
Another of Kristine’s intentions, is for Kinstone to be used as a place to share knowledge. The Kinstone Permaculture Acadamy, offers a large variety of workshops, from permaculture design courses, sustainable construction (cordwood, strawbale and cob constructions), beekeeping, foraging, and food preservation (using their solar dehydrator) and recently even had a fermentation workshop led by Sandor Katz. There are also yoga retreats, seasonal concerts, space for potential resident artists and so much more being offered at this beautiful site!
THE LAND & BUILDINGS
Site Design: Kinstone is located on a northwestern facing slope down to a valley which has been left forested.
The project is dotted with intentionally placed stone circles and building structures connected by grass pathways and wildflower prairie between them. In the last 6 years Kinstone has planted over 40 different species of trees and shrubs and over 60 varieties of herbaceous plants and groundcovers including an acre of terraced food forest, along with native pollinator gardens and 2 acres of native prairie (soon to be a total of 7 acres). There is also a series of raised beds of perennial herbs and annual vegetables, inspired by the ethics of permaculture. Kristine harvests and preserves this food for herself and others, some of which is used in the Kinstone Commercial Kitchen and Food Truck. The venue is equipped to serve large parties, gatherings, conferences and workshops and provides all of the cooking and food preparation for these events onsite with as much local and organic food as possible.
Future site plans include adding greenhouses, a tree seedling nursery and filling out the ‘Oak Tree Guild’ and ‘Fruit Tree Guild’ plantings as they become more mature. These plans also include mushroom mycelium innoculations as well as mushroom log cultivation.
Monoliths: Stone dolmens, circles and other arrangements are constantly happened upon while wandering the 15 acres of Kinstone. There are currently over 100 standing granite stones, 3 stone circles, a labyrinth, dolmen and over 20 other standing stone configurations such as ‘The Serpent,’ ‘The Family’ and ‘The Watcher’. There is also a large scale drystone artistic piece designed by a local artist and created with a workshop of 10 people over one weekend.
The Buildings: The main education building and visitor center is a large warehouse type construction, complete with a functional kitchen and cozy library. Other structures have been built during onsite workshops such as the strawbale cabin, a yurt, and all of the Cordwood structures. The Cordwood construction (among others) includes the Chapel and the Dragon’s Keep. The Dragon’s Keep is Kinstone’s official ‘Welcome Center’ where visitors are directed from the parking lot. The walls were constructed with different colored glass bottles to let in light and there are also 19 dragons hidden in its walls for curious guests to locate!
The Chapel is a round cordwood structure with a thatch roof and although it does not have a specific religious affiliation, its design was inspired by a poem written about St Francis of Assisi. The walls of the chapel also use colored glass bottles to tell a story of the Sun and Moon, and Earth’s natural elements: Fire, Water, Air and Earth.
WHAT WE’VE BEEN DOING:
We arrived at Kinstone, driving past the huge monolith structures, just before sunset. We were greeted by Kristine and given a wonderful walking tour of the site.
First, she walked us through the Three Witnesses dry stone structure in the shape of a spiral that is aligned with the summer solstice sunrise which shines on an group of stones which hold an amazing amount of different geological forms and fossils and were all broken from one rock affectionately called ‘The Pangea Stone.’ We continued past ‘The Stargazer’s Circle’ with a large bonfire ring in the center and on to the original “Kinstone Circle” made up of three concentric rings of different size standing stones. The outside circle has massive majestic stones standing over 20 feet tall! We continued on to explore both The Chapel and The Dragon’s Keep which were both lit up magically in the fading afternoon light.
The next day we got up early to help take care of the goats (4 Nubian dwarf goats and one buck) and the chickens (a variety of 10 heritage breeds, all still teenagers!). After that we of course got to do some weeding, but not just any weeding…weeding on a green-roof! Normally the sedum that is planted on green roofs does not require weeding, but as there were some large stalks going to seed, we figured it would be a fun job!
We also weeded the ‘food forest’ garden, which had been mulched with woodchips, but was in need of a bit of a fall cleaning. Our job was to concentrate on ‘freeing the trees’ so that the land manager could go in and weed-wack after us. We also spread out a nice layer of hay mulch for the asparagus patch.
We only got to spend one full day at Kinstone, which was terrific, but just not enough! It was wonderful to hear about Kristine’s journey, inspirations and experience her genuine kindness. Thank you Kristine for a wonderful visit! We hope our paths will cross again in the future!
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