Maya Creek Ecovillage

The Land

Located 15 minutes east of Fulton, Missouri in the northern foot hills of the Ozarks, the 310 acre land trust has sat mostly unused for the past 25 years. The property was bought in the 1970's and was the site of a commune known as "The Calwood-Fairview Farm", which disbanded in the mid-1980's. It remains in the hands of a couple members who are excited to see the roots of their old vision reignited.

The only structure still standing on the land is a rather large cabin, which not having been maintained for the last few decades is in very poor condition. The rest of the land consists of rolling wooded hills with several flat ridge lines, a large pond, and several creeks which feed into the nearby Aux Vasse creek. The forest is old second growth woodland having been logged heavily some time during the early part of the century. The woodlands have recovered much of their original biodiversity and maintaining and furthering the land as a native plant and animal preserve is a goal of our ecovillage.

There are several flat mostly open sites for future construction and crop production. The main fields range from 12-15 acres in size and are nicely secluded from roads near the property. Since the fields haven't been used in nearly a quarter century they are beginning to return to woodland themselves and will need to be cleared of some of the sporadic small cedars before work on the ecovillage can begin.

The most serious issue related to plants and animals on the land as it pertains to visitors and members is the large numbers of ticks and chiggers that reside there. The main concentrations of these insects appears to be in the fields where tall grass and sleeping deer provide the ideal habitat for them. In order to deal with the problem we will be introducing a large number of chickens and guinea hens to the area as well as carbon traps.

Location

We are located only 5 minutes south of I-70 near the tiny town of Calwood, MO giving us easy access to Columbia, MO(35 minutes) and St. Louis(Hour and 30 minutes). The nearest city is Fulton, MO(15 minutes) with a population of around 13,000. It has a good selection of stores, restaurants, and other resources. It is also the site of two colleges, William Woods University and Westminster College, the site of Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech.

We also need to be upfront about a downside to the location of the land. Callaway Nuclear Power Plant is located roughly 8 miles to the south east. Clearly we are not happy to have something potentially very dangerous in our back yard, but there is little that can be done at this point apart from continuing vigilance against the construction of a 2^nd reactor, which Missourians for Safe Energy along with local activists have already stopped once, as well as petitioning the government to not extend the plant's current license.

After talking to an engineer at the plant it appears that the reactor design makes it impossible for it to go critical, ie explode like a nuclear bomb, and any type of Chernobyl event is unlikely as this a different type of reactor and the safety measures taken now have a large number of failsafes. Even in a worst case scenarion, an explosion that would launch radioactive material into the air, the wind typically does not blow to the north east. Not an especially comforting thought, but a plus nonetheless.

History

Before the arrival of europeans the Osage tribe controlled the area encompassing the land and they did so until the Illini pushed them south in the mid 1600's before they themselves ceded the land to the whites. It's a common occurance to find arrowheads on the land.

The Osage grew more food than most other tribes and after planting would often travel west to the plains in order to hunt buffalo. They would then return to their untended crops in fall for the harvest. They ferociously protected their lands and are well known for their long bows and war clubs which were typically made from a tree now known as the "Osage orange". You might recognize them as trees that grow "horse apples". The wood from these trees is extremely strong and when burned as fire wood gives off more BTUs per weight than almost any other tree.

Across the Aux Vasse creek from the property is relatively flat bottom land that was and is used for agricultural purposes. There is a small road that exists through the property which was once used to transport grain crops from those fields to a mill beyond the property. Part of this road will be repaired and used as the main road into Plan B's village center.

In the early part of the 20^th century the land was logged heavily and later bought by a boxing champion for the purpose of hunting. It was later bought by the Calwood-Fairview Land Trust, one of whose members was Luke, Tao's father. The group built a bath house from reclaimed lumber and also built a small lake on the property. There were also a number of smaller buildings around the land where a number of members lived.

At some point a group of members split off to go live on another farm in souther Missouri that was following the principles of Stephen Gaskin, the founder of "The Farm" in Tennessee. The only real difference was that Gaskin's principles were more strict than those lived by on the Calwood farm, such as not eating meat altogether, etc.

The rest of the group left in the early 80's and Tao's family was the last to leave in '84. There were various reasons why people moved off the land, some for jobs, some because they grew tired of homsteading, and some because of the Callaway Power Plant coming online.

Flora and Fauna

We have finished compiling information on the species of plants that the Nature Conservancy found when they auditted the land in 1990. You can see the list of native plants here.

There are numerous white-tailed deer on the land, and although we have yet to see them a medium sized group of coyotes also live on the land. Apart from squirrels there also appear to be raccoons, moles, and we believe we have found fox prints and activity of some kind of water mammal, possibly mink or woodchuck, down near the creek.

As far as birds are concerned we have seen cardinals and several types of woodpeckers and sparrows. There are far more but we have not identified them yet. There are also bats living in the uninhabited cabin on the land.

In terms of reptiles, we have found ground skinks, northern fence lizards, ring neck snakes, and copperhead snakes as well as a large assortment of different types of frogs and toads.

Pictures

If you would like to see more pictures of the land please visit the "Media" section and look through our photo albums.