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Mountain Jewel

Center for Earth Connection

  • Food Forest,  Gardening,  Homestead,  Perennial Agriculture

    Tour of our 3 Year Old Permaculture Gardens

    March 22, 2020 /

    Summer 2019 we took a stroll through our permaculture gardens and brought you with us!

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Mountain Jewel is an off grid land project that lives into the question of how humans can align with Place through food forests, adaptation gardening, appropriate technology and natural building with local materials. It was established in 2016 in the heart of the Ozarks of South Central Missouri.

No Data Centers in the Ozarks
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Ozark center for earth connection
💎 tending in the 10th year
food forests, natural building, seed carrying
In the coming years, we will increasingly wonder w In the coming years, we will increasingly wonder where the junctures were which determined our collective direction. I believe, coming into 2026, we are currently facing one. Over the last couple months, I have apprenticed myself to better understanding the current scope of AI & its trajectory. What I have learned has mostly been concerning. Books like If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies present a future that, far from hyperbole, gives a sober look at the potential age AI could usher in. What has been in the forefront of my mind as I study this in the evenings is that most of us have no idea what is happening in these spaces. And it’s happening very quickly, with great money backing it, and without any guardrails. Whatever your beliefs or use cases around AI, I feel that it is in our collective best interest to SLOW THIS DOWN. As trillions of dollars flow into this space, we are seeing data centers proliferate across the continent at rapid speed, usually surprising the communities they pop up in. The AI space can be thought of in layers, with data centers as the infrastructure upon which cloud services support AI models and the apps on top of them. While the cloud appears to be amorphous and nebulous, it has material infrastructure in a real place somewhere siphoning from the earth’s body. Taking time to watch videos of data centers and the impact they are making on embodied communities, water, power grids, etc is worth the time. Foundationally, there may be little we can do to slow down the AI research space, as the government has taken away all guardrails and its funding registers as the largest infrastructure build out in human history, but I do see our agency empowered at a Bioregional scale where we can interface and monitor local policy and STOP data centers from being built. Bioregion by bioregion, communities are stopping data centers from taking hold. I believe this is in our best interest. Continued ⬇️
From experiencing this pattern interpersonally, wh From experiencing this pattern interpersonally, when someone is bluntly twisting truth, there is no point in arguing with them. Entangling to get them to validate the truth of the matter is a lost cause and a waste of energy. You must affirm yourself, recognize what you’re dealing with and shift the way you respond. They’re looking for any excuse to increase the violence of the state against the protestors. They don’t care about rule of law or truth. Might is right and submit lest you get chomped in the jaws of the state. The best method with a human who is DARVOing is grey rocking, removing your response from the dynamic- not feeding the chain of reaction. When the hand of the state is increasing military might over its own citizens- disappearing people without due process and villainizing harmless immigrants- stepping away doesn’t feel like a choice. People are being brutalized and the violence they carve out upon one of us, amps up potential toward the rest of us. Seeing the action of the state for what it is: - that it is acting outside of the law - that it is doing that in part to get us to react (so they can justify the use of more force) - that its actions are not moral, just, true or fair - that that is the way of a violent authoritarian fascistic regime They are widening the aperture of acceptable violence against their own populace. You have probably lately seen the Orwell quote: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Do not doubt your eyes. Do not doubt your ears. You are seeing what you are seeing. Our collective power is in our conscience. In our ability to hold the line, remembering and increasing what is good and right and just, in affirming and standing in that together. Putting our lives on the line for one another because we are stronger together. In fact, our togetherness is the key to our strength. Continued ⬇️
sitting here on the roof with my back on the sun-w sitting here on the roof with my back on the sun-warmed plaster praising the moment as the sun lowers into the horizon. Goumi (the manager) inspecting the work (see slide 3). quite a year and i’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- this house is building me. i fully surrendered to it this year, giving myself to the audacity of building this (as one friend put it). the fullness of these past two years have been deeply transformational and brought forth all of myself in facing the challenge of moving ahead on this land solo. this dec/january marks 10 years on the land and i have so much love for this space and all it has taught me. don’t let those words fool anyone into thinking this has been easy. this lifestyle is complex and extraordinarily challenging, but i still find the investment worth it and relish in these woods, this space, the dark starry nights, the quiet, the opportunity to interact with the land building perennial zones, the bioregional community building … soon I hope to be getting the return of all of this sweat equity i have put into the house by living in it. much to do inside, but bit by bit 🐜 celebrating along the way 🐜
the slowing down season 🍂 with so much to do ✨ tha the slowing down season 🍂 with so much to do ✨ thanks to some timely convos with a friend, finding the calm/peace/joy in the midst of the ample doing 💎 one of the reasons I wanted to live close with the land was to get in touch with the seasons/ not race around chasing a perpetual summer. what does it look like to let ourselves die back? fall is lung and loss. love and loss are so tied, aren’t they? can’t have one without the other. the high fruit of summer falls away as beauty shifts toward frozen slowness & we cultivate the inward treasures. friendship, personal medicine, harvest, hearth, processing the abundance of summer & the year’s integration. this was a year of change and letting things work me. of giving myself to the process of building this house. pressed in the midst of great forces, we transform. ‘simmoning, hiking with friends, the fruits of fall in che, nettle, licorice, flowers on green tea, corn & bean, duck. ozark chinquapin made it! running water in the cabin (!!), sanding and nourishing the wood there, midwifing the space to be reborn as I prepare it for rentals & cozy guest stays. making lathe with friends. final slip & leveling coats on exterior bales. the best Ozark pizza celebrating court square cafe. it’s a lot of hard work, but building toward something beautiful and even on the hardest days, I continue to remember that 🫶🏼 dream a little dream, one day we’ll all be bones.
final bales 🌀 🍃 as the weather turns. it wouldn’t final bales 🌀 🍃 as the weather turns. it wouldn’t be a proper natural building season if I wasn’t plastering dancing with cooler weather incoming right?! getting all emotional over here as I close it in 🫶🏼
hello human reading this. sending a missive out fr hello human reading this. sending a missive out from the woods to share a community event happening this weekend at yonder Mountain Jewel. some kind, fun, beautiful, world-building folks & I are throwing more mud on these walls. if you have a hankering to get muddy, please join us (and bring a friend)! camping available. potluck style with a bonfire in the evening (bring instruments if you desire). come bask in this perfect fall weather, immerse in nourishing community and learn a thing or two about earthen plaster from this hands on experience. Ozark country, MO. RSVP. so grateful for everyone who has put love & good energy into this house seen and unseen 💚
so grateful to everyone who came out to my neck of so grateful to everyone who came out to my neck of the woods on my birthday to help sling mud on the final wall of the house ❤️‍🔥 feeling the love
Join us next Thursday 9/11/25 at Flotsam Farm in O Join us next Thursday 9/11/25 at Flotsam Farm in Ozark County. Potluck at 5:30ish then we’ll take a walk through the three sister’s patch, discuss adaptation gardening methods…how they’ve worked for our community in the Ozarks and why I see it as one of our best evolutionary tools in the face of climate change & modern humanity’s rootlessness & lack of community. We’ll then go inside and process some of the winter squash for a seed saving demo. All welcome and folks who have grown out the #ozarkmoschatagrex are welcome to join in with their experience on growing it out!
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