Just the Beginning
Gazing out at the sunlight on the water and birch branches hanging overhead, it’s almost impossible to ignore the distilled serenity of the space.
Instead, I stay still, soaking in the April shade and bull-frog calls, careful to keep my toes dry. The air is cool and surprisingly clear of mosquitos – something to do with a bacteria that’s toxic to larvae – and as the breeze tickles my skin, I breath in the damp aroma of the earth and admire how a soft haze scatters an ethereal glow above the wetland.
It is this tranquility that inspires Anne Alexis Alexander to shape the space into a haven for mental and physical well-being.
“I love nature,” she says, “It’s grounding. And I think that other people get that same sense when they come out here. They feel more like they can be themselves.”
She leads me down paths of loose gravel and leaf litter, stopping to point toward a wide swath of mud and marsh grass. This is where the yoga dome will go, she explains, describing her plans for a boardwalk and gazebo and the meditation lessons that will be taught in the morning mist.
The shallow pool forms the lower third of the landscape – a long hill divided into tiered carapaces of red Georgia clay and recently-seeded grass. A dirt road connects the layers and, after a short upward hike, resolves at a colorful house overlooking the area.
While Alexander officially purchased the property in March 2019, she admits to having gained intimate familiarity with the grounds beforehand. “I would have picnics,” she laughs, “I just loved it - I loved the space. There’s an energy here, and I was really drawn to it.” One phone call later, and her realtor knew that this is what she had been searching for. “This is the one,” she said, “that’s what this means.”
And it is this space, rather, a bald spot up the hill, that will be the home of her next project: a garden.
Over the next several years, Anne hopes to construct multiple permaculture gardens, orchards, and eco-friendly structures, such as geodesic domes and variations on her sustainable house design, all with the intent to establish regenerative agriculture and create educational opportunities.
The first construction project was the property’s house, affectionately dubbed, “The Shed.”
Shipping container panels and wooden planks carve out the walls of the house, and a slanted design with extendable windows entice air to naturally ventilate the space, reducing the amount of air conditioning needed in warm weather. Gutters line two sides of the roof and empty rainwater into large plastic bins which can then be used for irrigation, showers, or plumbing, and once Alexander has the means to purchase solar panels, the design will be fully complete. Until, inevitably, the next idea strikes.
Obtaining building rights for a non-traditional housing structure proved difficult for Alexander and ultimately helped contribute to the final location of her property.
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For Alexander, The Shed is concrete proof that, despite adversity or any challenges posed by legal restrictions, non-standard sustainability projects can still exist.
As we sit on the porch overlooking the yard and its empty patches, I can’t help but wonder what this property looks like through her eyes.
Tomorrow, the space will be filled with people. Friends, community leaders, and volunteers will each contribute their own touch, and through their work, Anne will be one step closer to her vision.
April Flowers
After the emergence of COVID-19 in 2020 and a self-imposed break the following year, Anne Alexis Bennett Alexander has once again started to host educational events on her 13-acre property in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, through her sustainability project, the Eco Incubator.
The first such event was held the weekend of April 2, 2022 with the help of Rob Greenfield and his team. Alongside Greenfield, Alexander used the property to teach students hand-on skills, such as how to plant a garden, harvest rainwater, and build composting systems – skills she deems pertinent to know in the face of upcoming environmental uncertainty.
Originally from Washington DC, Alexander earned several degrees from the University of Georgia before studying in London and Paris, mastering in Mental Health Counseling, and traveling internationally for two decades to develop her knowledge of plant medicine and holistic healing modalities, ultimately becoming certified in orthomolecular nutrition, or as she puts it, “fancy talk for food as medicine.”
Her hunger for exploration and the desire to step outside of her comfort zone blossomed from a trip Alexander took to Russia. As a fourteen-year-old American in 1994, just after the fall of the USSR, the culture shock of a post-communist state opened her eyes to the differences and similarities of people across political borders.
This exposure to a dissimilar perspective, as well as the backlash she received when discussing the experience with her teachers, unsettled her trust in the values upheld by American institutions and inspired her to explore nontraditional means of education.
“I feel like connecting with the rest of the world is what gave me the strength and the knowledge that fortifies me now,” Alexander said.
Now confident in her skills, and only 20 minutes from her alma mater, Anne is ready to educate students, pass on what she has learned from her travels, and use the Eco Incubator property as a medium to promote environmental and emotional wellness.
This process begins by inviting community experts and hosting educational events like the one held in early April.
One such invited expert is Rob Greenfield, an environmental activist and humanitarian who has garnered media attention through his showy projects, such as the Trash Me Campaign in October 2016 where he wore a body suit carrying all the trash he produced during the month. Additionally, from November of 2018 to November 2019, Greenfield ran a project where he vowed to only eat food that he foraged or produced from his garden, using the skills he learned from local teachers and dubbing the campaign, “Food freedom: a year without buying food.”
"I’ve been exploring food for nearly a decade and I believe that the globalized, industrialized food system is broken," Greenfield writes for The Guardian, "I vowed to change my eating habits and to inspire others to do so as well."
Alexander invited Greenfield to pass on his skills and knowledge at her event in early April where he used hands-on education to teach volunteers sustainable practices, starting with beginner gardening.
Following his instruction, volunteers in university frats and agricultural programs knit a quick patchwork of soil and mulch, sowing young vegetables and herbs into rows of compost and clay dug from the hillside. The variety of spring crops, such as brassicas, strawberries and lemongrass, were donated from the UGArden and will be instrumental in teaching about food waste and sustainable living.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 14.9% of American households, or approximately 50 million people, suffered from food insecurity in 2011, with minorities twice as likely to be food insecure as white families.
The department, alongside the Environmental Protection Agency, also reports that $161 billion of food, approximately 133 billion pounds, is wasted annually – amounting to 40% of total food production.
“In all of the classes that we did this weekend the idea was showing that these things don’t take a lot of money, they don’t take an extensive knowledge of science, [and] they don’t take extensive access to resources,” Greenfield said, “All of these things can be accessible, and they can be used as tools of empowerment for ourselves and our communities.”
Environmental reports state that food waste makes up 20% of landfill weight and uses 21% of all agricultural water use as well as 19% of cropland and 18% of farming fertilizer (Natural Resources Defense Council).
This is one of the reasons volunteers learned about rainwater collection and how to construct a three-tiered composting system and compost toilet.
Hands-on practice of these skills ensures that volunteers have both the conceptual understanding of these processes as well as a confidence to do it on their own.
“[There are a lot of] concepts that I’ve known about or learned [about] in the past but not really implemented in practice,” Greenfield’s apprentice Miranda Crawley said, “so that’s been a lot of what I’ve been absorbing and taking in so far.” Take physical composting for example, she explains, “I’ve known about it [and] I’ve known how it works. I just haven’t done it myself.”
Livescience.com writes, "If you don't have access to a commercial composting site, getting started at home is as easy as putting together a pile in the corner of your yard," explaining how many hardware stores sell the components needed, such as wood pallets or pre-made bins of varying sizes.
Homemade sustainability projects are on the rise, especially during the events of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Public interest in and concern for nature has risen markedly (16%) in the past five years," Climateaction.org writes, with a report claiming a "65% rise in the volume of twitter posts related to biodiversity and nature loss."
Evidently, people have noticed the lack of industrialized sustainability.
“I think that’s one of the things this place is about. It’s about showing that just because most people in society are doing things a certain way doesn’t mean that that’s the way we have to do it,” Greenfield said, “We can do things in a different way, and the Eco Incubator is an alternative, showing people that another way is possible.”
Credits:
(Photo/ Basil Terhune)