Homestead: The Many Generations – Cooking for 30 and Fanning the Flames of Vitality

Homestead Reunions are supposed to happen every five years.  The last one was in 2022 and brought an impressive number of alumni from my generation.  I was in a robust Homestead class and lived at the Homie during a time of high activity, including big work on the strawbale Cabin Bob and a new garden south of Bob.  This time, I wished that more of my class (of 2004) was present.  Thankfully, my cohorts Matt from West Virginia (class of 2005) and Erica from North Carolina (class of 2009) came and brought their whole families.  Erica attended Denison after I graduated, but I came back as an alum for May Term 2006 (wherein we started building the Earthship Cabin Phoenix) so, in effect, we were Homies together.  This event wasn't just for fun.  We had important work to do.  Perhaps I should give some back story (and share an iconic picture from 2002; that's me in the beanie).

I am a proud graduate of the Homestead at Denison University.  This means that from my sophomore through senior years, I lived in rather atypical college housing.  I lived with a community of 12 students in rustic cabins in a wooded valley approximately one mile from the main campus.  We rotated cooking responsibilities on a wood-burning stove and shared plant-based dinners every night.  We maintained solar panels and batteries to produce 12-volt direct current solar energy, enough for lights, a refrigerator (no freezer), and some CD players that we wired in to the DC through their battery ports.  An onsite well provided fresh water.  We grew various gardens and orchards, raised chickens, hauled and split wood, and built improvements to the cabins.  When I moved in, we were finishing building our strawbale community center Cabin Bob (named in honor of the late, great founding visionary of the Homestead, Dr. Robert Alrutz) and moving the kitchen / dining room into the new structure.  We did all this while also maintaining full course loads at a prestigious liberal arts college and participating in other student activities.  Our collaborators included many non-resident students and community members (friends of the Homestead) who partook in and learned from community dinners, work parties, and work shops. Good use of the summer break is essential to the success of the Homestead.  During the summer, Homies and their collaborators complete larger gardening and building projects and generally get the place in good order.  

The Homestead is an intentional community and a sustainable living project.  Homies experience a level of community that is rare in today's atomized world, topped off with consensus-based decision making and a sense of higher purpose.  Many alums, including me, say that the Homestead made us who we are today.  Some—like my cohorts Colin and Brad, co-founders of the Seattle Urban Farm Company—launched careers directly inspired by the Homestead, whereas others apply Homesteading lessons to careers in medicine, law, creative arts, natural resources, international aid, etc.  See the forthcoming zine I'm editing The Homestead Biographies Project for a deeper look.  I was happy to get Erica's herbology-based advice for my persistent back injury.  She got her inspiration to study the healing power of plants when she lived at the Homestead.

The Homestead continues to evolve, and some things have changed after my graduation.  Notably, it now has more solar panels and a connection to the electrical grid, so the Homies even have a freezer and standard electrical outlets.  I am glad to see that they are still playing the vinyl records (including plenty of classic folk) that I donated from my parents' collection in the mid-2010s.  Over the years, there have also been many Homies who play live music from real instruments, including guitars and drums.

In April, I learned that Denison University plans to close the Homestead on its 50th anniversary year, 2027.  Needless to say, the news hit me like a freight train.  Subsequently, I have been meeting with a small but committed team of alumni and current Homies every week.  Our goal is to save the Homestead.  Step one is for us alumni is to help the current Homies get their place in the best possible shape.  Jakob of the class of 2027 was happy to give us a list of projects.

Thus, we return to the glorious weekend of September 20th  2025!  I arrived a little later than I would have liked on Friday evening, riding an Uber from John Glenn International Airport in Columbus.  The Uber driver was shocked when I wanted to be dropped off at the upper parking lot and walk the last half-mile in the dark with three stuffed bags, but walking that last part is a proud Homestead tradition.  However, right after he dropped me off, Jameson (class of 2008), still with a formidable beard, who had some stuff to haul, picked me up in his vehicle.

That pleasant cool humidity that characterizes nights at the Homestead was still in the air.  Old friends greeted me with hugs. It is hard to put into words the flood of memories and emotion that come to me when I'm back at the Homie, my beloved home during the most formative part of my formative years.  Normally, I don't describe myself as a spiritual person, and yet, back at the Homie, the spirit of past and present young people bringing their dreams to life seems to emanate from the walls.  As the comics legend Will Eisner put it when describing a city building in New York: “I know now that these structures, barnacled with laughter and stained by tears, are more than lifeless edifices.  It cannot be said that having been part of life, they did not somehow absorb the radiation of human interaction.  And I wonder what is left behind when a building is torn down.”  Of the original three Homestead cabins, built in 1977-78, only Cabin One still stands; Cabin Phoenix stands where Cabin Two used to be, Cabin Atlas where Cabin Three used to be—so I wonder what is left behind and generated anew.

Erica showed me the alumni camping area out by the metal sculpture (which comes before the A-frame when you enter via the footbridge).  Her husband, Jeremy—a blacksmith—said that he never expected that the Homestead would be the next place he saw me.  I last saw them in real life when we hiked to Catawba Falls near Asheville, North Carolina in 2017.  They had one young son at the time; now they have another son and a daughter.  This weekend, the metal sculpture would act as a portal between the family camp and the camp for Homies who didn't bring families.  I set up my tent in a nice flat spot just on the solo camping side of the sculpture, inflated my ground pad, and listened to the sound of so many crickets singing just outside my abode for the next two nights.  

Whereas six students currently live at the Homestead, interest in the project is growing again among the student body.  Unfortunately, I had arrived a little too late to hear Tom—class of 2008, who also brought his whole family—spontaneously give a rousing speech to a bunch of first-year-students at Friday night community dinner about how he lived here and so can you.  Many of them got excited about the prospect.

  On Saturday morning, we got rolling with the work party, featuring the combined efforts of about 40 people, including Homies and their families, friends, and collaborators from across the generations.  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many different projects going on at the Homie on a single day.  Erica shared lost knowledge and upkeep of the wood stove with current Homies (and I dropped in a few lessons as well); working on the stove with the fire going on a warm September morning felt a bit like a sauna.  Jeremy led in the repair and reconstruction of the stairs up to the porch (also known as “the Beach”) on the East side of Cabin Bob, joined by various helpers including Jakob and his fellow class of 2027 Homie Noa.  Due to the full Sun, the stairs, too, was a hot assignment, an even better way to get your cardio than hot yoga.  

I worked mostly on team chicken coop to prepare it to be a home for chickens again.  The team sawed up fallen trees and gathered the logs for firewood, cleared brush and rubbish, and repaired and reinforced fences.  Matt wielded a chainsaw and Jameson was maestro of the wheelbarrow.  After hauling and tossing some logs, I followed my penchant for reinforcing chicken coops with layers of fencing and wire mesh to keep predators out.  And I got my obligatory picture in front of the coop with a staple gun.  

O.G. Homies Richard (class of 1977) and Don (class of 1978) deployed their deep knowledge and power tools to the stairs and chicken coop projects.  Both were in the original team of a dozen or so students who worked with Dr. Alrutz to propose and build the Homestead.  The very young joined the work party, too (and had a great time as shutterbugs with a point-and-shoot camera checked out from the Denison library).  Tom and other grown-ups found them family-friendly projects.  The wood shed proved especially engaging—the kids formed a line and passed logs like a fire bucket brigade.  Matt resembled a peaceful version of the Ogami Ittō, the samurai protagonist of Lone Wolf and Cub in how he multitasked, sometimes carrying one or more of his kids while performing Homestead work.  In another cross-generational collaboration Claudia, a Homie in the class of 1986, worked alongside her daughter, a current Denison student.  Laura (class of  1992) jumped in for all things garden (alongside current Homies Emily and Lilly) and for unearthing the red brick pathway (even better than a yellow brick road!) into the chicken coop.  This was her first time back at the Homestead after graduation, but she obviously hadn't forgotten all her old tricks.  

I hadn't forgotten all my old tricks, either.  I joined forces with Matt's wife Bri (who was a summer Homie in the class of 2006) to cook pasta primavera for the whole community on Saturday night, and it slowly came back to me how to use the flue control to modulate fire and heat levels.  Going from cooking for myself in a conventional kitchen in Florida to cooking for 30 here was an adjustment!  However, I originally learned to cook at the Homestead, more commonly for groups of 10-20, including Homies and guests.  When all was ready, in Homie tradition, we rang the cowbell to call everyone in, the entire group formed a circle holding hands, and the cooks for the night announced what we had made.  And I shared a quote.  I sat with past and present Homies at a wooden and metal table on the stone patio out the south door of Cabin Bob in the fast fading light, and we talked about homesteading, animated cartoons, and other subjects.  I helped build both the patio and table some years ago, and memories of drilling into 4 X 4s and heaving heavy rocks into place lingered like dancing shadows.

That night at the fire circle, when the fire died down to glowing coals, I used my wide-brimmed hat to fan the coals and reignite roaring flames.  Jeremy was impressed and declared that he would copy my technique for campfires.  I tried to conceal my swelling pride that I had impressed a blacksmith with my fire skills.  I may not have impressed his son Orson earlier that day when we talked about dinosaurs.  I had to drop some truth bombs—i.e. that T. Rex would win a fight against Spinosaurus.  That last fire was smaller and quieter than I had expected, consisting mostly of alumni and featuring the Ross versus Jameson debates on a variety of environmental, public health, and media topics.  I had been expecting to reminisce on Homestead stories with lots of alums and current Homies, but I was adaptable to other formats.  Erica, gesticulating energetically, urged us to stop arguing and love each other, but I'd say that all disagreements were strictly collegial, no hard feelings.

In the morning, it was Erica's turn to give a spontaneous and inspiring speech to the current Homies.  She explained that if past and present Homies are a plant, the present Homies are the meristem, the special tissue of undifferentiated cells—known as meristematic cells—that have the totipotent power to become any type of plant cell.  Their potential is boundless!  Whereas the alumni—who used to be meristem—have differentiated and become plant structures such as stems, roots, fruits, and leaves.  Current Homies responded by asking rhetorically “And you said that you couldn't write an inspiring bio [for to The Homestead Biographies Project]?"

More important than any specific project or skill, we alumni tried to bring on the mojo, to inject some additional revitalization into the Homestead, and inspire current and future Homies and friends of the Homie.  Lilly said, “I wish that you all could come every weekend.”  

While there are differences between the present version of the Homestead and the version that I lived in, there is still much that is the same, and the same spirit emanates from the walls and Earth.  The crew of resident Homies will soon increase, and the student body as a whole loves and supports this unique project.  They get plenty of visitors, especially for their Friday community dinners.

I left earlier on Sunday than I wanted to, but I took the opportunity to ride back to Columbus with Tom and family, who dropped me off at the Main Library, so I could make a stop at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus—a weekend comics fest—before  proceeding to the airport.  It will take time to process the memories and emotions from the weekend.  

A few weeks after the reunion, I learned that the current Homies acquired a new flock of chickens.  This revives a glorious Homie tradition; I remember the excitement when I brought chickens home.  My work with the staple gun wasn't just for show.

Given present circumstances, Homestead alumni can't sit back and wait for quinquennial reunions.  There will be more events like this one.  We will soon have the website savethestead.com up and 

running.  You can learn more there about the quest to save the Homestead.  Erica said that she wants her kids to have the option of becoming Homies.

2002 Homies photos by Ameen Howrani, all others by R.W.S. or his willing assistants.

My friends in Downtown AVL

 

 

 

Tremendous gratitude to Downtown Books and News in Asheville, North Carolina, big seller of my work!  (Also see them at AVL Zine Fest today.) 

Sometimes when I’m in an airport and the only one looking at a printed book whereas the terminal is filled with people, as far as the eye can see in both directions, endlessly swiping their phones, I get concerned that I and several friends and family members are the only people left on Earth who still read printed books.  Apparently not.  At Downtown, their small-press comics and zines section sells enough to more than pay for itself.  At minimum, people must still find these colorful publications to be great decorations for their coffee tables :)

 

Two Bears, Too Few Glaciers, and Many Bighorn

I visited Glacier National Park, where there are very few Glaciers remaining, but there are still a lot of bighorn sheep. At Logan Pass in the sunset, we met our first trio of resting bighorns, complete with an old visitor explicating to the camera-wielding crowd at the overlook that the one with the more robust set of horns was a ram and the others were ewes. He was as confident as he was incorrect—all three animals were rams, the one with the biggest horns being the eldest (picture #2). A few days later, my friend Emma and I observed some real ewes and lambs in Two Medicine Lake campground, making their rounds and eating scraps from fire pits (habituated, unfortunately). Ewes have thinner, straighter horns than rams and are frequently mistaken for mountain goats (picture #3).

 

Emma and I became friends a decade ago, when we were both seasonal park rangers at Yellowstone National Park. We reconvened this August in her home town of Missoula after I flew from overheated Florida. For our second day in Glacier National Park, we had a backcountry camping permit for Poia Lake in the Many Glacier district. I packed and repacked my backpack more fastidiously than I ever had before, trying to bring exactly what I needed for the overnight trip and not an ounce more. Final revisions took place at the trailhead. Despite all my efforts, the pack still weighed over 40 pounds. I used to be more cavalier about carrying heavy backpacks. But since March, I've had a herniated disc in my lower back, which causes sciatica in my right leg. Sitting gives me the most trouble, and I took my turn driving Going to the Sun Road on the way over, which involves both sitting and operating the pedals with my right foot.

I had a tingling feeling in my right foot for the entire 6.5 mile hike to Poia Lake, which was mostly uphill. We hit the trail later than planned, at 2:30 PM, and took the hike at a manageable pace, which turned out to be about one mile per hour. The first third of the trail took us through thickets of thimbleberries and huckleberries, a bear's Garden of Eden (or Eatin'). And indeed, we stepped over plenty of bear skat, and I spotted a bear's claw-marking on a tree. 

The trail wound and meandered, seemingly endlessly, mostly uphill and sometimes downhill, through conifer woods, talus slopes, past a hidden lake, and over the Swiftcurrent Ridge. We started at 5,000 feet above sea level, ascended 1,200 feet to the ridge, and descended a few hundred to Poia Lake. For the last two miles of the hike, it always seemed like our destination was just around the corner. I wish that I could say that this was all fun, but I became increasingly concerned about when or if we would reach our destination.

 

It was almost 8:30 PM, which is 10:30 PM in my home time zone. We stopped on a ridge, orange lichens dotting the rocks, the light fading and breeze blowing; the sun had already set. Downhill to the right, the sound of rushing water, a cascading stream.

“We can bivouac here,” I suggested.

Emma recalled the hike 734 map and guide we had been following, which said , “The trail then drops down quickly with a steep slope into the Kennedy Creek drainage where Poia Lake resides. The creek playfully exits the lake on your final approach.”...“That sounds like where we are now.”

“That could be anywhere,” I said. Emma encouraged me to keep hiking forward.

In less than fifty feet, as I reentered conifer woods, I said, “There's a sign up here.” Five paces closer. “It says that we have arrived at the backcountry campsites.”

The first task upon entering the backcountry camping area was to stop in the cooking area and raise the bear bags. Right after we took off our packs, a feeling of extreme fatigue came over me. My legs wavered and almost buckled. Luckily, I regained my footing. The hike was only one of many factors leading to this state of affairs. Traveling is a lot of work, from getting one's life in order prior to the trip, to packing and repacking, to looking for places to dispose of greywater at Avalanche Creek Campground, to taking too long to break down camp, to driving Going to the Sun Road behind a rental sedan operated by a European who probably hadn't driven a vehicle in years, to waiting for the backcountry safety orientation video at the Many Glacier Visitor Center to finish. Furthermore, I'm an early bird with an internal clock still on Eastern Time (whereas Emma is a night owl on Mountain Time). I scrambled to do all my camp tasks—tent, bear bag, etc—as efficiently as possible, fearing that if I took a break I would fall asleep and not awaken until morning.

 

 

 

In the morning, Poia Lake had quite a bit of wave action for such a small body of water, bordered by barren peaks with patches of snow. I painted the scene in water color, the field medium of artist-explorers of yore. I had deliberated at the trailhead over whether to bring my field sketchbook and ultimately ruled in its favor. Emma, wearing pink flip flops, slipped and fell near the lake, acquiring a cut on her foot.  She also gained several blisters the next day from hiking (in hiking boots) or her injured foot. I felt like all the wilderness adventure camps I partook in as a youth had been validated, with their warnings against flip flops. Nevertheless, Emma is still bringing the pink flip flops next time she goes camping.

Our first encounter with a black bear occurred around noon. We were talking to a thru-hiker and eating PBJs in the backcountry cooking area, all packed up and soon to start the hike out. I saw something to the left out of the corner of my eye.

“There is a big animal there,” I said, looked again, and saw a big furry butt with a small tail walking away. “It's a bear.”

The adult black bear had walked in our direction down the trail past the backcountry campsites, reached the junction by the cooking area, apparently saw us three humans less than 25 feet away, and turned left (perpendicular to us). It casually walked away down the trail towards the lake, turned right, and disappeared into the bush, just before I could train my camera on it. Had this bear found food scraps here before, and was it returning to look for more at the very time of day when there were least likely to be people around? Or was the timing a coincidence? Wild animals commonly use human trails just to get around, so either explanation is plausible.

 

 

In the trek through the berry patches, Emma was especially consistent in talking to alert bears of our presence; you WANT them to know you're around, so you don't startle them and trigger a defensive reaction. Saying “Hey bear, bear, bear,” over and over quickly gets repetitive, so I sang “Downbound Train,” “Knockin' on Heavens Door,” the theme song from the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show, the theme song from the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon show, and recited as much of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as I could remember. I had the tingling feeling in my right foot on the downhill trek, too, and Emma walked on her foot injuries, and we were tired, but we were armed with bear spray.

One mile from the finish line, we stopped for a moment, and Emma, facing me, said, “There's a bear behind you.” I stood motionless, just in case the bruin was RIGHT behind me. I slowly looked over my shoulder, by which time the bear was gone. It had been a young black bear, perhaps 50 feet away, came out of the brush to give us a look, listen, and sniff, then continued through the brush.

Even without most of the glaciers, Glacier National Park is still a wonderland of mountains, valleys, lakes—I took a paddleboard out on Two Medicine Lake—conifers, and big mammals. The wolves of Glacier are elusive, and wildlife tours more often train their spotting scopes on bears and mountain goats. I wanted to see a mountain goat, but it was not to be. 

  

 

Driving out of the park, one of our last stops was Goat Lick Overlook, where mountain goats come down from higher elevations to lick cliffs with deposits of salt and other minerals. (Electrolytes, it's what mountain goats crave!) Sadly, we saw no goats today. An interpretive sign explained that, built for snow and cold, the mountain goats may face heat stress on their quest for minerals at these lower, hotter, elevations, and they sprawl on patches of snow to cool down. Therefore, I'm not the only mammal pushing their limits in Glacier. I got some good photos of bighorn sheep on this trip, but no mountain goats and no bears. The bear encounters live on in memory, and the glaciers live on in historic photos.

   

 

 

Image credits: Non-selfie photos with Ross in them by Emma Pfeiffer

Other photos and painting by Ross Wood Studlar

©2025 to respective creators 

Shepard Glacier historic photos by US Geological Survey

Interpretive signs by National Park Service