Rivendell is named after some fictional place created by some British author guy. Some other New Zealand dude made a movie out of it. Here we are, setting out from Rivendell to see the movie. How dorky is that?

:

Aside from group costumes, we also enjoy fun things like camping trips...

We share the various tasks necessary to keep the house running. We usually divide the work up at the start of the year (our leases run from Aug 15 to Aug 14) and then swap jobs around as seems appropriate. At any given time, some people will shop, some do the books, some clean, some garden, and some will try to skive off. It's a lot of work, but then there are a lot of us, so it's not usually too onerous. Once, in a fit of organizational hysteria, Jason created a list of descriptions of all the jobs. It's here, but I wouldn't look at it too carefully if I were you.

Cooking (and eating!) is one of the major things we do together. Each person cooks (and cleans up) twice a month -- which sounds like a lot of work until you realize that there are then about 20 other days when someone else cooks and cleans for you. Because food is dear to our hearts and stomachs, we all participate in the "food coop." The mission is:

To provide a source of food and fellowship for all Rivendell members. By purchasing food together, in bulk, the house is able to save money with the added side bonus of being able to buy more ‘socially conscious’ food items such as organic vegetables and locally grown goods. Because the food co-op only works when all house members participate, all co-op members are required to participate in the food co-op, as stated in the current membership contract.

It goes on and on, and you can dowload the full document here, but you get the idea. The food coop is vegetarian, but we are not militant about vegetarianism, so you can cook and eat whatever you want at other times.

Want more? Well, Carolyn was nice enough to write up the definitive guide to living at Rivendell. And Ann, always wanting to make sure that we use the right-kind-of-soap-in-the-washer, has created the world's first guide to Appliance Self-Reliance.