Join us in daily building, farm, food preparation/preservation and cow care.  In modern society, we fight with nature.  We are guilty of being part of the wrong kind of civilization.  Here, instead of the insidious stream of new technologies, the residents are satisfied with traditional methods of living.   We are striving for self sufficiency to fulfill the material and spiritual needs of our community and the next generations.

2025 Manifestations

kids mill 2025

Join our efforts to build a Vedic Eco Village and manifest a self-reliant spiritual community with food sovereignty.  Farming, stewarding the forest, milling lumber, building infrastructure, farm planning and fire wood-based activities are ongoing daily. Dharma Discovery class features with building, cobbing, gardening and cooking harvested roots like carrots and potatoes.  Chulha stoves are fuelled by cow dung & wood chopped by kids.  Help manifest key projects of the VēV master plan.

We are expanding our Dharma Discovery for kids program to a Saturday event where we clean up the slash piles left behind from clear cuts of the burned forest.  With the help of local kids, we are clearing the slash piles blocking roads and pathways.  There are no logs worth milling in slash piles, but there are lots of burned standing dead trees worth milling.  We are researching and testing the best way of using deeply burned trees either for firewood or building materials.

Passive Construction for a Sustainable Future

cob oven

Our key projects this year focus on facilities and fenced grazing land for a new goshala Fencing grazing land colony fences (aka X-fences) have started - built from thinned trees in nearby over-grown forests.  We need to dig NE facing dug-out cave for new goshala.  The cowshed, worker house will be built with milled local lumber.  A mass heater will heat living spaces, storage shed and warm water 

Help manifest our buildings in harmony with nature, accepting and preparing for future fires and other weather extremes. 

Innovations in Vedic Living

Our building techniques improve and evolve with every ecovillage project.  Our traditional vedic mud-stoves (chulha) used for cooking and heating are available in 3 locations. Outdoor kitchen & solar shower facilities are under construction.  Crowded trees from our forest are milled for ecovillage building materials.

Our weekly Dharma Discovery gives children deeper insights into the fundamental values upheld in the Vedic culture, namely the importance of cows, farming and natural building/crafts.  We are starting plants in our greenhouse while harvesting lettuce & spinach greens.

Saranagati Village continues to attract pilgrims to their temple, goshala and pristine mountain landscape.  Community & temple leaders are overwhelmed by the crowds, as they do not provide guest accommodations, food or facilities.  Vedic Eco Village is working hard to increase our capacity to host pilgrims.

Goshala and Cow Barn

Cows goshala cow hug

As in the original Vrindavan, cows play a central role in the lives of the Brajavasis, similarly, we plan to focus all the activities within our Vedic Eco Village around cows and agriculture.  We will build a new goshala to host cows from nearby Ahimsa Goshala.  The Goshala will be the first structure to be built in the VeV colony.  The bulls and ox will be in a separate area of the village. Guest cabins will be located beside goshala.

The cow shed will be a structure of wood and cob built into a NE facing dug-out slope.  Inside are four 10 foot by 10 foot wood cube structure: 2 shelter cows, the others 2 are for worker and tools. The goshala entrance faces North East with south windows for optimal winter sun. 

Food Supply for Eco Village

Cherry growing in Co-op garden Millet growing in greenhouse Hummingbird visits the greenhouse Bridge to Co-op garden

Farming and cow-protection provides the foundation for self-sustaining living and also generated prosperity for the rest of the society. A village should be an ecologically closed unit. Dung from cows fertilizers the grains and vegetables, and waste from vegetables and grains is food for cows and sheep. The surplus from this ecological cycle should be sold to markets outside the village. This makes for a stable economy.

We are currently growing Carrots, Beets, Potatoes, Peas, Cucumber, Broccoli, Kale, Chard, Lettuce, Spinach, Strawberry, Cabbage, Green Beans, Zucchini, Radish, Fennel, Squash, Asparugus and Corn. 

Apple, Pear, Cherry, Apricot, Hazelnut and Walnut trees trees are 10 years old.  Raspberries, strawberries, currants, gooseberries, honeyberries (hascaps) and saskatoon berries are growing. Millet, buckwheat, grains and pulse seeds are being saved for future plantings. 

Promoting Cow Culture and Vedic Village

roaming cows occupy south end fields

Society in Vedic history was a flourishing self-sustaining cow-centric and cow-revered culture. Cows and bulls are an essential contributors to peace and economic prosperity. Sastra tells human society how to live a simple life free from anxiety depending on the cow and bull, the land and the ample supply of natural gifts from the Creator.

To cultivate this culture in our village, Govardhan Goshala hosted Gopuja in a grazing areas on the full moon purnima.  The puja featured Surabhi cow and friends who were fed our locally grown foods.

Our desert like summer weather normally begins in June.  Everyday we are eating salad and green leafy vegetables from the garden and still carrots from last harvest.  A favorite is carrot, beet and parsley juice.  New vegetables are harvested every week.

Srila Prabhupada on Varnāśrama

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

We need farm communities that can grow food.

Srila Prabhupada predicted that, "One day millions of people would be coming to our Hare Krishna farms because they are unemployed. And we must accept them. We must feed them. We must let them live there and they will gradually become spiritualized. We will put them to work, they will get their food and there will be prasadam. They will hear something about Krishna and they will gradually by the millions become devotees."

“Unless in the human society the Varnasrama system is introduced, no scheme or social order, health order or any order, political order, will be successful.” [October 18, 1977, Vrindavana]

"It may be an ideal village where the residents will have plain living and high thinking. For plain living we must have sufficient land for raising crops and pasturing grounds for the cows. If there is sufficient grains and production of milk, then the whole economic problem is solved." [Montreal 14 June 1968]