Memphis Democrat
February 21, 2002

Hi! I'm Alyson, filling in for Rachel. Rachel is in Florida this week with Megan at a folk music business conference. I'm happy to get the chance to introduce myself, especially since just last week I became Dancing Rabbit's newest member.

This week we've all felt the return of spring. We saw huge flocks of Canada geese and snow geese flying overhead, and most of the snow around here has melted. "Mud season" seems to start much earlier here than in my native Vermont, where everything pretty much stays frozen until at least March.

Tom and I have been going out to gather maple sap every couple days, and we generally try to get going early in the morning, before the sun warms up the mud. So far the sugaring seems to be going well, although we're having trouble figuring out how to filter out the "sugar sand" that forms in the syrup. Any ideas?

Although the warm weather completely melted our ponds over a week ago, a couple of us went over to Sandhill this week and actually played hockey! One of their ponds is ringed by trees and is still miraculously frozen solid.

Mark returned from his trip to Costa Rica with his family. They saw some incredible wildlife and he learned some new phrases in Spanish. Alline came back from visiting her family and was amazed to see how much work Kurt had gotten done on their cottage. Then unfortunately she got sick for a couple of days. We tried to cheer her up by watching a funny movie downstairs while she was resting in her new upstairs bedroom. When she was better, it was Kurt's turn to be sick. I guess they both worked a little too hard while she was away. But now they're both feeling better.

Another sign of the changing seasons is that we've begun hosting visitors again. A man from Massachusetts was here last week, and we're happy to have Kathe with us now from Oregon, Illinois. This weekend we also hosted several people from a committee of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, an organization supporting groups like ours who have chosen to live in community. The committee included people who had come from communities as far away as Virginia and Tennessee.

A group of folks went to Memphis to look at the Donaldsons' house, which we're thinking of moving here to potentially become our new common house. It looks like a great house and we're hoping it'll work out to move it here -- although there are lots of power lines on the way that could make it tricky. We're still keeping our eyes open for other possibilities. Please let us know if you've got any leads.

Tamar and Bekka from Sandhill were going to bring their dogs to the vet this week, but when the time came to leave, Tamar's dog Maya had suddenly disappeared. Next time Tamar probably won't tell Maya in the morning where she's going that day. Maya's too smart!

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is a nonprofit and a residential community that demonstrates ecological sustainability in Rutledge, MO.

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