Memphis Democrat
March 4, 2004

This is Rachel, reporting on some gorgeous weather, the return of the birds and the flowing of the maple sap. Alyson has been running around with a smile on her face murmuring "maple sap." She's been collecting sap from trees on Joe Neese's and Dale Heaton's land, as well as our own. She brings it over to Sandhill, where it is combined with theirs and cooked in their sorghum cooking pan. Yummy!

I think everyone is starting to prepare for spring. The seeds have arrived from the catalogs. Nate Goodrich, a forester for the NRCS, came by to walk in the woods and talk trees with us. By the way, the folks at Ironweed plan to grow a bunch of trees this year and are looking for 6-12" pots. Let them know if you have any.

Erma Hatch (sorry if I spelled that wrong) heeded our call for furniture and dropped by an easy chair for the new common house that is already a favorite. Penn has been busy building desks for the office and we're finishing up the plans for the kitchen.

There has been lots of travel, for reasons good and bad. Jacque and Cecil took an unscheduled trip to Florida because Cecil's grandmother took a turn for the worse. But the treatments she has been given seem to be helping and she is on the mend. Alline has extended her stay in California because her mother has been doing poorly. They are draining her lungs, which seems to help. We hope she feels better soon and Alline is able to return to us. Ted left for much happier reasons. His sister-in-law is about to give birth in Maryland. We think he made it out east in time.

Bob Cook, who spent several months with us this fall, came back for the weekend to pack up his stuff and say goodbye. He found a great job back in Champaign-Urbana and seems very happy, even if we will miss him. We enjoyed talking and playing games with his friend Danielle, who came with him.

Last year we started a new tradition at Dancing Rabbit called Validation Day. It falls around Valentine's Day. A small group makes cards for everyone and then folks get a chance to write positive things in everyone else's cards without looking at their own. This year we had a delicious brunch where everyone opened their cards.

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