Memphis Democrat
May 20, 2004

Mmm. Asparagus, salad, strawberries. I love spring. The weather has been gorgeous and if you watch closely it feels like you can see the plants growing. I have been getting up before dawn to search for bird nests for my research. The combination of the beautiful sunrise and pleasant weather has made it worth it.

There have been lots of travelers this week. Cecil and Jacque headed east to attend Cecil's brother's graduation. Thomas went home to Illinois for Mother's Day and stayed for awhile. Jess and Cedar left Sandhill this week to move to Columbia, so Jess could attend school for nursing. Tamar, Sara, Ted, Penn and Tom helped drive their stuff down in our truck. Then while Penn and Tom went rock climbing, Sara, Tamar and Ted picked up cedars that had been cut by a friend, to use for building their new kitchen.

This week was Jeffrey's birthday. He had several celebrations, including a chocolate coconut cream pie after dinner on his birthday, made by Tamar. The next night Alline made a big chocolate cake with gummy worms all over it for Jeffrey and served it at the puzzle party. Alline had picked up a few antique jigsaw puzzles at the flea market and we had fun putting one together.

Anthony visited us many times over the years, but we hadn't heard from him for the last several years. He is a chef and had opened his own diner in Saint Louis. Then he sold it and moved to San Francisco, where he is now a chef in a fancy seafood restaurant. He showed up to spend a few days with us, but ended up spending most of his time in the kitchen. Even though fresh ingredients are kind of sparse this time of year, he cooked up a sumptuous meal which we enjoyed. Thanks Anthony!

The new food co-op finally found a name for itself: Bobolink. Bobolink is a kooky grassland bird that nests around here. We moved to the outdoor kitchen for the summer, where we mostly cook on a woodstove. But we thought it would be nice to be able to heat up tea or cook breakfast fast on propane. We had a six-burner stove that we had bought a few years back when they closed the nursing home in Memphis. We called MFA Propane and they sent out Leon and Dennis to hook us up. What a nice couple of fellas! They did the job and helped us figure out how to adjust a stove that had been built for natural gas so it could be used for propane (Oops). Thanks guys!

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