Memphis Democrat
June 2, 2005

Day to Day Life
Memphis Democrat Column -- Jacob's Travel Logs

Next Tour
Saturday, July 26, 1pm
Call 883-5511 for info

Life continues at a rapid pace here at Dancing Rabbit this week, and this is Ted bringing you all the news. Summer is upon us, despite leaving our last night of frost behind only a couple weeks ago. Gardens here are bursting out all over, already producing sustenance for hungry rabbits and promising a great bounty of food yet to come. Skyhouse has been out planting in its newly fenced garden; Suzanne and Ironweeders have been wresting some old garden beds near the cattail pond from the throws of weedy abandon and planting anew in them; Bob continues moving mountains of soil by hand, one cartload at a time, to turn much of his warren into the most carefully-laid garden beds yet seen at DR; spirals of lettuce and other tasty greens have been spotted coming up in the Johnsons' garden at the Timberframe; and every other garden on farm is experiencing a similar renaissance. And strawberry season is here-- what more could we ask?

While many of us would love to spend all our time in the garden, however, work continues apace. Skyhousers continued on their earthworks, turning clay, sand and straw into a finished floor in their living room, which was finish-plastered last week. It looks fantastic in there. Ironweed got back to work on its new kitchen, erecting the straw bale sections of its walls with the help of Johari, Vito and Jeffrey at key moments. We tried a new technique of dipping the bales in a thin plaster slurry in an attempt to reduce the amount of plastering we'll have to do later; it made the bales lots heavier to lift into place, but otherwise seems like it will work out nicely. I spied Laura and Penn hauling some posts down to Laura's foundation, which makes me think we may see a fascinating structure rising there some time soon. Finally, Thomas erected some fine tipi trellises near the wigwam that make me want to get out there and put up similar ones for our newly-planted gourds and cucumbers to grow on.

The first sections of downspout piping went on the common house this week, with Tamar and Laura hard at work, so we're now recharging the common house cistern with rainwater from its roof-- very satisfying, as I learned getting my own cistern finally piped in from the roof recently. Not everything around here is work though! The common house also hosted a fashion show-auction Thursday evening, in which anybody who had clothing or other items to part with donned all of them at once and then strutted the runway in them until each layer was either claimed by a new owner or added to the Salvation Army pile. The layers went right down to some high-fashion union suits, which found new homes despite Winter's seeming remoteness.

We've had a string of great ultimate frisbee games lately, and enough players are coming out regularly that it may be time to mow a new, larger playing field. The old playing field, once out on the DR frontier, now sits at the top of what is likely to become one of the next foci of construction, so we need a new field anyway. We now have an army of ten scythe-wielding folk around here (four new scythes arrived this week!), so mowing large areas by hand is becoming a very doable prospect, as demonstrated by the three who capably mowed the playing field in a couple hours recently.

Kurt, Alline, and Baloo made a triumphant return Sunday night for a spirited two-month effort to get a new wood shop put up next to Milkweed cottage. We expect to see them breaking ground within a week, and we're very pleased to have them with us again. Andrew is expected back any day now from a long sojourn in Nevada, and we'll look forward to his summer ventures as well. Friends Chris and Derek from Columbia visited us briefly, Mignon came for a return visit from California with her partner Binky, and we expect our summer interns to start arriving within a few days. Time for the busy high season at Dancing Rabbit! Tune in next week for the next installment of news from the cooperative DR correspondence team...

Back to list of Memphis Democrat Columns

Web hosting donated by Summersault.com.
Reasonable uses authorized without permission.
All other uses Copyright ©1996-2007
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage | Sustainable Community Living | Intentional Community Living
Maintained by the DR Website Committee at Dancing Rabbit. Contact us.

Memphis DemocratJune 2, 2005

Memphis Democrat
June 2, 2005