Memphis Democrat
March 23, 2006

Hello, all! This is Andrew, and it's my turn to bring you the latest from Dancing Rabbit. Just when I was starting to like the local feel of climate change, the weather has taken another turn back toward the winter chill. But that hasn't stopped us from being productive and having fun.

Tuesday, after our potluck with Sandhill, we celebrated Gigi's birthday by watching "The Future of Food," a documentary about how the Monsanto Corporation has taken control of the production of almost all the food Americans eat, manipulating consumers and government safety regulations to bring us genetically tampered and pesticide-laden foods, while extorting more conscientious independent small farmers out of business. It was disturbing yet enlightening, and I'm all the more eager to take a stand and say 'no' to nonorganic food.

Land-Use Planning, Eco-progress, and Outreach have all been busy this week working on designs for the future Town Center, plans to get more sustainable, and strategies to get our ideas out there in the mainstream. Also, several of us have been spending a lot of time in meetings to form a new cooking co-op that will be open to visitors and new members.

This past weekend we received a visit from David and Frederique Courard-Hauri and their two daughters, Kayleigh and Julianna. David was part of the original conceptualization and design of Dancing Rabbit, and also created our logo. The Johnson kids, Rowan, Cynder, and Toren, were thrilled to have other kids here to play with, and they spent the whole weekend with their new friends.

Friday evening, another Eddie Izzard standup comedy routine was shown in the Common House. It looks like we're in for three more of these, which is great because he's hilarious. On the same evening, a game of Charades took place in Skyhouse. I was really impressed with how well everyone played, and several times I laughed myself senseless. It's good medicine, I tell you.

Finally, today being the vernal equinox, I leave you with a silly poem titled "False Spring," which I wrote today:

With fat sapling buds, and new seedling clover, The spring had begun, and winter was over! Abrupt global warming was here with some perks For us non-ecogroovey, insensitive jerks. But just when we thought it soon time to swim, The weather turned dour and nasty and grim. So we stack on the layers and stoke up the fire. Like the migrating birds, we learned spring was a liar.

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