Memphis Democrat
July 20, 2006

Suzanne here--it's been a festive and eventful week at Dancing Rabbit. We had a large group visiting--eight adults and three children. We had a total of eight children here this week--Rowan, Cynder, Torin, Sage, Olivia, Abby, Etta, and Atticus bringing the energy level higher than it's been in a long time. The kids spent a lot  of time swinging on the swing and swimming in the pond. It was great fun having them around. Several of our visitors (including the kids)  are interested in coming back here to live and that is exciting news for all of us.

Rachel, Alyssa, Ron, Alison and Toby went over to Lorraine's house in Baring on Tuesday to pick peaches and pears. She had kindly offered to let folks pick them as she had lots of fruit weighing down the branches. The group had a fun morning hanging out with Lorraine and came back with a huge batch of fruit. Alyssa is already making spicy green peach chutney with her share--I'm looking forward to sampling it.

On Thursday night, Toby, a friend of Alyson's visiting from England, lead a samba workshop. A large group of us chose instruments-- drums, shakers, pots, pans, buckets and a harmonica--and then Toby got us to play in concert using hand signals. The sound was amazing and it was a great feeling playing in rhythm as a group. The atmosphere was electrifying--literally! A thunderstorm was gathering while we were playing and it broke out at the end of our jam session. The storm started off with high winds and torrential rain and a lot of visitors chose to sleep in the common house. It wasn't as bad a storm as expected but one of our visitor's tents blew over---it seems to happen at least once every summer.

We did get a fair amount of rain and our gardens are so much happier. I did a lot of weeding in Ironweed garden with the help of many visitors. Thomas had guests from Kansas City, Marty and Rohimsa, who helped me plant a bed of carrots using a new technique for spacing carrots to get the most out of the bed space.  All of our visitors were a huge help in the garden this week, weeding the overgrown jungle in our garden aisles. Ted and Sara have been pretty busy with new baby Aurelia, and Tamar and I have limited time to spend in the garden because of other commitments, so having help from visitors is awesome.

Ron moved out of the upper grain bin apartment this week and into a tent. He is looking forward to saving money and living closer to the elements. He is attempting to quit smoking this week so it will be a week of positive changes for him. Penn and Laura found a house to rent in Ames this week--it is great that they found a place but sadly brings their departure date a little closer. Penn will be going to Iowa State for graduate school starting this fall. We are going to miss them like crazy and hope they will be back two years from now.

Sunday was Amy's birthday and we all celebrated with a huge all dessert potluck dinner potluck. Amy's idea was for all of the dishes to have something sweet. Juan and others set up the common house beautifully with candlelit tables and a few people helped to serve the dinner. A lot of people dressed up--Amy looked beautiful in a flapper's dress from the twenties. Dishes served included waffles, blackberry tofu creme sauce, blackberry chocolate chip scones, spicy blackberry peach salsa and from-scratch chips, baked beans sweetened with sorghum, chocolate and blackberry tapioca,  and vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. It has been a bumper crop year for blackberries!  Everything was delicious and afterwards we all went into sugar shock. Some of us were wired and played frisbee after dinner,  the rest of us went into a food coma and lay on the couches on Skyhouse's porch fanning ourselves. It was a nice way to end the week.

We are still looking for spoiled straw or hay--please leave a phone message ( 660-883-5511.) if you have any to spare.

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