Memphis Democrat
November 2, 2006

Suzanne here--writing about my birthday week. And what an eventful week it was. On Sunday Rachel gave a tour and Brian lead a work party for a large group of Wyaconda elementary students. The group very enthusiastically helped to mulch our paths for winter. Brian said they were a lot of fun. Rachel loved the type of questions they asked, "What is that dog's name?" and "Can I swim in the pond?" We hope they will come out again sometime.

We said a lot of goodbyes this week. Jen left for Delaware for the winter to keep warm and save money. Hopefully she will be back in the spring. And Molly has left us for the foreseeable future. She has been with us for an entire year and we will miss her hard work for Dancing Rabbit but even more we will miss her wicked sense of humor and her Monty Python collection. And previous resident Arjen who had been here visiting Sandhill and DR for several weeks, left this week to return to Portland. It's been great having him around and I hope he returns long before 2008, his next anticipated visit.

For visitors this week we had Nathan's dad staying with us. The weather was cold and rainy while he was here but that didn't stop him from taking lots of digital photographs. On Saturday Betsy and Don came over for an Irish music jam. that included flute, mandolin, guitar and fiddle. What a beautiful sound! And Sunday night Clayton and Janet Dillavou came over for dinner with Bobolink. They are great friends of the community and as they have many times in the past, brought a load of helpful building materials for folks here.

Wednesday Ted Sara Aurelia and I went on a trip to the pallet mill in Granger to get more wood for winter, and we scored some delicious pears on the way home. We saw a full tree and stopped to ask if we could pick some. The owner of the tree very generously let us pick huge coatfuls of them. That afternoon a group of us went to see a soccer game at Truman, to watch a movie, and to go out to dinner at Il Spazio. Previous intern Emily joined us for dinner--she is now the assistant coach for the soccer team at Truman and it was great to see her again.

Thursday was my birthday and it was a perfect day. It started out with a delicious french toast breakfast at Kurt and Alline's house. At 5 pm it was cocktail hour with mimosas and chocolate martinis at Tom and Tereza's and for dinner I was invited to Blueweed where Tony B, Alyssa, Tamar, Ted and Sara went all out. They made a delicious many-dish Indian dinner that included sag paneer, eggplant curry, samosas, crispy papadom and naan bread, cilantro and tamarind chutney, and dessert. As if that wasn't enough, Thomas put on a hilarious impromptu puppet show after dinner. What a memorable birthday--I felt very appreciated and blessed to have such good friends in this community.

On Friday a bunch of us went for a tour of Heartland and then we went bowling in Memphis. Bowling was so much fun that some of us are thinking about joining a league this winter if it isn't too late. Afterwards a group of us went to Shelley B's and played pool. I discovered that Tom is a pool shark and Jennifer is fast becoming one. Next time maybe I'll get them to give me some pointers.

This weekend has been warm and sunny--I doubt we will see many more days like this. Saturday I put Bella Ciao's yard to bed for the winter. Currently there ia a lot of canary grass growing there that I would like to replace with herbs, perennials and native grasses next spring. So I covered it with wet cardboard and a thick layer of straw. I hope to also add compost or manure in the next week, between the cardboard and the straw. By next spring hopefully the grass will be dead and I'll have some fertile earth to work with.

Folks who are building have been in a rush to finish before winter. Tamar and Thomas collected fresh manure from a nearby pasture to make plaster for the walls of her house. And Tony B and Alyssa held a workshop on plastering at their house-- a group of seven students from Truman to learn aobut earthen plaster and to help. Jennifer and Ali (who is here visiting Skyhouse) helped out as well and the house is now close enough to finished that Tony and Alyssa are able to sleep there at night. They look forward to finishing the walls and insulating the ceiling so that it will be warmer.

Back to list of Memphis Democrat Columns