Memphis Democrat
December 21, 2006

Tony here, giving you all the news and views from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. As the temperatures rose this week at DR the population fell as more rabbits went off to visit family for the holidays. Nathan is off with his family in Texas. Rachel is on Long Island in New York with her family, and the rest of use were left at home to enjoy the spring-like weather.

Given that many of our houses are designed to get some heat from the sun, and are well insulated we often don't need to light a fire at all on a warm winter day. But ironically, on some of these cloudy days the insulation was working against us and we'd note the odd sensation of walking outside and finding it warmer outside than in. Guess we didn't think to open the windows in mid-December.

We had a couple birthdays this week. Ron celebrated his last Monday with some multi-player video games and a dance party. Juan celebrated his on Tuesday and the theme there was "too much cake." You might think that there is no such thing as too much cake, especially cake as good as what Amy and Alline both made. But with our numbers so low we were eating cake three meals a day until Friday. Life sure is rough.

In other dessert news, there was a cookie exchange party hosted by Tom and Tereza. Each person made a few dozen cookies and brought them to the party and came home with at least 6 or 7 different kinds. Cecil made toffee, Amy made buckeyes, Suzanne went all out and made both cashew butter cookies and clove cookies, Tom and Tereza made Russian tea cakes and chocolate chip banana cookies to die for. Since most of the participants are vegan (meaning they do not eat any animal products) all the cookies had no eggs, milk, or butter. But I definitely noted a lot more white flour, white sugar, and margarine than we see day to day here at DR (for many of us the norm is fresh-ground wheat grown at Sandhill, sorghum or honey, and organic oil). I think I overheard someone say, "Why eat dinner when there are cookies?"

Another effect of so many people being gone is that the village dogs are much friendlier. For the non-pet-owners among us, many of our dogs are somewhat aloof, having eyes only for those that feed them. But with their owners out of town the dogs must figure any port in a storm. Alline will be the most popular with the dogs this week. As the only dog owner home, she'll be feeding them all and I'm sure it will be a full time dog party at her place.

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