Memphis Democrat
January 4, 2007

Happy New Year to all! Tony here, back at home and sharing with you this week's exciting Dancing Rabbit news.

The influx of travelling rabbits is in full swing this week. Rachel and I came back on the 26th from Detroit where we were with my family. We met Suzanne in the Chicago train station on her way back from North Carolina. Surprisingly we also ran into Laird from Sandhill with Ma'ikwe and Jibran, also coming from Michigan on their way back to Rutledge (via Quincy). Luckily it was not too late to call home and cancel our pickup. We all squeezed in to Ma'ikwe's hybrid car for probably the most fuel efficient Quincy trip per passenger mile ever (in a vehicle that is - Thomas of course out did us by far, by biking home on the 30th).

Amy and Juan returned the next day from Minnesota and Alyssa and Tony B returned from the west coast. Alyssa was helping with a friend's birth and she went two weeks beyond her due date. It all went smoothly and needless to say everyone was happy the time had finally come.

Cecil and Jennifer joined Stan from Sandhill for the basketball game up in Memphis. Cecil said he almost shouted himself hoarse during the exciting last few minutes of the game. Go SC Tigers!

For New Year's Eve we have been having a party at DR or Sandhill since we moved here in 1996, but this year a friend of the community was hosting a party down near Newark. Not everyone was planning to go and yet with population low you can't have much of a party with half the folks gone, so we came up with a creative solution -- A New Year's Eve Eve party. December 30th found us ringing in the 'New Year' with a party in Skyhouse.

Tony B and Alyssa made cookies for the event and people brought homemade wine. Jennifer and Tony gathered music from a number of rabbits and made a dance mix on Tony's computer. Amy and Juan got a donut maker for Christmas and we figured it was the perfect chance to try it out. We whipped up some vegan donut batter (many substitutions required, of course), heated up some oil, and tried out the new-fangled device. While we ended up with some very delicious fried dough, the donut shapes were quite varied and interesting. Cecil encouraged us to keep practicing.

Since we were partying on the 30th it didn't seem like it was too much of a stretch to change the time of day as well. Since some of us are sort of early to bed we first rang in the New Year on Newfoundland time which is two and a half hours ahead of us. As people arrived at the party we welcomed them to Newfoundland and had a rousing count down to midnight around 9:30 central time. We followed by celebrating Atlantic time, Eastern time, and finally central time. I'm told there were only four rabbits who made it for the real midnight so I'm glad we started early.

Friend of the community Geoph Kozeny is over at Sandhill for a week or so and came over for dinner on Friday (as well as the Saturday party). Geoph currently lives at a community in Tennessee called the Farm but is famous in the communities movement for travelling around the whole country from one community to another. Its great to see him again and hear the stories of he travels.

We look forward to more rabbits returning this week and a return to the hustle bustle of our little village.

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