Memphis Democrat
February 1, 2007

Hello friends of Dancing Rabbit! Ted here again with a bit of this week's news from Dancing Rabbit. Sorry for the delay.

What a whirlwind of weather we've had! Despite the bitter cold winds, I've heard a surprising number of people say recently that they're glad for the "real winter", in hopes that it will put a natural damper on the bug populations come spring. Perhaps also as a reaffirmation that in spite of global warming, we can still rely on certain of our established weather patterns to persist for another year (we hope!).

One of the most exciting pieces of news here was the announcement by Tony and Alyssa (who as you read last week have joined Ironweed Coop) at our community supper that they're expecting a child in September! There were sounds of excitement all around when the announcement was made, and Sara and I were especially pleased because it means our daughter Aurelia will have a play pal very close to her age who'll live right across the street and be a member of Ironweed with us to boot.

In addition to growing some of our own children, Dancing Rabbit is also looking to grow through continued immigration this year; we're currently expecting five new residents to arrive in April or soon after, with several more people nearly confirmed. DR has from the start hoped to be a community of 500 to 1000 people some day, and there are those among us who'd love to see us moving significantly in that direction sooner rather than later. There is some thought that as we gain members, we'll approach a certain critical mass and our growth rate will start to accelerate as well. Here's to the future!

Saturday afternoon there was a Dancing Rabbit ladies' luncheon at Zimmerman's cafe, with many of the attendees walking the two miles there and back despite the icy wind. We menfolk heard there'd been a run on vegan chick patties, while we sat mulling over our leftovers from the previous night's dinner. Looks like we'll have to organize our own event.

Everyone's power systems had recovered from the gray days by the end of the week; Sunday evening Milkweed Cinema shared The Magnificent Seven with us, and though I couldn't make it, one report I heard said that the movie proved quite politically correct for 1960. I'm hoping to borrow it and watch it myself. Monday evening we viewed Run Lola Run, which is a fast paced German movie that I'd seen once before and enjoyed all over again. The cinematic lineup has grown as we start to look toward Spring and try to get in all our Winter's relaxation before it comes.

We hope you're all staying warm out there, and I'll leave you for this week with a report by Cecil on this year's Rutledge Fire Department news:

Last week was the annual meeting of the Rutledge Fire Department and as President I went to lead the meeting. Despite the ice we had a decent turnout. We reelected Luke Zimmerman as Fire Chief and Les Richmond as a Board member. We started discussion about a getting a new, well, a new old, water truck. We'll be having two benefit dinners this week to help out the Fire Department so think about coming out for some good food and to support the RFD when you see those announcements in the paper.

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