Memphis Democrat
June 18, 2007

Hello again from Ted at Dancing Rabbit with all of this week's news.

Despite the oppressive heat, life continued apace here in the past week. Various people could be seen doing rain dances throughout the week, including Aurelia, who has been dancing to the slightest suggestion of a beat or tune since about age six months. As I write it seems to have paid off, with soothing rain falling today at intervals, and somewhat cooler weather predicted for the week to come.

In the absence of any rain until today, the hauling of water for garden irrigation seemed to be among the primary occupations on farm. There are various forms of rainwater catchment here at Dancing Rabbit. The common house and several other buildings have barrels set up to collect rainwater from downspouts, often taking the first rain that falls, which has the most particulate matter being washed out of the gutters, before the rest is allowed to fill cisterns where they exist. In Ironweed garden we also have 10 barrels set up for irrigation, and we fill them by siphoning from the rain barrels at Ted & Sara's and Tamar's houses, or from Ted & Sara's cistern when the barrel supply runs out. But for those without rainwater catchment, five gallon buckets hauled from the pond in carts seem to work just fine.

We've seen our first tomato hornworms in the garden this week, sure sign that summer has nearly arrived. Last year we saw only a handful in our garden, and though we can hope for similar good fortune this season, we won't be letting our guard down. Our first tomatoes look as though they will start showing color within a few days, and we're busily training them up on their trellises and pinching side shoots. Salad season has sadly reached its end with the heat and lack of rain, so we're in maintenance mode until the summer fruits start ripening in earnest, though raspberries and peas are keeping our garden interest piqued in the meantime. The Milkweed work exchangers began joining Ironweed's thrice-weekly harvest mornings this week, and gardens in general seem to be serving as social settings more than ever this year, which I love.

Wednesday evening the ongoing 80's film series continued with a showing of Weird Science, which was well attended. The third and final installment arrives this week with The Breakfast Club. In more active entertainment, Dan, Claire and Diane, the Milkweed work exchangers, are collaborating in music making as well as construction and gardening, and adding much to the annual summer bloom of social energy at DR. Thursday evening some of that energy went into celebrating Nathan's and Kim's (a Red Earth neighbor) birthdays with dancing and other revelry in the common house. We're sad to bid farewell to two of our three remaining visitors as this new week begins, but excited to welcome Toby, a visitor from the UK who, while he has visited DR a number of times going back to 2001 or so, is just now making the leap to ask for residency. That makes five new adult and three new child residents this season, with a number of visitor sessions yet to come. Here's to growth!

With the imminent sale of member Dan Steinicke's house, which will soon be home to an arriving family of five, Tom and Tereza are converting Bluestem kitchen into a living space. Step one in that process was to decommission the building as a kitchen to allow for various alterations prior to the move-in, which meant that after a fruitful collaboration of nearly three years, "Blueweed" came to an end, and Ironweed eating cooperative had to find a new home. Following a celebratory farewell dinner Thursday evening, we spent most of Friday sorting out which dishes, spices, canned goods and assorted other bits belonged originally to whom, and then packing up most of those items to store until Ironweed is ready to move into its own home kitchen, hopefully this fall. It was tiring and a bit sad to see the kitchen empty out, but Ironweeders have been welcomed into Sunflower, the common house food coop, which, at 16 members (and many more during full visitor weeks), begins to approach in size the former Cattail food coop most rabbits ate in for many years. There's quite a bustle at mealtimes, but each member only has to cook every 10 days or so, while having most meals prepared for them the rest of the time, so it is a fine bargain. And with Tom already beginning work on Bluestem, it won't be looking like an empty husk for long.

Friday afternoon a number of rabbits departed for Kirksville to take part in the third monthly Critical Mass bike ride, which we later heard was well attended. John, a participant from Kirksville who'd visited DR a couple times before, returned with the group to visit for a few days, staying long enough to play ultimate frisbee with us this morning. That's always a boost, since our game-playing population varies significantly from week to week with travel, scheduling conflicts, weather and the occasional injury making for a wildly fluctuating playing population.

Aurelia produced a wonderful Father's Day present for me on Sunday. While feeding her small chunks of banana, I found my finger running across something hard and rough on her heretofore very smooth lower gums-- her first tooth! New horizons of solid food now appear before us, and Sara and I had to share the news with everyone we saw or talked to, including our own fathers. Happy Day to all you fathers out there.

As this new week begins, I'm pleased to report that the several-times-delayed start of Milkweed Mercantile construction has begun! The folks from Horst arrived this morning with a backhoe, and by lunch time had dug an impressively large and deep hole which will soon take shape as the basement-cum-DR storm shelter of the new building. Those of us who've been building (or want to build) with earth oohed and aahed at the prodigious piles of beautiful clay accumulating next to the hole, while the gardeners among us savored the sight of a fine new mountain of topsoil.

Sadly, the start of the construction process also spurred further consideration of the health of our stately elm tree, which, after serving as a community icon and sheltering shade since Dancing Rabbit's earliest days, is now showing increasing signs of succumbing entirely to Dutch Elm Disease (we'd already done some surgery earlier this year to remove some limbs that had died last year). With dieback visible on all remaining limbs now, and a new structure soon to rise under one side of it, we've now agreed it is best to bring it down. We'll gather to celebrate its life and importance to us on Tuesday, then Thursday bring our saws and ropes to do the deed. The possibility of perching a tree house atop the remaining trunk has been tossed about, so our beloved elm may yet live on in other form, but it will be long remembered in its former glory.

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