Memphis Democrat
September 17, 2007

Rachel here, reporting on a very exciting and busy week at Dancing Rabbit. Perhaps the most exciting news is that Alyssa, with Bear's assistance, delivered their new baby Zane, on September 13th, at 3:11pm. Welcome to the world, Zane.

We also had our first casualty of public school. Rowan came home with a case of the chicken pox. The outbreak led to a scramble to rearrange our eating co-ops temporarily. We especially wanted to make sure Bear, who had never had them before, didn't contract them and therefore potentially expose the new baby. The second one hit was Aurelia, who seems surprisingly unaffected. We are still waiting for the other shoes to drop.

Rowan's celebrated his birthday this week. I wasn't party to all the festivities, but I hear it involved a wicked game of poker, where the stakes were popcorn kernels. We also celebrated the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana. Liat's brother Avi is visiting from Florida and the two of them led us in some Israeli folk dancing in honor of the occasion. I learned that as long as you can manage the "vine" step, you'll probably be able to keep up.

Speaking of Liat, she and Alyson were big winners at the Rutledge Fall Festival, coming in first in the Backseat Driver Competition. Alyson and Mark played a few songs and sang beautifully. Tony emceed for a few hours and I helped out at the raffle booth. And plenty of other Rabbits came to enjoy the day.

We were surprised by an early first frost, that was cold enough to kill the dreaded squash plants. I, for one, am relieved to not have to figure out another way to cook squash. But the cooler weather reminded us all that fall is on the way and work moved apace on many building sites. The Milkweed Mercantile now has walls framed out. Dan has been busy setting block for his foundation. Tamar has been re-plastering the outside of her house. Nathan has been building his new down-draft wood stove. Dave and I have been making woodsheds behind our respective neighboring houses, shouting compliments over the weeds and borrowing tools.

This Friday we all put our other tasks aside and came together for our annual land clean. We spent six hours scything, mowing, chopping, sorting, moving, and cleaning to beautify our place for two upcoming events.

Our 7th annual Open House will be on the afternoon of Saturday the 29th of September. We invite anyone and everyone to come down and see the progress we have been making here, ask questions, and browse the homemade goods that will be for sale.

The following weekend will be the 10th anniversary of establishing Dancing Rabbit. We will be hosting a bunch of out of town guests who were part of Dancing Rabbit over the ages to help us celebrate.

Back to list of Memphis Democrat Columns