Memphis Democrat
September 25, 2007

I found myself thinking quite a bit about seasons and weather this past week. Rachel mentioned that we'd had our first frost last week, and that the Rutledge Fall Festival had taken place, and I realized that both had technically taken place in Summer. Thankfully that frost only singed the vulnerable plants, so our luffa vines, draped dramatically with some grapes all over one of our garden trellises, has had another go of ripening up a couple dozen of the largest and most beautiful of luffa gourds we've ever grown for our kitchen and bath scrubbing needs to come. Peppers, tomatoes, beans, and basil have all lived on to provide us more fresh produce into official Autumn, and the recent frost scare has made me treasure them all the more when I see how Aurelia has made garden grazing one of the most frequent activities of her day. I long for the day when we have a proper root cellar to preserve the bounty of the land through the Winter months.

Jan returned to us this week after successfully selling her share in a cohousing community called Sunward in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She seemed quite happy to be back, and we were extremely glad to welcome her. She efficiently disgorged all her belongings from a moving truck in a day's time, along with various treasures promised to other folks at DR. She's already planning a return to attend the annual NASCO (National Association of Student of Cooperation) conference there, this year titled
Beyond Capitalism: Cooperative Tools for Economic Justice, and I'm excited to hear how it goes after many years as a student cooper myself; but we're glad to know she'll be home again afterward.
Singing and other forms of music have been a much more regular feature of life here lately. Jen spent some of last Winter indulging in some of her musical passions on the East Coast, and along with Amy Carleton, who teaches voice and piano, has succeeded in bringing the more reluctant musicians among us out of the woodwork. A singing performance at the upcoming No Talent Show for our Land Day and 10 year reunion is expected, and those of us who've longed for a consistent opportunity to sing at DR are all smiles, digging out music from our past.

Sandhill's sorghum season is in full swing, which means both frequent trips by rabbits over to our neighboring community to help out, and Sandhill visitors visiting friends over at DR as well. A group from Twin Oaks, another community in Virginia, who are staying at Sandhill came over on Saturday for our tour, and then stayed to join our game of ultimate frisbee. That meant a great game with plenty of substitutes, an increasing rarity for us as the season draws to a close and our visitor season ends.

Construction continues at a good pace here in the annual frenzy of activity to get things as far as they can get before Winter. The Milkweed Mercantile crew finished framing the first floor and started laying joists for the second story. It is fun to be able to finally see the shape of things to come, and have a walk-through. Dan's continued diligence on his foundation is showing us how good an urbanite foundation can look. Urbanite is the term we use for hunks of concrete reclaimed from sidewalk and road demolition, which is a weighty but very useful resource often available in the vicinity of any town of reasonable size. Ironweed's earthen oven/stove is very nearly finished, and we're holding our breath to see if the experimental design succeeds when we test-fire it later this week or early next. We also installed the loft deck on our pantry, making for a new storage location. Next comes the earthen finish floor! Finally, we're all waiting to see Toby and Michelle's Yome (dome/yurt) when it shows up this week. They are preparing to construct the rounded deck it will sit on, while expecting a child in one month's time-- they seem to be remarkably calm about it, though some of us are biting our nails already!

Donations of building materials and other goods useful to our various activities here have been of the utmost utility over the years, and this week we wish to thank the McSparrens for their generous donation of doors, windows and other building materials, which are already in the process of finding homes in some of our new structures.

We look forward to seeing many of you at our Open House coming up this weekend. This Saturday the 29th from 1-4pm we'll be running tours of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, and we'll all be here to show you around and tell you about some of what we do. Some of our own artisans will have arts, crafts and other goods for show and sale, and you may well run into other folks you know. Please come see us!

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