Memphis Democrat
November 5, 2007

Ted here again with all the news from Dancing Rabbit. I've been going for as many walks as possible this week to see the color show as all the leaves drop their summer green and go out with a blast. Tamar sent a letter from yoga teacher training in western Massachusetts full of sugar maple leaves in all their gaudy colors, and while I do love Autumn in New England, I grow to appreciate our native display here more and more every year. The weather cooperated beautifully with mild, warm sun, so walking was as good as could be. Halloween seems to mark the transition between seasons, and this year is no exception, as today's high winds herald our first drop into the mid 20s tonight. We'll be covering some of our more tender fall crops for the next couple nights, and harvested our last salad of the year this morning. All these glorious colors will doubtless start to diminish, and we'll be left with only the memory of them to tide us over for another turn of the seasons.

We usually mark Halloween with a traveling party here at DR, allowing us a bit of the flavor of going out trick-or-treating with a crowd, but with a little more focus on spending time with all our friends and neighbors. Some of the more imaginative costumes included Ms. Pacman and her pursuing entourage of colorful ghosts, an almost unidentifiable flapper girl, the spirit of our machine shed and its random collection of stored materials, a tourist and various assorted ghouls. Aurelia's grandma and grandpa sent a bumblebee suit for her, so she fit well with her mom Sara, who came as a butterfly. We wrote our own epitaphs along the way, and ended up dancing and lounging late into the night at the community building, munching on severed finger cookies, cider, and too many jelly beans.

The Mercantile's second floor took shape this week, as interior walls went up and gave us a better sense of how big a building it will be. Kurt and his capable crew will start on roof trusses next week. Toby and Michelle bought the pier blocks for their newly-arrived Yome and started digging off the sod to make level spots. Dan continued work on his temporary home, moving one wall out with the help of his father to increase the interior space, and continuing on the light clay-straw insulation. I laid the last of the earthen floor down at Ironweed kitchen, and then started on grouting the cracks in the lower-level floor. With the temperature headed south this week, I'm now turning to installing the exterior doors at long last so we can keep it warmed for continuing work as the cold season comes on.

Everyone is putting their gardens to bed for the winter now, and mulching newly-planted garlic, so we've all been in search of mulch material. Our neighbors John and Beverly Cole kindly offered to let us have some of their old round straw bales, and I went up the road with Liat to pick up the first load on Friday, when John was taking a short break from helping a neighbor bring in the grain harvest. We'll go for a few more loads this week, but meanwhile send our thanks.

Skyhouse's new batteries arrived this week, which they were pleased about after limping along with minimal power storage for the past few months. They're brightly colored like Lego blocks, and have handles that made short work of moving them inside. The deep cycle batteries we use for our solar and wind power systems here last from four to eight years, depending on conditions, and Skyhouse's batteries were at the long end of that scale despite a few years of tough conditions early on, so their time had come.

Our last visitors of the season departed today after applying for residency, giving our anticipated population for next year a last-minute nudge. We've also had a run of forums for residents applying for membership. Brian and Geneveive have already run the gauntlet, and the Carleton family and Liat are soon to come. I sit on the membership and residency committee, so I'm pleased that we're getting the job done!

A few movies filled in some of the rest of our busy week, and Sara, Aurelia and I were glad to host Sara's parents for another visit to take in some of that walking weather.

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