Memphis Democrat
July 24, 2003

It's been another rock 'n' roll busy week! I feel like I can't blink or I might miss something. For example, every time I walk by the common house project, there is another wall or ceiling framed up. Now I can really begin to visualize what the building will look like as I walk through the "rooms" and say to myself "Here's the office" or "There's where the shower will be." Skyhouse has also been busy putting up wood framed walls, and plastering straw walls. They are also building a constructed wetland to deal with the wastewater from Skyhouse and the common house. They dug a big hole and lined it with pond liner. Then they will put in gravel, water and marsh plants that will filter the water. Someday the water we use to wash things with will be cleaned by the wetland.

Everyone else has been busy, too. Bluestem co-op blew cellulose insulation into their ceiling and have been covering it up with sheetrock. Laura and I got some compost from the city of Memphis and are using it to build up the fertility in areas that are experiencing sheet erosion, so more vegetation will grow to hold the soil. Ted and Sara put their cistern tank into the ground. Besides harvesting all the food, the garden crew joined the land management crew in picking up straw bales from Oren Erickson's wheat fields to use for mulch. It was hard work but fun, and we only wished it hadn't been 100 degrees out. Then all the harvested food that isn't eaten needs to be dried, canned or frozen for winter. The food processing season is just beginning to pick up the pace. Don grew a lot of cabbage this year and Alyson prepared a 55 gallon drum to be packed with cabbage and salt to ferment into sauerkraut. It's pretty impressive!

Thomas has been building himself a little low-tech home made from saplings. It will have a thatched roof, and he is looking for some more cattails to do the job. So if anyone has a stand of cattails within maybe 10 miles of Rutledge and wouldn't mind him harvesting the vegetation, please give us a call.

We are not all work and no play. That would make us dull rabbits, indeed. Whenever the weather isn't too hot, folks run out after work or early in the morning to play Ultimate Frisbee, a game sort of like frisbee football. You should see them lay out (dive for the frisbee)! We've got lots of singers around and Jeffrey organized a choral singing event to learn Tambur, a Hungarian dance tune. And if I do say so myself, we sounded great!

We've had some comings and goings this week. Maikwe and Jibran left, but plan to come back for another six weeks in September. Tanya left from her family's big cherry harvest in Oregon to join the Skyhouse crew for awhile. Jay and Nicole visited us a few weeks ago and then headed to another community to decide which one they wanted to settle down in. We feel very lucky that they have chosen us! They returned this week and have been busy getting themselves set up. And at long last, Jacque returned from her travels and is settling down at Dancing Rabbit for a year. Between all the new folks, the visitors, and the steady stream of friends and family visiting, we are packed to the gills.

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