Memphis Democrat
March 23, 2008

Liat here, writing my first article for the Memphis Democrat about Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. I woke up this morning (March 23rd) with plans of working outside in my garden, and to my surprise, when I opened my eyes I saw that the ground was yet again covered in snow. Being from Florida, I still dont understand how one day I can be outside working in the sunshine and the next day there can be ice falling from the sky. Fortunately, I found things to do inside today such as participate in sewing circle and watch the kids dye Easter eggs.

This past week was full of all sorts of social activities. The week began with a Saint Patrick's Day party which was put on by Morgan who is twelve years old. He, along with some of his friends made yummy four leafed clover cookies and brownies; both of which had green icing. He provided Irish music, and there was much dancing and chatting to be had.

Tuesday evening's fun was hosted by our friendly neighbors at Sandhill. In celebration of Gigi's birthday, we had a theme for our weekly potluck of "appetizer" types of foods; many of which were fermented. To list just a few things on the menu, there were two types of kimchi, sourdough flat bread, pizza with sauerkraut, humus with miso in it, and a fermented tea called kombucha. After dinner there was a bonfire which created a great space for friends to talk and kids to play.

Wednesday brought some of us out to Memphis for a peaceful demonstration in recognition of it being the fifth anniversary of the United States entering the Iraq war. There was a group of between twenty and thirty people who stood in front of the courthouse with signs which read things such as "support our troops, bring them home" and "peace is not achieved at gunpoint." We received both positive and negative feedback from passers by.

The following evening Dancing Rabbit celebrated Purim for the first time. Purim is a Jewish holiday in which the story of Esther from the Bible is told. In cities around the world, people dress up in costumes to celebrate this holiday. Here at Dancing Rabbit I told the story of Queen Esther, Queen Vashti, King Ahasuerus, Mordechai, and Haman as volunteers from the audience acted out the assigned parts. After the short play I served hamantashen which are triangular cookies which often contain a jelly type filling. In my opinion, the kids put together the most creative costumes of the evening; my personal favorites were the robots.

Friday was such a warm day. I spent a good part of the morning and afternoon making garden beds and creating drainage so that water flows away from the foundation of my soon to be home. As I was working, I noticed that many of my neighbors were also outside working. Papa Bear and Alyssa were putting walls on their new porch, and Thomas and Ally were working on the "fun-house." One thing I really enjoy about living at Dancing Rabbit is that I know the people who's hands built the buildings I live in and grow much of the food I eat.

There has been a long time running joke of who at Dancing Rabbit has the best tasting water. Many of our buildings have cisterns or large barrels to collect rain water and each building uses their own filtration system. Saturday evening Brian and I were out to discover the "truth" about who has the best water in the village. We had a water tasting (similar to a wine tasting) and there was water from nine different locations. As people tasted the different waters they ranked it from one being the worst to ten being the best. After calculating the averages, it turned out that the top three preferred water samples came from our neighbors at Red Earth Farms, the Milkweeds cottage, and to many peoples surprise... the swimming pond! (The water from the pond had been precessed through a Burkey filter.) The sample that came from county water came in second to last. Many of the scores were extremely close and it was apparent that some people can barely notice the difference in taste while others had strong opinions as to which water was their favorite.

All in all the week was great. I personally hope that we have lots of sunshine in our weekly forecast because I want to be doing more outside work.

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