Memphis Democrat
May 04, 2008

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit Eco-Village; this is Liat writing today. I still don't understand how the weather here works. It is supposedly spring, however, the temperature has hit the low 30's and even high 20's in the late evening this past week. I hear from my friends and family back in Florida that the lows there have been in the 60's. I know however, that in a month when its hot and humid here I will be happy that I am in Missouri and not Florida.

Visitors are here now. We have five visitor periods scheduled this year. Each visitor period is three weeks and many of the people who visit are contemplating membership at Dancing Rabbit. The current group started with seven adults and two children. Three of the adults, along with one child that are currently visiting have applied for residency. During the three week visitor period, there are workshops that aim to teach visitors about life at Dancing Rabbit. Some of the recent workshops have been about non-violent communication, how consensus works, and off the grid power. We also host work parties where organic gardening and natural building are demonstrated and then the visitors are given the opportunity to jump in and help. Their work is greatly appreciated, and its amazing to see how much work a group of people can get done.

The past few weeks many people here have been very productive; me included. I moved out of my rented Skyhouse room and into my bus home. Its not nearly finished, but it was put together enough to inhabit. Also in the past two weeks I finished installing a fence and gates around my garden and transplanted many plants that I started from seed inside into garden beds. Ziggy, with the help of Jeff and many of the visitors dug a trench around his foundation, filled it with gravel, and is now topping off the perimeter with urbanite (urbanite is re-claimed pieces of concrete). Dan who continues to work on many projects has been putting a lot of time into starting up his vineyard. I haven't seen the site, but I hear that he is almost done. Cob and Morgan turned up the soil in their new 2000 square foot garden a few days ago. I don't know what their gardens look like, but I see them walk past my warren many times a day with cartloads of materials. Our warren siting team has also been very busy. There have been thirteen requests for new warrens so far this year. Jeff and Matt are not in the building stage yet, but they have been doing a lot of research and have plans to build an earth bag dome building in the future. The Milkweed Mercantile now has the wood frame for the wrap-around porch. Also, much to her family's delight, Meadow continues to work her way through every recipe from the New Farm Cookbook.

In addition to the regular tour last weekend we hosted two student groups from Washington University and Knox College. They were given tours of Dancing Rabbit and helped spread mulch and border some small garden beds with rocks. That evening we had a no-talent show which proved to be amusing. We had a visit from Dr. Hwhite and Professor Brown. There were many jokes told by the Milkweeds with help from friends. " The Amazing Zane" debuted his Circ de Soleil act, which sadly ended in tears (it turns out he does not like it when people clap for him). And we were serenaded with voices, guitars, the piano, a fiddle, and even the sound of one students fists banging against his head. After the show the music continued and slowly found its way to the fire circle near the old swimming pond. Drums, guitars, and voices could be heard late into the night.

Many people have been out of town and traveling recently. This past week the Johnson family, Rachel, Tamar, Ted, Sara, and Aurelia came home and Amy and Juan are due to return early this week. An exciting new addition to Dancing Rabbit arrived with the Iron Weeders...while in Illinois Ted and Sara picked up the new Common House stainless steal sink. Right now it is the centerpiece of the courtyard but hopefully sometime in the near(ish) future it will be installed in the kitchen.

Just a few days ago I had the opportunity to experience a controlled prairie burn. About fifteen of us, armed with shovels, rakes, and lots of water trekked down to Thin Soil Prairie. We organized into two teams and after raking the fire wall the flames began. The fire was very well controlled and burned as expected.

On a last note, both adults and children have been out hunting for Morels this week. I saw Ziggy and some of our younger members return home with a pillow case partially full of the delicious mushrooms this afternoon. Later in the day Matt and Jeff were seen with a bowl of brainy looking shrooms. This evening after dinner I heard plans of a another hunt scheduled for tomorrow morning. Good luck brave hunters!

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