Memphis Democrat
August 19, 2004

Alyson here, taking a break from picking tomatoes (and okra, green beans, eggplant, and peppers) to write this column. What incredible bounty in the garden this year! Must be the cool weather. I thought the green beans were going to keel over and die three weeks back, but they keep on producing.

A book in our library called Keeping Food Fresh has inspired some of us to explore ways of preserving food without the high heat of canning, which can destroy nutrients and weaken foods' flavor. With oil, salt, drying, and lactic acid fermentation, all sorts of delicious concoctions become possible. Just today I took my salted sundried tomatoes out of the dehydrator and put them in jars with oil to cover. I bet those will taste fantastic in February.

I brought some old-fashioned fermented dill pickles from my crock to the special Raw Vegan Birthday Potluck that Stefanie organized for Arjen's birthday on Sunday. Arjen, who returned this week from Oregon, eats mainly raw food that has not come from an animal source. I was amazed that carrot cake and pizza can be made from raw foods. What a scrumptious feast!

We also had a great game of Ultimate Frisbee in honor of Arjen's birthday. Ultimate is played on a field like a football field, with two teams that each try to catch the frisbee in the other team's end zone. For once we had enough players to have subs, and we even had fans show up to cheer!

Tereza and Sara returned home from Michigan, where rain apparently had not entirely dampened the music festival they were attending. They had nice tans on their shoulders and smiles on their faces.

There's been a lot of music and dancing here lately. There was a dance party Friday night in the Common House. Then on Saturday night Tamar, Penn, Cecil, Amy, and Don got together to practice their music for a contra dance during sorghum season. The beat was so infectious that a group of us jumped up and did some contra-dance practice of our own. We tried to remember dances we'd learned months ago in St. Louis, but mainly we ended up whirling around laughing helplessly. As the contra-dance musicians were winding down, other "rabbits" plus our friend Allette Brooks and her Czech companion Leo took up instruments, and the music and singing continued until late in the evening. On Sunday morning Leo tuned our donated baby grand piano, and Sunday evening we celebrated by singing one of Jeffrey's favorite madrigals.

One of my favorite activities this week was helping raise the bents on the Ironweed kitchen. Tamar organized this event alone, since her fellow subcommunity members were both out of town (Sara in Michigan, Ted in Maine; both have since returned home). Nearly the whole community turned out to help. Bents are the wall structures that hold up the roof in pole-frame buildings. These particular bents were made of round cedar posts, with hand-hewn mortises and tenons. It was easy picking them up into place with so many hands, and we heaved a collective sigh of relief when they fit perfectly into the metal braces on the footing.

On Sunday morning I hosted a short workshop on Deep Ecology, a spiritual belief and practice that is based on the interconnectedness, interdependence, and sacredness of all beings. I enjoyed sharing these ideas with other people and learning about their experiences and perceptions. There are people of a number of faiths here at DR, and we've begun having small spiritual gatherings outdoors every Sunday morning to celebrate and worship with each other.

We've been having lots of visitors lately; this week Stephanie and her son River are visiting, and they decided to apply for residency. We also hosted Brian Greer and his friends from southern Missouri for a few days.

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