Memphis Democrat
March 9, 2009

Hello from Ted at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage with this week's update from soggy Scotland County, Missouri.

Four inches or so of rain over the past couple days have left our roads and paths quite sodden and our cisterns full. Tony, who has among the longest timeline of anybody at DR, was saying this morning that it used to seem that our creek would jump its banks every few years, whereas for the past three years straight it has jumped its banks at least once each year, if not several times. It is always a sobering experience to look down into our creek valley in flood (from our relatively safe position up on the high ground of the village) and imagine how high it could rise. Whether this weather is part of an existing decades-long cycle of wetter and drier periods or related to human-induced global warming may take many years to discern. Meanwhile we note the changes we can observe in the time we've been here.

Rolling thunder, peals of lightning, heavy wind gusts, torrents of rain: Spring is upon us! There is still cold to come, but there's no question we're on the cusp of the transition. The elm buds are growing, sap is flowing, the redwing blackbirds are back, and I've heard peepers in the pond the past three or four nights. I've seen the grass starting to put out green tips, and the walking onions in the garden have started their clumpy Medusa-like growth of green finger leaves.

I started my onion seeds the other day, later than I'd wanted, but as soon as the new seeds arrived in the mail. That flat was soon joined in our greenhouse by another representing the spring greens collaboration by Liat and Tamar. Thomas's beets and collards have hatched in his cold frame. Tony has an ambitious array of seed trays in Skyhouse's south window sills, with tags too numerous to take in at a glance. Aurelia and I got a couple dozen walking onion bulblets in a garden bed before the rain came and we took shelter. We've scheduled a seed swap for this Saturday.

The shift in weather shocked me into action on tree pruning. We've trimmed a handful of trees around the village, but still have a lot more to do in my own and Dancing Rabbit's orchards. I'm late on the apples and pears, just about right on the peaches. Tony is weaving the biggest pear whips into the ballustrade upstairs in Skyhouse.

Walking about the village in the past week, we've also seen dozens of little flags sprouting along the village roads as Tony and Jennifer have started marking out road beds and drainage swales. Our roads have yearly grown more intractably muddy in Spring and at other very wet times through the year as our population and road use have both increased. We've finally gotten to the implementation stage of putting in the first village roads surfaced with more than chip mulch. They'll be graded, contoured, graveled, and planted, then given a bit of time to get established before they go into heavy service. That will mean a hiatus of two months or so of truck access to the village, so we've lately seen a number of trucks from M&O bringing loads of sand, gravel and the like as various members stock their construction sites. We're also looking at whether there is an alternate approach to parts of the village during road building on Main St. and West Rd.

Spring is a natural time to plant grass seed, and the Land Management Team organized a work party Monday morning to do some erosion control work out by our new pond, where some of the scars of pond building are still visible and threatening to become significant erosion spots. Our first intent was to bring some urbanite out to tackle the severe erosion at and below the pond's tailrace. We couldn't get the truck started that morning, though, owing to the cold, so we quickly switched gears and hauled bales of mulch straw and some old timbers out to the pond. Ten or so people each grabbed handfuls of switchgrass and eastern gamma grass to broadcast in the bare spots, then sprinkled on a loose mulch of straw, kept weighted by the timbers to keep it from blowing away.

Back in the village, I've been watching with mute horror at the increasingly degraded path down past the kitchen, where all the surface runoff of West Rd. and the Common House path come together in front of our house and run in a torrent down the path past it. The roads project is coming none too soon. We've simply gotten to a point of development where concentrated runoff from buildings, paths and other areas worn by use can no longer be absorbed or slowed sufficiently by trees and grasses. My various path maintenance efforts have been totally overwhelmed by the scouring flow rate when the heaviest rains fall on saturated ground.

The drainage swales going in with the roads will periodically discharge accumulated water onto the warrens of those willing to take it, either to be caught in more catchment swales or small ponds and encouraged to percolate into the soil, or allowed to flow through in other ways. Ultimately the drainage will convey water either to our wildlife pond or on down to the creek, but with as many chances to percolate into the land between as we can provide.

Liat, Dan and Mary Beth all returned home this week from winters away, as did Ironweed's work exchanger Travis from last year, stopping through for a short visit en route to a gig in Japan offering conversation practice for students learning English. It was a pleasure to see all their faces again, and to have their various energies added back into the mix here at home.

Liat joined Thomas, Aurelia and I in going over to Sandhill's maple sugaring open house Saturday afternoon when Thomas's mom Sue dropped by for a visit. We all enjoyed standing in the steamy sugar shack mesmerized by the bubbling of the boiling sap as we drank fresh sap and browsed on maple coffee cake (with this year's new syrup drizzled on!), maple sugar, and maple candy. In attendance were other faces I knew, and some I didn't. The drizzle and the roaring fire under the pan kept burning by Otto made for a very cozy setting to observe the impressive rows of shiitake mushroom logs laid out under the trees outside. Such abundance!

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