Memphis Democrat
September 6, 2001

Hi everyone. This is Alline filling in for Rachel again.

It's been another busy week at Dancing Rabbit! Plastering finally began on the Milkweed Cottage and we've seldom seen Kurt so happy! He is using the old British method of plaster application for the first two coats, called "harling." Once you've seen it in action you'll understand that "harling" is just British for "hurling." There are even special harling trowels - they consist of a curved metal square with a handle. One fills up the trowel with plaster and "harls" the contents at the building. Not only is this fun, it's effective, too. The plaster gets a good grip on the straw bales, making a good solid base for the following coats. Tom and our visitor Christina helped with the mixing of the plaster and the application of the first two coats. Harl on, dudes!

Not wanting to miss another Rutledge Fall Festival meeting, I arrived in beautiful downtown Rutledge Monday morning at 10:00 on the dot, only to find out that the meeting is NEXT week. Whoops. I had a lovely time talking with Betty Paisley and Naomi Kidd and the rest of the Renegades in Zimmerman's. If you haven't seen the custom shirts that the Rutledge Renegades are sporting, you MUST check them out. Shirley and Irene had theirs on and they looked positively fabulous!

Tuesday we had our weekly Sandhill dinner, which is always a pleasure. We've been hosting them a lot lately, as their kitchen is being remodeled. Susan Wright and I attended an informal sewing night "for the ladies over 40" and got a preview of the curtains Bekka and Sandhill visitor Susan are whipping up for the kitchen. They've also rigged up their pot rack so that short people can reach the pots while the tall people can still walk in the kitchen without knocking themselves out on a cast iron skillet. Gotta love that! It's going to be a gorgeous, much more spacious and efficient kitchen.

Tuesday also brought Rachel's return from her trip to Alaska and a visit with her family in New York. Yippee! We're glad she's back!

Canning continues at a feverish pace. We now have (what seems like) 17,842 quarts of pickles, 28,421 quarts of applesauce and 1,294,589 quarts of green beans. We're looking forward to a delicious winter. Speaking of gardening, Tamar asks that if you have manure or compost available, please give her a call (at the number below).

Sara, one of our garden interns, led a tree walk where she took a group of folks around and talked about ten of the trees on our land. We learned identification tools and many uses for the leaves and bark. Here's Kurt's favorite fun tree fact: Slippery Elm has rough leaves, and American Elm has slippery leaves. Go figure.

Erik and Susan W. continue to go on their evening walks and report seeing a muskrat and many owls. It's always nice to be reminded of the variety of nature that abounds on DR acreage. Erik is still working on brewing up biodiesel, and hopes to have a batch for us soon. He has also been helping Cecil survey the Dancing Rabbit land so that we can have accurate maps and can proceed with building our village.

One evening Larry Ayers came by with his fiddle. Tamar and Masha grabbed their fiddles, and Cecil and Don picked up their guitars. Everyone had a great time, and all were awed by Larry's talent. Masha says that it was a struggle to keep up with Larry, but that she had a lot of fun. That same evening many of us watched a video that Ted recommended highly called "Baraka." Wow. Impossible to describe, but it was beautifully filmed, with amazing music. The Rabbits give it 10 thumbs up!

One of the high points this week was when a group of us (Masha, Ted, Sara, Susan B., Kurt, Cecil and I) went to Kirksville to cheer on our former intern Emily Huyck as Truman's Women's soccer team won their home opener 1-0. Emily did a great job as goalie and looked smashing with her new blonde hair. Kit Neumann, another former intern and Truman student was there too, adding her voice to the screaming encouragement. We look forward to watching Kit's rugby matches later this fall. Go 'Dogs!

That same afternoon Rachel, Tony, Tamar and Laurel participated in another butterfly count. This week also featured soccer games, a campfire, and a dance party. Whew!

Donna and Jeannie from Edina came for a tour and it was great to meet them. Larry Curry, Brian Briggs and Daryl Monroe from Memphis also stopped by, and wanted to know how to get their names in the paper. See how easy that one was? We hope they are as interested in and enthusiastic about DR when they haven't been, um, celebrating so much, and invite them back for a Saturday tour.

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, located in Rutledge, is a nonprofit residential community that demonstrates ecological sustainability. We have tours on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month. The next tour is September 15th. Please call us at 883-5511 to let us know you're coming. For a virtual tour, see

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