Memphis Democrat
October 11, 2001

Wow! We had a great Land Day! Land Day is officially October 1, the fourth anniversary of the purchase of our land. But we celebrated it this year on Friday and Saturday the 5th and 6th. Old members, interns, friends and family came to visit for the weekend. Cecil and Sara returned from their travels in time for the festivities.

We prepared on Thursday morning with a land clean to be ready for all the guests. We luckily got done just before the rain came. Friday night we had a storytelling event to pass on the stories of the early days of our community. Saturday we hosted our Open House. We estimated that about 200 people came for a tour, including people from as far away as Saint Louis, Iowa City and Columbia, and from as close by as next door. Thanks everyone for coming and having such positive energy.

Then in the evening we had a party for our close friends. It started with a huge potluck dinner. Then we had an open mike in the upstairs of Skyhouse that kept us laughing and ended in a big free form contradance. Then late into the night there was a bonfire and music and conversation.

Many folks stayed around for Land Day and are now leaving. Besides all our guests, interns Aubrey and Shannon left right after the celebration. More will be leaving soon and we will be shrinking into our smaller winter population. It feels like winter is on the way and many people hve been starting up their woodstoves for the first time this season.

Thanks to Kerri Feeney, we finally got a working silkscreen just in time for the weekend crowd. We screened the Dancing Rabbit logo on to shirts, pillowcases, diapers and anything else we could get our hands on.

Earlier in the week we were lucky to host Kris Delmhorst, a folksinger from Massachusetts. She played beautiful songs and a mean bluegrassy fiddle. And we were pleased to discover that before becoming a musician she was an organic farmer, so she felt right at home.

My big news is that one of the folksingers I work with, Allette Brooks, just put our her third cd. Intern Zach and I have been hard at work preparing and it was gratifying to finally have the cds in our hands. A big crowd of people got together for a raucous mailing party and got out 250 cds in just a few hours. And there were so many of us here that when we were done, we found that a group of 15 or 20 was in the middle of a raucous singalong.

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is a nonprofit and a residential community that demonstrates ecological sustainability in Rutledge, MO. We have tours the first and third Saturday of the month at 1pm and the next tour is October 20th. Please call first at 883-5511.

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