The March Hare: Fall '99
Issue 22

Come see our past issues for lots of Dancing Rabbit information.

Living the Good Life

As the nights get colder, we have joined the other creatures of our area in preparing for our winter housing. Some building projects have been put on hold as we all concentrate on finishing some of the partially finished buildings in order to have warm spaces for all this winter. Throughout the hard work, we have been enjoying the richness of life here at Dancing Rabbit, which is reflected in most of the articles in this issue. Creating a model of sustainability means not only ecological integrity, but also building a sense of community. We consider this to be an important part of our work here.

As we work on plastering our strawbale buildings, we have had the great benefit of working with experienced plasterers. After attending our women's building workshop in June, one of the participants apprenticed for the next three months with the workshop leader, Keely Meagan. She returned to DR at the beginning of October, along with another plastering apprentice, to help us with our construction projects. It's been great to have the educational process come full circle!

Over the summer Kalen built a sweat lodge down by our swimming pond. When the nights got cool, we had our first official sweat at Dancing Rabbit. The structure was created by sticking trimmed osage orange branches into the ground and then weaving the branches together. When not in use, the woody dome stands like a work of art.

Speaking of art, we've had an active music culture here recently. From house concerts to performances at the Rutledge Fall Festival, as well as the numerous cases of bluegrass harmonizing and group sing alongs. It hasn't been uncommon to come across groups rehearsing a song or to hear someone playing a horn in the distance. And when the human music stops, there is always that lowing of the cattle or the complex choruses of the coyotes.

The intern program continues to be a great success. With the fall we've begun getting our next wave of interns and continue to have great experiences with the long-terminterns who are still here. Karin, a general intern, is now planning on staying with us through the winter and has stepped up to oversee the completion of the women's building workshop cabin. Barbara, who started as a garden intern but also applied for our artist internship program, completed a large-scale mural on the north side of our outdoor kitchen. You can see it in full color and closer detail on our web-site, along with the artist's statement. Anjanette, the archivist intern, helped us get a lot of our records in better shape and created useful tools for us to keep track of Dancing Rabbit's progress.

All of our interns have been of great assistance to us and have left with new skills and an informative experience.