 It's Project Season Once Again . . .
It officially smells like spring. No matter if the peepers in the pond have had to
sing through snow and my kale plants are showing just the barest tips of leaves - the good-soil scent of growth and decomposition is back.
Of course the season isn't all about watching woodcocks ("Peent!") and following fox tracks. (Or taking big whiffs of dirt, for that matter.) Outdoor projects are gearing up throughout the village as we again begin our busiest time of year.
Starting in April, dozens of visitors will come to us, either through our three-week visitor programs or as part of tour groups. We're excited about getting the chance to share lots of information with the varied folks who touch our lives.
So excited, in fact, that we decided to get some practice in with this how-to issue. A smattering of subjects follow that reflect the current projects and passions of a few friendly Rabbits.
Thomas will whet your appetite for simple hand-tool carpentry. Maybe he will whet it so much that you'll grab a whetstone, sharpen up your tools, and get pegging.
You, too, could put together a dashingly attractive outdoor chair using minimal metal fasteners, as he has done down by our bonfire circle. (In addition to his petition for concentration on simplification, TK asks for your appreciation of propagation. Plant, that is. Rooting Ribes cuttings and saving Solanum seeds yields savings, both energetically and fiscally, that will leave you pleased.)
Moving on . . . Penn, king of combustion, has composed a letter to all fire-users, asking them to reduce emissions and increase efficiency through one simple trick: the top-down fire. Shocking as only a physicist can be, he will also reveal why [ominous music] heat does not rise.
On a playful note, Jenn relates "How to Speak 'Rabbit'," revealing some of DR's most common language-related idiosyncrasies. And yes, if you were to live here for more than three months, you too would start talking about the "energy" a group of people have in their "eating scene."
In a time when over 50 percent of all Americans drink bottled water*, with a projected $9.8 billion to be spent nationally for 2006*, Ted's advice on how to set up a home water catchment system seems particularly pertinent. It would certainly be interesting to track the savings of catching rainwater versus buying bottled water - over a five, ten, and twenty year period. Any takers?
Finally, former Rabbit (and current member of Red Earth Farms) Alyson Ewald shares her poem " Missouri Heights ." As an expression of joy in nature, it may well be the most important how-to you read.
* According to the Natural Resources Defense Council
* From a piece by Tom Standage (author of "A History of the World in Six Glasses"), The New York Times, August 1, 2005
Project Season •
Speaking "Rabbit" •
Peggin' and Lashin' •
Rainwater on Tap •
Top Down Fire •
Missouri Heights
Back to Newsletter Archives
| 
Intentional Community Bookstore