The March Hare: Winter 2007 Issue 51

Planning and Village Design • Ten Years On • Caterpillar • Preparedness • Juan's Bio • Nature Corner • Dancing Letters

Ten Years On

By Cecil Scheib

It was ten years ago that Dancing Rabbit began renting living space in northeast Missouri—a trailer home across the gravel road from the land we would eventually purchase. Come October 1, 2007, the tenth anniversary of that purchase will take place. Six Rabbits moved to Missouri in 1996 with big hopes and dreams, and a vision of the future. We didn't plan small: we intended to grow to be a 500-1000 person village, and to have an impact on the national ecological consciousness. How does that vision compare to what has come to pass over those ten years?

We have grown and been successful at attracting new people. Just three of the 25 people currently living at Dancing Rabbit were here at the start. DR has a stated goal of inclusive, democratic decision-making, so we've tried to have the process remain open to "new" folks. Luckily, we've managed to incorporate the visions of those who have joined DR without losing sight of some of the basics that started us off. For example, we've hardly modified our ecological covenants or membership agreement since they were agreed to.

From the early days, we pictured fairly dense development on our land, focusing on the village model as opposed to homesteading. While we haven't yet started construction on our "downtown", a village square, this is still our plan, and the houses that have been built (17 of them) are nicely clustered. We wanted to demonstrate a culture where private vehicles weren't the priority, and have had great success with the DRVC, our car-sharing co-operative, which operates one car and one truck to serve all 25 people.

On the other hand, not everything has come to pass quite as we envisioned. In many years DR has grown a significant portion of its own food; however, in 1996 we pictured that in ten years we'd being routinely producing more of our own foodstuffs, perhaps including grains and beans as well as garden produce. The needs of building housing for new members often mean that its easier to buy organic food locally from other farmers than to grow it for ourselves.

DR's rate of growth hasn't been quite what we expected either. While over 75 people have lived at Dancing Rabbit as members or residents, our net growth has been about two people per year. It's going to take a long time to get to five hundred at this rate! We continually discuss the best type of growth, how much of it, and how to get it here at DR, and needless to say there aren't any easy answers. In any case, the slower growth has its pluses and minuses. We've had a very stable, mellow social scene. But, we haven't had some of the social or economic opportunities that would come from a larger group.

Speaking of economic opportunities, DR doesn't have a business that makes it easy for new members to plug into a work scene and make income on-farm. As a result, each person has to figure it out for his- or herself. It's generally worked out so far, but it would still be nice to have it be easier to make money in the village. We haven't slipped on ecological priorities, but perhaps we haven't broken much new ground recently either. We've proven solar and wind as effective ways to power a village, and the cost of off-grid power is likely to drop in the future if we put up a big wind tower to share.

On the other hand, our technologies for dealing with graywater are still young, and we're not sure how we'll deal with this resource on a village-wide scale. We've gotten a lot of attention for our biodiesel-and vegetable oil-powered vehicles, but haven't ironed all the kinks out of the system and still rely on petrodiesel when it gets cold. And, biogas has never gotten off the ground (maybe this year!) so we still buy propane for cooking.

You can never predict exactly how a project will come out when you start it— especially a project whose result is the work of so many different people. DR continues to move towards the same stated goals it begin with a decade ago, while gradually evolving to meet the needs and desires of its residents. We've accomplished much, and of course, there's still much more to do! I'd like to think that if in 1996 DR's founders could have gone forward in time to see DR in 2007, we'd of been proud to see what we were beginning to create.

Planning and Village Design • Ten Years On • Caterpillar • Preparedness • Juan's Bio • Nature Corner • Dancing Letters