Fires, Visitors, Fun, and Trains: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Fires, Visitors, Fun, and Trains: A Dancing Rabbit Update

At last, perhaps, our trials of a lingering winter are coming to an end. Sara and I celebrated 15 years of living at Dancing Rabbit on the 16th, and this seems to be the lengthiest cold spring we can remember. Warm spells almost always start to show up in March, but from later February to mid-April this year we saw not a one. Cold weather hung around gratuitously like the proverbial guest that has overstayed its welcome. The arrival of milder weather this past week still feels tentative and slow-moving, as though the land doesn't believe it yet. Thankfully our…read more >
A Tree Ate My Tarp: A Dancing Rabbit Update

A Tree Ate My Tarp: A Dancing Rabbit Update

On the last day of February this past week, among the warmest we've experienced so far, Aurelia and I heard both peepers and woodcocks for the first time in the year, around dusk. The peepers were only active down in the bottom, distinct though pretty far off; but the woodcocks with their "peent!" calls and the twitchy, liquid chirp of their mating flights were all around us at the edges of the village in the lowering twilight. It is an evening I keep an ear out for every year around this time, and it seems to satisfy that part of…read more >
Food, Firewood, and Friendship: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Food, Firewood, and Friendship: A Dancing Rabbit Update

One of the pleasures of life for me here at Dancing Rabbit is that we have long focused on preserving the fruits (and leaves, etc.) of our seasonal harvests for the leaner times of year. Despite the ever-miraculous ability of birds and mammals to eke out a living through the cold months here in the mid-latitudes and above, I look out the window these days and know I would not be eating much if I had to rely on what was readily available. Ted here to bring you this week's news from northeast Missouri at the tail end of January.…read more >
Rolling into December: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Rolling into December: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Rolling into December in a warm spell here in northeast Missouri, we're working through the last of our tomatoes and peppers, picked green and slowly ripening indoors since first frost more than a month ago. They're nice to have, and Sara has put up several rounds of tasty roasted sweet peppers, but I notice that I don't have the same craving for them now as I did when they were fresh off the plants. On the other hand, the remaining fresh kale in the garden, and all the potatoes and other roots in the cellar, seem like just the thing.…read more >
The Approach of Fall: A Dancing Rabbit Update

The Approach of Fall: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Sara and I went out for a lovely walk on the land this morning, with early autumn growing all around us. We have not yet seen any frost, putting this year on the late end of typical (third in a row, by my reckoning). The odd sprig of New England aster or goldenrod and a few fleabane are still flowering, but I'm thinking my bees' final honey flow must be at an end now. Most of the osage balls have dropped, but black walnuts still fall intermittently from the adolescent tree outside our bedroom window in Ironweed courtyard. The raspberries…read more >
Eclipse Adventures (Pt. 2): A Dancing Rabbit Update

Eclipse Adventures (Pt. 2): A Dancing Rabbit Update

I'm sitting outdoors just under the tall overhang outside our kitchen's west door. Thunder rumbles in the west, suggesting perhaps a third round of thunderstorms for the day. Tall, rangy sunflowers in bloom and the surrounding oak trees all drip quietly with the remainder of the most recent deluge. Lest I forget, my rooster Rodrigo just came to stand five feet away in the chicken yard and start crowing the presence of his flock just to one side. Boy, can he project. Ted here with this week's news from Dancing Rabbit. I'm still landing back at home here, having just…read more >
Relying on Others: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Relying on Others: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Saturday morning I went out for my normal Ultimate engagement with my many friends who like to chase flying plastic, but had to sign a couple releases before I could play. Rae and Aaron, who play Ultimate with us now and again, as well as serving on our Outreach committee and running a private business engaged in the production and good use of video and audio content related to community, had arrived with gear. Rae with a digital camera took video from the sidelines as we played. A drone flown by Aaron took aerial footage at the same time, which…read more >
The Theme of Plenty: A Dancing Rabbit Update

The Theme of Plenty: A Dancing Rabbit Update

I found myself awake at dawn one morning this past week (our cat Gromit gets wired at about 4 am and we don't have a cat door), and seeing the blooming pink of the sky, I decided to go out for a short walk around the village at a time I don't usually do so. Mist hovered a few feet above the ground, giving all the land a hazy obscurity as though it had not quite taken shape. It might just be my longing to know the world as it was before humans occupied and influenced most of the earth,…read more >