Posts in category: The March Hare: The Dancing Rabbit Weekly Blog

Howdy y’all. Ben here, bringing you my recent observations from the sodden hollows and misty hills of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeast Missouri.

Humans are not generally the first thing I interact with in the morning, and that’s been working out for me pretty nicely so far, as well as for the humans. Every morning I am greeted by an ever-insatiable horde of chickens walking up the footpath from their cold season range, traipsing through the fog and mire for snackies. I emerge from my fitful sleep, and before mixing feed, or even pulling on boots I dash to the outhouse and do what people typically do in an outhouse, except that I chirp out in my chicken-voice, “OK chickens, I’ll get your snackies real soon, babies. I’ll get you your snackies.”

The first cock has begun crowing as I run back to the house, and I wander around until I find the appropriate footwear and handwear for morning chores. The morning song and drone has changed in the past week or two. In my anti-meridian slogging I can hear the bark and chirp of robins, redwing blackbirds, and the staccato whine of fidgety sparrows; perhaps even the chittering of a squirrel that has moved into Caleb’s treehouse. I call it Squirrel Caleb.

On sunnier days, bluebirds alight on the portable electric netting containing the goatherd, the youngest of which cry and frolic, similar to my own human herdlings. Having loaded a cart with dogbones, organic layer mash, water, and communal food scraps, I roll downhill. Muscovy ducks nip along or briefly soar as the guardogs dance and pace along the barnyard fence line, sometimes sprinting off to ward away eagles, hawks, whitetail deer, blue herons, or the schoolbus. Chickens and ducks peck the verdant spires of grass while the hogs push their maws deep into the barn mire for a ball of earthworms, or a cache of crabgrass rhizomes. A nanny goat and wether slip out of the barn to call as the pigs and their babies bellow in breast deep mud. It is 6:57 AM and the agricultural zone of Dancing Rabbit has become a cacophony, if not a symphony — more Yoko Ono in tone and timbre than Mozart.

On some days the sun breaks through the veil of cloud, illuminating the maple buds, increasingly verdant grass, tiny patches of henbit, dandelion, and chickweed awakening from their slumber and contraction. Here we are, just passing through the keyhole of our season of hunger, emerging from a time of austerity. My being feels a deep want for green food again, so I grab at a clump of wintercress and snap off the tip of a walking onion, stuffing the whole emerald chunk of dirty, gritty nutrition into my face-hole. After transferring feed to various dishes, the squeal and moan subsides, and I trek my way back to the promise of coffee and waking children.

My day progresses. Sometimes it regresses. I feed my kids, or at least offer suggestions for breakfast, like eggs, since we are literally sitting on 44 dozen of them. Okay, I haven’t literally sat on all 44 dozen of them, but living in a 400 square-foot earthen hovel with hundreds of eggs resting within a dozen baskets causes me to eventually step on one, or smash a few in my hat or pocket.

When possible, I begin a project, like making paper pots for seedlings, adjusting fence, hauling water, haying goats, picking up mulch, fixing carts, hoeing up beds, sharpening tools, fixing things that broke (this week it was the charge controller for our off-grid electrical system), processing firewood, interacting with neighbors, compiling, soaking, washing, rinsing, wringing, or hanging laundry, sorting and cleaning eggs, butchering ducks and old hens, sprouting fodder oats, germinating seeds, fixing gates, picking up debris, tapping maple trees, starting bread, gathering sticks, showing rudimentary care and affection for my family and friends, supporting my math-averse child in her homeschool homework, looking for matching socks, foraging for nutrition, hauling compost, garden planning, posting to Instagram, making transactions on the phone with other farmers, pulling splinters out of my palm, looking for matching gloves, looking for the duct tape, processing my feelings, writing for the village, figuring out how much money I actually have, trying to get my three-year-old to go outside and then subsequently trying to get him off the roof, kneading the dough, making a new a handle for my hatchet, making a new snath for my scythe, peening and sharpening my scythe blade, sweeping, doing the dishes, paying debts associated with our simple lifestyle, apologizing (just kidding), or, perhaps, getting somebody else to do the dishes. (Because I’m a chef, not a cook, and apparently, I’m a bad communist to boot.) In the evening time, after having accomplished, on average, a half dozen of these tasks, I get sleepy, put on some music, and pass out, unless I can’t convince anyone else on the homestead to feed the dogs.

On the still spring nights, walking back through the twilight, I hear the shouts and barks of coyote packs and the song of spring peepers, perhaps interrupted by the passing of an evening train on the tracks two miles away, hooting into the night with its payload of coal. The owls screech and the tallgrass thatch rustles. I hear the electric pop of goat fence shorting out in the damp weeds, and the creak of the tool shed door hinges in the breeze. A woodcock calls its distinct interjection and a coon dog bays.

Is there coming a time in my life when I will feel lonely? Not likely when I’m living here. One of the things I’ve always appreciated, in theory, about this community is that no one lacks a voice who seeks it. It can be difficult to hone my focus through all the squawks, hisses, grunts, shouts, caterwauls, and chirps, but still, as a rule more than an exception, we tend to let folks make their favorite noises here. It serves the entire organism as a whole, and disregards the tastes and preferences of the individual. Me, I personally vacillate between whimpering and yelling, though I prefer to crow, and generally hope to avoid proselytizing.

My voice can only do so much in this context, and it is so important, in a day where social media provides an ear and an eye to so many voices — some of them full of hope, others full of hate — that I use my voice carefully, distinctly. While I truly benefit from writing my thoughts out once a month or so, it now feels better for me to to mute myself and let the whispers and shrieks speak for themselves.

I don’t know if humanity as a whole, as a global species/culture, will rise above its desire for consumption. There is this mytho-poetic image of the snake eating its own tail. Now I’ve met a lot of snakes, and I only ate one of them, but they don’t do that, just like lemmings don’t actually commit suicide. We’re the only species on this planet that actively consumes itself. Is the type of simple living that I promote here the solution? Naw, just a part of it. I have my flaws, and some of them, despite my dedication, lead toward a road to ruin. Y’all do important work too; and yet you’re probably as flawed as me. If we don’t have all the answers, we can still ask all the questions, and maybe asking questions is the biggest way we can care for this planet, and each other. Thanks for asking questions, and listening to the answers provided, within ourselves, and out there in the real world, or what’s left of it. I’m out, for now. Gotta plant these beets.

Would you like to visit Dancing Rabbit and hear from villagers one-on-one? Would you like to spend some time listening to nature’s symphony? Would you like to sneak out to the Fox Hole in the wee hours of the morning and hear Ben’s chicken-voice for yourself? You have a chance coming up soon! Our first visitor session of 2019 starts on April 14th, and we still have a few spots left — you could still have one of them, if you hurry. Click here to start on your application right now. During your visit you’ll get to sit in on a wide variety of workshops covering all kinds of interesting subjects, ranging from communication skills to natural building and renewable energy. Towards the end of the session it might be warm enough to take a dip in our swimming pond before heading in for a delicious homemade dinner, possibly in the company of a new life-long friend. The cost to come for two weeks is only about $50 a day, and that’s an excellent deal, once you factor in the costs of three squares a day, maintenance for tent platforms, and all the time and energy that workshop leaders, cooks, and non-profit staff put in to making everything possible. If you’ve been reading our weekly column for a while you probably know a thing or two about our village, and recognize many of the names, but there’s no substitute for visiting in person. Send in your application now, while you still have time to call in your vacation time at work, and make your travel arrangements. We can’t wait to meet you.

Wow, a lot happened this week, and I think I’m experiencing a bit of whiplash, though that could be from one of the many slips I have taken in the copious mud created by the recent thaw. Ted here, to share the week’s update from Dancing Rabbit as we run up to the spring equinox.

The nightmare of a cold winter, determined to thoroughly outstay its welcome, turned on a dime to the inevitability of spring. The spring birds all showed up at once. Unlike the past several years, when woodcocks started their “peent!” calls at dusk around my birthday in late February, this year I heard them on nearly the same day that killdeer and robins arrived. Meanwhile, the trio of bald eagles that have graced our local skies all winter are turning their grand circles on decidedly warmer updrafts. Our domesticated birds produced their first baker’s dozen of eggs this week as well — the daily count creeps steadily upward.

I don’t love the extreme mud of the first thaw, especially when combined with heavy rains such as we have had lately. Among other inconveniences, this can mean that some sections of our road, which is nominally graveled, can turn into the most perilous pit of despair for all but our four-wheel-drive truck. I was called to rescue one of our cars, which got stuck in deeply rutted mud on an uphill section of Smith Road while attempting to reach blacktop. Some of our cars don’t have a good point to hitch a tow strap, even if you can get at the undercarriage, and in this case the vehicle was up to its axles, so the only way forward was to nudge it directly from behind, bumper to bumper. I doubted that even the truck could move forward, uphill in the mud against that impediment, but we succeeded in the end.

Ben and Kim have been shuffling buckets full of maple sap back and forth on the path over the past few days. Ever since Alyson gave me a quart as a present during our first winter here in 2003-4, it has been a cherished birthday tradition of mine to drink some maple sap, but that too has been delayed as this has been one of the later years for the sap run. Ben was kind enough to let me steal a glass from one of his buckets (I’m not on the maple team this year), and it was the best thing I have ever tasted, all over again.

Firewood stocking is now fully underway in the village. Kyle led some wood foraging forays to restock supplies for the boiler in the common building, and I pitched in a bit to help with the splitting and stacking efforts, though I am trying to figure out resupply for our home and kitchen as well — we just squeaked by on what I put up last year, along with some older stores. The knot in my neck after that first splitting effort reminded me that I have to work up to the splitting labor, even though I’m tempted to swing for hours right off the bat, it being one of the homesteading tasks I really enjoy.

Troy had a tree service out to bring down a large elm that had long been a fixture over by the Timberframe (so named when it was the first and only such home on farm, in the previous millennium). The tree had been trimmed once before, but was growing ever larger, as trees are wont to do, and blocking solar access for the building as well as reaching a long arm out over Bella Ciao and its solar panels. I was sad to see it go, though it is gratifying to look around and see how much more woodsy the village has become, compared to when I first arrived in 2001. Elm doesn’t split easily, but it is decent firewood, so the more pliant parts of the tree will be put to good use, and Javi took on a lot of the brush for building hügelkultur beds out by the Gil family’s new garden area on Skunk Ridge. Hügelkultur beds, also known as hügelbeets, are raised, untilled planting beds made by burying wood in soil. The wood provides nutrients over time as it breaks down, while also becoming spongy and holding water for many summers to come, for the benefit of cultivated plants.

Thomas has been steadily pruning all the fruit trees around his warren, and also spent some time in the common orchard with Freddi, one of the new recruits to the tree team, which looks after trees in public spaces. That lit a fire under my feet… I have managed to prune my biggest apple tree, but still have to get to the others this coming week. I did at last manage to get our first two trays of seeds planted in the greenhouse, and soon enough we’ll be digging in the garden; it is about time to put in onion starts even though the ground was hard frozen just a week ago.

Dorothy departed midweek for some family time and knee surgery, so I’m coordinating forward progress on her house during her absence. I have also been at work full time building out the porch and starting on the finish floor upstairs, with electrical installations soon to follow. Good’s Construction of Rutledge began in earnest, busily installing the windows, doors and soffits, as well as the fiber cement siding and trim. Ryan, who earlier helped with framing and roofing, also pitched in on the flooring, and Prairie is lined up to help soon.

St. Patrick’s Day, locally known as Bob’s birthday, brought lots of familiar faces to the Mercantile for a tasty supper of corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes, followed by Alline’s extremely decadent chocolate-covered cheesecake. With Guinness and Killian’s in the house, I wasn’t missing anything, and we even managed to get Sara to our sit-down between two all-night midwifery jobs. Thankfully she is now sleeping at home. The Mercantile is one of our favorite places to spend time and enjoy a treat, and if you live within a reasonable distance, you don’t have to wait for a special occasion to come visit us because pizza is served every Thursday from 4PM to 8PM. The desserts alone are worth the drive — last Thursday was March 14th, pi day, so we celebrated π with a variety of pies, including lemon meringue, blueberry custard, chocolate cream and classic pecan.

Curly Sue rounded out the last of this year’s additions to the goat herd with two cute doelings, and Mae pulled the final names out of the hat to complete the baby goat-naming raffle. Sparky christened the blue roan Plevna (which will be accompanied by a number of other honorifics, including Chadwick, in honor of our late Red Earth neighbor Chad’s birthday; we lost Chad this past year). Tereza, down in sunny Texas with Nathan, consulted with Aurelia and came up with Dapple for the thoroughly-spotted babe — that too came with some alternate names, including Jelly-leg in acknowledgement of its woozy first attempts to stand.

Some of the wee goats have not been completely welcomed by their moms, so we have started a rotation of daily visits to the barn to bring some of the moms with surplus milk to the stand to let those little ones get in some nursing time. Aurelia has joined in the effort in my stead. Amazingly, when you rear a child for 12 years, she starts to give back, very capably! She has been doing more and more the past couple years and I’m grateful for her contributions to our family chores.

Frisbee finally appeared on the schedule this week, though the field is recently thawed and will probably be too wet for full play. I can’t remember when I last threw a disc, and I know my legs are out of shape after dusting off my bike to ride over to Sandhill for a pruning session the other day. But I’m extremely excited at the prospect of regular Ultimate games returning to our lives in the near future.

There are a few things (very few) I’m sad to say goodbye to at the end of winter, and the clearest is that with the thaw of the cattail pond, our neighborhood muskrat will likely move out of its temporary home in the culvert under the road in front of my house. It seems to have reached a detente with the cats, as I have seen Wallace and Gromit very near the spot where the muskrat slipped out of sight, entirely unperturbed, as though they had just been playing cards.

I hope the arrival of spring brings you out of winter’s doldrums and into the warm sun, that your seeds germinate and grow happily in the coming weeks, and that the mud doesn’t stick to your feet — unless you like that sort of thing.

The first session in our 2019 visitor program is coming up on April 14th, and you still have a chance to join in. You’ll learn lots of interesting information about our village, how we adjust our lives in many ways to live more sustainably, as well as how we govern our community. There will also be tons of fun, projects to participate in, delicious organic food, opportunities for personal growth and possibilities for new connections with wonderful people. Don’t wait too long to sign up, because slots can fill up fast, and you don’t want to miss out.

We’re all affected, every day, by the arrest of one of our community members several weeks ago. Liz here, with the difficult and delicate task of writing about life at Dancing Rabbit. While I could use this column to express how it has affected me, it seems pale in comparison with how it has affected some community members more directly, so I’ll take a page from my midwestern neighbors and talk about less tender subjects.

Since January, I have been commuting to Kirksville twice a week, taking my daughter to classes at a community college — trying to commute, that is. She has not been able to attend most of her classes in person at this point because of the winter weather, in all its myriad forms. Assessing whether to drive on a class day involves reading the weather report in detail, as well as asking anyone who is driving the tributary roads that lead from the village to the main highway about how they fared. I experienced for the first time what it feels like to stop at a stop sign, accelerate at, oh say, three miles an hour and have the car slide across the intersection into a snowbank. I had just enough time to dig the snow out from around the car with a snow shovel before a kind man with a truck stopped and pulled our car out.

I am becoming conversant with weather terms I’ve heard of but haven’t experienced before such as: drizzle, freezing drizzle, sleet, freezing rain, freezing snow, and other terms I had to look up, like freezing fog (which conjures up some horror/alien movie, and the reality is not far off) where fog molecules freeze on the first flat object they encounter, such as a car windshield.

I am also building a mental weather/driving database, which takes concentration, study and practice. After all the white-knuckle driving I’ve done to get out to the main highway, I’m feeling more accomplished. Last week, right as we were leaving for class, my daughter patted my arm and said: “you’re brave, mom”.

Of course, there is almost no subject that can’t be addressed by the coffee group that gathers at the Mercantile every morning. (I’ve half a mind to ask the group how to achieve world peace this week, just to test that theory.) Road and weather reports trickle in as people come into the Mercantile to get their coffee. Meanwhile, vendors who have finally made it to our village come to deliver goods pitch in their two cents, adding a regional aspect to my weather database. I save bits of advice and information gleaned from conversations with people here who grew up in places with severe winters, in case I’m faced with a new weather/driving situation.

I can’t imagine learning these life lessons outside of a community context. One can’t mention winter driving around here without Javi’s name coming up, as he is fearless and tireless in rescuing community members from road mishaps. During the worst of the icy weather several weeks ago, Kurt drove my daughter and I in the truck as far as the highway, with Alline following so she could give Kurt a ride back to the village. Both of them smiled and waved encouragingly at us as we drove off towards Kirksville.

Well, the weather has changed drastically in the last few days, as it does here in this corner of the world, and the ice has melted in the torrential rain, providing us with a different driving challenge: mud. Tomorrow my daughter and I leave early in the morning when the mud will still be frozen and I expect we’ll make it out to the highway — I just hope we can make it all the way back…

This week we have a bonus column from T, all about the trials and tribulations of winter weather at Dancing Rabbit.

We have to talk about the snow. The snow changed everything. (According to my official, Top-of-the-Picnic-Table-o-Meter, we got about 14 inches before it thawed.) I hadn’t seen snow like that since 2012 in Kansas City — Christmas Day, I think. I love the snow; but it changes things. (Things always change, huh?) Here are just a few stories about how things were different at Dancing Rabbit during January, after getting over a foot of snow in one week.

Everything was white; beautifully, purely white. The glare off the snow on a sunny day was blinding — I love that! I also love how bright it was walking outside one night with the full moon lighting up everything as it reflected off the snow. Seriously, I looked behind me more than once to see who had installed a new porch light. For the record, there are no street lights here at DR. We all wear headlamps — and we don’t speak for everyone, so I’ll speak for myself — I wear a headlamp … when I remember.

After the main road, parking area, and a couple village routes was plowed, there were a few huge piles of snow here and there around the village. Even after the warm-up that followed, those piles lasted quite a while. (I thought some of them might last until the daffodils poke out.) I also enjoyed making the occasional snowball from these long lasting piles to try my aim at some unsuspecting tree, which was just standing there minding its own business. I love the big leftover piles of snow.

What I don’t love is that my truck got stuck again. (Maybe you remember back in September when I first arrived and got my truck stuck in the muck?) Well, I learn slowly sometimes. This time, I thought my truck was in 4 wheel drive, but it wasn’t. Even though I was once again parked on a slope at a disadvantage, I gave it a try so I could go into Memphis where I get phone reception. (Sorry if you tried to call me. My truck was stuck in the muck.)

I dug out the wheels, cleared the windows of a foot of snow and warmed up the engine for several minutes. Result: the spinning right rear tire sunk into the snow. (I was displeased.) I walked away and the truck sat there, awaiting yet another tractor rescue. I toyed with the idea of leaving it there as a testament to human folly and the power of Mother Nature; a warning to future generations about the perils of chronic truck stuckage. Sad thing is, I bet I get it stuck again, and probably again. I learn so slowly.

While some Rabbits went into hibernation mode with all the snow (and certainly none rode their bicycles) folks still got out and about, whether it was for exercise or to get work done. Sleds were in abundance. (Our sledding hill just down the road, La Vista De La Moo, was very busy last month.) I also saw a couple cross-country skiers and one hiker wearing boot gaiters to keep the snow out of their boots. I even heard rumors of snowshoes, though I never saw any for myself. Wouldn’t a pedal-powered snowmobile of some sort be a cool contraption for snowy days like those? Someone invent that, why don’t you?!

I’m sure you’re all familiar with sweeping floors, but did you know that here at DR we also sweep our roofs? Specifically, we sweep off the solar panels that are attached to many of our roofs. A sunny day, even with a foot of snow on the ground, still allows us to generate clean, renewable, off-grid electricity for our village, but the solar panels have to be clear of snow to let the sun shine in. I had a question about whether cold reduces solar panel efficiency, and I knew just who to ask: Kurt says the solar panels produce electricity even more efficiently when its cold AND the reflection from the snow amps up the wattage. We’ll take all the watts we can get. Some of our solar arrays charge big batteries in individual homes that store the power for later, and some of our systems feed into our local micro-grid and then on to the regular, local grid which we are tied into. Our efforts continue to return twice the power we draw from the grid.

My wardrobe changed a little to accommodate the cold snap. I wore a stocking cap to bed a few nights, if that gives you an idea of how cold it got in my room some nights. How cold was it? Well, my hand went numb walking across the courtyard one day, which only took about 35 seconds, and a friend’s hand froze to his aluminum-clad thermos one morning — he had to pour water from another insulated container on his hand to get it unstuck. It was cold, folks.

“Where were your gloves, T?,” you ask. You aren’t the only one to ask that… I have a pair of gloves to go with each of my coats, but I have two extra  coats in the rotation right now, so I’m having a hard time keeping track of where my gloves are. One is a lightweight, down-lined, coat for casual use and the other one is a durable brown canvas Walhart for doing actual work outside.  

Honestly, I avoided as much outside work as possible during the cold snap, but I still had some outdoor responsibilities to attend to. I keep the outdoor water heater going for the Milkweed Mercantile so we can stay warm when we shower and have hot water to do the dishes. That heater also keeps the Honeymoon Cottage warmed via radiant heating in the floor. By the way, no honeymooners are staying there lately, but the cottage is used for morning meditation, massage therapy, and acupuncture treatments. (Speaking of acupuncture, did you have any big icicles hanging menacingly from your roof? We did.)

I’m also responsible for stoking the fire in the public room of the Mercantile. If you see me there, beam a little sympathy my way, because I got my boot caught in the wood pile and tore off the sole trying to get it out… and the boot came off to boot.  I vote for opening up a sister ecovillage in Costa Rica; or maybe I just need another layer and that pedal-powered snowmobile you’re going to invent.

If you visit our village, you won’t have to endure the trials and tribulations of winter at Dancing Rabbit. You can come in the summer, when the paths are free of ice, the pond is warm, and the whole village is rioting with the colors and fragrances of flowers. It’s early in the season, so we still have lots of spaces available in our annual visitor program. Send in your application today, so that you can join us in leaving the winter behind for some sustainable summer fun.

Howdy y’all. You know, whenever I have a hard time talking about what’s really going on — or worse, no idea what the other party could possibly be thinking — I like to discuss the weather instead. So I think I’ll start there.

Ben here, writing to y’all from the icy physical and emotional purgatory that is Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, tucked away in the impassibly slippery rolling hills of Northeast Missouri. This has been the hardest winter I’ve ever experienced, maybe. Then again, I’ve been through some pretty hard ones. Everything outside is glazed over in a thick layer of perilous, unstable ice. As of this morning there is just a dash of snow on top. Making it to the barn, the outhouse, or the nearest “frost free” hydrant is like traversing a glassy stream of discarded banana peels beneath a veneer of deceptively fluffy little beads of ice. I’ve had hay carts fishtail about. I’ve seen bloody chins, and made unintentional snow angels upon the cold gravel. I’ve found it nearly impossible most days to make it off farm to stock up on necessities, like hay, dog food and other vittles.

Not only am I physically marooned here for the time being, but I’m emotionally and intellectually trapped; forced to confront daily the horrific news here. It is not lost on me that I have to be very conscious about my words, as do we all. Being careful with my words isn’t something I ever seem to do when speaking, (I also use a few more expletives than when I’m writing) and I don’t particularly enjoy writing, at least not about child sexual abuse. But somehow, for no understandable reason, that is what my week has been about. That and I think I want to take up bobsledding.

Knowing what to say to my children, my family, my friends, and neighbors is difficult. I hardly have words; hardly know what or how to think, and I know very little about where others are at. I’ve said it before, but this place is too disagreeable to form a cult around. There is no groupthink, no status quo statement that can speak for all of us. Our whole system of governance is based on taking into account nearly every present viewpoint on an issue and melding it all into something that isn’t particularly thrilling to anyone. (It’s called consensus, you should check it out.)

While in the past I’ve occasionally wanted the work I do writing for the newspaper and website to be financially compensated, I feel very fortunate to be able to offer my perspective, whatever that is, as a volunteer and as someone independent of our non-profit organization. I’m not selling anything, at least not today. What I can say is that, from where I’m standing, nothing makes sense anymore. As I see my friends and neighbors pulled into this ongoing investigation, including my own child, what I want is for this to be just another nightmare; something erased and made null by the light of day. But no, it’s a slippery h*ll-hole; one where I must navigate my own feelings of fear and betrayal, and show up to have the hard conversations with my own children explaining to them that those times when I told them that monsters don’t exist were well-meaning lies, that the world does contain in it some form of evil. The whole time I have to spin through the facts, rumors, self-created innuendo and conspiracy theories in order to reckon with the fact that something so horrible can happen — does happen — in every community, and has happened for all time.

Unlike some others, I did not move to community because I have an innate trust in humanity. I came here because I was sick of seeing how people treat each other and completely desecrate their own surroundings. I wanted to try something different. As a young father, I came here because I wanted an environment where the greatest risk my offspring could encounter was something physical, like falling off a sled, getting snagged on a barbed wire fence, or falling face first into frozen creek mud; something where they might shed some blood, but where they could also hold onto their hearts. (Not like the environment I grew up in.) Personally, without kids, I’d have chosen to sleep in a hollow log rather than Dancing Rabbit. It better suits my winning combination of self-important and self-defeating tendencies.

My days are filled with bumps and bruises. My little boy is almost three. He falls down, pinches his fingers between magnets (I stash a lot of magnets), somehow manages to clock himself in the eye with a toy truck, and he seems to get stung by bees more than anyone else I know. This stuff happens every day. In fact, anytime we get our strawbale home above sixty degrees, hornets fall out of the cracks in the ceiling, so he’s almost been stung twice this week. I tend to his wounds, no matter how superficial they seem, and I tell him that he will be okay. Maybe I distract him with a snack. Now, when I pick him up from his bumps and bruises, I feel like a liar. Sometimes I can hear the murmuring of others, folks who I do or do not know. I feel their questioning: whether we are doing enough, whether we are doing the right thing, whether or not it’s anybody else’s fault, other than the abuser, when children are abused. Sometimes I’m the one, murmuring these things to myself.

Well, I’ve lived here a long time, y’all. I am not to blame. This community is not to blame. After learning there may be a monster is your midst, finger pointing does little. Words fail. Actions speak volumes. I didn’t come here to talk, I came to this place to act, and I believe in justice for all people. How those scales tip is up to the individual. Crimes against children are the worst injustice, and I have no doubt that they will continue to occur among our species, being the sick, mixed up, traumatized bottle of humans that we are. If my words don’t work, if they fail us, well then I have a quote; and I hate quotes.

This one is commonly attributed to Mark Twain, but it actually belongs to Friedrich Nietzsche. Frankly, I prefer Twain to Nietzsche. Mark Twain was a local boy to here, and a fairly clever one. Nietzsche was a proto-Nazi, and a philosopher to boot. If anybody ever proclaims themselves a philosopher to you, I highly suggest finding different company, and if they quote Nietzsche, then just run as quick as you can. It’s difficult to escape the pretense, but here I go. What Nietzsche said was, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Cool, Fred. I get what you’re saying. But here’s the deal. My own child is being interviewed by the state. Of course, like anyone, I hope this isn’t true. I hope it’s all a bad dream. But as my granddaddy said to me, and I quote, “Boy, you can hope in one hand and [expletive] into the other. Tell me which one fills up faster.”

I don’t know what’s happening here. Information comes in at a trickle. But don’t ever doubt that I — that we — aren’t doing enough. As you know, we are cooperating with this investigation, and that comes with challenges. I strongly suggest that if anybody doubts my effort, my struggle, or the bigness of my compassion, that they come here, carefully shuffle a mile in my frigid boots across this forsaken tundra, and say it to my face.

I believe in justice. That’s what ultimately motivates my existence here. And I’ve been thinking about predator/prey relationships a lot lately. Just a little bit ago, I went out into the still winter silence to get some air; get away from this screen full of words. My daughter was sitting still as the ice, her outstretched, ungloved hands full of grain, training the chickadees to come, trust her, and take oats from her hand. The chickadees know she’s big, scary, and dangerous. But with time, they gather at her feet, and next to her body, taking the offerings she’s scattered. Up in the gray sky a bald eagle is soaring, hunting. The lazing barnyard dogs take notice, pirouet and bark, scaring it off from the huddled groups of chickens and ducks. The chickadees can do nothing but trust. This is a harsh winter, and they must risk their own lives to take the oats, to see to it that they have a future in this place, that they can go on to rear their young in the springtime that must eventually burst forth. The eagle is not a monster. The eagle is the same as the chickadee. It takes great risks to tear forth and dislodge a piece of meat from the icy landscape. It only does what it does in order to survive, in order to provide for its unhatched offspring.

There aren’t any monsters in the natural world. Monsters are a human construct, and only humans can become monsters. But it is only we humans who can do battle with the monsters, ourselves. No chickadee, nor eagle, nor trained dog can balance out the scales of justice, only we can. And things aren’t going to get any better if we don’t. That’s why most of us are here. I don’t want to defend myself, or my family, or my friends and neighbors, no more than I want to offend any of them either. I’d rather live by deed than by word, and so I will stop offering any more words to y’all. What I can do is be honest and compassionate with myself and with my family. And I think I know how to do that. But I honestly do not know what’s going on, or how this is going to impact the community I’ve helped to nurture into being, and the not knowing, that’s what’s killing me.

Editor’s Note: This is one person’s valuable take on the most challenging situation Dancing Rabbit has ever faced. As always, other folks in the village have a range of different points of view.