Hello again from Ted here at Dancing Rabbit, where spring is nigh but is only grudgingly letting us know it is coming.
Aurelia and I returned from Taos, NM Tuesday after driving out with Sara to help her get established there for a midwifery internship. We were pleased to be able to land there in a group house that felt a lot like home, with a cooperative kitchen and shared facilities in an adobe building that were easy to drop into. That left us free to explore the surroundings a little, including finding and sitting in two different hot springs along the Rio Grande, in the magnificent gorge it runs through there. Aurelia was suitably impressed with some of the wonders nature has to offer, and we may have another hot springs adventure tour in our future. Meanwhile, we’re settling in to life with one of our family temporarily absent, and discovering the new rhythms of the season. I’m thankful for Skype, which makes being without Sara just a little easier.
Despite my grumbling about the cold and winter hanging on, it isn’t too hard to see and feel spring creeping in around the edges. This evening after dinner, just a bit before eight with overcast sky, I was pleased to note that there was still some lingering light to see by. I heard woodcocks out in the field the other evening, am waiting to hear the first peepers, and of course mass flights of geese and other water fowl have made themselves seen and heard both day and night this past week, always heading west over us, as is their habit in these parts. Melted snow and a bit of drying out also made for a much-needed ultimate frisbee game Friday afternoon on a new field over at Jacob’s place at Red Earth. More, please.
Top news from Dancing Rabbit is that we grew by one this past week, with baby Dmitri born to four parents here on farm! Birth parents (and friends of the community) Dana and Gavain, of Edina, and adopting parents Bri and Alex of Dancing Rabbit, express gratitude to friends, family, coworkers and villagers for the cooperative support they’ve received in an adoption that has had only a short time to come to fruition, and would have been much harder without the backup. Dmitri’s thick stand of dark hair has left some in the village just a little jealous. Newly deposed “youngest Rabbit” Abi was still all smiles last I saw her this morning, and seems to be taking it all in stride. Welcome new Rabbits!
One of the slightly less momentous highlights of this week was a field burn on a plot we call “Try Again Prairie” (so called owing to the initial efforts to get native grasses established there, I believe, before I arrived in 2001). As part of our CRP contracts, I understand we’ll be doing more burning than usual this year. The field burn Saturday morning was led by our Land Management Team (which deals with land use decisions outside the village and agricultural land), and a solid crew of ten or so plus onlookers handled it beautifully despite the higher-than-expected winds. The mowed fire break and backfire on the downwind side prevented any escape once the head fire got rolling along. It is always over so quickly once the main fires are lit! I welcomed the magnificent radiant warmth on an otherwise chilly day, and can’t wait to see the bright green of new native grass growth that will emerge there within days.
On another front, the community engaged heavily through the week in reexamining the budget for the new common house once again. With more materials research and design fleshing-out finished now, and a better understanding of the various requirements of the Living Building Challenge, we are at what we hope will be the last major dive into these details as a group, leaving the design committee and project manager to finalize and get us underway in the next few months.
As with each other time we’ve looked at the budget, we’ve struggled with how best to balance the many factors involved, including not only how to make it the most ecologically sustainable building possible in both its construction and operation, but also how to keep living costs for the “average rabbit” as low as possible, how to balance group input with delegating responsibility, and how to share all the lessons we learn in the process with the wider world. Planning for facilities to make it possible for people we don’t yet know to move here is a complex process.
Now that we are agreed to shift much of the group’s decision-making capacity to a village council (which will itself operate on consensus) in 2013, this project is likely to be one of the last major ones that we make decisions on as a full group. Even as we move through it I am feeling peculiarly aware of how decision making in a plenary setting will soon be something I remember well but which newly joining members will only hear about… we are all agreed it is the right next step for the group as a whole, but I do feel more than a tinge of regret at saying goodbye to full group consensus. On the other hand, the vast system of committees that offer proposals to the group via email from time to time for non-contentious policies and other decisions will continue to be a system we all cooperate in running and participating in. Long live cooperation and consensus!
On the to-do for this week there is so much– prioritizing is the key. Must make potting soil so I can then start various seeds in the greenhouse and let the plants work their annual green magic. I know I’m needing that freshening of the spirit, and I know the greenhouse needs a spring cleaning. Fruit trees are awaiting pruning. Have to order new strawberry plants. Then there is building shelves for our newly finished house, Aurelia as my trusty palm sander operator, and, when the weather gets a little warmer, gearing up to stomp a bunch of cob with which to build the last interior wall in the house, over the rocket stove. And practicing Chinese characters with Aurelia, and… maybe that’s enough for this week.
May your spring spirit bloom as well this week. Time to get out for some fresh air!
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community of about 70 people in Rutledge, northeast Missouri, experimenting in and practicing ecologically sustainable living. We’ll start offering tours twice monthly in April, and we are currently working on filling our visitor sessions for spring; until then, you can learn more at www.dancingrabbit.org, or given us a call at 660-883-5511.