Howdy everybody, from the frigid reaches of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. My name is Ben, and as an ecovillager, beginning micro-farmer, and outhouse user in America’s heartland, I feel some liberty to boast about my continuing relationship with our climate and weather. Though most folks in this country are probably aware of this, I will state for the theoretical contingent of readers too busy battling wildfires on the margins of our continent, or those in Australia where the summer heat recently reached 125 degrees Fahrenheit, that we are yet again entrenched in a polar vortex. While that type of heat is nearly unimaginable at the moment here in northeast Missouri, yesterday was a balmy fifty degrees, just warm enough to keep our livestock supplied with actual liquid water throughout the day.
Yes, these Dancing Rabbit updates frequently dwell on the weather. Perhaps I am doing nothing but reinforcing the old stereotype about rural folks who will wax poetic about their climatic conditions to any open ear. Regardless, many people and animals are enduring remarkable cold. The subzero wind chills have implications broader than these 280 acres. Much of the country is undergoing a propane shortage and resulting price hike, mainly due to use in agriculture. Propane is often used for heating in remote and rural areas. A lot of people are going broke trying to keep their pipes thawed. Luckily for myself, I don’t have pipes, just jars of pickles, and we don’t burn propane on our homestead. By the way, here’s a homesteading tip: if your winter shelter threatens to freeze, keep your bread starter, yogurt, sprouts, or any other live food projects in a mason jar in the bed with you.
Ask any Rabbit and they will probably tell you that for a community which ascribes to some core ecological values we are in some ways quite diverse in lifestyle. In these slower months of winter, many folks spend time with family or traveling to share our mission with the wider world. More often than not, these sojourns are made across passenger rail lines, as we are very conscious about our impacts on the planet even when not at home.
With some Rabbits here and others abroad, the sounds of our village have reduced from their fever pitch in summer into a faint murmur under the winter wind. Some folks earn their living doing the types of office work that are necessary in order to operate an intentional community. Some of us chop firewood and raise food, also important aspects of operating an intentional community. As I have previously admitted, I am not particularly skilled or enthusiastic in the ways of computers or automated travel. I’d rather ride my bike on a zero degree day than be locked up in a car, bus, train, or plane. I’d rather hone the fine art of manure management than create a spreadsheet, but I won’t disparage those who feel differently, as we are all part of this experimental, diverse solution factory. Just keep this in mind as I attempt to describe to you how this Rabbit is faring in these days of dismal cold.
6:00 AM. Outdoor temp is zero degrees. The indoor temp of our yet-to-be-completed home is hovering somewhere around thirty five. My hand-crank radio alarm signals the beginning of another day. As I sluggishly attempt to revive myself from the night’s slumber, faint, sleepy thoughts creep through my brain. I feel grateful that I live in a community where nobody is going to make a “where’s that global warming?” joke and pry off a few wool blankets and comforters and plunge off my lofted bed into the coolness of the morning. A wave of goosebumps overtakes my flesh as I quickly slip into my usual winter attire. Look folks, I’m just like you. I put my pants on one leg at time, then I put on some more pants over those. By the way, I’d like to shout out to CJ for the socks. My frozen toes are eternally grateful!
As splinters of sunshine begin to gnaw at the early darkness, I sit in front of the firebox of our wood cook stove. Nobody else in the house is awake, but I can hear the nearby quacks and cackles of our birds. I hold a few small chunks of firewood in my hands, the remnants of our construction materials. Some of the pieces are quite beautiful, almost a shame to burn. Slabs of walnut seem to sparkle in the light, heartwood resembling amethyst. I run my thumbnail along the dense, waxy golden grain of a black locust chunk, in my own way giving thanks for the high BTU content, and of course, for the life of the tree, which has both become a part of my home and helped to heat it.
A couple of days ago my four year old daughter asked why we don’t just get an electric heater instead of burning trees, which we need for oxygen. After an impromptu lesson about coal power and other fossil fuels, as well as a reminder of how many trees we planted last year, and how many more we will plant in years to come, she finally expressed approval with our heating strategy. I still can’t help but feel some amount of sadness as I toss another natural work of art onto the sizzling coals.
Then comes time to water and feed the animals. Mae begins to stir in bed. We keep several five gallon buckets of water in the house, as we do not currently have a cistern. Much of it goes to the donkey, goats, sheep, chickens, and ducks. When we open the duck pen on frigid mornings, they rush out for a few brief moments and then promptly roll onto their backs with their feet in the air. I am not sure why. For a moment I observe a robin in a nearby cedar tree which is completely still for over a minute. Finally it takes off. I thought it was frozen solid.
Lunch. Still in the establishment phase of our sub-community, our kitchen is not exactly vibrant with veggies, and the sunchokes that we keep stored right in their own garden bed are impossible to liberate during these polar vortices. A little cilantro-pepper ferment will have to do, along with beans. We need to grind more corn if we are to have bread at dinner.
In the afternoon, while Mae and Althea haul yet more liquid water and hay down to the barn, I sit near the window and scan the pages of seed catalogs, temporarily relieving myself of these persistent winter blues that I feel. Having reviewed many catalogs, I will most likely order from Sand Hill Preservation Center in Calamus, Iowa (renowned for their heritage poultry breeds) and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, which is cooperatively owned and operated by an egalitarian community.
Fantasies of peas, corn, and baby chicks help to soothe away the persistent chill. Still, the monotony of winter is driving me up the walls. Some folks here receive the support they need from co-counseling, Women’s Circle, Care Team, or Men’s group. I need to go out and get some fresh air. I chop wood for an hour, contemplating things. Glancing down the west slope of DR land I watch a lone black bird swing in the wind on a bending blade of dry bluestem. A strong gust sends the bird aflutter, and carries a swirl of duck feathers across our warren. I reckon that at least 70 birds have been slaughtered by my own hand in the past year, and much like the firewood that I split now, I am constantly reminded of my participation in the cycle of life, death, and decay. Just as I hope I am doing the sustainable thing when I heat my home with wood, I hope the same as I feed my family and friends with these birds.
As evening rolls in, we settle into the nightly routine of cooping and feeding the birds and taking a final trip to the barn. Caleb dumps a wheelbarrow of split wood directly on the floor of our house, and we stack it. Tonight for dinner we will rely on our standby of turnips, kraut, and pressure canned venison. I eat deer out of a jar, just like everyone else. As a group we sit in the light of a beeswax candle, an LED light bulb, and the brightness of a flaming chunk of cherry wood, mulling over our strategies for succeeding as a one-acre farm with no subsidies and little topsoil. Sometimes I zone out of the conversation, look out the window at the rustling silhouettes of windblown trees, and wonder what it feels like to be a goat in this weather. The sheep really don’t seem to mind.
Many evenings I go to bed wondering about our future. Not just the future I am trying to plan. All of our future. I’m not sure when the chickens will start laying, whether or not it will be a cool spring, a wet spring, a dry summer, or if more and more folks are going to begin evaluating their own consumption as we have.
Admittedly, conditions here sometimes tend to leave me feeling more concerned about my own survival than anything else. Perhaps the perspective I need lies far outside these walls and this region. A quick trip to blistering hot Australia, or The Maldives, where rising sea waters threaten to inundate the nation might help stir my passion for solving the climate problem, but I don’t have a passport, haven’t been inside of an airport in six years, and suspect the real work to be done is right here, surrounding all of us.
I’m not saying that you need to eat beans and turnips five nights a week in order to save the world like some folks. (Or squirrel, for that matter.) But we do have to talk about our planet, our consumption, and our climate. All of us. And I’m very lucky to be able to reach out to all of you from here in this warm common house, on somebody else’s computer, in my favorite place in the world.
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an educational nonprofit and intentional community in Rutledge, northeast Missouri, practicing and experimenting in ecologically sustainable living. You can learn more about us by visiting our website, reading our blog, or emailing us.