Ted here to bring you the latest from Dancing Rabbit, after what felt like the first week of summer, complete with steady warmth, mild nights, and some good thunderstorms.
I had a second week off from my current day job last week, and managed to slowly tick off some long-awaited to-dos from my list. Moving more earth and manure to top up the soil level in the top-most planting terrace on our house’s berm, I finally got my artichoke seedlings planted alongside some leeks. I made long-awaited fixes to my bike (my current commuter conveyance), got my aging cheeses moved from the cave (root cellar) to their summer cottage (a small fridge in our shed), and got to spend much of a day in the garden with Sara for the first time this season, planting beans and thinning carrots and beets.
Zane, Aurelia, and Emma turned over a new leaf last week, boarding a school bus at 6:23 am each morning on a journey to the first week of summer school in our county seat of Memphis. Cole and Nina from neighboring Red Earth Farms joined in as well, and of the five, only Emma had previous experience in public school, so the giddy excitement of both parents and kids Monday morning kept erupting into outbursts that were a little premature for that hour of the day. Eight out of ten parents were there, if a little bleary-eyed, with smiles all around as we waved goodbye and sauntered off to our strangely quiet days. *Sigh*…
With midwives off-call for a few weeks, Sara signed up for a midwifery training in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that we then extended into a short family camping vacation at a state park north of there. We brought kayaks with us for exploring a lake and river, and were rewarded with close encounters with a pair of bald eagles, trout, deer crossing the river, lots of geese with goslings, and some startling thumps and jumps from some catfish in the shallows. Peaceful walks in the wonderfully mature forest and plenty of s’mores and other camp food rounded out the slower-feeling week. As always, we were glad to return home and thankful to our friends who cared for dog, cat, and plants in our absence.
We returned just in time for Saturday’s ultimate frisbee game. Our two scheduled games a week the past couple months finally turned reality with the weather cooperating and enough players for five-on-five showing up, not only for that game but for the following Tuesday and Saturday afternoons as well. Secondary action came in the form of the “healthy heart and lungs club” forming to do interval training one morning a week, in hopes of increasing stamina for our games. I don’t have as much fun running when I’m not chasing a disc, but I enjoyed the morning exercise with Mica and Alyssa all the same.
The grow-op had a work party Tuesday to get tomato starts in the ground after first hacking out some space in the overgrown Skyhouse gardens. Potatoes and onions are greening up out in Dan’s vineyard and the group will get cukes and squash in the ground as soon as we take delivery of another load of manure. Brent and Katherine got the rest of the tomatoes planted out Saturday, and Sunday morning Christina and I finished the mulching work.
Buildings are growing and changing steadily, with Oliver finishing the walls on his cabin, Hassan cutting and installing corrugated steel for the 16 facets of the round house’s roof, and Kyle and Caleb roofing the fancifully timber-framed extended structure of the Critter summer kitchen.
Once-and-future residents Adriana and Justin arrived for a short visit Friday through the weekend, and seemed to bring a brightness and conviviality to our lives that I hadn’t quite realized I was missing. Seeing Zane and Aurelia descending the school bus steps Friday, recognizing Adriana (a good friend to both when she was in residence here), and running toward her for big hugs, I found myself near tears.
The kids had managed to ask her to take them to the pond for a swim in under a minute, picking up right where they left off in 2014. Every conversation through the weekend seemed to turn toward how and how soon we can get the two back to Dancing Rabbit from their current lives in New Orleans. There is a certain magic about that feeling of community, when the connections between people feel so mutually fulfilling.
I don’t believe we have previously written in our weekly update about our friend and community member Dennis, who has been dealt a series of blows to his health in recent months. Dennis and partner Sharon have been in St. Louis these several weeks, since effects of what has turned out to be a brain tumor sent them to a hospital there. Several Rabbits have joined family and friends of Sharon and Dennis in traveling to support them there intermittently, with more trips planned as he undergoes post-surgery rehab and radiation treatments.
This past week we had both a mutual emotional support gathering and a logistical meeting here at the village around this difficult reality. For some, the emotional outlet allows heads and hearts to clear enough to allow engagement in the practical.
For many, the logistics side of things gives us a chance to do something tangible to help in a situation that we can’t control. The whole community is impacted in these times, and volunteering for the various things we collectively need and want to hold in caring for our friends and their homestead gives even those who haven’t known Dennis and Sharon for very long a way to help.
In a way that I often struggle to accept, life continues despite major upheavals in individual lives. Gardens are growing, demanding our ongoing time and energy so we can provide for our food needs (and send some to our friends in need). New work exchangers and visitors arrive in the village to see what we’re doing, and we each play a role in orienting them to our home, feeding them while they’re here, and teaching them what we know and what we do here. In this instance, we’ll be sharing more than usual, offering little glimpses of how we show up for each other in major life events, how the community sometimes feels like it breathes together.
Our second visitor session begins this week, though it is actually a first for us, a session to which only women have been invited. In Dancing Rabbit’s early days, in fact right about when I first tried to visit in 1999, there was a successful women’s straw bale building workshop held, but to my knowledge we haven’t had anything similar until now. (Editor’s note: a women’s plastering workshop was offered in 2000.) As a village that claims a feminist leaning, and given our recent gender imbalance, this is a good time for this good idea, and I’ve been hearing and feeling lots of excitement for it.
The Critters welcomed a new work exchanger this week named Melody, whose smiles through the week suggested she was settling in well. As one of the work exchanger liaisons this year, I get a chance to connect with each of these folk, and to reconnect with my own first landing here as an intern 15 years ago this summer.
A lot has changed in that time, and many faces have come and gone, but a good number are still here, and the spirit of the place, the purpose, has only grown bigger and more established. I’m still seeking one or more work exchangers for the second half of the season, if you’re wondering… please get in touch if you’re interested!
One thing that hasn’t changed much here over those 15 years is the appreciation of the beauty we live amidst. When a particularly resplendent thunderhead rolls by near sunset in late May, boiling in slow motion and rippling with lightning and shifting colors, we don’t just glance out the window or snap a photo… of 20 or so people gathered at Lobelia Sunday night to share one last meal with Adriana and Justin, half or more poured out to see the sky, and for a while, that was the party. Oohs and aahs and talking and laughing as this magic cloud mass erupted continually above us… my smile lasted well beyond our farewells to our friends.
Nearly all of the remaining spots for 2016 visitor sessions are now full, according to our correspondent Danielle, but if you’re still hoping to visit, remember that we offer public tours twice monthly through October, at 1pm on 2nd and 4th Saturdays. You can also find information about many other exciting programs hosted at Dancing Rabbit this year on our website. The Milkweed Mercantile is open most late afternoons (pizza night Thursdays) and also hosts overnight guests. And we’ll of course have our annual Open House in September as well. One way or another, we hope to see you here!
• • •
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community and nonprofit outside Rutledge, in northeast Missouri, focused on demonstrating sustainable living possibilities. Find out more about us by visiting our website, reading our blog, or emailing us.