We are living these days in the sunflower kingdom! I have probably written about this in previous years, but we are in peak sunflower flowering season just now, a hedge of 12 feet or more in an ever-increasing halo around our home and environs. We have to trim it as a hedge, too, removing leaves and side shoots to keep our paths and garden aisles open. It is a fine backdrop to the abundance now erupting out of all the gardens now we’ve arrived at the fat time of year.
All of these sunflowers are volunteers (though plenty are still planted intentionally elsewhere in the village), spread by wind, birds, and other beasts every year quite beyond our control. Our garden, too, feels like walking in a savannah, with small sunflower trees perched above the grassland. One specimen in the corner of the just-harvested carrot and beet bed, I estimate to be 15 feet, notably taller than any other around it. It appears as though it could reach 20 feet, barring major wind storms. Not far off of the magic beanstalks of fable.
Ted here to tell some of the wonders of the season here in this unusually mild Midwest summer, in our little ecovillage slice of it. The farmers market at Dancing Rabbit has this year grown more robust: today after our weekly scheduling meeting there were four vendors, including those from Dancing Rabbit, Sandhill Farm, Memphis, and the surrounding area. More produce was brought and sold than I’ve ever seen before here in one event. What a pleasure it is to have a selection of local, organic produce available for sale in our common courtyard!
It is gratifying to consider the contrast with the more spare, frontier feel of the not-yet-village when I first arrived here in 2001.
Workshops abounded this week, with various art mediums, mushroom cultivation, and canning all represented. Even preschool got into the act, producing beautiful art with wild plant dyes and native clay. With the Ecovillage Design course now entering its final week, the students participated in two practicums of their own over the past two weekends– a day and a half each of organic gardening and food preservation, and natural building, respectively.
Sara and I are still engaged in follow-up to the first, tasting fermenting pickles, kraut, and carrots and stowing canned beets all processed during the practicum. The pickle I tried today was the best we’ve produced in my memory. Students also took away jars of herbal salve and echinacea tincture, likewise produced over that weekend. I imagine Mark’s natural building offering over at Gooseberry this weekend was just as rich.
Education is one of the central missions of Dancing Rabbit, so I am proud to see all these skill sharings offered here. I can only imagine the range of educational and experiential opportunities we’ll see here over the next decade I spend here.
Friday night we had a well-attended bonfire out beyond the old playing field. The impetus was Rae’s birthday, and the location was set by circumstance: the next phase of village road building is set to commence in the coming weeks, and must traverse this spot we’ve used as a shared burn pile zone for years; so the piles must disappear. More bonfires likely to come soon, as this one only scratched the surface. Many a marshmallow was roasted along the way by the goodly collection of young’uns present; and I discovered that you can now buy pre-flattened marshmallows of roughly the right dimensions for a s’more. Not sure yet what I think about that development.
Saturday night down at the Beanfield, Sam’s newly-built community garden space-for-rent, dog lovers held a party where canines young and old were the guests of honor. The puppies among them ran circles round the assembled guests, almost without cease; oldsters Isis and Thor seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the energy and made early exits after satisfying social decorum by making brief appearances. I had to make an early exit myself after I received a gift of roasted raccoon meat that quickly made me the object of insistent puppy attention.
The critter in question was cooked up out at the Critters’ kitchen (if you haven’t met them yet, the Critters are one of the newer cooperative eating and living groups here), having been caught the previous night in Ironweed garden. Kyle’s caught and eaten them before, and I’ve never partaken. This time, the offending animal having eaten almost our entire patch of sweet corn (and it showed in its enormity!), I decided it was time to give it a sample.
I have to report that despite my suspicions, it was absolutely delicious, if not quite a replacement for my corn. I learned along the way that for a time, President Calvin Coolidge kept a pet raccoon, which had arrived at the White House intended for the Thanksgiving table there, but which had been spared. So in times past and now still, a reasonable and valuable wild addition to your table if you are so inclined, and harvestable quite locally– especially if you grow corn!
Rae and Illly, soon to be hosting a timberframing workshop to incorporate and expand the old Wabi Sabi kitchen frame, are also working on a new video hosting site, Skillly.com. Illly has described this as a “green YouTube”, featuring video tutorials about self reliance, building community and living ecologically. If you’re interested in this idea, and want to support its launch, they invite you to learn more at www.DR.Skillly.com. You may just spot some Rabbits in some of the content.
That’s it (or a slice of it, at any rate) for this week. May you enjoy great abundance wherever you are!