There are a couple of great opportunities to visit us soon. One is an Open House this Saturday the 8th, which is open to all and is a chance for our neighbors to come out and see what we’re doing out here. The village changes every year, so come see how much we’ve grown! The other gathering coming up is the 15th anniversary party starting on October 5 with a benefit auction and reunion festivities. Read on to hear more about both of those.
I’m feeling a little pressed for time writing this because my life is so full of things to do lately. Just the past 24 hours have been stuffed full enough for a whole newspaper column or blog post…
Yesterday about this time I was showing up for our semi-annual Land Clean, during which every person at Dancing Rabbit pitches in to tidy up the public outside spaces of our village and land. I washed the mural, pulled the less desirable plants out of our native flower garden, and did a little bit of scything around the welcome sign by the village entrance. Lots of other cleaning and tidying got done, including some new bridges and flower beds in the courtyard getting finished. It was sweaty work, and satisfying.
That part of Land Clean took the morning until noon. In the afternoon we should all work on cleaning the land around our own houses, and many people did so. Some of us, myself included, had other obligations and will have to do our “warren” clean some other time this week, before Open House on Saturday. (More on Open House below.)
In the afternoon I worked some on tidying up my yard. I finally got rid of the barrel full of Osage Orange thorny twigs that has been sitting there since Kody and I chipped up an Osage Orange tree to make dye for the project I’ll be donating to the Dancing Rabbit benefit auction at the 15 year anniversary party coming up in October. (More on that below, too!)
After a little time tidying I had to stop to teach Geometry to Enzio. He’s home schooled and working really hard to be very well prepared for college. It’s a pleasure to work with a student who begs for more homework, asks great questions, and really enjoys showing off how much he’s learned. I hope some of the other home-schooled students around the tri-communities area will follow suit. My own son is in public school, along with about half a dozen other little rabbits, and he is enjoying it. I’m grateful for the staff and resources at SCR-1. Kody reports that he really likes being in Mrs. Burns’ class this year.
Neither Enzio nor I had a watch on during Geometry and we got so involved in class we ran over time and I was late for my Web Team meeting. Work on that committee has been extra exciting lately now that we’ve recovered from the launch of our revamped public site. Coz installed a forum on our internal site so that we can communicate with each other electronically in a more organized and readable way than sending emails. I’m personally particularly excited about the potential for maintaining fewer email lists.
After that meeting I took a break to enjoy a cold beverage and share company with Kody, who had missed me since I’d been busy all day. We had an early supper of chili made with lots of local ingredients which Cob and I had put up last week. I still need to put up the bushel of apples that I got in exchange for picking apples for friend of the community Dan Kelly who has an orchard. We get to keep one bushel out of five that we pick, and I’ve been enjoying munching on them, but really do need to put most of them up before they start to go bad. I don’t have a root cellar (yet) so they’re not ideally stored for keeping raw.
I mentioned the Open House: This Saturday, September 8, from 1 to 4 pm we’re having our annual Open House. This will include extra-fancy tours, refreshments, plenty of members and residents around to answer your questions, and some wares for sale. Our massage therapist, Nani, will be selling her services, there will probably be honey for sale from Cob’s hives (depending on the harvest) and more folks will have wares available if you feel inclined to take home a souvenir from your Dancing Rabbit experience.
We have another even coming up soon: We’re having a reunion in celebration of our 15th anniversary. That party is October 5 through 7. If you’ve spent time here in the past, we’d love to see you at the reunion. Please RSVP at https://reunion.dancingrabbit.org.
Whether you plan to attend the reunion or not you can support us by making a donation to the benefit auction. Laird, who’s organizing the auction, says, “The big anniversary weekend is getting closer all the time, and it’s not too early to start salivating over the good times we’ll have, including the fabulous bargains and precious one-of-a-kind keepsakes available at the raucous benefit auction scheduled for Saturday night, Oct 6.” You can contact Laird to let him know you plan to donate something by emailing laird@ic.org. We’ve already got pledges for home-made food products, art, classes, needle crafts, and more.
Now I’ve got to run to head up a work party for the visitors. Phew.
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community and educational nonprofit in Rutledge, northeast Missouri, focused on sustainable living. We offer free tours to the public twice monthly from April-October. For more information you can visit our website www.dancingrabbit.org, or give us a call at (660) 883-5511.