Hello again from Ted here at Dancing Rabbit with this week’s update. The cracks in the ground are still widening here in Scotland County. It feels a little like summer is draining out of the trees and fields. Though cooler weather makes it less noticeable to me, we are still living in a parched land. Water on the cabbages and root crops in the garden seems to run right through to the subsoil. The pond is lower than at any time since it was built. I am thankful for the cistern under my house and all the previously fallen rain it holds.
Though we’ve just officially entered autumn, the land began baring all its party colors this week. In conjunction with the moon growing to fullness, my senses seemed to come into sharp focus to take it all in. These are excellent days for walks on our land that feel a bit like a trip to an artist’s studio. Cherries and plums are aflame with tropical salmon hues, while the reliably vivid crimson of sumac shouts out among the softer earth tones of prairie grasses and most other trees leaning into their closing numbers. The unmistakable smell of fallen leaves is in the air, and the chill each night, despite pleasant, warm days, leaves no doubt that winter is headed our way.
Not too soon, though! October is usually cited here as the last month for major outdoor construction and other work, and conversations lately leave me without any doubt that the village’s builders and gardeners plan to keep up the pace, or increase it, as we near the finish and the promise of a little hibernation time to come.
Down at Ironweed, we’ve been checking off one major to-do after another on our addition. Aurelia’s finish earthen floor is drying, and we’re laying now the finish floor in the larger, lower room. This past week we finally opened up the two new doors in the original house walls to connect the new and old spaces, and also connected the new electrical circuits to the old, so I can often be found standing inside the house staring at the space and trying to update my mental imagery of home. Once the floors are finished and left to dry, we’ll return to the building of the stone retaining walls around the root cellar that will hold earth up on the berm and keep our mass walls buffered against winter’s cold. Approaching the finish of this thing fills me with a satisfied quietude.
Ziggy and April hosted the first of two work parties to lay the living roof atop the second story of their new home this past week. I was unable to attend, but understand that the bucket brigade and pulley system successfully moved 14 tractor bucket-fulls into place 30 feet or so up, and that aside from some soreness reported by Ziggy, it all went swimmingly.
Kyle and Haley and their crew closed in on finishing the finely-arcing
earth bag wall they’ve been laying. I haven’t seen the final drawings, but adjacent pillars of cob suggest a load-bearing structure of substantial proportions will ultimately manifest there.
Speaking of manifesting load-bearing structures of substantial proportions, Dennis and Sharon’s massive, roundwood-timberframed structure now stands as a nearly complete skeleton and roof that calls to mind an ancient woodland temple just across the draw from us. I hear they’ll be laying the waterproofing membrane atop it this week, and I can imagine now, once the whole is engulfed in earth, that it will be a hobbit house that will stand for a very long time indeed. I need to talk to them about including a round door somewhere.
Friday our work site was a bit more crowded than usual as Bear hosted the wet-blown cellulose insulation crew that had come to insulate the cabin he’s building for Tereza across a small courtyard from us. Large, translucent tubes snaked down the path in front of our house alongside power cords and pressure hoses radiating from the trailer containing all the insulation and equipment. Some of the equipment ran on generator power and some on Ironweed’s power system, which remains off-grid and supplied solely by wind and sun. I was glad to see that it met the challenge.
As we prepared and stomped several batches of earthen floor mix throughout the insulation day, I couldn’t help wondering what the visiting workers thought of our different process and materials—or of Aurelia, whom I looked up at lunch time to see sitting at our picnic table with the three men, offering a show-and-tell with her new sewing kit as they ate their lunches. An image has stuck with me since then of Toon and I, mid-stomp and well muddied in hands and legs, wrestling with the two ends of a tube blowing dry, recycled paper fiber after a blow-out at a joint next to our mound of earthen mix. Afterward we fit in better alongside the insulation crew’s grey mantles of fluffy insulation.
Today, October 1st, marks Dancing Rabbit’s 15th anniversary on this land! This weekend we’re hosting a celebration and reunion for all current and former Rabbits, so a host of volunteers have been preparing and organizing for the many people who’ll attend. Grassy spots around town center are mowed for tenting, numerous rideshares for incoming guests have arranged themselves, and the schedule is packed. The nonprofit’s board of directors will also be meeting on site at the weekend, and we’ll have a majority of the founding members here to help celebrate as well. Catered meals, large tents, two ultimate frisbee games, team relay races, land walks, a silent auction, groundbreaking for our new common house, reminiscing, general celebration…there will be no shortage of social opportunities this weekend. Too all of you who’ve kept up with our efforts over the years, happy Land Day to you as well!
As the leaves fall, remember that October is the last month for public tours of Dancing Rabbit until spring, so if you’ve been thinking about making the trip, be sure to plan for either the 13th or the 27th at 1pm. As always, you can find more information about our ecovillage at www.dancingrabbit.org, read our blog at blog.dancingrabbit.org, or give us a call at (660) 883-5511.