Skyhouse

This week at Dancing Rabbit we had weathery things like snow, ice, and slush. Burrrr and a bit o’ yuck. This is my first winter at Dancing Rabbit and it has been a learning experience (and continues to be). We had below zero weather for a few nights in a row. This weather, which I thought had to be uncharacteristic, is evidently how it used to be, "back in the day" (according to the Rutledge Renegades, locals and friends we talk to often at Zimmerman's). I have learned the fine art of chopping wood and keeping a room warm. Tereza, Alyson, and I all shared the joy of frozen pipes; not to fear, we are all well and on track again. The best part has been taking advantage of winter's abundance...of snow. Dave, Jennifer, and I trekked over to a big o hill, affectionately called Vista de la Moo, and sledded on toboggan and flimsy yet fast regular sleds. My first time sledding, it was awesome, I tried to get Thor (Bear's dog) to get on the sled, but he wasn't having it. What we also learned about too many nights of too cold weather may cause the top layer of potatoes to freeze. Sheila was trying to explain to me how the first mushy layer was usable in some way, but I couldn't really imagine it. The good news is that most of Sheila's cellared tates did well, and I'm hoping that one day Sheila will make me breakfast. Dan tried to feed his mushy taters to the chickens, they were not so interested; they are clearly hens with discerning and refined tastes. Whatever helps those yummy eggs to keep 'a coming!

Happy New Year to all of our readers! This is Alline checking in with all of the news that’s fit to print from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

As often happens around here, the big news is the weather. In a nutshell: it is COLD! It has been -9 and -11 (that is 9 and 11 degrees BELOW zero) in the mornings when we wake up…Brrrrr! People reading this in Northeastern Missouri are thinking “well, duh!” but this column also goes out electronically to all sorts of climates, and we’d like our friends in, say, Florida (hi to families of Liat, Mary Beth and Cecil!) to feel the full weight of our stoicism. Have I mentioned just how cold it is?

And still we bravely soldier on. As we run all of our appliances on renewable energy (solar panels and wind turbines) we choose not have clothes dryers – we have clothes lines. One of the most entertaining aspects of my winter is hanging clothes out to dry. Depending on just how bitterly cold it is, the clothes freeze solid within minutes – one can hold them up much like a board, which makes me laugh every time. (Clearly we do not have TV here, and are very easily entertained).

Sandhill Farm, home to friends of Dancing Rabbit, is a small neighboring intentional community here in northeastern Missouri.
Sandhill has been practicing organic agriculture and gardening since 1974 on 135 acres, and the community provides most of its own food, including vegetables, fruits, herbs, sorghum syrup, honey, chickens, and turkeys. This video gives us a glimpse [...]

Hello! This is Danielle from Dancing Rabbit with praise for the changing of seasons, the quiet reflection of the winter months and a small brewing twinkle of next spring’s plans and schemes. I’m feeling rather poetic having just come from an early morning solstice celebration in Skyhouse, where we gathered this morning at 6:30 am for coffee, tea, cranberry orange muffins, corn muffins, Sheila’s sourdough pancakes and delicious eggs from our own Dan Durica’s lovely chickens (who are currently in the loving care of Dennis who it turns out makes the best scrambled eggs in the world). As the sun rose through the clouds and brightened a fresh cover of snow, we sat inside and sang old and new songs about the return of light in the sky. Last Night is when the celebration actually began; so let me back up a bit…

At dusk, we gathered with candles as Sharon treated us to a brief lesson on the meaning (scientific and spiritual) of the winter solstice. Scientifically, the solstice marks the moment in time when the earth’s axial tilt is farthest away from the sun. In other words, when the sun reaches its lowest point in our horizon, thus beginning its ascent again, marking the last and longest night of the winter. For many people, this is a time to celebrate the change from darkness to light, the slipping away of the still winter and the sneaking in of an abundant, alive and promising spring. For us, it was a time to reflect on what darkness means for us, how we feel during the winter, what we experience and learn from the season of rest and stillness.

Dear Dancing Rabbit Friend,

It's finally making headlines! Everywhere you turn, a simple message is repeated: Don't Hurt the Earth!

Sounds like such a simple concept!

But you know it's not as simple as that. We all do. You may have heard about No Impact Man, who spent a year working towards zero environmental impact while living in New York City. He gets the media coverage he does because the truth is that aiming for zero impact is not simple. It's a radical departure from the current way of doing things. Our entire way of life has been built around convenience and ease for humans, with little regard to the ecological systems around us.

No Impact Man, village scale?

You know we're on the right path by looking at our track record: we receive support and encouragement from folks across the globe, including No Impact Man himself. No Impact Man writes:

“We need to change our culture so that living sustainably doesn't mean swimming upstream. Dancing Rabbit has created a village where living sustainably means going with the flow. We need more of that! Please support this community; it is making a big difference!”

Dan D. here, writing another column for our local paper updating you all on life in our village. I've been kind of busy this week getting ready for my annual winter vacation. It was the week when we felt the first real bitter cold front of the season. I picked the last heads of my broccoli and pulled the last of my carrots just before the temperatures plummeted. It's so nice to still be getting fresh garden produce in December. Hopefully, I'll be reporting the same thing in January and February when I'm pulling carrots, beets, and leeks from my root barrel.

I opened the door to the chicken coop the morning after it got down below zero and the chickens seemed struck by the world outside and turned right around again. The Ironweed coop seems to be working well to keep them at least somewhat warmer than the outdoors. They also benefited from the freezing of the broccoli plants. I threw the plants into their pen and they picked them clean of their leaves.

This last weekend the Milkweed's Mercantile hosted a showing of the documentary No Impact Man, about Colin Beavan, a guy in Manhattan who lived an eco-friendly lifestyle for a year. I think Alline talked about the movie last week so I won't give too much detail. Many rabbits and neighbors attended the showings and discussed the movie afterwards. It's been nice to see the lights on and activity in the Mercantile in the evenings. We hope to attend many more fun events there in the coming months and hope that our neighbors will feel welcome to attend.

Hi all. This is Alline with the latest news from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

Things here at Dancing Rabbit are pretty much the same – folks coming home from holiday travel, others leaving for trips. Gatherings, dinners, and our first snowfall of the year – yay!

But what has been on my mind most lately is movies. Last night we watched the documentary “Food, Inc.” It features two of my personal heroes; Michael Pollan, the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (http://www.michaelpollan.com/), and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms (http://www.polyfacefarms.com/). Among other things it focuses on the importance of small local farms, of being aware of where our food comes from, and just exactly what it in it.

I also previewed the documentary film “No-Impact Man” in preparation for this weekend’s free public screenings at the Milkweed Mercantile. I wasn’t sure what to expect – the film is billed as “Colin Beavan and his family turn their small Manhattan apartment into the site of an experiment in radical non-consumption.” They go off the grid for a full year—while still living in New York City—to see if it’s possible to make no net impact on the environment.

Zip zip zip goes the time, just flying by…where does it go?

It was Thanksgiving, now it’s December; who can keep up? I’m still trying to find a place to store the tomatoes I canned three months ago…

Hi all, this is Alline with this week’s adventures from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

It was a quiet but fun-filled week. Lots of folks are traveling for the holidays – Ted, Sara & Aurelia went east; Bear, Alyssa and Zane went west. Nani, Elle and Dave went south, then north; Brian went to Ohio, Liat was dog-sitting over at Red Earth Farms… And humans weren’t the only ones on the move – Dan and Mary Beth’s chickens took up residence in the “chicken TV” in the Ironweed kitchen.

We missed submitting a column last week – assigned author Jen had a painful run-in with lime plaster while working on Maikwe’s home. She accidently got a blob of it in her eye; as lime is extremely caustic it was very painful and rather terrifying, for all involved. Quick thinking on the jobsite got Jen’s eye flushed (and flushed and flushed) with saline solution, followed by a trip to the Memphis Emergency room where she received excellent care. After an uncomfortable and painful week, Jen is now doing well, as is her vision. Whew!

Dan D. here writing another column to update you all on what we were up to at Dancing Rabbit this week. It's been a stretch of unusually good weather lately. We got the October (or even September) we never actually got in October. I was able to finish the scratch coat of plaster on the house and make more progress on the light clay straw insulation on the South wall this past week.

I wasn't alone in getting some good work in during the late season warm front. Luke Zimmerman was doing more excavating the foundation for Bear and Alyssa's new house. The Ironweed kitchen has been transforming lately as Travis and Ted have been putting some finishing touches on it. I say finishing touches, but I guess the work adds up to a lot more than touches. The loft was finished so that Travis could sleep there during his stay. The greenhouse on the south side has been almost entirely enclosed. Boone put a door on the chicken coop and earthen floor was laid to prep the coop for the new tenants--my chickens. At our meeting today Ted talked of having a kitchen warming party soon.

Speaking of chickens, I was able to eat the first chicken from my flock this last week. I've got about 4 roosters and only 7 hens, so I plan to eat a couple more roosters before long. Mary Beth and I made delicious chicken soup in which the only ingredients not grown by us were salt and pepper. Then this morning I went out for the morning feeding and found my first egg. I brought it back home and fried it up right away. It was delicious, and the yolk had a deep orange color as only the freshest and healthiest eggs have.

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit!

It is awfully warm and balmy for November don’t you think? I suppose I am still adjusting to the whimsical nature of, well nature and weather and rain, and not rain etc. It is likely that by the time you read this we will all be huddled up indoors all cozy to avoid the bitter cold!

Hi! My name is Danielle and I am a new resident at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. I am originally from Northern California so you can imagine my surprise almost everyday when I wake up and greet the vastness of the horizon and sky not to mention the unpredictability of the weather. It has been so incredible becoming acquainted with the landscape and climate here. My partner, Boone, a Kansan, makes fun of me for being so utterly taken by all the different kinds of clouds. But I can’t help it, the sky has replaced the ocean for me and it is a never-ending source of awe. I do believe it is how I fell in love with this little corner of Northeastern Missouri. Since we (Boone and I) are fairly new residents, our time here at Dancing Rabbit so far has consisted of a lot of observing and absorbing. It is one thing to make the huge leap of faith it takes to move from a major metropolitan area to a rural environment with the intention of building a sustainable life for yourself, your family and your community, but to actually be here and experience the day- to -day reality of this experiment is humbling, beautiful and quite profound.

Hi all. This is Alline with the latest news from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

As this column appears in the local Northeastern newspapers and is sent to readers via email, we column writers do double-duty. The locals already know about the weather, but folks reading this in, say, Sarasota, Florida might not remember what a chilly, windy autumn day is like!

So with that caveat, we begin with the weather: The constant, driving, Noah-esque rain has finally abated and we’ve been receiving the wild winds for which the Midwest prairies are famous. Sometimes we wonder if we’re going to wake up in Illinois instead of here in Missouri. The leaves on the trees are all turning scrumptious shades of red, gold and brown, and are providing a gorgeous contrast to the bright green grass that still lingers. Fall crops are being harvested and eaten with gusto – chard and kale are still quite happy in the chilly fall air.

Halloween (or, as we call it around here: “Holler-ween”) is a big annual event here at Dancing Rabbit, rich in traditions which are being added upon each year. Preparation for the big day began early in the week with not one but two pumpkin carving parties. In addition, Bear crafted a jack-o-lantern with a skid-steer loader for Zane, a fan of all heavy equipment.

Saturday itself was filled with lots of planning and plotting for costumes and our annual Progressive Fiasco. Much like a progressive dinner, we dress up and go from home to home, where we are fed and entertained. In preparation for the stop his family was hosting, Cob came into the Milkweed Mercantile in the afternoon and asked for “a quarter pound of maggots.” In the spirit of the holiday, I filled his order with some delicious, organic jelly beans. Viewed in the right light, I guess they do look a bit larval…

Hello from Ted at Dancing Rabbit with this week's update.

I'm just now well recovered from a back strain a couple weeks ago, and so was glad to be getting back to work this week. Travis, our excellent work exchanger from last year, has returned for a month or so to help work on getting Ironweed kitchen work wrapped up after five years. It feels close, and yet the list of work to do is long... so we keep plugging away. Travis stomped some cob and got to work on cobbing the bench inside that will complete the downstairs seating area, while I framed up some of the greenhouse walls in preparation for installing the various windows and greenhouse material we'll use for glazing the attached structure. Once that's in, we'll start harvesting lots of free heat from the sun, and also have a place to keep buckets of slaking clay warmer on cold nights. Cold clay makes cob stomping far less pleasant.

Boone has started putting in some work on the kitchen as well, installing the exterior door to the chicken coop on Friday That makes us close to ready for Dan's chickens to be the first inhabitants of our kitchen's chicken coop and bring "chicken TV" alive. There is a large round window installed in the interior wall that separates the kitchen from the coop, so soon we'll be able to watch the chickens at work from our comfortable sitting spot on the battery bench.

We're most of the way through garlic planting now, with just a few varieties left to put in the ground. The anchor varieties are already spreading new roots under the thick mulch, prompted by the cool Autumn rain we've seen so much of lately. As the cold of winter comes on, they'll go dormant, ready to get growing come Spring with the help of all the roots they're setting right now.

Aloha from Rabbits at Dancing Rabbit. This is Nani with this week’s update.

We are far, far from my homeland of Hawai’i as this very crisp weather has reminded me. I also understand why we are called Scotland County. There have been many cold and misty mornings here on the prairie when I swore that any moment I would see hounds running across the field or witness bagpipes eerily playing in the background. Fortunately, I didn’t hear bagpipes, which would have completely scared me (I don’t recall anyone here owning bagpipes). The only hounds that usually run around are our familiar and beloved canines.

Even in the face of our changing weather and closer quarters many of us have still been busy as ever in the outdoors. Ted and Sara headed up some other willing Rabbits (that would be us, for new readers) to continue work that Tamar had begun; garlic, gardening, and working together. Ziggy cobbed in the cold, Jeff (aka Gifu) embellished his Gnome Castle with the coolest ever convex (concave, depending where you are standing) skylight. Dan D headed the “Great Chicken Migration of 2009” – we moved the chicken tractor to his yard from its summer home in the vineyard. Jen returned home from her travels. There were lots of other outdoor work parties, but my little Hawaiian heart couldn’t take it; I brewed many pots of coffee and cocoa to stay warm, and even made oatmeal for friends (I don’t even like oatmeal, but it’s warm.)

Tereza hosted a healing/prayer circle and brought us together for our Tamar. We sent our love and support in her direction. Thank you Rabbits for being warm and loving.

Every year we write about the first frost here and how everyone is rushing to pick or protect all their tender vegetables before night falls. This year is no exception. But even in this unseasonably cold season, we weren't expecting winter to hit so hard so fast. My response upon hearing the news of a coming frost was, “yay!” Though it's nice to think that maybe we will get another two weeks of growing out of those eggplant if we put row cover on them, I don't think it's worth the effort. I really love gardening, but this year I'm building a house (like many here at DR), and that takes priority over saving a bunch of green tomatoes. I support those who have the time doing what they can to squeeze extra produce out of the season. I'll still find time to plant the garlic in the coming weeks, though.

Dan D here, bringing you up to date on the goings on at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Like I said, I'm busy building a house and, being immersed in that project, it's rare that I come up for air long enough to see what else is going on here. I can tell you a little about my week though, and I'll throw in tidbits about events I didn't attend but have heard tell of.

Hi everyone. This is Alline with this week’s update from Dancing Rabbit.

Ten years ago when I was living in a city in a mild climate, the weather didn’t affect me much. I went from my home to my car to whatever building I was going to. The weather was something that I observed from inside, through a window. It never snowed, was never icy, rarely flooded, rarely was very hot. Only a few weeks a year, when I went backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains did I really pay attention to the weather. There I learned to read the clouds, and familiarized myself with weather patterns and storm conditions. My safety depended on it and I found it really interesting. However, back in the city, this information went largely unused.

Now that I live in rural Northeastern Missouri all of that has changed. Weather has become an integral component to so much of what we do. We watch the clouds, listen to the weather report, and some of us even have the NOAA weather on the startup pages of our computers. We’ve all become like stereotypical “old folks,” always talking about the weather. Our power systems depend on sun and wind – when it is sunny and windy, our batteries are full and happy. Much of our food depends upon the weather - too much or too little of rain or sun or wind may mean the difference between an abundant harvest and a puny one (I have developed new empathy for farmers – what a wild ride they go on every single growing season!). We hang our laundry out to dry (we choose not to use electric or gas clothes dryers here, as they use a lot of power), utilize passive solar food dehydrators, and eat our meals outside whenever possible. Building season is also weather dependent – only interior work can be done in the rain, and we don’t like the straw bales with which we’re building to get wet, either.

Aloha from Nani this week with Dancing Rabbit updates.

This week a bunch of folks from Dancing Rabbit biked, walked, car-pooled it down to the Rutledge Festival. My daughter and I biked together for the first time together, seeing as mommy just learned how to ride a bike. Just another reason why living in the country and an eco-village is so great, you get to learn new things everyday. So, after our peaceful ride through the fields we came into the festival greeted by jumping frogs and happily shrieking children. The town children where thick in competition with frog racing. Elle (my daughter) couldn’t wait to get in the race. Actually, the race turned out to be more of frog chasing. Elle, in fact, chased less and looked as though she were playing defense in an ultimate frisbee game. Besides kid fun, there were booths selling local wares, crafts, and food. When I arrived Alline and Marke were sitting at our table selling baked goods. Alline reported that we did fairly well and had an angel donate to our cause. A lot of love went into our bake sale and a lot of love will be given in return for everyone’s support. Thank you. What else? Ah, Rachel square danced and Lily and I were nearly 2009 back seat driver champions. However, we were beaten by Gladie and Oren (most worthy adversaries). We didn’t stand a chance against Oren. I believe that Oren was one with the tractor and though he was blind folded he drove better than I ever could have with glasses and GPS. We all mingled, laughed, Dave played mandolin. It was a great day.

Hi friends. This is Alline with the news from Dancing Rabbit.

BUT! Before I go any further, make note of this date: Saturday, September 26th, 2009. This is the day of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage’s Open House. Tours begin at 1:00 p.m. and depart every 15 minutes or so through 4:00 p.m. Tours last approximately one hour, and will cover several buildings, a garden, information about natural building, alternative energy (solar and wind), our ecological covenants, our decision-making process and what community life is REALLY like. If that all sounds too serious, we’ll also have snacks and crafts for sale, and the Milkweed Mercantile General Store will make its Open House debut. So rain or shine, we hope to see you then. And please keep your fingers crossed for a sunny day!

Whew. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can go on with the rest of our business.

We have all been enjoying the glorious fall weather. Just like the baby bear’s porridge, the temperatures are just right – not too hot, and not too cold. The sky is a beautiful shade of blue and the clouds are big, puffy and spectacular. Fall wildflowers are in full bloom, and since many of them stand 7-8’ tall they seem to go on forever. Life is good.

Greetings from Cob at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage with the latest news and views from out on the prairie. After a fairly quiet week of lime plastering, tree mulching, committee meetings, gardening, canning, pickling, cooking, cleaning, shifting wet straw bales, coordinating errands with neighbors, visitor workshops, and the occasional yoga class or evening conversation with friends, it was great to sit back a little bit and observe the excitement and enthusiasm our many new residents and members have brought to our community.

The Labor Day weekend was an unintentionally appropriate time for the entire population to come together and review our "Wonderwall" of committees, tasks, and responsibilities for doing the work of the community, advancing our educational mission, and maintaining and growing our infrastructure to accommodate increased numbers of rabbits. After a quick review of what each committee was responsible for, and whether they felt they needed additional folks to help with their work, we reviewed the myriad tasks that keep our daily lives running smoothly.

For several hours we played with the Wonderwall like a large jigsaw puzzle...adding our own names where we had interest in helping, sometimes removing our name from other places in order to do so. The many new residents and members who were not here the last time we held this exercise back in February plugged their names in as well...providing us all with a general sense of bounty and reminding us of the power of our collective labor and thought. I think most of us focus naturally on our own tasks or personal labors on a day-to-day basis as we juggle the many demands on our time. It's easy to lose sight of the big picture in the midst of to-do lists, shopping lists, bandaging skinned knees, soothing children, food preparation and preservation, and so forth. This past Sunday was truly a celebration of how far Dancing Rabbit has come since our inception!

Hello again from Ted at Dancing Rabbit after a short hiatus from writing the column. I took a two week trip to Argentina to accompany my dad to a conference on the study of mammals. It was a nice short trip for a season when it is hard to be away from all the work to be done at home. I enjoyed seeing all kinds of landscapes and mammals, including southern right whales at arm's reach while out on a boat. I was also glad for the time to spend with my dad, but at the same time extremely pleased to come home and be home here. That is a good feeling to have about one's home.

Knowing that Dancing Rabbit tends to have its own social and practical inertia, I didn't spend too much time trying to schedule my week, but tried rather to flow through it and accept whatever it brought. Monday morning that found me cleaning and cutting tomatoes for processing in Sunflower kitchen. Sara, Alyssa, Bear and I put up 40+ quarts of sauce and juice for the winter, along with the 25 or so from the previous day's canning session, all of which means lots more than we had last winter.

These last couple nights in the 40s have reminded me that Fall is not far off, but I'm still just getting used to having an abundance of tomatoes, peppers and eggplant around, so I'm hoping for a slow transition into fall, despite the general cool trend we've experienced this summer. Meanwhile I'm savoring every bite and glad for every dollop of vegetables fermented, dried, or canned for eating this winter.

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, where the men play Frisbee, the women are elegant even in steamy weather, and the children change their names just because they can! This is Alline reporting.

It’s been another fabulous week here in Rutledge, Missouri. Lots of comings and goings – Liat spent the week down in LaPlata at the Possiblity Alliance participating in a course in Permaculture (learn more see our friends at the Permaculture Activist: http://tinyurl.com/4jsgrz). Tamar is back east visiting family. Tony, Jennifer and her merry band of Work Exchangers (Horacio, Owen, Alex and David) went to St. Louis for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament and a side trip to the Botanical Garden and the very cool City Museum (http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp). They reportedly had a great time frolicking on the crazy structures that are on the roof of the building. Ted has returned home from Argentina (where he traveled with his father), Brian returned from a week in Chicago, and Lily is back from a wedding in Southern California – both traveled by train. Penn and Laura, both former Dancing Rabbit members, stop in a visit every couple of weeks, including last Saturday. A group of 13 visitors has arrived; some stayed a few days, some are staying three weeks. We’re happy to have them here! MaryBeth hosted musician Leslie Sanazaro (http://www.lesliesanazaro.com/index.htm) who played a house concert for us. And Ma’ikwe and Enzio just left for a family reunion at M’s brother’s farm in Michigan. Whew!

Welcome to a warm, wet, and wild week at Dancing Rabbit! Cob here, reporting on the unusual condition of our collective cisterns...they're all full, and in mid-August no less! This is usually the time of year when I personally am nervously eying our water level for domestic water, while hauling buckets from the pond to the gardens. Happily the weekend of rain has refreshed our rapidly sprouting fall crops of peas, greens, and brassicas, saving me the awkward busyness of lugging water by hand. The sound of crashing thunder was almost as satisfying as the sight of plumping tomatoes and swelling winter squashes.

It was also nice to get an assist from nature for our grassy paver road project. August is a challenging time to establish a lawn of any sort, much less one perched on top of well drained gravel and sand. Happily rabbits have been tending to the twice daily watering and in a couple more weeks Main Street might even be ready for mowing. Tony (our road project manager) has been very patient with innumerable "is it ready yet?" queries from rabbits eager to resume delivery of building supplies and to begin collection of winter firewood.

I sit here writing this article in the Common House on Sunday evening while a storm brews outside and people are cooking up a storm inside canning dillybeans and oatmeal cookies. Liat here with this weeks news of Dancing Rabbit. It seems that as we grow in numbers the amount of activities around the village and people passing through grow proportionally. There wasn't a night this past week when fun things weren't happening.

This past week brought many friends from around the country. My friend Brian from Florida visited for a week. The Carletons' friends from New York are visiting and are considering membership in the future. Ma'ikwe had a whole slew of friends from Albuquerque. Steve's friend Sara is also here from New York. There seem to be many people coming and going around here it is hard to keep track of who I will run into during the day. Currently the list of people out of town includes Tamar, Amy, Juan, Jolyon, Rachel, Ted, Brian, Lily, Brandon, Dan S, Rowan, Cynder, Toren, and Peter. Some of them will be back later this week, but others will be off on other vacations and trips.

With so many people around its easy to get a work party together. There were the typical get togethers of moving heavy stuff. A large pile of gravel left over from the roads project got distributed in the front driveway to fill in potholes and ruts. One of the most fun, short and easy work parties this week took place on the roof of Ironweed kitchen. The solar panels that had been set up on the ground for years have finally found their way to their permanent spot on the roof; hopefully they will be able to gain full solar access finally.

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit. This is Alline with this week’s report.

It has been another glorious week here in Rutledge, MO. The weather has been just about perfect, for humans AND for tomatoes. Not too hot, not too cold; rather like the baby bear’s porridge. It has been ideal weather for swimming in the pond, building a house, pulling weeds, gathering wild blackberries, eating homemade ice cream, playing Ultimate Frisbee, and picking zucchini before they take over the garden.

Dancing Rabbit continues to add to our numbers. Tim officially became a full-fledged member on Sunday. Nani, Brian and Lily have all submitted their residency requests. Each new person brings skills, talents and his/her own brand of enthusiasm for what we are doing here, and it is exciting to welcome new people into our growing village. Even better, we still have one more visitor session this summer. We look forward to meeting those who are interested in what we’re doing!

And speaking of growing, Main Street, which was constructed a few weeks ago with grassy pavers (http://www.grassypavers.com/), has begun to sprout! A grassy paver system is a recycled plastic grid placed over a prepared gravel roadbed, which is then seeded with grass. It provides the strength of pavement, eliminates soil compaction, reduces reflective heat and allows for all weather accessibility. We chose to use native grasses; a group of volunteers has dutifully watered the road daily, and we are now seeing the results. In a few more weeks the road will be lush and green, and almost ready to be walked and driven upon.

Hello from Ted at Dancing Rabbit with this week's update.

Despite the continuing mild weather, tomatoes and squash have been rolling through our kitchens, and we had our first large quantity of salsa with one of our food coop meals the other night. What a pleasure! And just as we'd hoped, Aurelia is enjoying snacking on tomatoes growing as a shade crop around our greenhouse at home.

I spent much of the week focused on the project of moving our power system from our house, where it has resided for five years, over to the Ironweed kitchen. The kitchen was long intended as the final home for the system, though the move had been delayed several years. I'd actually spent a lot of time gathering the necessary materials and working to trench in the transmission lines with Tamar last Fall, so aside from having to remember how it was all supposed to work and where I'd stashed everything I needed, it turned out to be a smooth implementation.

Micah, who was an early season visitor in 2008, arrived with his wife Tammy to stay a few days enroute to a family reunion, and I'd agreed to host him. He is heading for certification as a photovoltaics installer, and so brought enthusiasm for the task at hand. He was invaluable as an assistant, and stuck with it with flashlight in hand to help me through the day of the move to the point of turning the power back on in its new location. No whammies! It worked. Now I'm on to tying up all the loose ends of the project and trenching in the rest of the lines to other buildings.

Welcome to another exciting week at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage! This week I (Cob) am reporting to you live from my newly screened in porch, made possible by our one-week-wonder-wexer. Thank you George!

From this new bug-free vantage point, I can see a large crew of rabbits laughing and generally enjoying themselves as they install the new grassy pavers on Main Street from the village entrance up to the common house. Once they've finished filling in the recycled matrix with sand and covered it with soil and grass seeds, Main Street will be closed to all traffic for four to six weeks while the grass gets established. We will also take the unusual step of watering something other than individual garden plants. This may even mark the first time a conventional sprinkler has been used at DR! Watch for pictures from this project on Dancing Rabbit's Facebook group and website.

Work hard, play harder. Dancing Rabbit, in conjunction with Red Earth Farm and Sandhill, fielded a tri-community team at the at the Show-Me State Ultimate Frisbee competition in Columbia, Missouri. The Red Hill Rabbits played competitively, and with such a spirit of fun and good sportsmanship (and a notable lack of uniforms) that they earned a write-up in The Missourian. That article can be found online at http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/07/19/members-missouri-eco-villages-compete-smsg/

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. This is Alline with this week’s news.

I’ve spent the last two weeks a bit isolated in my house. Having been bitten by a tick and infected with Erlichiosis (Lyme’s Disease’s less-glamorous cousin), I am now in the process of being “cured” with massive doses of antibiotics. I’ve been napping a lot, which has left me a bit out of the loop.

So last night at community dinner I asked my table-mates what I had missed so that I could write this column. “The float trip!” shouted one. “Delivery of a million strawbales for Jan and Ma’ikwe!” “Actually,” corrected another, “I think it was only 950,000.” And on it went. The annual DR Board meeting. The Visitor Period. World peace. A brief weekend visit by Jeffrey, and week-long stays by Jacob and Cecil, all Rabbits from the early days. Unfortunately, they were only joking about world peace.

Hello again from Ted at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, on the short writing rotation!

It was a lovely week, weather-wise, after that hot soupy weather finally let go. July days in the low 80's and nice, cool nights definitely work for me. I see we're headed for some more heat, but with the pond cooled off a bit in the past week, I'll be alright.

Significant visible change was one of the themes this past week as we at long last installed our new roads. Zimmerman's Excavating seemed to have brought every large yellow machine they owned, to rip out trees and our enormous old elm stump in the intended road bed, doze the roadbeds, mix and spread loads of sand and gravel, and generally make things a lot smoother than they've typically been around here. With an inch or so of rain over the weekend, it all got watered in and settled.

Tony, who had done the vast majority of the preparation and planning for the project, was ever-present throughout the four full days or so of work, and looked tired but satisfied by the weekend. This Monday morning he also led a work party of grass seeding and mulching the drainage swales alongside the roads. We are all grateful for his time and energy, not to mention that of the folks at Zimmerman's, the phone company, and the four or so trucking companies that brought material out for the project.

I thought it was then time for us to settle into our new setting. Sitting in my now-somewhat-smaller front yard on Holler Way, I looked around and realized how nearly every spot that we've designated for residential use in sight of my house is filled in with either a finished house or new construction, and especially with the roads, it truly looks like a village. I remember camping in what was then a grassy field as an intern in 2001... so much change in a seemingly short period of time.

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit. News of the Rabbits being brought to you by Liat this week. For those reading who do not live in Missouri, its been a very hot week with temperatures soring in the mid 90's. I find that in this type of weather my friends and neighbors begin to wake up early and start working in the early AM hours and many chose to take a siesta (afternoon rest) during the hottest part of the day. Water bottles are definitely a must have for those working outside jobs. It feels like as soon as you drink water it percolates through your skin in the form of sweat. In looking at the weather report for the coming week a high of 79 degrees sounds pretty nice.

Mary Beth, Tom, Brandon, Alline, Rachel, and myself spent last weekend in Wisconsin at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair. Thousands of people were there sharing and collecting knowledge about solar and wind power, natural building, and eco products, books, and organizations. I feel like I must have talked with at least five hundred people about Dancing Rabbit. It was fun both to share my knowledge and to network with people working on environmental issues.

The biggest news from the village is that road work has finally begun. After months of rain and muddy paths, it was finally dry enough for our neighbors to bring in their big machinery and start to dig our roads. They started early in the week by removing the large dead elm tree that greeted people in the front entrance of the community. They also had to remove a few smaller trees within the village which were in the path of the ditches on the side of the road in order to control future rain and reduce erosion and mud. After plowing the top of the roadways, there are large piles of top soil which many of us are excited to add to garden beds and earth berms.

Hello from Dancing Rabbit. Ted here again. With Alline and Cob both gone this weekend, I'm jumping ahead in the rotation to fill in.

Happy Solstice, and here's to the start of Summer with a nice hot weather streak! Feels like we've been babied till now with the mild, moist weather, but it wasn't going to stay away forever.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there, too.

Last week got off to a fun start with a collective birthday party for at least five people between Dancing Rabbit, Sandhill, and Red Earth. It took place at one of the summer cabins at Dandelion's homestead at Red Earth, with a dock peaking out into the pond between low willow branches growing on either side right off the porch. The table was full of fresh fruit and veggies, spreads, and at least four kinds of home made crackers, as well as lots of cool drinks. It was a beautiful evening, and various activities kept everyone going well past dinner time.

I had to rush back from the event to help run a training for those thinking of being a liaison for a new resident this year. We need them, with all the interest in joining Dancing Rabbit at the moment. A liaison is your contact before you arrive at Dancing Rabbit for your residency, and they'll also be your go-to reference as you settle in to living here. We make sure everybody understands what the job involves, so we can offer as uniform a level of information and support to new folks as possible.

Sara and Aurelia returned from their week out East Tuesday. It was great to have them home again, though I had thoroughly enjoyed my freedom of time management during their absence, getting lots done. It made me keenly aware of how long it has been since Sara had the same opportunity!

Dorothy was right when she said "There's no place like home"! Cob here with a short update on the past week at Dancing Rabbit. Short because I was only home for a couple days last week, spending four days on the train and one day in New York City, so I'm a bit out of touch with all that's happened on the home front. I mentioned this at Sunday's calendar planning meeting, and was reassured "that's OK...just make it up".

I can certainly imagine what the past week was like...and you probably can as well. Building, gardening, committee meetings, gathering for meals, evening social gatherings, and even the occasional siesta. By contrast New York City was non-stop busy, noisy, and impersonal. The train was pleasant enough, but no substitute for working in the garden, feeling the fresh breeze on my skin, and listening to the birds, insects, and other critters.

On future trips I imagine that there will be even more travelers on the train, since the roads have deteriorated so much and the emissions taxes, fuel, and other costs for maintaining a personal vehicle will be prohibitive for many. It will also be more challenging to adjust to the city diet of vat-grown proteins and ultra-processed starches flavored with finely tuned chemical additives. I'll probably try to bring as much of my own water as possible, since the city is on strict rations...and there's no telling what's in the municipal water anymore. Living at Dancing Rabbit and walking or biking everywhere certainly has helped as the "cheap" rooms in NYC are now on the top floors of the hotels, since they've stopped running the elevators to cut costs as power has become so expensive. That's OK though, as those floors are also above the worst of the smog generated by the new coal power plants.

Hello again from ever-growing Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeast Missouri. Ted here with this week's update.

It is hard to walk around Dancing Rabbit these days without noticing a sense of growth and vibrancy. With three more residents accepted for this year and more now applying, we're well on our way to cresting above the 50 member mark this year. The large number of work exchangers added to the mix this summer means we're experiencing a static population of 45-55, with peaks approaching 70 people on farm during a well-attended visitor session like the current one. Considering that the sign outside Rutledge claims a population of 103, it feels like we're growing into the once-outsized title of Village.

From atop the rafters and purlins that filled out the shape of Jan's house in the new neighborhood when I installed them this week, I had an excellent vantage point from which to observe the action in the village. Among other milestones I noticed this week were the last course of earth bags on Jeff's dome, the foundation stem wall for Maikwe's house, fencing around Thistledown's vineyard/garden, loft walls above the Timberframe's jaunty timber addition, and a rustic timber porch on Thomas's Mirth Lodge.

The weather continues to feature in our lives, in a year that is proving almost as wet as the waterlogged 2008 season so far. We've been waiting for a window of opportunity to start our village roads project, but the regular bouts of heavy rain have kept those very roads too muddy for the heavy equipment to work on. At the same time, those members whose construction projects will experience delays of access for sand, gravel, concrete and other materials during the road building process are trying to sneak their work in before the roads temporarily close.

Greetings from Cob at Dancing Rabbit, with another week in the life at your favorite ecovillage. Just when we thought the roads were dry enough for Luke Zimmerman to come in and dig them up for us, the elements had different ideas. Not that I need rain to get our truck stuck, apparently I can to that anytime. I simply ventured to far down toward our lower garden area (below the cattail pond) with a full trailer load of mulch and sank into the soft ground. After emptying the mired vehicle our neighbor Oren kindly gave us a pull out early the next morning with his nice big shiny tractor. I want one of those! As much as we try to reduce our reliance on manufactured fuel, it's sobering to see just how much time and personal effort a little petroleum can save. No wonder our society has become so addicted!

The rains early in the week were perfect for transplanting the remaining seedlings out into the garden, but put a halt to many other construction projects. Fortunately things dried out sufficiently for Ma'ikwe to get her foundation dug and her crew is pushing to get the forms and gravel in place for cement pour later this week before our perpetually delayed roads project gets underway. Meanwhile Ma'ikwe hosted a M*A*S*H themed party on site in her big old Army tent. The weather was delightful, and the stars and fireflys were both stunning in their abundance. Lest you think a late night might slow us down, we held our first No-Talent Show of 2009 the following evening. Comedy routines, musical performances, and uncategorizable acts of all kinds were performed for the tri-community's enjoyment. Some of our current visitors also got into the action and participated enthusiastically. Some of our visitors have been so enthusiastic that they've requested extensions on their visit! We've welcomed them to stay another couple weeks, and can't help but wonder if we'll see some additional residency requests by next week.

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit!  This is Alline with this week’s report.
 
Trying to encapsulate a week in the lives of 40+ people, convey the social implications and cultural references, and still have it be fun to read is sometimes challenging. Frankly, some weeks are just not that interesting. Sometimes, life just proceeds day by day, with little blips of happiness and a bump or two of sadness. Life here at Dancing Rabbit is probably very similar to the life you are living, only with solar panels, a passion for vegetable gardens and recently, 1970’s-era facial hair.
 
Energetic gardening continues, and seedlings that have been carefully nurtured are being transplanted into the great big earth. It is difficult not to anthropomorphize the tiny, vulnerable plants as they are placed into the garden soil. “Good luck, little tomato!” I think as I tuck dirt carefully but firmly around the tiny root ball. I know that Alyssa feels the same about the plants in the Sunflower garden – she and Zane spend a lot of time there, tending (Alyssa), watering (Zane, one cup at a time, toddling back and forth across the garden), and playing with dump trucks (that, too, would be Zane). Tamar brought by a bowl of her freshly-harvested salad greens; they were beautiful and delicious. Dan and Mary Beth have chicks in their garden, and many of us find an excuse to drop by often to ooh, ahh and giggle at their (the chicks’, not Dan and Mary Beth’s) antics. The Skyhouse garden has many new, very cool architectural structures which will
support future beans and peas. Meadow added the finishing Cinderella touches which transformed an old fiberglass dish (about 4 feet in diameter) into a mini-pond with a solar-powered fountain in Osage Gardens . Meadow and Cob have also almost completed a grapevine-covered gazebo of sorts, under which to sit and gaze at all of their berries growing happily in the sun.
 

Wow, what a week! Some times of the year just feel so jam-packed that you have trouble remembering everything you crammed into the previous week as you contemplate all that approaches in the next. Ted here with this week's update from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

Construction milestones keep piling up here. I spent the week working on ceiling joists for Jan's house, which meant I got a boost up ten or so feet off the prairie and began to enjoy a better view of goings-on in the rest of the village. A satisfying moment, that is, when something you're building begins to hold you up where before there was only air.

Ziggy's cob hut grew a sod roof with a work party Monday afternoon. He'd been digging sod for some time from the spot where Ma'ikwe will soon dig her foundation, and the work party employed many hands to put it all in place up on his conical roof. I'm always pleased to have another example of natural building techniques to show folks who come to visit and tour Dancing Rabbit, and this year we'll have at least two living roofs in place. Thanks, Ziggy and all!

The Timberframe sprouted new limbs this week as well. Bear's timberframing efforts, including perfect mortises and tenons pegged with black locust dowels manufactured by Thomas, came together impressively on the foundation laid last year. The taller of the two new bents stood 15 feet tall, with three 8x8 posts connected by beams at two levels. After a morning's team efforts at raising the bent Tuesday, Bear, Jennifer and crew began to realize just how incredibly heavy the thing is. Brows bent, some muttered about calling in heavy machinery.

Special greetings to all mothers (past, present, and future) and to all who love, care for, and nurture their fellow inhabitants on this beautiful and unique planet! This is Cob writing from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage with news from the past week and a Mother's Day retrospective.

The past week was so full, that I can only hope to remember a small portion to share with you. My calendar is of no help, as my normally illegible handwriting was even more cramped than usual trying to squeeze everything in. Most days had a few things in common though...they all involved food, meetings, socializing, and moving lots of heavy stuff from one place to another. Food highlights began on Monday when the usual group of rabbits trying to improve their Spanish language skills met over lunch at "mesa d'espanole", Tuesday's tri-community potluck seemed to be uncommonly tasty as fresh greens and asparagus have returned, our own Friday dinner consisted mostly of fresh-baked apple pie (hey, you only go around once), and Saturday's May Day celebration potluck at Sandhill would require several paragraphs of its own!

Howdy Memphis Democrat readers, this is Brandon, a “perennial” visitor to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, sitting on the porch swing of the Common House enjoying the sunshine, watching the mud dry up a bit, and writing to report on the goings-on in the village from a slightly different angle. Typically a community member would write this column, but in an effort to pitch in during my visit, I offered to recount some of the activities in the village from the past week and share a glimpse of this place through the eyes of a person who has visited several times.
 
One thing that has certainly changed since that first visit to Dancing Rabbit in the spring of 2005 is the number of building projects going on here. I bet if I had a postage stamp for every board and timber cut on, every nail and screw driven, and every shovelful of dirt, gravel or mulch moved in the village this past week I could mail enough envelopes to wallpaper the inside of the Milkweed Mercantile. But what a shame that would be, having seen the amazing mosaic work Tamar has done there on the earthen plaster wall.
 
In the four years since my introduction here to life in an ecovillage, I’ve watched Dancing Rabbit’s population more than double resulting in the aforementioned buzz of activity and its expanding village periphery. And I don’t remember there being near as much distinction in describing various village locales during those early visits. Gone are the days when it was sufficient to respond with an “over yonder” when inquiry was made about the location of this or that.
 

Wow! What a difference 70 degree days make to the feel of our small village. Just as we saw insects from butterflies to wasps making their debuts this week, with the first frenzied gathering of flying creatures at the plum blossoms, we Rabbits were constantly in motion as well. A glance at my planner suggests there is a good reason I'm feeling so tired!

Ted here reporting on this past week at Dancing Rabbit. Our first visitor group of the year arrived last Monday. Owing in part to some delays in setting our visitor schedule for the year, we only have three visitors who were able to come. Multiple work exchangers ("wexers")have begun arriving in the village, however, so it feels like a bustling visitor season nonetheless, with work parties, social events, and talks on various topics.

Ziggy and his wexer Dan spent much of the week constructing the rocket stove and heated earthen bed platform for Ziggy's cob house. The flu pipe winds back and forth through the mass, heating it directly, before passing through the cob wall and exiting upward. I studied Chinese in high school and college, and spent some time there, and this bed recreates a common feature of homes in the cooler northern regions of that country. I envy Ziggy the toasty bed he'll be getting into all winter, and expect we'll eventually see more such installations here.

The living roof of the cob hut comes next. Dan and Ziggy spent some time Saturday digging turf from the site of Ma'ikwe's imminent house foundation excavation. This coming week I expect we'll start to see earth up there.

Greetings from Cob at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage as the seasons progress swiftly from Spring to Sunblock. I'm clearly still adjusting to prairie weather. The advent of a lake-effect 2" blizzard out of a clear blue sky doesn't faze me, but a thirty degree temperature swing from one week to the next sure does! After a chilly damp weekend in the low 50s, the forecast is calling for abundant sunshine, highs near 80 degrees, and decent chances for some big thunderboomers. All the better to water our seedlings I guess.

If those rains hold off, we might dry out sufficiently to get our long awaited road building project underway. We're all still rushing to get materials delivered while we still can, because we'll only have a day or two of notice before the digging begins. We'll have another short window after the gravel roadbed is in place, but then will have to stay off the road completely while the grassy pavers are installed and the grass seed is planted and nurtured. It will certainly create opportunities for more work parties to move lots of heavy stuff from the front entrance to individual warrens!

And what better way to introduce our first group visitors? Woo hoo! Bring on the manual labor! As much as we joke about the hard work, it lifts the spirit to have so many folks who are just passing through show such willingness to pitch in...even if only for an hour or so. Not only is your work appreciated in the moment, but you have truly helped to build this community and have contributed in a meaningful way to our demonstration project. Thank you!

Hi Folks,

For anyone who hadn't heard, Dancing Rabbit will be featured tonight (Sunday) on Nickelodeon's Nick News at 9pm Eastern/Pacific in an episode titled "A Kid Off the Grid". The show will also feature other kids from around the country who live off the grid including actor Ed Begley Jr.'s daughter.

You can see an excerpt of the show including our kids at
http://www.nick.com/turbonick/index.jhtml?extvideoid=197525

If you miss it tonight you may be able to catch it later on their website at:
http://www.nick.com/all_nick/tv_supersites/nick_news/

And there is more info at
http://www.nick.com/all_nick/tv_supersites/nick_news/stories_weekly.jhtml?wstory=1

Spread the word!

Tony

PS Sorry for the late notice but better late than never.

--
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage 660-883-5511 dancingrabbit@ic.org
1 Dancing Rabbit Lane
Rutledge, MO 63563 for more info see http://www.dancingrabbit.org

This is Alline bringing you greetings from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, where the mud is plentiful, the gardeners are optimistic, and fresh asparagus is anticipated with drooling and hollandaise.

This week was much like any other here at Dancing Rabbit – never boring, and never the same. Tamar usually leads a yoga session three mornings a week at the yawn-inducing hour of 6:30 a.m. But she is currently out of town, so in her stead Sara and Alyssa have been presenting an exercise program. Alternating between belly dancing and aerobics CDs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and joined by Maikwe and Liat, we achieved a modicum of fitness and a maximum of laughter. I feel grateful that there are no mirrors in the Community Building, and that “what happens in the Community Building, stays in the Community Building.”

Tuesday brought the weekly meeting of the group organizing Farmer’s Markets in both Rutledge and Memphis this summer. Fresh food devotees from Rutledge, Memphis and Gorin are working hard to make this exciting dream into reality. Watch the Memphis Democrat and this column for an official announcement very soon.

Maikwe symbolically and literally broke ground on the site of her new home by transplanting a rose bush, the first of what we hope will be a lush and beautiful garden. A huge semi arrived with a shared order of polycarbonate panels for four future greenhouses – Jan, the Carletons, Liat, and Ted & Sara have many seedlings in their futures. Zane was especially thrilled to see the huge truck, as he is a fan of trucks of any kind. When he is not watching trucks or reading about trucks, Zane spends time with Tom and Tereza watching “Bird TV.” Between gorging themselves (whoever coined the phrase “eat like a bird” is obviously unclear on the concept) the numerous feeders and building (and tearing out) nests, it is one big bird frenzy around here.

Hello again from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage! Ted here with the latest.

It's a cold snap here in northeast Missouri at the moment. The fruit trees have been tentatively moving toward flowering, taking a good measured pace with the alternating mild and cool temperatures we've had. I can see pink on the peach buds, and the little pear and apple flowers thinking about opening, but thankfully none have done so as we weather several nights of hard frost. This is the time of year when I'm ready for nice warm temperatures, but knowing the possibility of more frost, I'm glad we haven't had the exuberant warmth that gets plants excited prematurely.

We have an informal group here known as Ye Aulde Barn Raisin' Society, which meets erratically to help with various communal and personal tasks throughout the year. This past Friday we convened as Ye Aulde Barn Movin' Society. When Dan's shed arrived at Dancing Rabbit more than a year ago (brought the mile or so from Red Earth Farms strapped to large machinery), Dan had spent most of his preparations on the foundation posts for his house, which came first (strapped to the same large machinery). The shed was set down without much preparation in his garden.

Having now developed his garden more, and also with plans to build his new house this year, Dan now wanted his shed to be elsewhere. Several methods of attaching long timbers to the structure were tried, mainly to allow lots of people to get their arms under the load. When we finally got the sixteen or so folks ready to lift and counted off, the shed proved too heavy to budge much.

There is a notable feeling around the village lately. It is the feeling that arises when the building and growing season we have anxiously awaited for months is suddenly upon us. In my frequent passing through the common house, I overhear more and more chatter about timbers and strawbales, seed starts and greenhouses and it occurs to me that the chaotic song and dance we call spring has arrived. Mary Beth here, catching you up on this weeks Dancing Rabbit news.

As is typical of a Missouri spring, these past weeks seem to be made up of alternating days of summer and winter. It is hardly the smooth transition I always remember it being, though birds and flowers are often involved. Because of my short memory for such things, I am frequently taken off guard when after a string of sunny, 70 degree days... it snows.

But lucky for us, or rather, lucky for Ironweed Sub-community, the weather held off long enough this week to have a wood pile moving work party. And what a work party it was! To the soundtrack of some poppy eighties music there were around twenty rabbits who showed up for the life size game of pick up sticks. Because of our upcoming roads project, the accumulated piles had to be moved at least ten feet back from where they were to make way for gravel which will eventually be followed by grassy pavers that are going to replace our existing roads. For those of you wondering, grassy pavers are an road building alternative to gravel or concrete. They are honey comb like sheets of recycled plastic that allow grass to grow on roadways, which not only looks pretty, but produces far less runoff than a paved road.

Will March showers bring April flowers?  Cob reporting live from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, on the occasion of SPRING!  What a glorious week we had with plentiful sunshine and warm breezes to carry us through the daily work of building our homes, gardens, and village.  Today's torrential downpour has shifted most of the activity back indoors, though a few soggy souls are out in the rain shifting a few large piles of firewood off the right-of-way for the pending road construction project.  Thankfully it's my turn to write this column, so I have a good excuse to stay warm & dry!

Spring is definitely here, as new things are arriving on a daily basis.  Nicely composted dirt for the grassy-paver section of the new road, bird nests in unexpected places, grape vines and trees to plant, Jolyon Borla, red-wing blackbirds, merchandise for the Milkweed Mercantile store (www.milkweedmercantile.com), and...what?  Yes, our newest bunny arrived late last week with quiet fanfare and much jostling to be the first to bring a meal to the proud parents.  Early results indicate Jolyon's likely nickname will be "Old Man".  Congratulations to Amy and Juan...your adventures are just beginning!

Greetings from Dancing Rabbit! This is Alline with this week’s news.
 
First and foremost: On Saturday, March 28th there will be dance lessons in the Rutledge School gym. Rachel, struck seriously by the dancing bug, has arranged with some professional dance instructors to come and teach a variety of dance styles – waltz, polka, Lindy hop, foxtrot, swing – you name it, they can do it. Everyone is welcome. More details will be published here next week. So dig out those dancing shoes and get ready for a great time!
 
We are all still getting used to Daylight Savings Time; our springing forward was met with a bit of grumbling and difficulty awakening an hour “earlier.” Rumors of seceding from Missouri to become part of Indiana were quashed when we learned that Indiana adopted Daylight Savings Time in 2006. Now it looks as if Arizona and Hawaii are our only options. Somehow I think pretending that DR is really a tropical paradise is stretching things a bit too far, so were just learning to enjoy the sunshine, whatever time it arrives.
 
We started the week out with guest Alexis Zeigler presenting his Culture Change Constructive Panic Slideshow and his accompanying book entitled “Culture Change; Civil Liberty, Peak Oil and the End of Empire.” For more on Alexis and his thoughts, you can go to his Conscious Cultural Evolution Website (http://conev.org/). We love when folks take the time to stop in at our little community, share their ideas, and get us thinking!
 

Hello from Ted at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage with this week's update from soggy Scotland County, Missouri.

Four inches or so of rain over the past couple days have left our roads and paths quite sodden and our cisterns full. Tony, who has among the longest timeline of anybody at DR, was saying this morning that it used to seem that our creek would jump its banks every few years, whereas for the past three years straight it has jumped its banks at least once each year, if not several times. It is always a sobering experience to look down into our creek valley in flood (from our relatively safe position up on the high ground of the village) and imagine how high it could rise. Whether this weather is part of an existing decades-long cycle of wetter and drier periods or related to human-induced global warming may take many years to discern. Meanwhile we note the changes we can observe in the time we've been here.

Rolling thunder, peals of lightning, heavy wind gusts, torrents of rain: Spring is upon us! There is still cold to come, but there's no question we're on the cusp of the transition. The elm buds are growing, sap is flowing, the redwing blackbirds are back, and I've heard peepers in the pond the past three or four nights. I've seen the grass starting to put out green tips, and the walking onions in the garden have started their clumpy Medusa-like growth of green finger leaves.

Cob here, reporting that the 2009 Construction Season has officially begun here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage! Ziggy took advantage of the frozen ground to take delivery on 9 tons of sand for use in plastering the walls of Gobcobatron, his earthen home. Dancing Rabbit Land Trust is also anticipating a large delivery of composted manure from some of our neighbors for use in our upcoming roads project. We're planning a trial installation of some grassy pavers (a thick honeycomb lattice made from recycled plastics) which once locked in place and seeded, should provide a level, green, absorbent and durable roadway for the village. We're guaranteed one more season of muck, as the roadbeds are prepared for this new surface, but alternately frozen and soggy ruts will finally be a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, the Land Management Team is actively looking for old/rotted square straw bales for use in erosion control projects. If you have any, or know where we can get some, please call 660-883-5511 and leave a message for Thomas or Sara. Just be sure to mention "rotten straw" in your message, as our call volume has increased so has the challenge of getting the right messages to the right people.

Another harbinger of spring is the volume of Work Exchanger (wexer) applications that folks with building projects have been receiving. It's always amazing to see so much energy and enthusiasm for hard labor from so many people from all walks of life. The level of interest in natural building techniques and lowering environmental impact continues to grow, and we're pleased to be able to offer so many opportunities for sharing what we've learned the hard way.