The pace of planting has picked up here at Sandhill these past two weeks. Potatoes, chard, leaf beets, mustard, senposai(a wonderful Japanese green that produces in the heat of the summer), dill and carrots are already sown in some of the beds in the North Garden. Michael has been a pea-planting machine this past week and he finished getting the last of them in this afternoon (Sunday). The mix includes English peas, sugar snap peas and snow peas.

Gigi has her spring patch at the west end of the South Garden and she will be filling it with turnips, rutabagas, spinach, bok choy, Thai greens, carrots, garden huckleberries, leeks, onions, daikon and other radishes. She just set out her lettuce seedlings this past week. The first discing of the rest of the South Garden has just been done and we should begin planting there in the next couple of weeks.

. The gardeners have lots seedlings in flats, some of which will go out very soon. We are in the process of starting the warm weather vegetables, which can be challenging this time of year. Heating pads can be quite helpful. Tomatoes and eggplants are done and I'm getting ready to seed flats of hot and sweet peppers in the next few days, along with my second batch of lettuce.

Bekka has been busy working with our small fruit, weeding and mulching. She and Cedar planted some new grape vines this week

Another food crop that we are very enthused about is our shitake mushrooms. We grow them on logs behind our largest residence Karma. Cedar and a crew of helpers inoculated a new batch of logs on March 30. We do this every other year.

With the beginning of spring, Renay has joined the youth soccer league in Memphis. She is really enjoying it and eats, breathes and sleeps soccer these days. She and Michael have had some strenuous games in the middle of Sandhill Road. Michael grew up before the soccer craze hit the U.S. and hasn't played the sport, unlike some other Sandhill members. But he is willing to try it and seems to be having fun with the pickup games.

Gigi organized a soccer game at Dancing Rabbit before our last dinner with the Cattail folks on Thursday. Lots of their members came out to play and Renay was right there in the thick of it.

Last Thursday, we had a morning visit from Brent, who lives in Minneapolis. He is originally from Burlington, Iowa and met some of our folks at a fair there a few years back. I gave him a tour and he had lunch with us. He used to play soccer in high school and college and demonstrated some great trick moves for an appreciative audience.

The previous week we had our first potluck with the whole group at Dancing Rabbit. Our weekly dinners are normally with the Cattail eating co-op. It was nice to sample the cooking of the different folks who came. We hope to continue the potlucks on a regular monthly basis.

Another nice social occasion at the beginning of this last week was the Passover Seder held at the Common House at Dancing Rabbit. It was good to share the evening and the wonderful food with our friends there. Cecil did an excellent job of explaining the rituals and we all took turns reading from the Haggadah. There was also an uproarious search for a hidden piece of matzo cracker as part of the festivities. It finally showed up in one of Jacque's pockets. She apparently found it first and hid it again to keep the fun going.

Laird was out the door on March 31 for a trip by train to the West Coast and then to Colorado.

He worked with a group in Los Angeles and then doing some development work for the Fellowship for Intentional Community while he is in California. He will then head to Boulder for the FIC Spring Organizational Meetings and more group work and teaching before coming home on May 5.

Jess, Cedar and Skyler went to St. Louis on April 1 for a long weekend. Jess was the organizer of a training workshop for birth assistants that was held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Sarah from Dancing Rabbit also went down for it. Birth assistants work in conjuction with midwives and doctors to provide support for women during pregnancy and birth. Completion of the workshop is part of the certification requirments for people wishing to work in this field. Jess did a lot of work to get the workshop put together and it was a great success.

We received word this week that Sue's dad, Marshall Lloyd, passed away after a long battle with heart disease. He was with his family at their home on the shore of Lake Michigan. Sue and her family are very much in our thoughts at this time.