Our first intern of the 2004 growing season arrived on Wednesday, April 14. His name is Jayd and

he has just graduated from Miami University in Ohio. Jayd has settled right in and has already become an important part of our team in just two weeks. In addition to gardening, he has gotten involved in cooking, child care and some of our other work. Jayd will be with us at least through the summer. He will be starting a teaching job after he leaves Sandhill.

One of our very first interns, Brad, and his mother Marcia stopped by on the 15th for an overnight stay. Brad is back in Missouri after living in Seattle for a while. It has been one of the nice benefits of our internship program that many of our former interns become our friends and come back for visits.

Soccer mania still rules at Sandhill. We have had more games with the crew from Dancing Rabbit. One was played before their dinner with us here on the 15th and another over at Dancing Rabbit last Thursday evening. Renay has had some games with her youth league and still is very excited about the whole thing. She played in two games at Kahoka this Saturday.

Spring is moving right along here. We are still busy with the planting cycle. There was a group "go"

last Thursday to plant onion sets. Gigi, Bekka, Jayd, Renay and I made short work of it. I got my beet beds sown and Stan, Gigi and Jayd put in more potatoes. Michael has been busy spotting out his tomato seedlings, moving them into larger containers so they can grow out before going into the garden. Gigi has also been putting in some time on the herb garden and various landscaping jobs around our buildings.

We had a big push most of last week to get our sorghum transplants started. Folks sat out on our screened front porch and put the little tiny seeds in the big flats we use. It provided a great opportunity to hang out and people could drop in as they had time to help. All the flats are now in the large rectangular artificial pond by the Dharma garden.

Stan went up to Fairfield this week to inspect two farms. Cedar, Jess and Skyler left this morning (Sunday) on the train for Baltimore. Jess' best friend Laura is getting married there and they are going to attend the wedding. Laura has been a guest at Sandhill several times. She lives in St Louis where she is attending chiropractic school.

Stan and Jayd attended the blues festival in Memphis this afternoon. They both really enjoyed it and thought the band from Chicago was outstanding. Jayd and Alyson from Dancing Rabbit also did some impromptu swing dancing during the concert. I hope we have more events like this in Memphis.

Sue drove up from Columbia today where she has been visiting her friend Mary Beth and her family.

It is really good to have her here, but it is bittersweet. Sue has decided to move back to Michigan to be with her mother and is here to pack her things before heading back up to Montague on Tuesday morning. It's hard to lose such a valued member but we wish her well and plan to stay in touch.