Memphis Democrat Column from August 07, 2005

Cole, who joined us this year as our dog member, has been hanging out under the front porch a lot the past few weeks. I asked him the other day if he wanted to come out for a while and he stared at me like I had lost my marbles. "Are you kidding, these are the dog days of August!", he said incredulously. I guess he's right about that. After the brief respite Thursday evening and Friday, it looks like we are right back into the hot and rainless mode.

In spite of the less than ideal weather, we have been having some great harvests of garden crops.

The green beans are plentiful, we have had enough corn to be able to freeze some, carrots and celery are in abundance and the beets, tomatoes and peppers are appearing on our table. We have had yummy sweet onions for summer meals and processing and yellow onions are being dried and braided for winter storage.

Even in these "dog days", Michael and I have been starting some flats of crops for the fall garden.

I have lettuce sowed and he is babying his tiny Chinese cabbage and brussels sprouts. We are getting ready to clear beds for the lettuce, fall spinach and my Asian greens patch.

Stan has been visiting the bees in preparation for the upcoming honey harvest. He has posted some statistics about our bees on our dayboard in the sitting room. We have 33 hives this year and he estimates their populations as 33 queens, 3,000 drones (males) and 700,000 - 1,000,000

workers (females).

Stan was on the road again, to eastern Nebraska this time, for another round of organic farm inspections. He left on July 25 and got back home August 1. Some of the farmers he worked with this time were early pioneers in the organic farming movement and it was interesting to hear his reflections about them.

Gigi, Renay and Emma went to Thousand Hills State Park this past Thursday for an overnight camping trip. Despite heavy rain that night, they still had a great day on Friday bicycling, swimming and going out on the lake in a kayak and paddle boat.

Laird went down to Columbia for three days on July 28 to do deliveries and spend time with Ceilee.

He helped him hang drywall as part of the remodeling project Ceilee is doing in his house. When Laird returned he brought back with him our new intern, Karene.

Karene has been living in Columbia and grew up south of Jefferson City. This past June she travelled to Murren, Switzerland with a Global Yoga Journeys group and even did a little mountain-climbing while she was she was there. She has settled right in at Sandhill and we are glad to have her here.

She and our other interns have been staying busy with gardening, food processing, cooking, tempeh making, chicken and turkey care and all the other multitude of chores here at Sandhill. There has also been time for personal craft projects such as sewing and bead weaving. Kirk, Chifumi and Joanne have spent a lot time with Renay and Emma the past couple of weeks and Karene is also making friends with the girls. Kirk and Joanne have even had individual play-dates with the Johnson

children at Dancing Rabbit this past week.

After the weekly potluck supper on July 30, several of our group attended a workshop given by visitors at Dancing Rabbit who are affiliated with ZEGG Community in Germany. It was a demonstration of a style of group process that they use in their community. It is always quite interesting to see how different communities approach interactions in their groups.

Alline and Kurt from DR and our long-time local friend Kent had lunch with us Monday. It gave us a chance to spend some social time with Alline and Kurt before they left for California this past Wednesday. On Wednesday evening, Alyson and Chad from Red Earth Farms were here for supper.

Our visitor and guest scene has been full the past week. Stan's sister Chris came down from Winnepeg with her daughters Helena and Angie and her granddaughter Maria. They were here from Monday to Friday. They had been here before and made a lively addition to our front porch scene. Helena and Angie made friends with the interns and jumped into the ongoing craft projects. Maria, who is Helena's daughter and who is five, had fun with Renay and Emma and endeared herself to everyone here.

We also hosted two members of Twin Oaks Community Monday through Thursday. Br visited here several times while she was living in Iowa City a few years ago, but it was Alex's first time at Sandhill. He and I have a lot of email contact due to our volunteer work for the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. It was nice to be able to finally meet the person behind the emails.

Another visitor, Daniel, just arrived today from Seattle with his five year old son Jason for a week's visit. He is exploring community for the first time. His wife, who is a registered nurse, was not able to make this trip with them, but hopes to go along on their future journeys.

Ceilee is also here this weekend for a visit and it is always nice to have him around. He has a project he wants to work on in preparation for hunting season this fall.

This time of the year folks also come out to the farm for tours. This past week, Dr. Leavens from Truman State University and his daughter joined Alex, Bri, Chris and Karene for a tour on Wednesday morning. This morning the Hallman family from Arizona, who are currently staying in Nauvoo, drove over to see Sandhill.

Another aspect of the vistor program that has been extra busy the past few weeks is our correspondence. I handle most of the visitor emails and mail for our group and we have experienced

a big jump in the numbers of people contacting us. This is the direct result of the airings of the "30 Days" episode that was filmed recently at Dancing Rabbit. There is a link to our website from the Rabbits' site and folks are finding us through that link. It is amazing to reflect on the effect this show is having on our little group of communities in Scotland County.