Life at Sandhill Farm seems to be getting busier and busier these fine spring days. Our schedules are full with planting, projects, chores and lots of visitors. The quickened pace seems to extend to everything here. I notice that the wrens who occupy the birdhouse by the office window are meeting themselves coming and going.

Since I last did this column we have had a bit of a visitor rush. The first one to arrive on the 22nd for a five day stay was Gabriel, who is from Barcelona,Spain. The next day Alyosha came over from Dancing Rabbit , where he had been visiting previously. He stayed until this Sunday. Lesli and her two year old daughter Irie came the next weekend and are still here.This past week, we have had visits from some of our interns from last summer. Sylvia came up from St. Louis where she is attending graduate school and stayed from Tuesday until Thursday morning. Stephanie and Kristy arrived from Madison, Wisconsin Thursday night and are leaving Monday to go back to their jobs.

We had our friend Rainbow over from Dancing Rabbit for a farewell dinner on the 18th. We are happy that she has found a good home in Virginia, but we are going to miss her.

The first of this season's interns, Jen, arrived on the 25th just in time for our first big morel meal. It is fitting since she is an avid mushroom hunter. Jen has visited us before, so it was good to see her again. She lives in California, but is originally from Hawaii. We are really appreciating her energy and help in our many work areas.

We are almost done with the transplanting and seeding in the north garden. Gigi and a crew of helpers laid out beds and planted potatoes in the south garden on Sunday. Stan and another crew transplanted sweet corn in the field by the new residence the same day. Sorghum starts will start going in soon if the weather cooperates.

The interior work on the new residence was finished on time. Cedar, Sol and Sue are getting settled in their new rooms. We are really happy that everything has fallen into place before Cedar and Sol's baby arrives at the end of this month.

Laird left for Ontario on May 1st to attend the annual meeting of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, of which he is the Executive Secretary. He is also attending some other events while he is in Canada.

We had our annual May Day celebration this past Saturday. Despite the predictions of possibly cloudy, rainy weather, it turned out to be a perfectly glorious day. Many old friends came for the party, along with lots of the Rabbits. We had yummy food, games, dancing(including around our maypole), and great music. An ensemble of musicians from Dancing Rabbit performed before and during the maypole dance. They included Cecil on trombone, Don on guitar, Penn on banjo and Tamar on fiddle.

Our friend Larry also joined them on fiddle. The madrigal singers from Dancing Rabbit performed for us, led by Jeffrey, and we had recorder duets and trios by Alyosha, Alyson and Sue.

Some folks who came for the party stayed and visited with us through the weekend. They included former resident Matthew and his friend Carrie from St. Louis and our friends Brent and Carol, who live near Sedalia. We are expecting another former resident, Carrie, and her daughter Abreaze to arrive Monday for a two or three week stay. One the nice things about this time of year is having more old and new friends with us.