Memphis Democrat Column from October 02, 2005

it's definitely been a sorghum extravaganza the past couple of weeks here at Sandhill. We started the harvest on September 21 by stripping and cutting a new variety we are trying out this year. It is an heirloom Amish one called "Daniel Miller". Our friend Herman at Nature's Pace Sanctuary, a community in southern Missouri, gave us the seed this past spring.

Our first sorghum cook of the season was on September 24. It was a test run for our new boiler to make sure everything was working smoothly. The processing also gave us a chance to familiarize ourselves with the steam sorghum pan we borrowed to use this year.

Kris, with help from Stan and Otto, has a done a great job of getting us up and running. He used to rebuild steam locomotives for railway museums and has also worked with boilers in other settings.

Stan had to go up to Des Moines on business last Monday, so he and Kris took the opportunity to visit another sorghum maker in Linnville, Iowa who also uses steam to cook syrup. They have looked at some other steam sorghum operations in the past year or so and find this is a good way to get pointers about the process.

Lots of old and new friends have gathered here to help us bring in the harvest. We are hosting a six person labor exchange crew from Twin Oaks this year. Thomas, Alexis, Emily, Sean, Summer and Apple have been a lot of fun to have around during the week they have been here. We already were acquainted with Apple because of her visit to Skyhouse last spring and it turns out that Michael and I know Thomas who was a member of East Wind Community in 1991.

Three labor exchangers from East Wind, Sarah, Bree and Emmett arrived Saturday evening and will be here until October 10.

We are also having a return visit from Twin Oak members River and Marielle, who were with us earlier in the season. They have been travelling in the western U.S. and Canada and are on their way back east. Recent Twin Oak members Teo and Juniper are also here for sorghum. The front porch scene has had the flavor of a Twin Oaks reunion the past several days.

We have also had visitors other than from our two sister communities. Tony, who was a three week visitor at Dancing Rabbit, came over to spend some time with us, too. Our friend Matthew is here from St. Louis and his stepbrother Andy also came up for a short stay this past week. Kevin is back again this year from southern Illinois for his fourth sorghum season. Peter arrived from Minnesota this past weekend for his first one and will be with us until harvest is over. We also had shorter visits from other St. Louis friends, Digger, Jasmin, Vince and Katie, who brought along her two children.

The visitors have not been only been busy with harvesting and processing sorghum. They have helped with cooking meals, spent time with both Renay and Kai, assisted us with gardening weeding and harvesting, repaired tools, sharpened our knives, and took on some needed projects. Ian and Otto worked on a new side porch for the White House and Ian also replaced some of the wooden siding on Karma. Tony crafted a much needed additional bookcase for our ever expanding community library and Otto fixed the balky light fixtures in the kitchen. All this energy has been much appreciated.

There has been lots of social activity with all the folks here. We had our open house Saturday afternoon and then a number of people went over to Dancing Rabbit for their land day celebration. We had a bridge game in the kitchen and a spades game in the living room the other evening. There was a salon after supper tonight. The front porch has been the in place for coffee, tea and conversation. We have also been enjoying some spectacular meals with all the cooking talent available.

We also hosted visits by both Brad's mother Marsha and Matthew's mother Susan at the end of this week. Marsha lives in Rolla and has visited Sandhill before. It was Susan's first visit and it was nice to get to know more of Matthew's family.

Gigi invited some new friends from Kirksville, the Perrys, to come over for the day on the 23rd. They have three children. Renay enjoyed getting to know them and they came back for another visit this Saturday during the open house.

We said goodbye during the past week to Otto, Geoff, Jane, Ian, and Tony. However, more folks are due to arrive to help with the harvest. Our intern from last year, Megen, just walked in the door as I am writing this column. She and Redge have travelled from Pennsylvania to be with us. Welcome friends!



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