The weather has been a big factor in our lives here at Sandhill Farm since the last time I wrote this column. Rain has kept us indoors more on some days and the sun has smiled on us on others. In spite of the changing weather, we have been managing to get things done. I'm sure that is true for all of you, too.

The gardens are taking shape. We have decided to set up a drip irrigation system in the gardens by our small residence building and the barn. Gigi is busy with getting the equipment and fittings we need ordered and will supervise the final set-up. Michael has tomato seedlings ready to go out in the next few days. A group of us had a weeding "go" in the onions and they are now being mulched.

Former interns Stephanie and Kristry came down from Madison, Wisconsin for a weekend visit on the second. They pitched in and helped Michael, Mike, Bekka and I get the lettuce transplants set out. Work does go a lot faster when there are many hands to do it.

The lettuce that Gigi planted in cold frames and early beds this spring is now ready and we have been having some lovely salads with that and wild-crafted greens such as violet leaves, chickweed and young lambs quarters. We have also been having stir-fries made with the broccoli raab and mustard she planted.

Laird and Stan have been going out on morel-foraging expeditions during the past couple of weeks.

This is apparently a banner year for these succulent morsels and we have been enjoying them immensely. Laird has come home with a couple that he says are the biggest ones he has every found.

We are also getting good harvests off our shitake logs, so we are mushroom-rich.

Our home-grown boy Skyler had his first birthday on the eighth. Cedar's folks, Lin and Bill, came from Colorado for the occasion and we had a before-dinner get together last Thursday to celebrate. Skyler is starting to cover a lot of territory holding onto furniture and knees and is saying his first words.

Most of us have stayed close to home recently. Sue did go down to Columbia for a couple of days last week to stay with friends whose child was having surgery. Bekka took a weekend trip down to the Rochport area to bike on the Katy Trail.

We have been doing a lot of socializing lately. We have had our usual dinners each Thursday with the folks from Dancing Rabbit. On the evening of the fourth, a group of us got together in the living room of the White House and read The Wind In The Willows aloud to each other. The previous day, a group of Sandhill and Dancing Rabbit folks, along with Stephanie and Kristy, went to the Round Barn Blues Festival in Kirksville.

The big event of the past two was our annual May Day/Land Day party this last Saturday. This year we were celebrating our community's twenty ninth anniversary, which was on May 8. In addition to the Rabbits, we had guests from four other communities in attendance: Twin Oaks and Abundant Dawn in Virginia and Sunnyside and Terra Nova in Columbia. We also had friends come from St. Louis, Sedalia, Texas, Iowa and the local area for the party.

We had lots of wonderful food, good music and dancing. A group of musicians from Dancing Rabbit accompanied the dance around the Maypole and our friend Peter from Columbia led the round dances that followed. We visited with folks well into the evening and it was nice to hear everyone's news.

We did have a surprise guest in the form of some rough weather. Two tornado warnings during the course of the party sent folks scurrying to our root cellar and the downstairs hall in Karma for shelter. Fortunately, other than some very intense wind gusts and driving rain, most of it missed us. Thank you to Judy Sharp for calling and alerting us to the first twister in the area.