As I am sitting at the computer trying to decide what to write, I'm looking at the calendar for June.

It features a train winding across and down the page drawn by our recent five year old visitor, Adrian. Contrary to what you might expect, the month begins with the caboose. Adrian is a railroad enthusiast and his parents often make stops so he can look at passing trains. I understand he was hoping he might see one on the way out of Rutledge when they left.

Music has been the theme of the past couple of weeks. Our interns all love to sing and have fine voices. They also composed a song while working in the garden together and graced us with a performance of it after supper one night. I was walking across the road from Karma after watering my seedling flats tonight and could hear Jayd and Susie singing on the front porch of the White House.

Jayd has a degree in music education and plays several instruments, but Kristen and Susie just enjoy music in general.

As I mentioned before, Jayd likes to swing dance and gave some lessons to folks at Dancing Rabbit during the last couple of weeks. He and Alyson danced on the front porch before one of our potluck dinners week before last. They are both very good at it and it's fun to watch them.

Michael and I were at Riverfest in Hannibal last Saturday and Sunday. It was a beautiful weekend except for the last part of the fair on Sunday. Despite a brief shower while we were setting up that day, the weather turned nice and there was a good crowd. However, mid-afternoon the fair organizers came around and told all the vendors that there were severe storms moving in from the west and that there had been tornados at Macon. We all packed up and the two of us decided to wait the storm out in Hannibal instead of driving into the obviously heavy rain to the north of town. Michael and I had the experience of standing in a parking lot and seeing a very dark wall cloud with what was left of a tornado

moving rapidly across the Mississippi. By the time we drove home, the sun had broken through.

Stan was on a organic inspection trip in Kansas last week and also ran into some severe weather on Saturday. He stopped to eat afterwards and the folks at the restaurant told him they had not been able to see across the street earlier. The rest of his trip was calmer and he arrived home Wednesday evening.

Laird attended a communities conference over Memorial Day weekend at The Farm, a community in Summertown, TN. He was a presenter, visited with a lot of people and set up a book table for Community Bookshelf, the bookstore run by the Fellowship for Intentional Community. He also got

home Wednesday night.

Bekka flew to Seattle from Kansas City on Friday. She is attending the Spring Assembly of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities as Sandhill's delegate. She will stay on after the meetings are over at the end of this week to visit with friends there and do some travelling in the Pacific Northwest.

She will be back at the beginning of July.

A visitor, Doug, arrived last Wednesday by train from Florida. He is in the merchant marine and knows our friend Tess, who is also working on merchant ships. He has been enthusiastically hoeing beds, scything cover crops down and weeding since he got here and his help has been much appreciated.

Jo is also here now. She and her classmate Shosanna, who is from Washington, DC, are visiting for a couple of days before heading down to Columbia to meet up with Ceilee and other friends. They will be going as a group to a festival in Tennessee this coming week. We will see Jo again later in the summer.

Laird was recruited at the last minute to fill out a foursome for a bridge tournament in Keokuk today.

Someone had to drop out due to family problems. Bridge is one of Laird's joys and he plays regularly on Wednesday nights in Kirksville when he is home.

We have heard from Cedar and Jess that they are getting settled in. Jess is working part-time for Main Squeeze, a restaurant in Columbia that is one of our customers, and has started her classes at Columbia College. Cedar has just gotten a full-time job at Stephens College. Skyler has been enjoying playing in the park near their apartment.