Memphis Democrat Column from July 08, 2007

We are continuing to make great progress on the construction of our new greenhouse. As I mentioned in my last column, we got the foundation done quickly without any problems. We began to build the earthbag walls on June 28th. Local community folks Chad and Jacob from Red Earth Farms and Thomas, Rory, Ali and Jason from Dancing Rabbit came to lend a hand at various times and Gigi also had lots of help from our interns and visitors.

Earthbagging involves filling recycled plastic feed or grain sacks with lots of dirt and using them as building blocks. It involves a fair amount of shoveling, lifting and tamping the bags to shape them after they are in place. Everyone worked with a will and lots of good humor which made the whole process a positive experience. The last of the earthbags was put in place last Tuesday and we are ready to begin framing the upper part of the structure. Greg and Gigi have put the sill in place on top of the four course high earthbag wall and tied it in to prepare for that work. During the past few days Apple, Thea and Stephanie were busy painting the wall with a clay slip to protect the bags until we can apply an earth plaster during a later stage of construction. Harvesting from the garden has started to pick up. We have been enjoying broccoli, kale, collards, chard and other greens for a while now. I am getting ready to doing another thinning of the beets and my second lettuce patch is providing us with daily salads again. Michael has had some nice pickings of zucchini and cucumbers and Emmet is making sure the green beans and carrots appear in the cooler. Gigi, Doug, Apple and one of our visitors, Melissa, dug our first potatoes of the season yesterday and today.

Food processing is also on the upswing. We have frozen lots of greens and broccoli already, along with strawberries and rhubarb. I did the first quarts of green beans yesterday and gave Thea and Stephanie an orientation on how to use our big pressure canner. We have also been harvesting herbs. We have made cilantro and parsley into frozen cubes for later use and have been drying basil and oregano. We grew an excellent crop of wheat this year and Stan has been harvesting it this week. We raise both hard and soft wheat. Greg got the new wheat bin done just in time for it to be filled up. Sandhill folks have also been busy with lots of other work. There is always mowing, maintenance, field work, taking care of the poultry, laundry, cooking and a host of other tasks to keep our time occupied here on the farm. We have had a full house the past couple of weeks. As I mentioned in my last column our friend Doug is here for his annual visit before going back to sea in the Merchant Marine. Jerry also returned for three days to help with the earthbag construction work before starting a visitor period at East Wind Community in southern Missouri. This week, we hosted two Canadian visitors, Shane and Melissa, for a couple of days. They are associated with an ecovillage in Ontario and are on an extensive tour this summer researching communities and sustainablity projects in the U.S. They also visited Dancing Rabbit and Red Earth Farms while they were in the area. We also had visits from friends and family during this time. Former Skyhouse/DR member Jacque and her son Narayan are here from Hawaii this summer and spent a few days with us. Our longtime friend Gretchen came down from Chicago for another visit. Emmet's sisters Pamela and Karen and his niece Jane travelled from their homes in Knoxville and Philadelphia to see him. With all the folks here, there have been several evenings of playing games. Emmet has taken the lead in organizing music sessions during the recent community potlucks. There have also been lots of opportunities for relaxed conversation on the front porch. On July 4th, we had a Hawaiian luau. Laird and Apple made a wonderful supper for us and our guests. The rest of us raided our closets and the community costume box and appeared in various semi-Hawaiian outfits.

Doug, Thea, Apple and Renay had all made amazing volcanos of found materials which erupted after supper. Some had pink and red lava made from vinegar, baking soda, dish soap and food coloring and Doug powered his with diet cola and Mentos candy. They have all been retired to various spots in our landscaping and herb garden as works of art. We finished off the evening with some fireworks. Renay has been participating in the Memphis swim team for the past few weeks and has been to some meets already. She has twice placed first in breast stroke in her age division. She has also been babysitting Aurelia regularly and has been busy with other activities this summer. Today she is attending a Girl Scout event at her troop leader's home. Laird left on Amtrak Thursday for the San Francisco Bay Area and Ma'ikwe joined him on the train at Albuquerque. We received word last week that our friend Geoph is seriously ill and they have gone out there to see how they can help him. We all felt this was the best thing to do and Laird has promised to keep us updated.