Memphis Democrat Column from March 02, 2008

It is feeling very much like Spring this afternoon, even though more wintery weather is in the forecast for late tonight. The indoor-outdoor thermometer in the kitchen is reading in the mid-70s outside and it is hard to remember that we were deep in snow and ice a few days ago. I could hear the geese flying south last night and caught a glimpse of their shadowy forms against the background of the stars as I walked down the road to Dharma. The thaw has started the maple sap flowing again. Stan, Gigi and Renay have been busy today with bringing in the full buckets and starting the first cook at Sugar Shack. This afternoon, Alyson brought over the sap her crew of Dancing Rabbit/Red Earth folks have collected so far. A sure sign of Spring at Sandhill Farm is that we have begun our process of accepting internship applications and interviewing the candidates. We have done five phone interviews during the past two weekends and have accepted our first two interns. Ann and Kevin, who were visitors at Sandhill last fall, will be joining us early in April and plan to be here a good part of the season. Gigi and I have been impressed with the high quality of the applicants this year and the interviews have been very interesting to do. Another sign of Spring is that we are getting ready to begin our first garden seedlings. Michael will be getting his brassicas started this week and Gigi will planting the beds in the new greenhouse with tender early greens. All of our seed orders have arrived and we are not facing any long waits for backordered seed this time around. The available supply of organic garden seed improves every year and this makes our planning and work much easier. Toby and Michelle from Dancing Rabbit, along with their son Adam, are spending this month with us while they work on building their new residence and getting it ready for occupancy. Adam is a very alert and perky five month old now and it is a lot of fun having a baby to hang out with again. We are also enjoying having Toby and Michelle as part of our social scene. Laird was able to spend a few days at home last week. He is now in Texas. He had work in Houston this weekend and will be going on to Austin where he and Ma'ikewe will doing more work. After that, they will be attending his niece's wedding in San Antonio and he with then head out to Oregon for the 80th birthday celebration of an old friend. Stan was on the road this past week. He and Amy from Skyhouse attended the winter meetings of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities at East Wind Community in southern Missouri. Otto and Oliver rode down with them, Otto returning home after his fall and winter at Sandhill and Oliver to spend some time visiting and helping out at East Wind. Renay has had a full schedule of activities on her plate the past few weeks. She is participating in basketball again this year. The program has been organized by folks from the local community and it is nice to see this kind of activity available for elementary students. Renay is also getting ready for the Little Poms show at the school and math competition. This week, she will be a volunteer score-keeper for Quiz Bowl. Birthdays have continued to be a feature of our life this month. Michael celebrated his on February 15th. He and I had a special day out in Kirksville, including a nice lunch at El Vaquero. Stan was next on February 20th. He managed to get two cakes for his since Alline brought him one when she came to the Tuesday potluck and Gigi made another one the next day on his actual birthday. February 20th was also the day of the full lunar eclipse. With the bitter cold that night, we all kept running outside to watch the show for as long as we could stand it at any one time. Conditions were perfect, making it worth the discomfort to see it. I understand it will be a couple of years before the opportunity comes around again.