Memphis Democrat Column from December 26, 2008

It is very quiet here on the farm right now. Gigi and Renay left just after lunch today (Friday) to do some holiday visiting in St. Louis. They will be seeing our friends Digger and Matthew and also the group at New Roots Farm. Jacob is riding along with them. He will be going down from St. Louis to East Wind Community for a short visit and then will begin a couple of months of travel that will take him south and west. After he returns, he plans to resume living at Red Earth Farms. Laird and Ma'ikwe returned from their travels on December 20th. Ma'ikwe met Laird's train coming from the west after his trip to Baja California and they went on to Asheville, North Carolina to do another session of their facilitiation training course. They stayed with Jo while they were there and paid a visit to Ann in Virginia. Marqis and Jibran picked them up and they all drove back to Missouri together. We have had a lovely holiday, even though the weather sometimes seemed to conspire against it. After Laird's return, we had a family get-together in the afternoon on the solstice that featured Gigi's apple pie. This gave us a chance to check in with each other after all our travels and other activities. Ceilee's wife Tosca and their daughter came up last Sunday to spend some time with Grandpa Laird and introduce Taivyn to Sandhill Farm. They were here until Tuesday and we really enjoyed the visit. Tosca drove back to her family's house in DeSoto and Ceilee flew out from Las Vegas on Wednesday to join them there for a few days before they have to return to Nevada.

Ma'ikwe, Jibran and his dad Marqis came over from Dancing Rabbit to also spend a couple of days with us. There were evenings of games and we also did something special on December 23rd that included appetizers and conversation before supper. It has been fun having Renay home from school for the holidays. She cooked us a wonderful meal with some help from her mom to celebrate the beginning of Chanukah this past Monday. It was a feast with a marinated venison roast, potato pancakes (latkes) and homemade jelly donuts (sufganiyot) . All of us here got a kick out of seeing her picture on the front page of the Memphis Democrat last week. She was one of the elves in the picture of the elementary school holiday program. Dancing Rabbit had a dinner on Christmas and Stan and Laird were there for that celebration. Gigi spent the afternoon and evening with French and Renay at his house. Jacob drove up to his hometown of Waterloo, Iowa on Christmas Eve to spend some time with his family. Michael made me one of his special Sicilian-style pasta dinners for our Christmas date. The weather has played havoc with a lot of things the past week or so. The snow wasn't bad and I rather enjoyed it. I could have done with the ice, though. Sandhill Road resembled a polished mirror until we got another snow and I gave up going across it to reach the FIC office for a few days. I did get a lot of my year end community accounting done, so the time was used productively. Except for a few short interruptions when the winds were blowing hard, we did not lose our power. One thing the weather also interrupted was our regular potlucks with our fellow communities. The one on the 9th was cancelled because the people there could not make it over to our place because of the road conditions. When we did get together here on December 16th, it was a small group due lots of folks from Dancing Rabbit and Red Earth being away. The icy conditions this last Tuesday made us decide again not to schedule it. All of us have been busy with non-holiday related activities, too. Winter means getting firewood and our crew have been making sure our buildings are well supplied. Michael has been working hard to keep our poultry, dogs and cats fed, watered and safe during this time. This kind of weather is particularly hard on the chickens and turkeys. During the worst of the cold, Gigi was having to get up during the night to keep the fire going in the greenhouse since we have greens and lettuce growing in there this winter. Gigi has been involved in the creation of a citizens group called Concerned Citizens of Scotland County (http://groups.google.com/group/SCcafos?hl=en). They advocate for local control and public awareness as corporate hog operations move into our county. They are meeting regularly to get a revised county Health Ordinance enacted as soon as possible. Both Stan and Laird have entered the world of blogs this year. Laird's focuses on his musings on a wide variety of topics, especially concerning community and group process. You can read it at http://communityandconsensus.blogspot.com/. Stan has been following the course of the agricultural year here at Sandhill and his features some great pictures of our various activities. The link is http://sorghumco.wordpress.com/.

We want to wish all our friends, both near and far, our best for the coming year. Hope we are heading for calmer waters this time around.