Howdy Folks. It seems like it's hard for us to get into a regular schedule to write here. Lucky for you, it's not us putting out this paper.

We continue to have lots of comings and goings. Ann and Ceilee were here for New Year's, although just barely. At 2 am, Jan 1, Laird took a bunch of us to the St Louis airport. Ann and Stan went to Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala for 4 weeks and Ceilee and Jennifer flew to London to study at the University of London this semester. Ann and Stan managed time on the beach and visited the old homestead in Guatemala where Stan lived 25 years ago. They also did an inspection of an organic coffee farm that took 8 hours on a bus and then a 2 and a half hour hike up a mountain to get to. uffda! coffee never tasted so good! Our return was graced with that lovely snowfall we had at the end of January. Ann spent almost a week here visiting friends before returning to Virginia. Ceilee and Jennifer called us right after the super bowl game - which was about 3:30 am their time and we had a nice chat.

In the meantime, Sol and Cedar returned from spending holidays with family on the east coast. Geoff and Jane came for about 2 weeks before heading off to Iowa City where they hope to find work and save some money.

Folks here got some skating and hockey time with some of the dancing rabbits. Chad made more hockey sticks for the interested players. Gigi and Cory hopped on the train and visited friends and former members in Colorado and the west coast for 3 weeks. And Laird is still somewhere on the road doing consulting and process work. He is expected home later this week.

This week we are also anticipating the arrival of 3 new members: Susan from Columbia, and Kathe and Michael from southern Missouri. That will bring our adult membership to 10 and in a week we begin our annual community retreat. With 6 new members here, we'll have more things to talk about than we'll possibly get to in a week. Luckily, we have the rest of our lives....

In the meantime, it's maple season! Both the rabbits and the sandhillers have tapped maple trees, are collecting sap, and beginning to boil it down. This is such a lovely time to be in the woods. It is kind of odd, though, for us farmers to be harvesting a crop when there's snow on the ground.

Work on the "new res" is continuing with painting and laying down wood floors. Chad reorganized and cleaned out the work shop. It is such a pleasure to be in again. It's amazing the clutter we put up with sometimes.

We are anticipating friends coming from various parts to stay with us this weekend for some community meetings over at the rabbit hutch. It sounds like we'all are coming and going all the time. But most days, most of us do not leave the farm. Really!