We know that spring is really here when the first of the season's interns arrives. Mike made his entrance this past Friday. He was here for sorghum harvest a couple of seasons ago, so he is not a complete stranger. Mike is a former member of East Wind Community in southern Missouri. It will be nice to have him as part of the scene here.

Our friend Carrie and her daughter Abreaze, who were Sandhill residents a few years ago, arrived by train from Colorado on the seventh for a week's visit. Abreaze and Cory had a wonderful time together. The girls decided that we needed to have another birthday party and, since it was nobody's birthday right now, the celebration was for NOBODY. With Sol's help, they baked a couple of chocolate cakes after supper one evening, decorated them with some of our own beeswax birthday candles and all of us sang "Happy Birthday". This is the kind of spontaneous fun that we really enjoy. It is hard for us to say goodbye to Carrie and Abreaze as they go on to New Jersey, but we have the promise that they will return again later this year.

Laird left for Madison, Wisconsin on the fourth to work with groups there and to attend a conference.

Jon, Angelina, and Zoe rode up with him on the way to spend time with Angelina's family in Wisconsin.

Laird had a chance to visit with former Sandhill member Rebecca while in Madison and also see two of our 2001 interns, Stephanie and Kristy. Our travellers returned to Sandhill Monday.

We set up for our first Dog and Gun Saturday in Rutledge this past weekend. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed visiting with old and new customers at our table. Michael, Sue and Bekka and I were the crew this time around.

On Sunday, we hosted a class from the University of Kansas. They travelled from Lawrence to spend the weekend with both us and Dancing Rabbit. Cedar gave the group a tour of the farm in the morning.

After lunch, the students and their instructors helped us with some of our work. This kind of outreach is fun for us and I think we learn as much from these groups as they do from us.

Our outdoor work is intensifying, which is the normal routine when the weather warms. Gigi has been setting out transplants of early lettuce, salad greens and hardy herbs. Chad has finished up the major work involved in pruning our fruit trees. Stan is getting ready for the seeding of the big sorghum transplant flats and has been busy with the bees. Michael has been tending many flats of seedlings until it is time for them to go out in the north garden. There have been "gos" to set out onion sets and plant potatoes. The work of cutting wood for sorghum cooking is ongoing and Cedar has been organizing regular work sessions to get it done.

A current project is to set up a water system for the gardens located near our small residence and our big barn on Sandhill Road. We have recently acquired a pump to move water from the pond behind them and Stan located a large storage tank this past week near Unionville and picked it up. This will

enable us to expand our plantings to feed ourselves and to use in some of our products.