Memphis Democrat Column from January 30, 2005

The theme of this winter seems to be friends. We have been hosting some gatherings recently and have also spent time with other friends. I forgot to mention in my last column that we had an unexpected visit on January 15 from one of the founding members of Sandhill, Ed, and his daughter Alison. They had lunch with us before going to Dancing Rabbit for the afternoon. I had heard a lot about Ed and his wife Wendy who helped start Sandhill Farm in 1974 with Laird and Ann. It was a pleasure to finally meet him. Ed has fond memories of his time as a teacher at the Rutledge school. He is now an attorney in Farmington and Alison is going to graduate school in Chicago and studying early childhood education.

These dark winter evenings have also lent themselves to cozy get-togethers over supper. It has been nice to have some of the Rabbits over on an individual basis to hang out and enjoy a good meal. Some of our recent guests have been Chad, Alyson, Arjen, Stephanie and Susan. Tonight (Sunday) Susie invited four of her friends from Kirksville, Julie, Maria, Zack and Rizwan, to have supper with us and stay overnight at the farm.

Stan brought another old friend from East Wind, Otto, back with him after picking up the boiler in Texas.

Otto is doing labor exchange and will be with us for a while. He has been here several times before and Michael and I have been friends with him for about fifteen years. Otto has a lot of experience with wood-cutting and forestry, as well as maintenance skills. His help is much appreciated and we have already made good progress on getting more wood for our stoves and for sorghum cooking in the week he has been here.

We kicked off our birthday season this past week. My birthday was on Tuesday and Alyson's was on Wednesday. We thought this was a good excuse to have a party and we decided to have it in conjunction with our weekly dinner. Tuesday evening, a large group walked over from Dancing Rabbit to socialize for an hour before the meal and more of the group arrived a bit later. There was lots of delicious food and two orange poundcakes with coconut frosting baked by Gigi. After everyone caught their breath, we had a "No-Talent Show" in our living room. Nicole, aided by the doll "Sparkle Friend" that she had made for Alyson and "Upside-Down Man"(aka Thomas) on harmonica, led the group in one of her unique dance routines. Alyson, Andrew and Ted sang a beautifully harmonized musical setting of a poem by Tennyson. Susie introduced us to "Pudgy", a very unusual character, and Renay rounded off the fun by telling us two great stories.

Ceilee had a birthday this past week on Thursday. It seems hard to believe that he is twenty four.

I met him for the first time when he was ten and the years have sure flown by. A happy birthday to our neighbor Paul Slater also.

In between all the fun times, we have been managing to get some work done. As I mentioned before, we have doing a lot of wood runs. This also means that the wood has to be split and stacked.

Susie and Laird have been working on new shelves for the downstairs hallway in Karma. This will enable us to store our dried herbs in a more convenient and accessible location. Gigi has been trying to move along some of her ongoing projects also, so the woodshop is a busy place these days.

Otto and Stan have been doing some needed tree trimming and Otto has also been helping Gigi get some of our garden tools back into shape for the upcoming season. We have started doing trips out to the Lewis farm north of Arbela where we get material for our compost pile by cleaning out their barn.

Susie, Gigi and I have now done three interviews with potential interns and two of them have accepted positions for this year. One of the new interns will be here in April and the other one in July. It is a fun process and we are excited about getting to know these people and including them in our work and lives.

We had a bit of excitement Saturday morning. A wild turkey, apparently a bit confused by the falling snow, flew into the south side of our farmhouse. The impact made a very loud bang and put a dent in our white siding. From where I was on the other side of the same wall, it sounded like a large tree limb had hit the building. Michael went outside to investigate and saw the turkey sitting dazed in one of the cold frames being stored next to the house. The bird got its wits together enough to jump out of the frame and hobble up the hill toward the Slaters.