Hello everyone. I didn't make the early deadline last week since I was getting ready for a fair, so I have three weeks worth of news to catch up on.

Probably the biggest event during this time has been the Spring Assembly of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities, the group of communities to which Sandhill and Skyhouse at Dancing Rabbit belong. We cohosted the meetings with Skyhouse. Accomodations for the delegates and other community members accompanying them were split between our two groups.

The Federation has communities that are full members and others that hold associate status. The primary requirement is that the communities are income-sharing and they also abide by certain other principles such as environmental responsibility and participatory government. There are assemblies in the spring and fall and they are hosted by the different communities in turn.

In addition to the business meetings, there was an evening of discussion on a topic of interest to many of the communities, another evening of reports from the various communities of news and events, a party at Skyhouse, a delegate work day at both Sandhill and Skyhouse, community tours and meals together.

We had a chance to see old friends and make new ones. Some of the non-delegates who came did labor exchange to support the meetings, which was much appreciated. Members of eight of the member communities were in attendance.They arrived on Friday, May 16, and left for home on May 22.

The day before the Assembly started our second intern, Josie, arrived to spend the growing season with us. She has been part of a college-level program called the Audubon Expedition Institute for the past year. She travelled all over the U.S. on a bus with a group of students doing field studies as part of a program of environmentally-based education. This included time in Alaska. Josie celebrated her twenty first birthday with us on the 24th.

On May 22, our third intern, Pi, arrived. She will be with us until the beginning of September. Pi is a graduate of Scattergood Quaker School in Iowa and has been living in Iowa City and New Orleans since she finished high school. Her mother, Susan, dropped her off and spent the night with us before going on to Colorado and California.

We had a visitor, Rachel, from May 12 to May 16. She is from the Chicago area and is attending Eastern Ilinois University in Charleston. Amy, a visitor at Dancing Rabbit, came by for a tour as did a senior citizens group from Mexico, Missouri. Irene Mayfield showed them around the Rutledge area and their bus stopped at Dancing Rabbit and Zimmerman's, too. We also had visits from Angelina's mother Kathleen, who came down from Wisconsin, and Josie's friend Lisa.

Skyler decided on the 22nd that he was ready to walk and he hasn't stopped since. He is also starting to say some words more distinctly, such as "hat" and "Hi!". Miss Zoe's vocabulary increases daily and she is also showing evidence of a very highly developed sense of humor. Both of them are keeping us on our toes these days.

Another big milestone for us was Ceilee's graduation from Amherst University on May 25. Laird drove to Massachusetts on the 17th to be with him. Ann and other family members were also there. Ceilee is now here visiting us for a couple of weeks before he moves to Columbia and begins work on setting up a business.

Laird went on to Tennessee after the graduation to attend board meetings for the Fellowship for Intentional Community which were held at The Farm, a community in Summertown. He and Jo are going on a father-daughter canoe trip in Florida before coming home on June 13th.

Sue left for Michigan this past Friday to visit with her family. She is due back on June 9. Another traveller was Stan, who was gone for a week on an inspection trip to western Kansas, getting back on the 25th.

Michael and I participated in Riverfest in Hannibal on May 24 and May 25. Rain dampened things a bit on Saturday, but the weather on Sunday was glorious and there were lots of folks there. It was nice to see some of our friends who were also participating, including Jim and Setsuko Nishida-Adams from Memphis.