Memphis Democrat Column from December 28, 2006

It's been extra quiet on the farm the past week or so. Some of our crew has been on the road and the train, off to spend the holiday with family and friends.

Betsy and Sue were the first to go on the 20th. They drove to Holden for a few days with Sue's folks and are now in Arkansas spending time with their friends. The next day, Gigi and Renay left on Amtrak for Arizona. They enjoyed a very special holiday at the Grand Canyon. Gigi has called home a couple of times and said they had a great time exploring the trails and other areas on the South Rim where the hotel is located. They are spending the rest of their winter vacation with a friend of Gigi's in Flagstaff. Laird, Ma'ikwe and Jibran arrived from Albuquerque on December 18 and Ceilee joined them and Jo here. On the 22nd, Laird, Ma'ikwe, Jibran and Jo left for Michigan to spend Christmas with Ma'ikwe's family. Ceilee stayed on until the next day. Laird, Ma'ikwe and Jibran returned to Sandhill by Amtrak on December 26, encountering Tony, Rachel and Suzanne from Dancing Rabbit at Union Station in Chicago before they all boarded the Quincy train. From Michigan, Jo drove to southern Vermont. She is now house sitting there while looking for work and a place to live in the area around Amherst, Massachusetts, which is not far away. Before folks started dispersing, we had some lovely celebrations. Jo made one of her awesome sushi dinners for all of us on her last cook day the Tuesday before she left. On Wednesday, before supper we had our "family" gift exchange, along with appetizers and refreshments. On Thursday, Laird, Ma'ikwe, Jo and Ceilee cooked a holiday meal for us and Cecil from Dancing Rabbit. Christmas evening found just Stan, Michael, Otto and myself at home. I made a special supper featuring some of our home raised chicken and French joined us for the meal. We had a nice evening and really enjoyed each other's company. Now that the snow is history (at least for the time being), we have been able to make progress on some of our outdoor projects. Stan, Otto and Michael have all been working on moving along cutting, splitting and stacking firewood. Betsy and Sue also put in some time on the wood crew before they left for the holidays. Stan and Otto are in the process of building a new wood shed behind the White House, which will go a long way toward keeping our wood drier. Sue also helped them build a large shed at Sugar Shack to house our sorghum wood a couple of weeks ago. I have been busy the past couple of weeks at the FIC office, where I work part-time, shipping books for Community Bookshelf. This is the FIC's online bookstore. We always have a rush of orders this time of year. Bookshelf sends packages all over the world. Today I worked on orders going to Canada, England, France, Finland, Slovenia, Hong Kong and India. On December 17, we had our organic inspection for this year. Allen Benjamin from the OneCert Missouri office was here for most of the day. This was the first year that we had our gardens certified in addition to the farm and processing operation and it has been an interesting learning experience for the garden crew. The gardening catalogs are coming in at a fast pace now and I am looking forward to curling up with them during the next few weeks. That is definitely one of my favorite winter activities.

We want to wish all of our neighbors a very good New Year. I look forward to visiting with all of you some more during the coming months.