Memphis Democrat Column from October 15, 2007

>Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 10:46:04 -0500

>To: memdemoc@nemr.net

>From: Sandhill Farm Subject: Sandhill Farm by Kathe

>Cc:

>Bcc:

>

>We are deep into the sorghum harvest on the farm these days. We began cutting the cane on September 16 and have been busy with field work and cooking sorghum syrup since then, with only one interruption due a rainy day. We are cutting the last field as I write and still have probably three cooks to do after today's. We have had lots of help this year. Otto and Kris arrived from East Wind on September 11 to help with the preparations for the harvest. A labor exchange crew Twin Oaks Community in Virginia came on September 20 and were here until the 25th. We got a nice surprise when it turned out that one of the group was our friend Debbie, who had spent six weeks with us two years ago. She has just become a member of Twin Oaks. Daniel and Ivy, who visited Skyhouse this summer, were also part of the crew and it was nice to see them again. Another labor exchange contingent arrived from East Wind this Saturday. Nyle has been here for sorghum harvest twice before and Jule was a visitor at Sandhill last year. Her friend Jon, who is not a member of East Wind but came along to help out, was a visitor at Dancing Rabbit last year.

>It has been nice to see the familiar faces and to also meet all the new folks. These included Chiron, Ben, and Bucket from Twin Oaks and Emmy, Ellie and Bennett from East Wind. Ben stayed on at Sandhill for several days after the other Twin Oakers left and is now visiting Skyhouse for three weeks. We have also had a great group of individual visitors and friends arriving to help out this season. They include Miles from Pennsylvania, Crystal from Minnesota, Sarah from Michigan, Tess from Florida, and Jake, a college student from southeast Missouri who was a visitor at Sandhill earlier this year. Drea and Jacob from Red Earth Farm and Thomas and Liat from Dancing Rabbit have also come over to participate. A group from New Roots Farm in St. Louis came up September 27 and was here until Sunday. They are in the process of becoming an income-sharing group and they held a retreat here during those days to begin working out how they want to structure it. Gigi facilitated the meetings and Laird also met with them while they were here. They also participated in some of the harvest work during their stay. Trish and Joe, who are members of the group, are old friends. Trish is a former resident at Dancing Rabbit. They are involved in urban agriculture, including starting a new farmers market, and it felt good to give them our support. Laird's wife Ma'ikwe and her son Jibran were finally able to come for a visit and arrived on the train Sunday morning. They plan to attend the Dancing Rabbit reunion this coming weekend and Ma'ikwe also wants to experience the harvest for the first time. We have had lots of kid energy this weekend. Renay's friend Chelsea came over on Friday to spend the weekend and they were joined by Jibran and Rowan from Dancing Rabbit yesterday. There is no school today (Monday) due to teacher in-service, so they are all here today, too. I had the fun experience this morning of seeing the four of them sitting on the roof of our garden shed drinking tea. My daughter Melina and her family were also here this weekend. They spent the night on Friday and picked up Tess, who is a close friend of Melina's, to go back home with them on Saturday for a visit. Michael and I enjoyed spending some more time with our granddaughter Chloe and I had the chance to show Melina and Matt our sorghum cooking process. We said goodbye to our intern Thea on the 25th. She went home to Washington to visit family and friends for a while and plans to work in Salt Lake City this winter. There is a chance that her plans may bring her back to this area and we hope to see her again in the future. After thinking things over, Apple has decided to opt for regular membership here rather being a dual member of Twin Oaks and Sandhill. She will return to Twin Oaks after sorghum harvest to do labor exchange this winter, but will settle into Sandhill as her new community home when she returns.

>