3 Week Visitor @ Dancing Rabbit

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:51:36 +0100

4/18 - Monday

Got to Quincy, IL around noon today. Good train ride, thought we'd have to wait until 3 to get picked up at a small station w/ nothing around. Our ride came less than 30 minutes after our train arrived and we were on our way. April and Ziggy (Dancing Rabbit members) picked us up. They built a cob house for about $3000 - a coworker sent me a link to Ziggy's blog before I left. We introduced ourselves and exchanged stories for the hour car ride after getting some supplies at the store. Adri and I set up our tent after a brief tour of Dancing Rabbit's common house. A walk through the gravel road on our way to our tent platform made me feel like I was in some abstract medieval village. Awe inspiring to say the least. We set up and went to meet people. We quickly met Nathan (DR member), who checked our tent out for us. He told us we would need a better set up to stay dry. We ended up moving the tent to another platform with more trees nearby. We tied strings from two trees over our tent for the tarp to drape over. It took pretty long, but was well worth it.

When we finished setting up, we met up with some members and other visitors for dinner in the common house - or Sunflower coop. They made a bad ass kale salad, veggie black bean burgers and sweet fries. After dinner, we washed the dishes and played guitar. There were two other musicians in the room. We passed a commie (up for grabs, so to speak) acoustic around until it was late and too dark to see. We stumbled our way back to the tent. Not too cold. We saw lightning through closed eyelids. No thunder or rain for an hour or two. Then huge drops and thunder that roared for 30 odd seconds. Sleep. 2 AM. Woke up to more storms & winds.

4/19 - Tuesday

Tossed & turned till 7 AM. Shoes wet, but we woke up dry today. Part of the tarp fell off, nothing serious. Worked out some bugs, headed to the common house for breakfast. Some, orientation, a tour and history followed. No one seems to know exactly what they're doing with their houses. That's where the power of community comes in. Every house is an experiment based on the builder's preference and knowledge with the aid of other peoples' knowledge and follies. The history was interesting, the politics confusing, the dream and vision inspiring. Dinner at Skyhouse tonight- a sub-community with their own kitchen right across the center square from the Milkweed Mercantile (DR's version of a convenient store) with the common house in between and driveway entrance/open kitchen bike shop across from that.
Before dinner we chilled in the common house playing guitar and reading - their library had all sorts of books from philosophy to natural energy and building, comics to books on home brewing, fiction to farming. After dinner we played some social games to help memorize names and faces with the other visitors and some members. They were pretty involved games, but fun nonetheless. After that we headed to our tent in pitch black dodging puddles with our flashlight and ill-suited shoes. It gets super cold around midnight here. Unbearably cold.

4/20 - Wednesday

After breakfast we went over to Bear and Alyssa's house (a couple who have been here for about 5 years - they had a smaller house, but are expanding because their son is getting older). We helped with various tasks on their new home. I worked on the filling the corners of their walls with earthen plaster with Mac (visitor from Mobile, AL with his wife and 3 year old son) and Tom (Buddhist monk from West Virginia who seems to do a lot of traveling). The plaster was made from a mix of 2 parts clay (from the foundation they dug out), 1 part sand (from the Mississippi River) and 5-6 parts local straw (chopped to short segments). We mixed it in like commercial plaster at the meeting of the same mix/plaster walls to ceiling/drywall - the first coat shrunk down when it dried and left small openings around the edges. Adri primed and painted the drywall. The other visitors mostly helped with the garden: planting trees and building up raised beds. Brent (computer tech of sorts from Tennessee), Sharon (who came with her husband/bf? from upstate New York) filled in the cracks that formed along the earthen floor (same material as walls and splits for the same reason). A radio played in the background. Some familiar songs set the mood for getting into the work groove. The first room froze my fingertips because the outside was so cold and I was working around windows. The other two rooms weren't as bad - maybe numbness?
Lunch was at Skyhouse again - more awesome leftovers from last night's awesome Mexican dinner. Then we took a tour of DR's land - 280 acres. A large portion of that is under CRP (conservation reserve program) - a government sponsored conservation program that gives landowners money to not farm their land. They have planted a forest (on the part of their land not in the CRP) that is slowly growing. They also have a 30' X 36' hoop house that extends their growing season by a few months right next to a vineyard that is in the process of maturing - both are owned 'privately' by a member who rents that specific land at agricultural rates. If I remember correctly, agricultural land goes for about 2 cents/sq. ft and residential about 1 cent/sq. ft. (don't quote me on that). They also have two new locations where they planted fruit trees on a slope to help w/ erosion. Most of the land is open prairie/grasslands. The trail is a loop around most of their land. All of it is beautiful!

Dinner was at the common house. We played Cranium with two teams of two. I was with Maddy (a wexer – trading work for room and board) from Pittsburgh. Adri was with her new best friend Ewan (the eight year old son of a member). He clung to her like ticks on DR's roaming dogs. We tried to seriously play for a turn or two before realizing how unfair our teams were. We ended up just playing with the clay and hourglass for fun until the weekly song circle started. None of us wanted to join, so we departed. I ended up in the kitchen helping (kind of) with dishes from dinner and talking to whatever residents were moseying around. Adri and I found out the Mercantile sold beer and sought out a six pack for the night. We chose New Belgium's Organic Mother Wit – my first organic beer. Purdy good! We partied in the tent until knocking out. Twas a fun time! Not as cold as it has been. My best night of sleep since we've been camping.

4/21 – Thursday

Woke up this morning and rode bikes with Adri to Zimmerman's (a Mennonite-owned cafe/grocery store/fabric outlet maybe a mile or two from DR). We picked up some nearly knee-high, rubber boots to keep our feet and socks dry in the ever-forming puddles. We also bought a grapefruit and some cereal. Their prices are ridiculously cheap – almost 2lbs. of cereal ran us only 79 cents.

We had a talk on natural building techniques, then a short architectural tour around the village. After lunch we headed over to Dennis and Sharon's for a work party. They're an older couple who moved to DR from Earthaven in NC. They showed us their DIY blueprints – beautifully hand drawn on graph paper. Their design was supersaturated with the principles of permaculture. I was riddled with a renewed sense of ambition, motivation and drive! The majority of their building materials were reclaimed from abandoned farms and busted up bits of concrete (urbanite). All of the work was painstakingly meticulous. I loved it!

We picked their honey locusts timber posts off of the ground so the moisture doesn't turn them black. We also sifted rocks through wire mesh to organize them according to size, using the gravel to fill the large foundation they dug with shovels. The perimeter of their foundation was three feet deep by maybe a foot wide or so, then the interior of the hole was dug about 6 inches deep. All of it dug without machines! Northeastern Missouri has little to no soil here. It's all hard clay. Another job we worked on was smashing big pieces of urbanite into smaller pieces with a sledge hammer. For some reason all the female visitors worked on this. Sandy (an author and illustrator from Wisconsin – also staying for 3 weeks) came up out of nowhere and smashed some urbanite in half with less than five hits. Everyone was in awe as it took them all a couple tens of hits to take a chunk out of the surface. I took over tamping the fresh gravel down after all the timber was picked up. When the work party was over Dennis and I talked about life and the importance of maintaining optimism in the face of adversity. He's an extremely level-headed and laid back person.

After our talk he suggested a book to me called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (which I found while checking the time in DR's library when I was reading a Phillip K. Dick book – it was on the shelf, sticking out underneath the clock). Adri was talking to Sharon at the same time and, feeling sick, was given some Echinacea and ginger tea. I told Dennis I'd like to do a lot more work with them on our less structured last 2 weeks here, then headed to the common house for dinner. All of the visitors were confused on what was going on. Wabi Sabi was cooking for us and, weather permitting, we were supposed to eat out side. Weather did not permit, so we stood around hungrily wondering where to go, what to do. Our inaction proved useful! Wabi Sabi brought dinner to the common house. It was an amazingly gourmet meal – fresh picked violets on cooked nettles (all from DR's woodlands) with a flavorful Miso soup.

To end our night, there was an open Q & A with some members for the visitors. With the common house on low orange power from the lack of sun the room was lit by candlelight. The forum shed light on some of the difficulties and issues of communal living. Once the Q & A was over, Adri and I waited around until everyone else left so we could sleep in the common house – get some deep, warm sleep so she could recharge before getting too sick. There were a handful of younger people lounging around with us till late: Maddy (wexer), Snack (wexer), Jonathan (resident), Jordan (resident) and Katherine (a fellow visitor). Everyone left in the room was in their early to mid 20's. We hung around playing the commie (up-for-grabs so to speak) instruments and talking. I was surprised to find out Jonathan was from Stelle, IL. I was looking into their community for their permaculture certification program and eagerly asked him if it's legit or worth checking out. He told me that he didn't think so, that it was more of a suburb than an intentional community. I was shocked to find that out. Well, dodged a bullet perhaps? Then I was more stunned than anything when he busted out an accordion and, by request, played Riders on the Storm by the Doors. Jordan was playing guitar and figured out the riff to Eminem's Lose Yourself. Jokingly it was going to be a cover for the (No) Talent Show on Saturday, but like a rocket the joke blasted off in another direction. Maddy was going to rap, Jordan was going to play guitar and Jonathan was going to play the big drum. Someone grabbed a computer to look up lyrics and they practiced for about 15 minutes. Then they left and we passed out on the couch.

4/22 – Friday

We had a talk on alternative energy today. It focused mostly on solar panels because DR doesn't have too much in the way wind turbines, though they're investing in a 3000 watt turbine soon. The talk was really good, informative but simple enough that the science behind it all wasn't intimidating. After the talk we chilled for a bit before going to a land management work party. We pulled a bunch of non-native garlic mustard, saving some for a salad for the Seder dinner (Jewish ritual feast) and killing the rest for compost. For every week we stayed,visitors were encouraged to help the chefs. Adri and I signed up for one day each week. Tonight was our first night and it was a massive potluck for the Seder dinner. I left the work party early with Brian (member) and Sandy to help cook. On our way back to the common house we picked up wild upland cress and nettles on top of the two 5 gallon buckets full of garlic mustard for the salad. I plucked the leaves off of the garlic mustard and upland cress, then washed them off. That was the extent of my help. Adri was in the kitchen drinking home-brewed wine and cooking.

The feast was massive! So large, in fact, that we had to split up into three different dinner groups in three different buildings. There must have easily been about 100 people altogether. Our group was in the common house. We sped through the passover acts so we could all get to the beer and food. There were bottles of home made wine on every table, some cyser (HARD pear/apple cider) going around and then ever more home brews. The variety of food was far more enticing, though. The entire kitchen counter, table and stove were blanketed in vegetarian foods of all sorts. While we filled our bellies, most of us got our drink on. We sat next to new residents from Red Earth Farms (DR's neighboring homestead community). It was Jack, his wife and three daughters. They were sociable and fun. Jack knew a lot about any topic that came up.

After the meal I tried to call my dad to wish him a happy birthday. My phone's battery was dead, so I had to rely on memory for numbers. I knew his and called twice to no avail. I remember my sister's as well, but she wasn't home. I talked to her for a bit, then headed back to the festivities. People were all sauced-up and hung out till 10:30 (late for the DR standards I've come to understand). It was mostly the same crowd from the other night. We played cards while two other groups had board games out – all by candlelight again! It was such an interesting environment. Everyone eventually fell victim to digestion and alcohol saturation, so we all went to our tents and homes to sleep.

4/23 – Saturday

Lots of down-time today. I mostly lounged around playing guitar and reading Ishmael – I could hardly put that book down it was so good. Adri and I grew bored of sitting around and went to see if Dennis and Sharon's were working on their home. Also, the sun started peeking out from behind a clouded veil finally showering golden rays of warmth ad vitamin D all over the village. We sifted rocks into piles through wire mesh again according to size and helped with the foundation wall. They were using pieces of urbanite like puzzle pieces sticking them together with sand and lime mortar. It was a lot of fun, I felt like a mason of sorts.

After that we headed back for lunch, then a tour of Red Earth Farms. They are just on the other side of a small creek from DR. Red Earth Farms uses more of a homestead approach instead of a community based one like DR. The tour started on Dandelion – 12 acres owned by one family looking to rent smaller plots out. They used no machines and were heavy into permaculture experimentation. In retrospect, two of the three families we met on our tour were into permaculture. The last family we met was more about natural building than anything else. Mark and his wife (their homestead was called Gooseberry) took us inside to show the interior workings of their home. Then Mark took us back outside to talk about the structure. He was so passionate about natural building that a seemingly endless amount of information flowed freely out of him. The excitement he shared with us about building his home was contagious. There was a short Q & A after the tour. An acre of land goes for $1500 under the land-trust they set up. I felt that I would be happier and fit in better at Red Earth than DR. The idea of being out of contact came up, though, until I realized that DR is less than 2 minutes away and I could soak up all the social interactions needed if I find myself lonely on the homestead.

We headed back to DR for dinner and the (No) Talent show. I was blown away by all the performances of the night. People played cover songs, original material, funny skits, a spoken word, poem readings and even an attempt at mind control as witnessed on TedTV (failed, but hilarious). It was moving at times, inspiring at others. Kurt and Aileen (the couple that run the Mercantile) performed a duet accompanied by guitar. Joan (from Red Earth Farms) sang 3 songs a'capella in 3 different languages with a voice like an angel. Cob and Meadow (Ewan's parents) sang a duet accompanied by piano. It was the greatest time since the Seder feast yesterday.

4/24 – Sunday

The most down-time since we've been here. After breakfast I went for a nice, long walk around DR's loop trail, until I wandered off by accident and ended up in the trail-less forest. I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to hurry up and start working on a residency to begin building a home or travel for awhile to learn the skills I need to build and farm. I needed a game plan for the summer. If I settle down, I would be safe in the face of peak-oil hysteria when we ran out and the cities go nuts, but anchored for at least 5 years to the project if the world didn't go crazy. If I travel I could rid myself, possibly, of this wanderlust itch and experience great things while learning all that I need to know for building a dream, only if the world goes to hell in a hand-basket I'd have no security, no guarantee. Well, maybe using the possibility of the end of the world as a basis for my argument either way would make me a lunatic end times preacher. So, I thought about it apathetic to one way or the other. I decided to wander and learn to farm by WWOOFing and to learn to build by visiting communities like DR or wexing or attending workshops – seeing the world basically. That way I'll be more knowledgeable and experienced for when I go to set myself up and will be less likely to mess up really bad.

Easter. I drank accordingly. 4 beers lit me up like a candle. Ears red. Social skills in butterfly mode. We ended the night with a documentary on the money system followed by a talk with Nathan on DR's internal economy. It was confusing throughout and boring towards the end. I know I should care about these things because they're so dominant in all of life, but I can't bring myself to do so. I can't stand the concept of imaginary values forced upon me by the same system that undervalued imagination with cookie-cutter education.

4/26 – Tuesday

There was a work party at Ted and Sarah's (members) house today. We were filling wooden framing with light clay straw for their addition. We mixed the straw with an overly watery clay mixture in a tarp until all the straw was evenly coated. Then we temporarily screwed pieces of scrap wood to the outside of the framing to hold the straw in place while we jammed it in as tight as we could. After only 30 minutes the boards came off and the light clay straw was holding itself in place. It was pretty amazing how simple, but efficient this technique turned out to be.

After the work party there was a potluck at Sandhill Farms (an organic farm about 2 or 3 miles from DR specializing in sourgum). I left early with a small group to help plant sourgum seeds before the potluck. It was a nice walk that definitely didn't feel as far as it was. We planted about 50-100 seed beds then took a tour of the land. Stan (member of Sandhill) showed us an old eco-house across the street from the one we were planting seeds in. It had a woodworking shop and a kitchen with a huge freezer on the first floor. On the second floor were uniquely attractive rooms. On the way out we stopped in the kitchen and all got some home brew samples. I was given a black currant spiced cider. It tasted high in gravity. We headed back to the main house for dinner. Everyone else from DR and Red Earth were arriving for another gigantic potluck dinner full of great home made food and great conversation.

With little regard to the amount of food everyone just ate, square-dancing commenced in the street shortly after the meal. There was a band playing bluegrass/folk tunes with two guitars, two banjos and a mandolin. The party and dancing raged for an hour until the DR pick-up, which runs on bio-fuel, came to pick us all up. We crammed in the back as it hit the road to a setting sun and peeking stars through a cool breeze. It was the most perfect moment.

As we fell asleep last night I heard the strangest animal noise I've ever heard in my life. It sounded like an owl with the eeriness of a pack of coyotes. The sound came from three different sides of our tent – they were obviously communicating to each other (whatever they were) and we just happened to be in the middle of it all. Plus I was in that surreal twilight between waking life and the dream realm, so my pineal gland must have been releasing some molecules into my body that tweaked what I was hearing. Either way, it was alarming and entertaining until I teetered behind the curtain of the hypnagogic stage into sleep.

4/27 – Wednesday

Our AM work party was shoveling composted humanure around the bases of some peach and pear trees in DR's entrance orchids. The composted humanure was so fertile that undigested tomato seeds were sprouting with no additional attention! I was shocked. What the hell have we been doing? Using all this back-breaking labor and endless weeding and these chemical fertilizers to grow tomatoes when we could just crap out the seeds and sit back. Obviously that wouldn't be all that efficient BUT the idea that we can work with nature instead of against it was so appealing. Afterward Adri and I walked to Zimmerman's with Tom to get some dry socks because we bought our boots too late and still had no power to wash or sun to dry our clothes. On the way back Tom told us about an unused part of the monastery he lives at and how he wants to start up an intentional community there. He said the land has a temple with 6 kitchens, a stone working shop, a dentist office and much more. I was super excited about it all as he told us his game plan. By the time we got back to DR we missed the talk on humanure. Tom didn't mind because he's read about it before. I didn't care because I really wanted to get some cheap, five year old candy from Zimmerman's. We just hung around until dinner. I was wearing shorts because my pants had poison ivy all over them from my forest wandering the other day. I was also wearing my new boots because my shoes haven't dried. The high rubber tops grinded away at my flesh from walking all day and even abraded some hairs on my calves. I was left with two hairless red rings on both legs that burn like hell. Adri and I played cards and drank during tonight's song circle after dinner. It was by candlelight again. The choir of voices and subtle illumination from the candles made for a romantic game of cards.

4/28 – Thursday

Today's work party was with the sub-community Wabi Sabi. We helped them out with their garden. It was pretty nice for a change – sunny and dry. We planted potatoes in raised beds and dug fence posts for them. I used an auger to a series of holes, about 3 feet deep, with Brent and Jonathan. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be because of Missouri's clay. It all came up easily and quickly. We alternated between dead honey locust trees and metal T-bars for the posts. It will look really cool when it's finished. On one of my last holes I came across a root. There were no trees around, so I figured it was from a tree that got cut down years ago or something. I yanked at it with my bare hands until it finally gave. Maybe half an hour later or so it was discovered that it was poison ivy and that it was all over the field. Damn it! I decided that today was the day to shower. We were crawling our way up towards yellow power. It was refreshing for sure.

Today is me and Adri's second turn to cook. We made pizzas with Wabi Sabi, but most of the other visitors we cooked for went to the Mercantile for their special Thursday pizzas. No one told us beforehand so we made a bunch of pizza. When we finished dinner, it was just Wabi Sabi, Adri, Brent (visitor from TN who has been at DR before as a 'wexer' of sorts for the Mercantile) and I. It was cool cooking with Ziggy and April in their temporary kitchen. The roof was from the cap of a pick-up bed. Since we had so much leftover, we invited the Outdoor Kitchen, or OK, coop (Kyle (member) and Katherine) and Jordan from Skyhouse. They all brought some more food, and we had a mini last minute potluck in the sun sitting on the foundation wall of Wabi Sabi's new kitchen. Jordan brought a pecan pie dripping with sugary syrups while playing music from his laptop and wearing a pink zebra-looking fabric cowboy hat and shades. What an entrance! We all ate great and laughed plenty over conversation.

On the way back to the common house I “accidently” congregated at the picnic table in town square (center of Mercantile, common house and Skyhouse) and jammed with Mac, Jordan, John (from Red Earth Farms) and Creston who came in from Wisconsin to stay at the Mercantile for the weekend. More people amassed as the sun set. Tony (one of the founders of DR) , Julia (Bear and Alyssa's new wexer), Maddy, Snack, Jonathan, Jennifer (visitor), Coz (resident), and more joined the jam session. Mac and Jon busted out an arsenal of well-known songs for everyone to sing along to including Hey Ya by Outkast and several Sublime and Pink Floyd songs. We sat under the stars, innumerable flames, drank, sang.

4/29 – Friday

We had a talk on intentional communities w/ Ma'ikwe (member) today. I found out that she is a staff member of the intentional communities site IC.org. She was resourceful and full of information on a wide variety of related topics. Lunch was with Wabi Sabi - more pizza (lots of leftovers) in their incomplete new kitchen. This time almost everyone was there. I started to feel suffocated by all the social interacting and decided to go for a bike ride alone after lunch. I just wanted to get away for a little bit and reflect on everything. I rode to Zimmerman's and binged on sugar! It was a really cool bike ride there and back. The roads are all empty and hilly. When I got back I did laundry finally – we made it to green power for the first time in our almost two weeks there.

The work party for the day was with Rachael (one of the original DR members). We went down by the river and scooped up tiny critters and took samples of the water to see how conditions were. After dinner we had the visitor planned game night. It was a lot of fun. There were board games set up all over, and Mac borrowed Skyhouse's projector to hook up to his computer so people could play pac-man. Some people also made oatmeal cookies and scones. I went on another solo mission to the same river we were ate earlier. I thought of the differences between it and the Chicago river downtown off of Dearborn St. where I walk passed every night after work. Back home the river is under a high bridge, it's always riddled with ripples and flowing quickly. Here the bridge is only 6 feet above the river that I could imagine as a creek in dry spells. It flowed slowly. The river moved as slowly people do around here. There is no need for rushing. When I got back I talked about skating to someone, forgot who, and found out Tony used to skate. I told him I would come back as a community wexer and build DR a half-pipe. He said he was down with no indication of whether he was kidding or not. I assumed he was.

4/30 – Saturday

I worked with Dennis today because we had a pretty open schedule. First we lugged a dozen or so cart-fulls of urbanite down a hill from Cob's house to their construction zone. That took a few hours because after moving all of the chunks of concrete we sorted pieces by thickness. We took a break for lunch and then continued on. It felt great to be doing some labor, sweating in the sun. I felt like I was finally deserving all the food I've been eating. When I returned I started laying “bricks” of busted urbanite and rocks (in between big enough gaps of urbanite) with mortar to level off the foundation wall with the layered urbanite for the timber posts. It was actually a lot of fun picking the right sized rock for the space created by larger pieces, kind of like a blank puzzle. Whiffle ball was scheduled for 2 PM, so we finished up what we could and headed back. I helped Tom cut his hair then went to the tent to do some writing.

Before dinner, Jordan joined Adri and I at one of the common ground's picnic tables. We talked in passing, but ended up going into Skyhouse to watch Brian Regen videos on YouTube. We laughed our asses off to the point of cramping up, having to pause every ten minute clip multiple times. It felt so good to laugh like that. I showed him idXed, he showed me his tunes. His music reminded me of a laid back Prefuse 73. Very atmospheric and relaxing, but not without groove.

For dinner we had calzones. I've never had them before and asked someone what it was. They described it as an inside-out pizza. Fitting. I discovered a new favorite. Jennifer (member) was having an ice cream party at her house after dinner. Since it wasn't for another hour or two, Adri and I walked down by the pond DR dug themselves a few years ago. It's the best space we've found for watching sunsets. They built a little dock and a wooden bench. We sat on the dock. The setting sun painted an artist's stoke across the clouds, a red, pink and orange that was noisily reflected on the pond's unsteady waters. Undecided on whether or not we were going to stop by Jennifer's we headed back. On our way to the tent we ran into Jennifer (visitor), her son Izzy, Julia and Tom. They all announced that they were going to the party, so we decided to stop being anti-social and join them. Jordan came by and informed us that we needed to bring our own cups and spoons. We headed to the common house to pick some up.

Her house was gorgeous. She had to be an architect or designer. High ceilings, lofts, artistic interior. There was maybe 2-3 gallons of ice cream on the counter when we got there surrounded by M&M's, Skittles, Nerds and whatever else people like putting on top of ice cream. Overload. Jordan had a bucketful of ice cream! We met Kim from Dandelion on Red Earth Farms and talked to her about how things are run over there. I really wanted to get a better idea of it all because I was intrigued by our tour earlier on. The party was a lot of fun. I found out, after watching Morgan (resident, son of members) playing Civilization IV, that Mac gets down on computer games as well. We ranted about similar games when we got back to the common house to wash our dishes and brush our teeth.

5/1 – Sunday

Woke up to maybe 4 or 5 ticks on the outside of our tent this morning. An all-time high for me. Another lazy day. Breakfast. Common house clean-up. Meetings. Adri went for a bike ride with Maddy. I shot some hoops, read up on running gasoline engines on alcohol fuel (thinking of the Homer Simpson filling up his car – one for you, one for me), medicinal beers and other really fascinating books I found while browsing DR's library. I got pumped thinking about going home and breweing my own beer, WWOOFing, going to Baltimore for Maryland Death Fest, and SLM fest in Wisconsin. I started planning my summer's journey – fantasizing about floating around between permaculture farms, intentional communities and Buddhist temples exchanging labor for food, somewhere to sleep and enough money for train and bus rides to my next destination.

We wasted time before eating dinner by eating chips and playing basketball with some of the village kids after taking an hour nap. Rachel and Ben (visitors from Nebraska) and their daughter Elthia joined us. We started playing HORSE, then Julia joined in. She left her beer by the hoop and I ended up spilling it, so I bought her another one. I also bought me and Adri some beer. We ate dinner and briefly met some new wexers.

I walked down to the pond after eating to chill for a bit. Nate was there. He was one of the new wexers coming from Ohio. He sat on the dock barefoot with a straw hat. Reminded me of Huck Finn or something. I sat on the bench and introduced myself. We talked about everything from peak oil to WWOOFing and then on to mathematics and personal development. It was a refreshing talk. He told me he went to college for math. I asked him what he planned on using a degree in math for, then told him I gave up on school because I stopped seeing a point in attending. He took the classes for a purely practical use, nothing more and agreed that school and degrees would be useless in the face of the looming societal collapse. I told him my belief that life is the ultimate class and experience is the greatest teacher. Jordan came by and lightened up the conversation. We all traded stories of travels and meetings, laughing and joking around. Jordan told us about this guy he spent the last 2 years working for on a farm in Washington. The guy apparently walked with his sons and wife and a few mules from southern California to Alaska over the period of a couple years.

We decided to head back before it got too dark. On the way back we heard what we thought to be an off-beat drum circle. Curious, we sought the origin of the banging. It brought us to some new tent platforms behind Jennifer's house. They were building them in a race against the darkness for her three new wexers. The only help we could offer was sorting nails for them and moving some stones to level out the platforms. There was a bonfire going on tonight, so I went to find Adri to head over.

The fire was 15-20 feet high. It seemed that almost all of DR was there plus some residents from Red Earth. A good handful of the people had instruments as well – 2 guitars, a 12-string guitar, 3 or 4 drums, 2 flutes, 2 didgeridoos and Tom had his finger cymbals he used for meditation. Joan suggested dancing around the fire to the music. A few people joined her. I was content just taking it all in as a spectator. As everyone jammed and danced, I drank and talked. First to Dennis about keeping DR off the grid and as unconventional as possible. We also talked about empathy and I listened to his words as a student would a teacher's. Next I got into conversation with Sage (one of Ted and Sarah's wexers – she was from Australia). We fueled each others' optimism , shared a little about ourselves. She tends to be a hermit as well, but is equally (if not more so) adventurous as I am. We talked for a long time.

When the fire started dying down Adri, Mac, Jennifer, Julia and I wandered to Mac and Jennifer's tent. I went on a rant about string and M-theory, flipped and projected realities and boatloads of other wild ideas. Mac brought up how Charlie Sheen and Rosie O’Donnell openly talked about 9/11, Julia yelled about how her dad talks to her about Charlie Sheen and how she responds by telling him she doesn't care, I brought up Alex Jones, Mac said it was all just distractions, I ranted, once more, about how main ideas permeate all of existence and we are all just mirrors reflecting different angles of the same ideas. It was a mind-expanding session that reminded me of my friends back home. It was profound and hilarious all at once. Julia and Jennifer went to bed first. Mac, Adri and I went to the common house and watched videos on YouTube while eating leftover popcorn. We watched a Tool video, the 30 Days episode with DR on it, Kyuss videos and some stuff Mac recorded back home at the club he worked at. Then to bed.

5/2 – Monday

Only 2 or 3 ticks on our tent this morning. We woke up at 9:30 AM and missed visitor check-ins, breakfast and the first work party of the day. I made cereal with water, like back home. Me and Adri then headed over to Dennis and Sharon's to help unload their new solar panels. After that we did some more masonry together to the point that we also missed lunch. Luckily, we found two pieces of cornbread left out on the kitchen counter. Then, on empty stomachs we went to the second work party. We planted some honey locusts, mulberries, sunchokes and weeded around some hazelnut trees in DR's blooming food forest. Adri and I walked to Zimmerman's for sweets, vegan burgers and the post office after the food forest work party. We got to Rutledge at about 4:30. The post office closed at 4:15. What the hell? We devoured our food and headed back to DR to eat some dinner. Jennifer was going into town and Mac was helping with the dishes, so I was asked to watch their son 3 year old Izzy. My pay was a 40 of Mickeys from town. Izzy was a raging ball of energy. I couldn't keep up with him – playing with playdoh, then pac-man, then a book, then playing dinosaurs all at once. As soon as I got into making robots out of playdoh, he wanted to build a track for the toy trains. When I joined him on the tracks, he went back to the playdoh, then he put on a witch hat and lost interest in playdoh. I was at a loss for getting his attention focused on one thing so I could keep up. It was a lot of fun. I saved the Mickey's for another night and went to the tent to write and pass out.

5/3 – Tuesday

Today we burnt a small patch of prairie land under a very controlled burn. They used a machine to “disc” up the soil about 10ft wide around the entire plot (the plot stretched for maybe an acre or so). The 10ft wide barrier was just flipped ground so the soil/clay faced up instead of the grass and served as a buffer zone for the surrounding prairie so that the wind wouldn't run with the fire outside of the desired plot. The fire started on the downwind end (for today that was the southeast side) and spread along the south side. They burnt about ten feet in across the back of the plot to double the barrier on that side to about 20ft. Once the entire south end was charred, two teams (one on the east end, one on the west) rounded the corners moving north. Once the second corners were rounded, the fire was spread across the north end and the head flame was lit. That's when the fire really took off – all wind assisted. The flames licked the center of the field and grew large enough to claw at the sky, throwing ashes and smoke up towards the clouds almost mimicking them. The smoke grew so thick that at times it was impossible to see beyond it. As the flames from both ends (east and west) raced towards each other, the heat intensified. It stunned me that such a fire, sustained on straw-like prairie grass, could get so hot and violent. Once the two fires met in the middle it started to die down. Adri and I left to catch what we could of a talk on coop fees and such.

We caught the last 30 minutes of the talk, given by Ma'ikwe. Next was a potluck dinner. During the announcements Cob told us he needed some help moving a wood shed from his yard to about 15 ft away. About 13 people showed up after dinner to help move the shed. It was a tiny one room home, or just a big wood shed. With all the people we had it weighed nothing under my hands. As a reward for helping, he gave everyone a nice bottle of his home-brewed Bad Bunny Apple Ale. I went to the tent, got my Mickey's from the other night and headed to the Mercantile for a presentation by this guy that everyone said was on TedTV recently. The guy was Marcin Jakubowski. He talked about the idea of technological recursion, referencing the RepRap, a printer that could in theory print its own parts. He was working on farm machinery that would eventually be able to build its own parts. He was from a farm in northwestern Missouri and already practicing some of his ideas with machines he's created.

I had mixed feelings about the presentation, mostly because of the way Marcin presented his ideas. I was buying into it all until Sandy said she watched the video and noticed it was sponsored by GE. Then, maybe a little paranoid, I started to think he was just a face for the same corporations used as a marketing tool for a different audience. I rationalized, later, that the idea of technological recurion and open-source technology was such a wonderful idea that it couldn't have been from any evil. Plus, if it were from some corporation with an agenda, the ideas were already out on the table and DIY-ers could run with them themselves.

After the presentation there was a blues dance party in the common house. Mac jammed the guitar, Brent added drums and Jonathan played the piano. A small handful of people danced on the cleared out main room floor. Jennifer and I were talking about Marcin's ideas of a technological utopia and the similar ideas in the newest Zeitgeist movie when Nate overheard and joined in. He added his disapproval, stating that it would just be another industrial farm movement. He felt that it would continue to promote large-scale agriculture for profit gain and ultimately leave us still overly dependent on fossil fuels. I told him that I thought the idea was pure enough that the people who were already trying to ween off of fossil fuels could use it to better their cause. He sort of gave up and said he'd just stop thinking about it. I said that what we need to do is the exact opposite and continue to think about it until we get it. Then Jennifer added that, even though we all agreed the guy was a little strange and we all felt a bit unnerved by his speech, everybody has a little part of the truth. I added my belief that the fabric of the universe is information and all information is implicit so we can only get as much out of anything as we put into understanding it. It was then added, to more peak oil comments, that we must change what we can and accept what we cannot change.

The debate started to die out like the prairie burn and people wandered away out of lose of interest. Tom came by and we talked about me coming to visit him on my way back from Maryland Death Fest. He said I could get off the train in Pittsburgh and he'd pick me up from there. Another deep conversation ensued. We started by talking about the ideas from the presentation earlier. I told him I see civilization and technology as a double-edged sword and how our logic serves us only within systems we create and not necessarily ones that exist in nature. He then me a story about a village that had a tiger problem. Their solution was to build a trench all the way around their village so that any tigers trying to get in would fall and be trapped. In the middle of the night, after digging the trench, a doctor forgot it was there and fell in. In the morning the rest of the village came to see if the doctor was alright. They saw the doctor running in circles to avoid being eaten. They told him the tiger was right behind, but the doctor replied that it was fine, he had two laps on the tiger. We then talked about our unwavering faith in logic as our greatest captor, about how creativity is more important than intelligence – which was something I felt Marcin hinted at in his speech. Tom offered me some beads, the Buddhist equivalent of the rosary, and told me it would be the key to any temple if I ever find myself traveling with little money or nowhere to sleep. He also told me about the life of the Buddha. Julia and Adri joined us and we stayed up talking till about 11:30.

5/4 – Wednesday

Today we had no plans until our scheduled lunch. I took a long walk to Zimmerman's after failing to find a working commie bike or fixing a busted one to ride to Memphis (the nearest “big” town). So, I wandered over to Rutledge missing lunch, but brainstorming for my book Desaturate and my next idXed release. I also realized Adri and I could couch surf for our stay in Baltimore instead of sleeping outside or spending money on hotels. When I came back I was full of positive energy from the clarifying walk.

After lunch, we helped Ma'ikwe level out the future site of the south-facing greenhouse of her home and building an interior cob wall. We started outside stomping straw into clay and sand to make the mix for her inside wall. Once the mix was ready (about 3 full buckets of sand, 3 almost full buckets of clay with water and enough straw to bind it all together), we made giant balls of it to bring inside. Her home was beautiful on the inside. She crafted one wall with little nooks on it so that it would hold up to 100 candles. It looked like a winding mountain road. We built the interior cob wall up 2 ft higher than it already was – any higher would make it set uneven, so little by little is the key. Once we couldn't go any higher there, we moved outside to where her greenhouse was going to be (the south facing side of her home). We leveled the ground by digging up the high spots and shoveling them into lowering ones, then tamped the dirt and clay down so it was tightly packed. Finally, we trew about 2 even inches of sand over it all and started laying bricks down over the sand – checking them with a level after every row or so was laid. We got maybe one two foot long row down then it was time to call it quits.

Before dinner I showed Torrin (Jennifer's (the member) 9 year old son) ADDXM and Sargeist while him, Adri and I finished all our cheap, stale cookies from Zimmerman's. After dinner Sage bought Adri and I a beer. We sat in the Mercantile drinking and talking. Tom joined us. We all talked about our siblings and significant experiences we've all had growing up. Somehow it was all based on car accidents. I remember Sage telling us about her story of how she ended up at DR. She worked in a cubicle, got fed up and quit to travel. I thought it was an awesome story, though I don't remember all the details. The idea is what stuck with me.

5/5 – Thursday

I skipped the work party at Ted and Sarah's today to help Dennis out with fixing a bunch of flat tires he had on his bike and two carts. Afterward Adri and I hitched a ride to Zimmerman's with Nani and Dave (members) for coffee. When we got back we played half of a few games with some of the kids. Since it was pizza Thursdays at the Mercantile, we ate dinner there then played Trivial Pursuit for almost 3 hours with Kurt and Aileen and all the visitors and new wexers. It was so fun.. mostly because I was tired and became delirious. I wandered to the tent using my cell phone as a flashlight. It was terrible. The sky was so clear the stars looked like a fake movie prop background in their vivid glows. On my way back, I saw shadows created by the light as I passed trees and shrubs. My lunatic/tired mind kept seeing things chasing me. I needed sleep.

5/6 – Friday

Skipped breakfast again to fulfill an gnarly, insatiable sweet tooth. Started feeling sick of eating so poorly and going so far out of my way to do it. But it was so cheap! I also skipped out on a talk of non-violent communication before lunch. Afterward I headed over to Dennis and Sharon's to help out on my favorite DR project. I maybe got there around 1 in the afternoon and stayed till almost 4 PM. We moved around new heavy and solid tent platforms for their soon-to-arrive wexers. I also did more tedious masonry work. Tedious, to me, is fun. It's a chance to slowly work on perfecting an art. I started on the opposite side of what I've been working on (from the east to the west). The foundation wall wasn't even started. There were large pieces of urbanite on the ground in place – not touching. I wet the rocks and filled the bottoms and walls with mortar, then layered smaller rocks in the gaps. It was layer of mortar, then layer of rock, then mortar and so on until the crevices were patched level with the tops of the urbanite rocks. I finished up my section then headed back to the common house for the community dinner.

The dinner was hosted by Kurt and Aileen at the Mercantile for the visitors. It was fantasic! The entire course (Shepard’s pie, coleslaw and home made jams) and the dessert was all vegan. Adri and I took Aileen's card in the hopes of exchanging recipes in the future. Sandy and Meadow (member) set up a dance for universal peace. I missed it to chill by a bonfire by the old pond, which they stock with fish. Maddy, Sage, Jonathan, Jordan and Kurt's niece D were at the fire. Ted and his daughter were there too, but left shortly after we arrived. More people showed up later on and conversations flowed like water. Sage brought something up about infinity and my mind exploded. I went on and on about the supposed different types of infinity and blah blah blah. Sage talked about how it's all in our minds that inadequacies arise, but we project them on our systems. She also mentioned, as an example of humanity's previous shortcomings in understanding nature, that people simply got sick as was nature before the discovery of viruses and bacteria. After that conversation Jennifer (visitor) and I talked across the fire about music. Maddy was confused and stated she had no idea what we were talking about. I got hungry and headed to the common house for a bowl of cereal, watched some YouTube videos with Adri to get out music fix and went to sleep. Before we could pass out, though, we had a conversation about having 3 conversations at once, having them intertwine like knitting fabric, and having them all go in different directions to the same end. She told me she thinks I think too much. I told her I thought she was right.

5/7 – Saturday

Went to Zimmerman's for fresh doughnuts, coffee, and cheap sweets. Adri did some shopping for back home, since the same things here cost was less than they do back home. Maddy, Rachel, Ben, Elthia and D rode bikes there. On the way back, Adri and I followed a small dirt path to the nearby train tracks under a bridge to scope it out as a potential awesome chill spot for our last few days in Missouri. When we walked under the bridge from the tracks we noticed two highly steeped slabs of huge concrete on both sides. They started from the ground at the tracks and ended at about 30 feet high just beneath the street above – they were the supports for the street. The spot reminded me of two dreams from years ago. We chilled for awhile reading all of the graffiti and soaking in the scenery. We decided to head back so we didn't miss lunch again. I showed Adri the new short cut I found. This time around, it had been nicer for a few days than the last time I went and we were getting ticks on us by the tens. It was disturbing, the amount of ticks on our shoes and clothes. I've never seen that many in all of my life before. We hurried through the infested shortcut (it ran through unmanaged fields – the paths were made by farm machinery probably), and got back just in time for lunch. It was at the Mercantile. After lunch we headed over to Sandhill Farms for their May Day party – celebration of buying their land.

The party was bad ass! We walked over there again like last time, only this time it took us 2-3 times as long. We walked slower and had to keep stopping for some people in the convoy (including me for a second to put my shoes on cause the ground was too rough for my uncalloused feet). We arrived just in time for the May Pole dance. There were streamers tied to the top of a pole, alternating between blue and white. Everyone grabbed a streamer. Blue faced white and like colors had their backs to each other. The people with blue streamers walked one way, the people with white the opposite. They danced over and under each other until the streamers were all tangled and it was too hard to go under any longer. When the pole was all tied by streamers, everyone ran to the pond to got skinny dipping. I joined in. The water was cold, but I would occasionally swim through a warmer under current. I thought maybe it was piss, but I doubt it could have been because of the pond's size and the number of people in it.

Dinnertime. A huge delicious feast with tons of vegan options. There was even free home brew. After food, another contra-dance (just like the first party at Sandhill). I learned my lesson from last time and just watched. I wanted my food to properly digest. A bell rang signaling that it was time for the sweat lodge. I wandered over to a small bog-like pond across the street from the main house and in between some trees to a small hut made out of wood and draped with carpets on top of the closed roof. The floor was just earth with a pit dug in the middle. They heated bricks, gears and other random metal objects until they were glowing red and put them in the pit. Everyone got naked and crawled in. Water was poured over the objects in the pit. Everything was pitch black except for a subtle red glow. More water was added until it grew comfortably hot. Then eucalyptus was poured on. All of my pores opened up and breathed in deep. More water and eucalyptus. It got so hot I was sweating in streams. Our turn was up, so we felt, and walked into the boggy waters to clean off. That was a bad idea. I felt dirtier after that. Regardless, I sat around the fire to dry off because he sun set while we were inside. A little later the DR truck came and picked us up. We headed back. I found 3 ticks inside of our tent.

5/8 – Sunday

Adri and I were chilling with Jennifer and Izzy by DR's new (and clean) pond. Izzy was so wild it was more entertaining than TV. He kept trying to get me to jump in the pond again and again after I was done swimming and dried off, saying that I could make a bigger splash than last time. I dunk him in a few times to get his feet wet and let him splash. They left to go do some laundry. Adri and I sat around for a bit. Morgan and his little brother Duncan came by to swim. Morgan jumped in with no delay, but Duncan was hesitant. His big brother tried to pull him in, they played around for a while until they lost interest (maybe?) and headed back home. We then jumped in playing around and laying on the dock to soak up the sun's warmth. When we finished swimming and were drying off, a big snake swam by us on the water. I've never seen snakes swim before.

We sat through Sunflower's weekly meeting after the common house clean up. Then we sat through the community's week in preview – trying to figure out who was giving us a ride to the train on Monday. We kind of figured it out and then chilled on the commie computer listening to some tunes. Afterward we went back to the cool bridge for a little bit. We sat there for an hour or so and watched a couple of freight trains pass. We came back for dinner then watched a movie in the common house called Bold Native – a fictional account of an ALF movement. It was moving and had some sweet statistics at the end including one about a vegan saving about 90 animal's lives a year.

We met up with some people outside the common house after the movie and chilled. Mac showed us a news clip from his home town about people swearing there was a leprechaun in their neighborhood. It was absurd and hard to believe. Apparently, South Park picked up on in and made fun of it in one of their Imagination Land episodes. Tired, we headed to bed, walking under a blanket of clouds and stars. Our last night at Dancing Rabbit.

5/9 – Monday

Packed up, ate lunch and hit the road. We met a guy waiting for the train. He came up to us asking for the time or something. We started talking about music. I offered him a beer (I picked up a 6 pack of Mickey's for the train ride). We talked and talked about music, and ended up trading emails after he gave us two CD's he wanted us to check out. Adri's sister picked us up at Union Station. I talked to my family for a bit, then passed out. Home.

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3 Week Visitor @ Dancing Rabbit