My YoYo Life

Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
Got a call from the husband of a high school friend saying he'd like to attend our cheese-making seminar, loved his friendly attitude and dashing accent - up, with a smile.

Asked to help research options for transporting a friend from Massachusetts back home to Dancing Rabbit after her death, which seems to be near - down, with tears.


Trying to type with a cat on my keyboard - up, with abiding patience.

Friended on Facebook by my first love (in 1975 we were both 19). Perhaps in the spirit of Rosh Hashanah this will be a good time for introspection, looking back at the mistakes that I made and apologize for being such an utter, complete, self-absorbed, angst-filled blond (although in all fairness, it was 35 years ago!) - up, with laughter.

IM'd with Danae, Kurt's niece - up.

Spoke with the remarkable people at Funeral Consumers Alliance - up, with gratitude, down, with sadness.

Developed a deeper understanding of the power of love and touch in the face of death and despair, and renewed my respect and admiration for the folks who are bringing dying back into the hands of families and friends, knowing that it is possible to prepare those we love for burial ourselves - up, down, up...

Had breakfast with delightful guests (relatives of Rabbits) who ABSOLUTELY LOVED everything about the Milkweed Mercantile - a big up, with a grin

Attended an introduction to "co-counseling" (aka re evaluation counseling) and was warmed by the love, understanding and compassion that filled the room - up


Came home and embraced the true love of my life and soaked up all the good things he has brought into my life; I feel incredibly fortunate to have found him - up.



Looked at Facebook and saw that our friend Julie has posted a photo of herself as a child, with stunning cat's-eye glasses - up with a giggle



Looked at my poor allergic dog who is beginning to look like a hairless chihuahua - down.

Took him for a walk, which made us both feel better - up.

Heard back from the rep for Eternity Enviro Casket, a company which makes caskets out of cardboard. No local vendors, must be drop shipped from St. Louis - down

Time for a nap. Thanks for reading.

LIvin the Good Life, and sweating a lot

Hi all. It's time to play catch up. So here is my life since April, condensed:

We opened the Milkweed Mercantile, and have been having a great time.

Anthony, our friend who happens to be a chef (or a chef who happens to be our friend) thought that this might be the time to finally make the move to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. He arrived with a truck load of kitchen gear, set up an uber professional kitchen for us, and taught us lots of tricks. But alas, the joys of life in Rutledge, Missouri

could not compare with the glitz and glam of Las Vegas, and he left June 18th.


Go figure. Regardless, we're so happy for the time that he spent here, and for all that he taught us. And also for the most important lesson of all - "never underestimate the power of crispy fried potatoes." Here here.

That was the middle of June. Then the Mercantile and friends went up to Stevens Point, Wisconsin to participate in the Midwest Renewal Energy Fair. I especially enjoyed getting to finally meet Pam Wheelock of Purrfect Play (the world's best pet toys, which have, for some odd reason, disappeared from our webstore. Hmmmmm). It was good.

Came home in time to welcome Kurt's niece Dana'e for an all-too-short three-week visit.


With barely time to catch our collective breaths, we prepared to host Cecil's 40th birthday fest. A bunch of folks descended upon Dancing Rabbit over the July 4th weekend and we all had a great time. Yehaw!

Cecil and Katya sitting at the Mercantile bar, consuming the 'buckets o' frosting' that Cecil requested with every meal. Seriously.

The Mercantile was full and hosted a vegan dinner for 21. We had a blast!

We continue to meet the challenge of exquisitely white sheets line-dried in the sun. Doesn't sound so difficult, but try to explain that to birds feasting on PURPLE mulberries. I may have to change the text on the Mercantile website to include something about "please don't be alarmed by strange dark stains on your sheets..." because I'm not sure just how sustainable it is to be washing towels and sheets TWICE because of bird poop. Thankfully, mulberry season has finally passed, and a storm blew over a tree that was overhanging our clothesline (yay, nature!), partially alleviating the problem.

In true Dancing Rabbit form, our clothesline is also where we store construction materials. Isn't that a permaculture principle?

Dana'e and I went blueberry picking, and it was a revelation. Not the picking itself, although that was fun. It was the berries. It is amazing how, well, blueberryish they really taste. Not at all like the pale, dull specimens one finds in the grocery store. These were huge and plump, and just fell off the bush into our hands and buckets.

We came home and made pots of jam, Dana'e for the first time. We're all very proud.


THEN I went to Chicago for the Memorial service of my friend Marvin Geier. It was at Old St. Pat's and was just lovely. The soloist gave me goosebumps, the art all around the church was stunning, and the curvy wood benches were beyond beautiful. It was a marvelous tribute to Marvin.

The trip involved staying in a couple of hotels, where there seems to be an obsession with playing with copious numbers of pillows, and windows that don't open. I'm all for air conditioning, but jeez - it WAS NICE OUTSIDE! LET ME OPEN THE DAMN WINDOW!

How many pillows does it take to make customers happy? Apparently, nine.

Then hopped in the rental van and scooted up to Elkhorn, Wisconsin for EcoFair 360. Not as many attendees as we had hoped but we met a lot of fabulous folks.

Now I'm back home. It's raining, again, unsurprisingly. Tomorrow I'm excited to be teaching a canning workshop. Unfortunately it's been such a wet, awful year that the gardens (and gardeners and farmers) are all struggling. It's been a challenge to find enough produce to put up. It's wicked hot and humid, and as the furniture melts I begin to understand why we don't have a lot of reservations in August - even I don't want to be here in August. We had thought that this would be our busy season, but perhaps next year Kurt and I will take August off and go somewhere cold and foggy. Oh, that sounds GREAT!

Time to go bake cookies for Saturday. Kurt's tending bar at Happy Hour, so I will go on over and lend some moral support. Now that we're all caught up, perhaps I can keep up!

Thanks for reading!

PS to all you lovely folks leaving comments in Asian languages that I cannot read: I'm not going to post them, so save your time.

On a Lack of Blog Entries, and Other Earth-Shattering Matters...

Writing a blog is much like keeping a journal, at least it seems that way in my fevered mind. When you miss a day, do you catch yourself up? What happens when another day goes by, and then another, and pretty soon you’re a month behind. Do you fill in the blanks? Or just take off were you are, leaving big gaps and questions in the minds of your readers (or yourself, if we’re still talking about journals…).

Amazing journals by "trumpetvine" who not only journals daily but paints beautifully and blogs. I was about to get a real complex until I realized that her last blog entry was in 2008. OK, I might just cut myself a little slack...

I’m facing that problem. During each day I’ll think of one scathingly brilliant thing to blog about. Before I have time to sit at my computer, though, life intervenes. Someone books a room at the Mercantile and I have to get the room ready because it’s Amy’s day off, I have to do another six loads of laundry, I have to zip into Memphis to pick up our beer order (they won’t come down our road). Or it’s time to make breakfast, or lunch, or dinner. Or whatever. The blog simply doesn’t happen.

Compound time constraints with the problem of writing envy. One of my friends on Bookmooch.com listed David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest as her all-time favorite book, which made me curious. Sleuthing through Amazon’s listings and reviews I came upon this paragraph:

Amid the screams of adulation for bandanna-clad wunderkind David Foster Wallace, you might hear a small peep. It is the cry for some restraint. On occasion the reader is left in the dust wondering where the story went, as the author, literary turbochargers on full-blast, suddenly accelerates into the wild-blue-footnoted yonder in pursuit of some obscure metafictional fancy. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Wallace's latest collection, is at least in part a response to the distress signal put out by the many readers who want to ride along with him, if he'd only slow down for a second.

And my only thought is “Holy Shit!”

How on earth can I keep up with THAT? I can’t even scrape the muddy boots of writing like that. And it’s only the description of DFW’s writing.

So I writhe in my vat of inferiority, and get no writing done. Instead I read still more books, and surround myself with glorious writing, and compose unposted blog entries in my head. Sigh…

Getting Ready for the Grand Opening

We're getting ready for our official Grand Opening tomorrow. Anthony's working in the Mercantile kitchen, I've spent the day in our home kitchen. He's doing savory, I'm doing sweet.

The menu.

On the menu: La Quercia charcuterie, an amazing assortment of cheese, mini "sliders" made from happy pastured beef with home made buns, miso pork tamales and much much more.

Tamales in progress.

Mini chocolate fudge cupcakes.

Baloo waits patiently while we run around like nutty people.

We had a full page ad in the Memphis Democrat yesterday (it's a weekly paper) but have no idea how many (or even if any) guests will come. If they don't we'll be eating well for a week.

I'll post more pix soon!

Rabbits dropping by to say "hi"

Maikwe says "Donate to Dancing Rabbit, save the world!"


Bear says "I love the smell of blogging in the evening."

Anthony just came back from Asian stores in St. Louis, where all food has "chewing taste." Thank goodness!

A Day in My Life at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

I woke up this morning with a pea-sized pebble of a migraine (pronounced "mee-grain" by my British friends). I pretended like it really wasn't there, and got up at 6:30 a.m. Made banana-walnut muffin dough, walked over to the Mercantile.

Warmed up the oven, discovered that it runs 50 degrees cold, adjusted, and put them in to bake.

Went back home and picked up the tray of granola that I made last night; came back and set the table for 8.

Talked to Kurt while he baked, then fried, potatoes. Set up coffee, water, tea.

Chatted with fabulous guests Joe and Beth, and then the Rabbits started to arrive. Tony, Lily, Juan, Amy and Joly all came for breakfast.

Talked for over an hour, washed a gazillion dishes, and finished just in time to run our trash into Rutledge in Joe's truck. Huh? Is this another weird Dancing Rabbit quirk - some people take their dog for a walk, the Rabbits take their trash for a drive? Hardly. It seems that the trash company is afraid of our "gravel" - i.e. mud - road, and refuses to drive on it to collect our trash. The unfortunate thing is that they never TELL us when they're not coming, so our stinky, smelly trash piles up a la Sarah Silvia Cynthia Stout:


Had lunch at Zimmerman's cafe (broccoli cheese soup), came home and put a load of sheets/towels in the washer. Finally admitted that it was indeed a migraine, took some fabulous drugs ("better living through chemistry") and took a two-hour nap.

Arrived at the Mercantile in time to greet Jeff McIntyre-Strausberg already blogging in the Mercantile. I'm here now drinking pots of Peace Coffee and blogging. Anthony returns tonight, so we'll no longer have to think about what to eat - it will just magically appear. Sigh. more soon!

And the Blog-a-thon begins!

OK everyone! Sitting across from me is Jeff McIntyre-Strasberg of Sustainablog.org, beginning his 24-hour blog-a-thon to benefit Dancing Rabbit.

Click there, donate, and possibly win a $10 gift certificate to the Milkweed Mercantile. Maybe. I mean, it would be unethical to promise anything. Except for perhaps, a good time!

More very soon!