The seasonal wheel is turning; there’s a sense that time is running out. And that’s because winter is right around the corner. At Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, community members are stockpiling firewood, canning jars of tomatoes, and cleaning wood stove chimneys.
Liz here, with the latest from DR and the Hub natural building project.
For the last several years I make sure to stockpile firewood for my house, Morel, and for the Hub as well. This year Earl showed up with a cord of wood gathered from his yard that was irregular. He had been so impressed with the capacity of our large masonry heater, that he knew just who to bring these large wood pieces to. I estimate I now have about three cords of wood saved at the Hub, and that’s alright by me.
My sister visited for a month, staying in one of the lofts at the Hub, cooking several shifts a week for our newly-opened co-op kitchen, and working as one of the crew members constructing the building. I am reminded of my sister’s capacity for hard work, and I struggled to keep up, allowing her fresh energy to carry me forward. My older sister, Jeni, joined us for the last week of Mogy’s visit.
My sister and I started with clearing the weedy patio and leveling the space. We carried in wheelbarrows of junk gravel and then sand and tamped it down, in time for our yearly volunteer, Dani, to join us from St. Louis. The three of us laid brick, cut brick and puzzled out the little, tricky pieces, with good results.
My sister asked if she could learn some woodworking while she was here. The next project that Ciaran had in mind after finishing the bathroom door was to build the kitchen counters out of white oak cut off pieces from a local who builds wood floors. So my sister divided her time between helping me lay tile for the backsplash, and planing the white oak pieces and gluing them into an offset pattern.
Six weeks ago, Rebecca joined us at the Hub for a five-week visit. As the social media coordinator for the Hub project, she visits us every two months and loads up on material for creating weekly videos for the Hub’s new Substack digital site. She also filmed what we call Kitchen Table Talks, where the Hub crew sits around the beautiful table that Ciaran built and discusses topics related to ecovillage life, how to build a nonhierarchical work environment, and how we might want to respond in an inclusive and helpful way to the uncertain times unfolding all around us (go to thehubcollective.substack.com to see this new format).
Rebecca’s visits are also a fruitful time for creative brainstorming on different ideas for Substack publishing formats (like the Kitchen Table Talks and frequent updates on the project, called Notes), and ideas for the Hub project itself. As we draw closer and closer to finishing the Hub building, we are opening our minds to what our next steps could be.
As housing becomes more of an issue, and affects the village’s ability to grow in population, having a plan for building houses and an overall policy for how to get there, is becoming more urgent. The Hub Collective is talking about this, researching solutions, and thinking things through as to what our contribution might be. We want to put our hard earned experience building the Hub for the last five years to use for the village’s benefit.
Working in a collective way on the Substack contents is honing our ability to work together and pool our ideas, things we have been doing with the Hub build over the years. Now it’s time for making connections with others in the digital realm, and making practical plans for the Hub Collective’s next steps at Dancing Rabbit.
Liz Hackney loves to write! She is a contributing writer and editor of this newsletter, and she writes a weekly blog for thehubcollective.substack.com. She is adjusting to being filmed while speaking her mind, which is surprisingly hard to do, even at her age.