Late in the evenings at Dancing Rabbit, the beautiful, pervasive cries of coyotes often color the air. These haunting sounds of the prairie have become part of the comforting background noise of this place I now call home. But when I first came here, I was confused one afternoon to hear their howls so loud and so close to my quarters at the front of the village, especially right at midday. It sounded like they were right across the road, closer to the farm than I assumed they’d ever be. Curiosity got the better of me, and I rushed to peek outside to see if I could catch a glimpse. Imagine my surprise when I saw a gaggle of some 15 Rabbits with hands cupped around their mouths, howling in unison outside the entrance to the outdoor kitchen. It was lunchtime at Belly World, the kitchen co-op of the Bloom and Build Brigade.
Kenny here, with fond memories and big dreams for the future of the work exchange program here at DR, and the kitchen that feeds them.
The idea of co-operative cooking and eating was one of the things that excited me most about Dancing Rabbit when I was learning about the ins and outs of living in an intentional community. As a parent of three, my partner and I were flabbergasted at the idea that we could cook once or twice a week for a group of friends and children in a communally stocked kitchen, full of fresh produce from the cooperative garden, and have lunch and dinner served to us every day. What I didn’t expect was the howling. Initiated by the cook, the howl is then echoed by every Belly World eater in earshot, so that the howl of mealtime could reach the whole farm. My kids loved it almost as much as I did; any excuse to scream into the sky twice a day, right?
The BBB (Bloom and Build Brigade) is an ever-rotating corps of work exchangers. These are people who have come to Dancing Rabbit to work some 30 hours a week of various labor in exchange for a tent platform (although some rent available indoor spaces), access to the Common House (with warm showers, composting toilets, electricity, and wifi), and of course, access to the stocked outdoor kitchen, dubbed Belly World.
Work exchangers, or “wexers” as they are affectionately referred to, come from all walks of life to experience Dancing Rabbit in a truly unique way. Wexers might work in the Dairy Co-op, making cheese or handling the milking and caring for the animals, which includes tasks like moving fences and helping shepherd the herd to new grazing spots. They may also help with natural building or maintenance projects around the farm, spend their days weeding or processing fresh produce in the BBB garden, or just assisting with random needs that pop up throughout the village. For instance, a few wexers and Rabbits helped me raise my woodshed that had fallen over in a past storm—something I needed upright before winter. Whatever needs doing on the farm, the wexers are there to help.
Wexers may come for a couple of weeks or months at a time, and unlike seeing Dancing Rabbit through a visitor program (which is a separately unique and fulfilling experience), it allows them to see aspects of DR and get dirty with its projects in a viscerally direct way.
This past year’s wexer program was, by all accounts, a huge success, drawing in lots of fresh, helpful faces that myself and much of the rest of the community mourned saying goodbye to as their time at DR came to a close. Wexers are doubtlessly a beloved aspect of the community, as they contribute not only their labor, but their individuality and unique personality to an already vivacious village. It’s a wonderful feeling to introduce yourself to someone you’ve never met and get to know them in the intimate way that living in this community already engenders. For example, in just my first half year of living here, wexers have brought new ice cream recipes, cheese making talents, electrical knowledge, carpentry experience, ideas for soil maintenance and composting, and most importantly, new and delicious recipes to Belly World.
Wexers have been a part of Dancing Rabbit during the program’s active season (March through the end of October) for years, but this was the first year they haven’t been hosted through another kitchen co-op. The Belly World kitchen was majority wexer, with a handful of Rabbits who work closely with the program, or in my case, just dug the vibe.
Although I entered this community through a visitor program, my family and I were immediately invited to eat with the BBB, and were received with open arms. The Belly World kitchen consists of a sink, multiple burners, an instapot, dry and wet food storage, a refrigerator, multiple tables with beautifully mismatched chairs, and almost always the scent of something wonderful cooking. As somebody with a great deal of love for this kitchen and the people who make it, I can admit with admiration in my heart that the gorgeous dishes that come out of that kitchen contrast humorously with the kitchen itself, which is just as clean as an outdoor kitchens space composed of second, third, and so on-hand equipment can be. Everything has its quirks, certain knobs don’t turn, or turn backwards, a strong wind can knock out your burner and turn that rice dish into a soup unless you’re watching it, and you may share late night visits to the kitchen for some tea with an enormous opossum who is helping itself to the compost bucket. By the end of the season, he didn’t even run away anymore, even when I flicked on the Christmas lights strung around the kitchen; we even farm-to-table the compost around here.
Belly World is located next to the communal bike storage and maintenance section of the structure, or Bike World as it’s better known (from which Belly World gets its name). The entire single-walled structure used to house pigs before DR was established, but it’s been since converted to hold dozens of bikes, and dozens of well-fed folks alike (as well as power tools, scrap wood, and the workout equipment in Buff World behind the kitchen).
At the weekly kitchen meeting, all members of the kitchen, Rabbits, visitors, and wexers alike, sit down to review that week’s projects that the BBB will be tackling, cook shift rotations, and other collective coordination topics, after an open and honest check-in period of course. In an environment that is so different from the ways that most of us grew up or are maybe even living now, eating in a co-op presents the opportunity to set aside the nuclear family model of “mealtime togetherness,” and try on a chosen family of people all working together. Sitting around a table with them, hearing about their days, their struggles, their lives, their families, their hopes and fears, and being present for them all coming together to make the kitchen run, is a genuinely wonderful experience. Watching nervous week-one wexers bloom into seasonal pillars of the community, hearing the children of the village scream with excitement at their favorite wexers who always have a second to chase them around, and hearing them cry when they leave is another magical aspect of the community dynamic that pervades Dancing Rabbit.
Every meeting and meal with the BBB were all distinct as wexers came and went, wonderful personalities acting as independent gravities all pulling the wexer program and the kitchen that fed them in new and ever-changing directions, and I miss it very dearly.
The Belly World kitchen closed for the season in the early days of November, when it finally became too cold to cook and eat and camp outside, but some of us stuck around and had a few extra final celebration meals to see the kitchen off with style as we ran through the last of the ingredients we had.
The future of the kitchen and its eaters lies with the work exchange program in 2025, and I cannot wait to meet the new friends the program will bring. I am excited to share laughs over warm, delicious meals that are as varied and interesting as the people who make them, and of course, to hear their best coyote howl.
Kenny Dane has three wonderful children under the age of ten. He recently left the world of IT for DR village life.