Winter Workday

After some VERY cold weather 2 weeks ago and some surprisingly warm weather last week, we got back to a more normal winter day here at Elderberry.  It was in the 40s today and pretty windy.  We climbed a mountain today..... a mountain of great topsoil that had gotten overgrown with brush.  A team of busy bees cut away all the brush and we used the tractor to top up the pile.  We also had a team of Berries working to clean the common house, and we fired up the outdoor pizza oven for some wood-fired pizza on our lunch break.  A chilly but productive day!

Karen with handfuls of brush!

 Karen and Karolyn making a path to the wood storage shed.  Dick visited the shed today for wood for the pizza oven - he got it to exactly the right temperature at noon!

Karolyn and Karen

Stuart in the mess of brush

Richard, Stuart and Mike move some big boulders to a different location by rolling them up onto the front end loader.

How many men does it take to roll a rock?

Mike, Stuart, Karen, Karolyn and Dick tackle the brush

Richard had a list of tractor chores and Mary womaned the tractor

Front end loaders are a god-send!

Mike, Stuart and Karen tackle Brushy Mountain (there is some really great topsoil under that mess; it was piled there when the land was graded for our homes)

Karolyn looking very Christmasy in her green hat and red scarf!

Solstice Party!!

Every year we have a wild party to celebrate the longest night of the year.  The idea is to stay awake as long as possible, and to that end we have a night of cooking, and whatever other activities people dream up (dancing, games, lip sync, bonfire, poetry slam, music.... anything goes).  Vonda always plans the complicate menu (intentionally choosing recipes that are challenging to make) and buys all the ingredients. People sign up in teams to make the foods, staring with appetizers around 8pm and desserts in the early morning hours.  This year at 3am there were still 16 people with open eyes ready for a bite of sugar!

Our Common House kitchen easily accommodates many cooks!

 David, Diana and Leslie taking a breather from the kitchen!

Vonda and Mike

Jim and Dave manning the stoves

Teams studying their recipes - Vonda and Mike in the background and Glaeshia and Joe in the foreground

Gus and Karolyn

Maggie and Joyce trying to decide what to sign up for

Phil, Hart and Dave - what is Dave so passionate about??

Joyce, Marj and Cheryl yakkin it up

Joan, David, Karolyn and Barb - sweet photo!

Mike, Dino and Vonda - and a lot of others cooking!

Joan and Margery with an amazing dessert at 3am!

Milo, Hannah and Joe

The menu for the night!

OK so there was lots of dancing but every single photo was blurry.  So here's a blurry photo!