Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is home to 30 adults and nine children. The town square is alive with vibrant murals and brightly painted homes with names such as Thistledown, Skyhouse and Ironweed.

Dancing Rabbit only owns two cars and a truck, which are used in cooperation with all members of the ecovillage. The community has developed strong relationships with local organic farmers and neighbors, such as Sandhill Farm, that provide the residents with food. In exchange, they often help during harvest seasons or in other capacities.

It is difficult to say who the official founders of the community are because so many individuals contributed to the ideas, bylaws and concept development for the ecovillage. Starting as the dream of a group of people at Berkeley living in a home called Skyhouse, Dancing Rabbit was established in 1997 when six people moved onto the 280 acres in Rutledge. Two of the original inhabitants still live there.

Amy Seiden will be a resident of four years in May.

Seiden and her husband live in Skyhouse, which was originally intended to be the community’s common building when the foundation was poured in 1999. Of all its beautiful architectural features, the earthen floor of the building is the most noticeable. It is made of a clay, straw and sand mixture that has hardened and is tamped down until it becomes very dense. Once the final floor is smooth, linseed oil is spread on top to make it waterproof.

Several commercial businesses operate from Dancing Rabbit. Skyhouse Consulting is a computer consulting group that specializes in working with databases and Web design. Thorntree Shipping Company ships antique prints around the country. Ironweed Gardening Co-op sells its vegetables in the local community and has an offshoot called Ironweed Apothecary that sells herbal remedies.

The newest development is the construction of Milkweed Mercantile, which is set to open at Dancing Rabbit by fall 2008. This sustainable building made of wood, straw bales and a clay, sand and straw mixed floor will boast an organic café, a general store and a bed and breakfast.
Alline Anderson, a Dancing Rabbit resident and owner of Milkweed Mercantile, received a $10,000 grant for socially conscious women-owned businesses from the Eileen Fisher Company, an apparel company based in New York. Guests will have the opportunity to stay in one of Milkweed

Mercantile’s four rooms (one of which is handicap accessible) while gaining better insight into an eco-living experience. Anderson and Seiden are planning to name the rooms after their favorite notable environmentalists.

For those interested in living in the ecovillage, Dancing Rabbit is expanding. In hopes of developing the 16-house village to the size of anywhere between 500 and 1,000 people, Dancing Rabbit is adding to the property and making more land available to continue enlarging the village.

Their vision is to have a town with dense housing, commercial businesses and plenty of land for farming.

Seiden said there is a great deal of flexibility when moving to Dancing Rabbit. Although there are six established ecological covenants that guide people to live sustainably, there are no specific rules that dictate how the families must build and live. The cost of living is affordable, and new residents can choose the co-ops of which they wish to be a part.

Each family is also responsible for its own power. The most common sources are solar and wind. Hot water tanks, wood-burning stoves, batteries and straw bale insulation are just a few of the ways Dancing Rabbit inhabitants try to meet their everyday needs while being environmentally conscious. In the summer, residents can take a swim in the pond and then rinse off in the outdoor showers that use rainwater heated in black trash bags hanging in the sun as their sources of water.

The mission of Dancing Rabbit is two-fold. In addition to providing a demonstration of a sustainable ecological village, it also aims to educate others. Villagers speak at schools and give tours to students and the general public upon request.

The ecovillage’s educational efforts are bringing forth a revitalization of old ideas in the surrounding area.

“It’s great to have an opportunity to teach people about canning and things that are lost arts … knitting … crocheting … quilting … things the older people in Rutledge didn’t think were going to be around much longer,” Seiden said.

Tours are given the second and fourth Saturday of every month beginning in April and running throughout the warm season. Those seriously considering living at Dancing Rabbit must first contact the village to submit an application. Serious visitors can then participate in a three-week-long stay. The first week familiarizes visitors with the general lifestyle. The final two weeks focus on sustainability, projected co-op living costs and the mission and goals of Dancing Rabbit.

Three miles down the road stands Sandhill Farm, an egalitarian intentional community that began as a part of the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and ’70s, said Stan Hildebrand, a Sandhill Farm resident of 28 years. Four college acquaintances started the 135-acre Sandhill Farm in 1974 with the common interest of living close to the land and doing so in a group situation. One of the four people still resides at Sandhill.

Currently the community consists of seven members, one of whom is an 11-year-old who was born and raised in the community. Sandhill Farm focuses on two main ideas: living on the land in a sustainable manner while trying to make the best ecological choices and living together as a community, Hildebrand said. Sandhill Farm’s residents live in a non-competitive environment in which they share income, resources and vehicles.

Sandhill Farm is an organically certified operation. Residents grow crops on 20 acres of the property, including mustard, horseradish, garlic, soybeans, wheat, sweet corn and sorghum. Sorghum syrup is Sandhill Farm’s signature product. Planted in May, the sorghum is ready for harvest in September and October. For the four to five weeks of the harvest, the farm generally has about 15 to 20 members from other communities help bring in the crop.

“Years ago, [sorghum] was the most common sweetener in this area,” Hildebrand said.

Although many people are out of the habit of using sorghum as a sweetener instead of white sugar, the farm often has older customers who still use the product. Young people have also begun to purchase the sorghum syrup because it is certified organic.

Additionally, there are 20 beehives on the property, and Sandhill, in turn, sells the honey. Because of the small amount of land owned, the honey produced is not certified organic because the community cannot ensure that bees are only visiting unsprayed locations.

The soybeans are used to make tempeh, which they sell to restaurants in Columbia, Missouri, and Iowa City, Iowa. Hildebrand and the members of Sandhill Farm go to Kirksville, Missouri, Quincy, Illinois, Columbia, St. Louis and many towns in between to sell their sorghum, honey, tempeh and tomatillo salsa at fairs.

The members of the community at Sandhill are eager to pass along their knowledge. Visitors are allowed to come all year long, but summer is the most popular time of the year.

There are applications on the Web site for internships with the community. The internships last two to six months and assure the intern a place to stay on the farm, a small stipend for expenses and the opportunity to live, work and learn with those in the community.

The collective communities’ movement has to be progressive in order to thrive in today’s society without being overwhelmed by it. Sandhill Farm is in the process of applying for a grant to make biodiesel fuel. Also, they hope to have a podcast uploaded within the year to share information about their lifestyle globally.

“It just feels like a healthier lifestyle to be sharing with other people and to live closer to the earth and to use less resources,” Hildebrand said. “Our official income is well below the poverty line … yet we feel like we have a very, very rich lifestyle.”

Even in today’s society, each person can contribute in his or her own way to helping others and the environment.

At Sandhill Farm and Dancing Rabbit, residents are doing their best to make environmental awareness a part of their daily lives.

Photos by Ashley Richards