Community Dinner, December 7th, followed two weeks of no dinners. Thanksgiving took us  all in other directions. Meanwhile, this last dinner featured lots of food, 18 people, and FIVE DOGS. Yes. You got it. Five. Two of them are new to the village. One lives here, the other lives with Mariella and her kids a few blocks away. Their squirmy presence among us was both fun and heartwarming.

Here’s (most of)  Hank, a yearling rescue rat terrier, whose primary caregiver is Dan.

And here’s Griffy, named after Griffy Lake, just north of here, where puppy Shadow and I often walk. Mariella walks there too, or runs! And Griffy, already, has begun to follow behind with no leash. Only ten weeks old, he will end up humongous: half Great Pyrenees and half Bernese Mountain Dog (I think she said).

Griffy is calm. But he’s still a lot of work! As Mariella will attest. (Not quite potty trained.) She wants daughter Asiri (above) to step up to the plate and take more care of him.

Hank is a nervous bundle of energy. In fact, one guest pointed out that it seems odd for nervous Hank to be calm Dan’s dog. Said Hank seems more akin to Logan! Here he is, nosing Logan:

The other three dogs, Rebecca’s two very old Jack Russells and my little middle-aged Shadow, don’t seem to mind the new additions. Plus, Logan and Dan are talking about doing an “Animals of Green Acres Village” calendar . . . for Christmas.

A few more shots from that evening:

Next Thursday evening I announced that we are going to celebrate the December birthdays of our two village elders: Rebecca and myself. Rebecca to be 64, was actually born on Thursday, December 14, and me, to celebrate 75 years, born on the 19th. Told everybody it was to be a surprise. That everyone needed to have some kind of a surprise for us both.

Then, two weeks away, we will celebrate Winter Solstice on December 21, which also happens to be on our regular Community Dinner evening. Mariella, Katarina, and possibly Brianna are in charge of the ceremony. All we’ve agreed on so far is that the evening is to include some kind of Festival of Lights, as well as a back patio fire with Smores.

OUTSIDE

Outside, still working on the gardens. Dan dug up old paths, put the dissolved chips, now transformed into dark rich soil, onto the garden beds, and then added new chips, from our new pile. Now we’ll have to add leaves or straw to the beds, since we don’t want any bare soil showing.

We thank Duncan for this idea. Amazing, how everybody that flows through seems to add one more good idea. Another example, Jim, from a few years ago, whose obsession with hugelkultur became our own.