What happened in 2025?

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s a good time to look back over the last 12 months of happenings at Dancing Rabbit. As with any year, we’ve had our ups and downs. When we look at the big picture, it’s quite promising; we’re making meaningful progress on a number of projects, our population is growing steadily, and our collective institutions are chugging along and aiding villagers and visitors in living sustainable, connected, and meaningful lives.

If this is the kind of work you’d like to support, consider donating to our nonprofit, the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture (CSCC). CSCC’s programs provide people with the knowledge and tools to live sustainable, meaningful, and interconnected lives AND support Dancing Rabbit in becoming a societal model which embodies these values. 

And double your impact! Thanks to the Hothem Family, everything up to $20,000 will be fully matched! This is a big target, but it’s achievable with your help. Achieving this goal will allow us to consider taking on some truly transformational projects in the coming years. In next week's post, I’ll examine what some of those projects could be. Today, let’s look at what we’ve been up to in 2025.

Eco-audit 

To update the findings from a 2017 study examining Dancing Rabbit’s ecological footprint, we hosted a graduate student researcher to spend the summer collecting data. The data was then synthesized by an interdisciplinary research team. Some of the main takeaways are, when compared to a mainstream American, a member of Dancing Rabbit:

• owns about 10 times fewer cars
• drives 75-80% fewer miles (rideshares further reduce miles driven by 20-35%)
• imports 75-95% less water
• imports 75-90% less electricity
• produces over 50% less trash
• recycles just under twice as much

Graduate student from Michigan Tech collecting and measuring our village waste stream.

Mercantile Success

Last year, the nonprofit decided to purchase the beloved Milkweed Mercantile. We also raised money last year to upgrade the heating system, which, after much research, we are moving forward with this winter. It's safe to say that the Mercantile has been a huge success. Some wins include:

• Hosting 109 overnight guests this year
• Dairy Co-op renting the kitchen for their cheesemaking operations
• Daily morning coffee (also courtesy of the Dairy Co-op)
• Primary kitchen for feeding program participants
• Multi-use of the space for game nights, fancy dinners, poker, and committee meetings
• We basically broke even this year! 

Visitors enjoying a meal at the Mercantile.

Resilient Systems Grant 

For the second year in a row we awarded $15,000 to various projects at Dancing Rabbit. This year’s projects included the Critter Kitchen rebuild, hoop house rehabilitation, Moonlodge renovation, Queer Collective work exchange program, pollinator plantings, native hay field planting, and bird house installation for natural pest management. 

Visitor Programs 

We hosted 135 program participants this year! That's the most since pre-pandemic. Here are some highlights from our different programs: 

Sustainable Living Visitor program  

A one- to two-week program in which participants are immersed in ecological and socially conscious living. Visitors participate in workshops on natural building, regenerative agriculture, consensus decisionmaking, nonviolent communication, and conflict resolution. Participants regularly report a transformational shift in awareness and are given the tools to live in alignment with their deeply-held values. 

Permaculture Design Course (PDC)

For the first time since before the pandemic we partnered with Midwest Permaculture to host a two-week PDC. People came from all over the Midwest and beyond to learn about how to use natural systems for land regeneration. 

Singing Rabbit  

For the second year in a row we held a three-day circle singing event. This has proven to be a wonderful way to connect with regional folks over our shared love for song, the earth, and community. 

Natural Building Workshop  

A four-day workshop where participants learn to build beautiful and resilient structures using straw bales, earthen plaster, and living roofs, in addition to many of the foundational principles of green and natural building. 

Applying plaster and tending to the garden.

Work Exchange (WEX) Program  

This year we chose to scale back our WEX program to focus on integrating last year's influx of new residents. The WEXers we hosted turned out to be truly top-notch and provided invaluable help with the community garden,  Critter Kitchen, cheesemaking and more.  

Community Garden 

While our attempts to hire an outside garden manager fell a bit flat, a couple Rabbits really stepped up and shepherded this space to be a beautiful and productive garden for all to enjoy. Produce was made available to community members on a give-what-you-can basis: labor in the garden, a unique gift, or a donation to the garden.  

The Village 

Critter Kitchen Opens its Doors 

The Critters made some great progress on their impressive outdoor kitchen this year; installing everything necessary to get a kitchen up and running and moving into the space in July! As a Critter myself, I’m grateful to inhabit such a beautiful and functional space (boasting the most counterspace of any kitchen at DR) and share it with Rabbits new and old.

Dairy Co-op 

A handful of new residents have really stepped up to help out with the Dairy Co-op. For the first time in years, we have a team of consistent, passionate, and skilled cheesemakers turning our nutritious and abundant cow and goat milk into delicious cheese, yogurt and cream-based products. 

Moonlodge Rehabilitation and QMAC Formation 

One of the most exciting and impactful developments from this year has been the formation of the Queer Mutual Aid Collective (QMAC) and their efforts to rehabilitate Moonlodge; a beautiful strawbale home that’s been in need of some renovations. QMAC hosted many wexers of their own this year and made meaningful progress on breathing new life into Moonlodge. 

Car Co-op replaced two vehicles

We said goodbye to the passat (a sedan) and welcomed an eight-seater hybrid minivan. The minivan has become an instant hit, allowing Rabbits to maximize our ridesharing capacity and enhance our outreach and mutual aid efforts. It’s also the perfect vehicle for a road trip! 

We also replaced our aging truck, with a slightly newer (but in a lot better condition) heavy duty truck with a snow plow! While our community agreements technically prohibit non-eclectic, non-hybrid vehicles, we have come to the conclusion that, for the rural lifestyle we live (that involves building a village and farming) we need something with the power of a heavy duty truck, and the hybrid/electric technology is just not there yet. The new truck has already come in handy during the two snow storms we had this year; quickly clearing the (largely unserviced) dirt roads leading to Dancing Rabbit.      

Mutual Aid and Regional Solidarity 

There’s been a growing enthusiasm for expanding and deepening our regional connections and working with organizations who are doing their part in fostering sustainability, interdependence, and resilience. Some villagers have taken the initiative in cultivating relationships with indigenous  organizations, organizing mutual aid trips, attending regional gatherings, and welcoming indigenous leaders to our village. This year, villagers have been cultivating relations with The Great Plains Action Society in Iowa City and The Niskite Prayer Camp in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Agroforestry Co-op 

Working with our local USDA office and a bulldozer operator, we dug a new pond where our chestnut orchard meets DR’s prairie land. In addition to providing water to the orchard, the pond will serve as habitat for many life forms while preventing erosion and recharging ground water. The co-op also planted a mixed block of selected hickory and persimmon varieties to add diversity to the orchard. Next year, we plan to stock the pond with fish, install the irrigation system, and begin strategically planting trees throughout our pastures.

Mulching the new pond dam and walking out to the orchard.

While these are some highlights from the year, so much of the impact we’re having is felt in the day-to-day lives of the folks who choose to live here, come to visit, or take inspiration from what we're doing without ever setting foot in our corner of Missouri. If you resonate with the kind of world we are creating, your support, financial or otherwise, is deeply appreciated. 

Double your impact and help us forge a resilient and beautiful future!

With gratitude,

Eric Mease

Villager // Land Steward // Development Lead

Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture at