Village 2012: Day 3

We began today asking homesteaders if they remembered everyone's names. We had a few volunteers and they were successful. Everyone learned the Jeep Song this morning, it is quite fun and if you are not already familiar with it, you should have your homesteader sing it to you. After the Jeep Song we sang the Weeny Song, followed by Tarzan and a One through Ten Pirate Song.

In our morning meeting we had serious business to conduct: The Proprietary Rights Agreement! This document is over twenty feet long. It took a little while, but I think most everyone knows that they signed their lunches over to the commissioners for the rest of Village. Just kidding! The gist is that the owners of Village Field Farm (Kip and Sandy Mackenzie) agree to give the homesteaders one real acre of land for the use of building a community in a scale of 1:24. The homesteaders agree to provide the Mackenzie's with a surveyed map of our acre and among other things to return the land in its original condition. As we read this the terms homestead and homesteader came up a lot. We talked a bit about the Homestead Act of 1862 and how the kids playing Village are modeling homesteading, hence being dubbed homesteaders. There were many more terms and conditions, everyone agreed to sign.

Nick reads part of the agreement out loud

Evan signs his name

The next piece of the morning was spent scouting for land. Homesteaders broke into four groups and each chose an ideal place for our town acre. After scouting, each group had to share their findings and try to convince their fellow homesteaders to choose their suggested site. With a bit of talk and little debate, homesteaders agreed to try to get the big tree in the upper field, a bit of rock wall and a bit of the forest. Homesteaders then broke into eight groups, each group was given a piece of string measuring 100ft (or 2400mini feet) to put up and join with another group on either end. Our first attempt was not entirely successful. The string was not quite long enough to surround everything that we wanted. We broke for lunch and a swim. After our swim we reconvened and decided the best move would be to cut the big tree out of the equation. This took team work and pulling on both ends, but we did it! We now have our acre!

Debating possible acre sites

The most exciting part of our day was stringing up mini acres. With the big acre in place there was no reason to postpone this any longer. Stakes and strings in hand, the homesteaders had a proper land rush!

Claiming land around a large rock and near friends

"this string is all tangled"

claiming land near the big tree

Land on the path- this guy is going to be able to charge tolls

land in the forest around a tree

deeper into the forest

After the land rush and beginning primitive shelters, we circled up again to do more paperwork. Apparently the FED isn't just giving land away. Homesteaders now had to fill out and sign their Village Homestead Agreement. This is a use and rights agreement between the United Peeps of Monadnock Federal Government and the homesteaders. As we read through this and filled in the blanks, there was one that was unfillable... the space were you write in the town name. This seemed like as good a time as any to go ahead and name our new community. Many names were suggested- such as: Ding Dong, Dangerville, Epicville, BabyPeep Town, DooDooburg, Frankfart, Unicorpia, Thisisthenameofvillage, Thetown, Thenameofthegameisvillage, Unicornia, Littleton, New Peepshire, Lishstickville, Deathville,Castleville, Peeptown, Miniborough, Justaniceone, Loveville, Peepsylvania, Sisterbro.

Homesteaders were given the opportunity to vote for their favorite three names to narrow it down a bit. The top four names were: Frankfart, New Peepshire, Miniborough, and Peepsylvania. New Peepshire won with fourteen votes!

Having selected a town name we finished the Homestead Agreement and moved on to peep introductions.

working on the Homestead Agreement

still working on the Homestead Agreement

Clearly this is very boring, so it must be important

Gabe introduces Tarzan. He speaks very fast with a very choppy voice. He is from a family of apes, George of the Jungle and Batman. His favorite food is bananas. His least favorite food is metal. He is a creeper breeder and he likes leaves, needles, swords and squirrels. He does not like Dalton, pants, shirts, or Will. "I am Tarzan, I do not like people shirts or pants!" "He only likes nudists." His leaf counts as a leaf, not as pants. Tarzan appears to have brown skin and a peach head, he informs us that it is not skin but fur. We are pretty sure is a really hairy man with a leaf! He also carries a flesh colored sword, the origins of this are unclear.

Fallon introduces Lily. Lily is bossy and she does not like or care about anyone else. Her favorite phrase is, "None of your beeswax!" She has a German Shepard and is 20 years old. Lily's favorite food is watermelon because it has a big smile. She also like pasta and diamonds. She is from New Hampshire and she is not annoying. Lily has lots of friends. "Selfishness is the best virtue." It was hard for other peeps to ask Lily questions, because everything is none of our beeswax.

Kaleb introduces Sargent P. Lumber. Rolph had a bit of trouble with this name. Apparently it is not the same a Plumber. Sgt. P. Lumber likes to fight and his favorite food is pizza. He is from Keene, NH is on leave from the Army and is 35 years old. P. Lumber has one cat, two dogs, and one rabbit. He informs us that while he is not abandoning his pets in Keene, he will not be bringing them to New Peepshire. P. Lumber's cat is not evil.