Day 8

 Where does the time go?  I cannot believe were are already 1/3 of the way through our program!  Having said that I question if it is correct.  We are making amazing strides toward our goal of having a community.  Be it team building activities, home building, working together... we are on our way!  This morning we sang the Yellow Submarine, learned Shel Silverstein's Unicorn song, Lean on Me and finished with Ultimate Gibberish.  Ask your homesteader about Ultimate Gibberish, it was pure cacophony!  In our morning circle Owen asked homesteaders if they had been dreaming about Village because he has been.  Many homesteaders have been dreaming about Roarie and unicorns and the rest of us to some extent, how funny.  Goals were mainly focused in two major areas today:  making forward progress on houses and HYDRATION.  The hydration goals turned into a bit of one-up-manship, beginning with the goal of drinking 2 bottles of water today going all the way up to 5! The rest of our morning was spent on Werk Berzerk.

Will balances his check book and pays for his lumber order

Jared puts the finishing touches on his cardboard mode

lunchtime fun 

This is Elizabeth and her peep, Hermione.  You may remember my mentioning them several days ago.  You may also remember my mentioning that if you looked at the picture of Sarah and her peep, Lilly, you would have a very near representation of Elizabeth and Hermione.

The first part of town meeting today was another informative seminar.  This time we took a good look at Robert's Rules of Order.  We paired off, learned one point and presented back to the whole group.  This took more time than was fun, but now we know.  More importantly, now our moderator knows what our expectations are.  After this we had our first homesteader moderated meeting.  It was amazing.  A few homesteaders clearly paid attention during the seminar and they tried their best to follow all of the procedures.  Our moderator is easily distracted.  The FED took advantage of the lack of order and the amount of time it took for the homesteaders to accomplish anything by going way off topic for long stretches, secretly waiting and hoping that someone (hopefully the moderator) would stop them and call the meeting back to order.  Ultimately what was decided upon was to have the mint print up 1600 emmetts to have in circulation.  This was confusing because someone said that 1600 and 16,000 were the same thing.

After meeting we did some more Werk Berzerk.  At this time the trading post had a lot of business and we heard our first radio show.  Some featured songs were: "Beat It", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Open Book", and (oddly) "Kids with Guns".  The DJ's also put out their first public service announcement- no touching the mics unless you are employed by the radio station or you will be fined 5 Emmetts!  

We finished our day with capture the flag!!!

Some of us sat out on CTF, we did other stuff instead

Lots of other stuff!

Today we liked:

• The whole day!!!
• charcoal all over the face, washed up real nice!
• having a great day!
• drinking my third bottle of water
• capture the flag!!!!!
• working on lumber orders
• sticking to the schedule
• it was SO hot, great for swimming
• so much awesome spirit in the CTF game
• store and radio going really well, great to see the concept of Village in action
• some houses are nearly complete!
• achieving goals
• finishing cardboard models
• drinking 8 bottles of water
• swimming!
• sold some stuff at the trading post- made a LOT of money
• awesome radio show
• beating Evie at 20 questions

We wish:

• for a wish
• don't want a wish, everything is going great!
• Owen was more helpful (ha!)
• for more CTF
• no one saw Aidan getting the flag
• tomorrow wasn't Friday
• the mini fair was today and it did not mean the end of Village
• we had more writers for the newspaper
• it was not SO hot
• to remember the feeling of others' and be kind
• for more time to print the money
• for several minds and 20 hands to do other people's work for them (by Owen)
• I didn't spend so much money on my house!
• for more water drinking tomorrow
• more swimming
• Dalton would stay longer
• there were no roller skates today

Don't forget to bring your balls!  Juggling tomorrow!

Day 7

 Today we began with something completely different: A federal proclamation!  The FED will now fine homesteaders if they are caught without their water bottles, so be sure to send your homesteaders to Village with something to put water in!  Hydration is one very important key to homesteader success!  Songs this morning included:  the lion hunt, Great Green Gobs, the Sun song, the Gibberish song, and the Wieny song.  These songs probably have really wonderful, real names... I, however, do not seem to know them!  Ask your homesteaders for a performance! We went around the circle and everyone listed off their goals for the day, perhaps another day I'll write these down to share, some are VERY ambitious!

Our morning meeting was all about roller skating.  We commissioners have noticed far more roller skating in the portable toilets than we feel is reasonable.  We asked the homesteaders for a middle of the road solution for this problem (meaning somewhere between nothing and staying home for a day).  Here is what the homesteaders suggested:

• spanking with the cricket bat
• sit out for a few minutes
• no games for a certain amount of time
• FED fines
• big and small dunce caps- sit in the corner with your peep
• 2 chores at corvee instead of one
• time off of swimming
• give commissioners your lunch (the commissioners added this to the list)
• give Rolph poop for a day
• sit out, think, make amends, apologize
• clean the honey pot with your tongue

We put it to a vote and "no games for a certain amount of time" won with 15 votes.  Next we put the amount of time out for discussion, times suggested ranged from one day down to five minutes.... with increments like 26 minutes in between.  One whole day was the winner of this vote.  These homesteaders seem to be gluttons for punishment!  This also says that the majority of our town doesn't like unsafe behavior.

Werk Bezerk this morning included house plans, cardboard models, lumber orders, working on the land, organizing the trading post, and printing currency.  After this we had a nice, meeting free lunch and swim.  We are getting better and better at running to the pond to have more time for swimming!

At afternoon snack and meeting commissioners asked how homesteaders were feeling about their new consequence (of sitting out from games for a whole day for unsafe behavior) and if they might like to change it a little bit.  No one did, they are sticking to their guns!  The rest of town meeting was spent not so much as a meeting but more of a class.  All homesteaders now have a check book and registry and they know how to use them.  The entire village practiced by writing out a check to Rolph for 50emmitts for poop.  It seems that Rolph maybe tricked homesteaders into giving him a lot of money and permission to dump manure on their land!

After the check writing seminar we split the homesteaders up by age (they managed to do this silently).  The older half of the group headed outside to work on some team challenges.  The first challenge was to get everyone over the wall.  Here are some pictures:  And yes, the older kids were successful!

We did have one injury....thumbs down

 Next the older kids were asked to find the most ingenious ways to get everyone to touch a ball in the fastest time possible.  Their final time was less than two seconds!

While the older kids were out challenging themselves, the younger group stayed behind to work more on the things from the morning Werk Berzerk block.  After awhile, the homesteaders traded places.  The younger group first started with the ball challenge.  These guys got their time down to four seconds!

 The younger group did not have enough time to get everyone over the wall, they did manage to get seven homesteaders over.

 While the youngers completed their challenges the olders went back to morning activities including printing money.  This is harder than you might think.  I think that when the rest of town sees the new currency they will be in for a bit of a surprise.  Stamps were made for 0 through 9 as well as one for the bone symbol and one for the emmet symbol.  The trouble with making stamps is that the image you carve is the mirror image of what you are going to get! Oops!  "We can just turn the paper upside down"

making money

working on a cardboard model

working on cardboard models

setting up the trading post

 While today was an exceptionally excellent day overall, the best was clearly saved for last when we played capture the flag!

Owen tells us the rules of the game

play!

Today we liked:

• CAPTURE THE FLAG (CTF)!!!!!!
• swimming
• everything!
• everybody got along
• achieving our goals
• Aidan's silent, sneaky flag capture
• everyone got WAY more done than they thought they would
• the whole day!
• currency is nearly done
• "I chose the best summer camp!"

We wish:

• we could play CTF all day
• we were less hot and out of breath from playing!
• we all met our goals
• we could play CTF everyday
• we could play CTF even longer
• wish I had a wish...
• Will and Owen will complete building Tom's house tomorrow
• I knew the cat's name
• I had cold water dumped on my head and was standing in the wind
• CeCe would do all of the corvee tomorrow

Day 6

We began our day by singing the Yellow Submarine, Great Green Gobs, the Gibberish song, the Banjo song, the Bumblebee song and the Jeep song.  It was quite intense and focused singing!  We had homesteaders state a goal for today to help keep everyone on track.  We commissioners decided to change everything and do something completely different today with our schedule.  Here is Jesslyn wearing the wipe board, talking everyone through our new schedule!  The highlights are that we decided to skip morning meeting and went right into working.  This morning's work consisted of cardboard models, lumber orders, house plans and an awful lot of talk about a fellow named Pythagoras and his theorem.  Many a homesteader can now not only identify a hypotenuse but also has the ability to find it's length!

We broke for lunch early in favor of swimming early.... to get back early.  Since homesteaders tend to be SO hungry after we swim, we chose to have snack and meeting immediately following swimming.

Saul moderated for us today.  As he called the meeting to order he suggested we work out our currency because, "We could have anarchy or a dystopian universe without currency."  Up for discussion at meeting was the name of our paper currency and symbols for it.
                                                 Suggested names:

paper money

squirrels

water

snips

mini bucks

Emmetts 

lilies

tiger lilies

clams

peace

Motions were made to close the listing of new names and to vote on one name.  Emmetts won with ten votes.  Next we moved onto symbols.  Suggested symbols were:

a dog head

a cat face with a circle around it and a line drawn through it

a dog nose

a leash

a picture of Emmett on the paper, a picture of the Mackenzie's on the coins

Emmett's face with an "E"

black silhouette of Emmett

This was moved to a vote, the black silhouette of Emmett won.  Next we moved onto the symbol for our money when we write it down, like $ for dollar.  

 Owen brought the wipe board outside and tried his best to draw the symbols that homesteaders were offering.  He also got a little bit bored with this job and drew some other things as well.  Ultimately, the drawing of the bone was chosen as the symbol for our currency.

Following our meeting was another work block, some homesteaders worked on their land, some worked on their houses, others had job interviews.  Two homesteaders felt like they did not want to do any of these things and went ahead and corveed everything!

The day closed with games (Blind Man's Bluff and Entourage) and pluses and wishes.

Today we liked:

• accomplishing so much
• getting half way through house plans
• the whole day!!
• no corvee (thanks Ty and Will!)
• swimming
• job interviews
• making 2 weapons for my peep
• playing Blind Man's Bluff
• finishing drawing on wood
• getting stuff done
• starting cardboard model
• having a really good day
• playing games

We wish:

• even more people to meet their goals tomorrow
• to finish cardboard models tomorrow
• we had more time
• more swimming
• for a hot day so we could swim all day
• to finish lumber orders tomorrow
• to make more weapons
• all but one person were blind in Blind Man's Bluff
• goggles didn't fog up
• wish I could think of a wish
• Mr.PeepT hadn't gotten lost
• to play more games tomorrow
• to run faster, in a better line to cross the street
• to be on time for everything tomorrow
• someone else does all of the corvee again tomorrow so we can play man hunt
• I had a corvette!

Day 5

Monday!  Monday!!  For you parents out there, reading this... Please let your children sleep over the weekend!!!!  Oh my goodness, what a lot of tired homesteaders we had today!  We began our day by checking in with our peeps.  Fortunately no one had any damage to report, the weather and animals were kind to our community.  First we sang the This Way That Way pirate song, then Mountain Dew, the Coffee Pot song, and Boom Chicka Boom with new verses featuring Saul, TMon, Mr.PeepT, Rolph, a pirate, a sassy person, a whisper verse and finally a silent verse.  All of the verses were fun, but I think the silent verse was the most!

At morning meeting we noticed and were introduced to new homesteaders (Sarah and Elizabeth), one new commissioner (Jordan) and a few peeps.  We also briefly spoke about currency.  Homesteaders were given all day to consider what might work well for money.

Victoria introduced us to Frankie (short for Francis).  She is from Florida, she loves cream soda, the color purple and snorkeling.  Frankie has a pet snake.  The snake eats mice (not squirrels- for those of you that asked).  Frankie catches the mice with a fishing net.  You might be wondering if her snake eats swimming mice, the mice are normal, mini mice, not swimming mice.  Frankie's favorite food is chicken pot pie and she is 22 years old.

 Will introduced us to Tom, not Thom.  Saul says, "Uh oh, he has a mohawk, he might be one of those punk rockers!"  Tom has four cows and two pigs, it is unclear whether he keeps them as companions or meat.  Perhaps both.  Tom is right handed and his favorite food is bacon... so he probably, might be raising the pigs for meat.  There is only one "O" in Tom's name, although everyone has trouble pronouncing it.  "I'm new to this world, I don't have any hobbies yet."

Jordan introduced us to Sheldon.  Sheldon is very shy.  Very, very shy.  Sheldon is 30 years old and knows a lot of Snapple facts and Google facts.  He shared that more people are injured by soda machines than by hippopotami (hippopotamuses?).

After morning meeting the homesteaders split into three groups and got a good, solid look at the trading post materials and the supplies down at the sheep shed.  It is important to keep in mind what is available when designing your peep's home.  The remaining minutes of our morning were spent designing houses and creating blueprints.  After lunch and a nice swim we got right back to it.  Some homesteaders have moved onto cardboard models!

Corvee and town meeting (again!):  The agenda today was to choose a type of currency, have two more peep introductions and ???

We met Sarah's peep, Victoria, first.  Victoria is 21 years old and has a golden retriever as a pet.  Her dog eats dog food.  Victoria is from London and enjoys sewing in her spare time.  She also enjoys horseback riding.



Announcements at meeting:

• Jacques has lost one of his boots
• Tarzan has lost his leaf!

Onto currency.  This discussion began with the actual object to become our money.  Instead of having a conversation about what attributes might be a good idea, we went ahead and just listed off a number of things that might be fun or could actually work.  Here are some of our ideas:

squirrels, acorns, fingers & toes, Rolph's friends, tiny green clay, beads, paper with symbols, sunflower seeds, actual pizzas, tiny pies, leaves (or Tarzan's underpants), three leaf clovers, banana peels, lily pads, blades of grass, leeches & bass, Tarzan, wheel chairs, frogs

We narrowed the list considerably when we realized how not unique many of these items are, and how easy it would be to counterfeit.  We narrowed the discussion to tiny pies, three leaf clovers, and paper with symbols.  Paper with symbols won with a majority vote.  This discussion was tabled and we moved on to one last peep intro, which I did not manage to get a picture of.  If you look up at Sarah's picture and envision a peep with dark hair and dressed very differently you can almost imagine what Elizabeth and her peep look like.  Elizabeth introduced us to Hermione.  Hermione is 12 years old and has a pet owl.  Her favorite color is blue, she is from London and has no siblings.  

Today we liked:

• Sarah & Elizabeth came today!
• making nice house plans
• all peeps have been introduced
• finishing peeps
• finishing house plans
• doing pluses and wishes
• waking up this morning
• ready to make a cardboard model
• working here- not the recycling center
• everyone is here now
• transferring house plans to cardboard models
• nice weather
• "my wish came true"
• Tarzan did not get mauled by a squirrel
• swimming
• blueprints are ready
• going home 

We wish:

• we had more time to make the currency symbol
• it was warmer outside
• to finish house plans this week
• building houses goes well
• part of town did not collapse in the earthquake
• to make one million dollars in 5 years
• to build a house tomorrow
• for cake
• for a wish
• I didn't eat so many grapes
• I could fly
• I was a giraffe
• more wishes come true
• we found Tarzan's leaf
• for school to start up again (what the heck!?!)
• to go home