Day 4, Last Day!

"Crowd the math teacher for financial advice!"

Mini Fair clean up time!

The Tilton! Very awesome

And now for the Village Auction!

Day 23! MINI FAIR!

All pictures post!

Energetic morning singing!

Quack, quack, quack, quack . . .

GO DUCKS!

Gearing up

FOOSBALL!

AMAZING card tricks and Hidden Door game

Such an amazing turnout!

Swinging "Boat Thing"

Cork Game!

Give me all your money . . . . please

What a great year, and so much great support from our community. As we wind down Village '14, I continue to remember a quote from an article by our visiting political writer, William Rivers Pitt:
"--but a few miles north of me, glowing like a coal in the night, a bunch of kids are immersed in the practice of community and good government. They are engaged, learning how to express themselves, learning how to work together, learning how to be real and effective citizens. They will carry those experiences with them into adulthood, and improve their world. Coals like that are growing, as we speak, across these United States, thanks to the Game of Village."

Thank you so much to everyone that came out to attend our Mini-Fair, and an especially large thanks for helping make this possible year after year!

Day 22

Intergalactic Girl!

It's Mini Fair Eve! I just have to say, while I dearly miss the political sport involved with the Little Leaf oligarchy, seeing all of these Mini-Fair preparations come together completely makes up for it!

The excitement is mounting. We starting out by offering up our support to one another by singing - Lean on Me. We also sang the Done Song and the Cheese Song and the good old Llama Song. After we swam we all shared our plans for our super hero costumes and rides. SO much to look forward to! ;)

We switched things up today because of the wishes for swimming. We saved play block for the end of the day and plowed through two work work block blocks to start the day. We could barely pry our hands off our projects when it was time for snack. Just one more cut, one more stitch, one last bake in the oven, one more nail! We have a lot of teams working on Mini Fair projects together, and lots of creative ideas.

The Federal Mint: Hooray for inflation!

We snacked and soaked up some sun and got right back to work. The other big item on the agenda was finishing money for the fair. Minting actual leaflets. There was a lot of turn over at the Mint and now as we get close to the wire (down to the wire?) we are lacking small bills. We will either need a lot of big spenders or some very busy Mint employees tomorrow. For the record - minting money is a great way to earn money!!! Which is important as loans get paid back and we start looking forward to auction.

Emmett it's Corvee time, get off your back!

After lunch - we opened up a lot of possibilities. Keep working (so dedicated!), take a trip to visit the stream (exploring!), and playing games (gotta move!).

After a hurried Corvee and one word pluses and wishes, we all went home for a good nights sleep where visions of happy peeps fly across our dreams.

Day 21

If yesterday's theme was wet, today's theme was sunshine. Sunshiny weather, sunshiny houses, sunshiny projects, sunshiny games.

And sunshiny singing. Actually we started today by singing about our fantastic sun. Without it, without a doubt, there'd be no you and me. We took in all of the sun's energy and sang about a sad Tin soldier, a pirate with missing parts, mountain dew, and last but never least... the great ship Titanic.

Then we all headed to Little Leaf for the long awaited, much anticipated appraisals. Each homesteader was responsible for rating the landscape, interior, exterior, and home security of every peep house. Including their own home, that meant visiting 17 houses and scoring each category out of ten. That's a lot of work! It was also a lot of fun to visit each home and take time to appreciate all of the hard work that went into it. The only thing missing from this morning's appraisals was... well... the sun. It was actually a bit chilly in the shady woods. Is it still summer?

Anyway, after the grand tour it was up to the peep loft for MATH! and SHARING! A great shuffle took place, as the homesteaders sorted out their appraisal sheets, getting the score cards into the hands of the appropriate peep.

At this point it was time for a break.... snack break! Which we then followed up with several rounds of sharks and minnows (we needed a break from CTF).

Once that was accomplished, we were ready to start again and we found the median of our house ratings (not the mean - it's tricky but that won't get you what you want). Then we turned our final number into the math wizards (Jesslyn and crew) who determined the worth of each house. The final step was a whole lot-a checks written out to each peep for the value of their home. Score! (Time to get that pesky loan off my back.)

Whew! What a morning! You might think that after all that, no one would be interested in any more numbers. Not So! There was a chat over lunch about multiplying that was SO rousing... it became a plus.

No rest for the weary - or eh - energized. Either way we got back to work. Glitter was flying, scissors were cutting, brain wheels were buzzing, and the thumb piano college course held a reunion to finish their instruments. The work was interrupted briefly by some sober news. Canti gurna's (who had been missing) was found. However she was found in many pieces having recently been run over by a lawn mower. Her husband was upset, but happy to have closure.

As per usual. We ended the day with cleaning and more playing. We tried out a new one, (Hello Hairy Chicken?) but we had a slow start. We went back to old faithful with a twist. Sharks and Minnows where the Sharks make all the rules!

Only one more work day till Mini-Fair Day!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus

Sharks and Minnows (with and without crazy rules) x many 

Painting (for a cause)

Signs

Math Session

Costumes

High Appraisal

Dings

Finding Peep

Wishes

Food

Finish projects

No bug bites

Pie

Summer weather for swimming

Finding peep in one piece

Day 20!

Wet, wet, wet.
So much rain today!

The deluge was so immense, that it was used as a murder weapon in our early morning game of murderer. Tragic. Lucky, the guilty party was brought to justice (just a few innocents lost along the way) and we were ready for planning and sining.

The planning looked a little soppy but the singing was far less than sloppy. We are getting pretty good at our favorites (if I do say so myself). There was the Jeep song, the coffee song, good old fashioned Eddie, and the new Pirate song introduced last week at campfire.

The rain kept us indoors for most of the first work block, if fact, it kept our peeps indoors too. The residents of Little Leaf battened down the hatches and we homesteaders carried on with their blessing. Which was ok, since there is so much to do for mini fair. I mean, those super hero capes aren't going to make themselves! We need attractions, and signs, and money, OH MY!

The rain did keep us from doing our house appraisals as planned. Instead, they will happen tomorrow, and for many peeps, the money they earn from there house will be used to pay off their federal loan of 50,000 Leaf Lets. We had another tax day, so at least thats over with. Good to know there are some things you can count on!

After we washed and snacked, we played salad bowl aka. hat game aka. celebrity. This game highlighted our acting talents, and it was great because even though some of us were reluctant to get started, we ALL played, which is always the most fun.

After lunch it was back to work! The sky took turns showing off some blue and blowing in rain. Couldn't seem to make up its mind, but FINALLY, after an afternoon of hard work, we got enough sunshine to go outside for some afternoon games. Yay CTF!

Plus

CTF

Rain

Costumes

Bullhorn

Wishes

Sun

Rain

Respect

Day 19

Federal Mint

We are getting so close to Mini-Fair! This morning we sang the Done Song, Jeep Song, Titanic, and Ultimate Jibberish! Finally, we reached the ultimate stage of jibberish. We reminded the Homesteaders that Appraisals are coming up on Monday morning. The appraisal is the quickest way to make a lot of money quickly. Everyone rates each others homes and through lots of math and number-workin' they end up with an estimated value. That value is then awarded to the Peep for use in the AUCTION.

Our work blocks have officially become entirely dedicated to making a lot of money for Mini-Fair, minting a lot of money for Mini-Fair, and creating attractions for Mini-Fair. There's probably a pattern there. More rides reached their final stages, Campfire Show presentations were practiced, and jobs were worked.

Jordan, Gretchen, Gabe, and Jesslyn, clearly!

We had snack out in the field, and once again decided that this was a CTF kind of day. The pond definitely missed all 24 of us, but there were flags to be captured. We also played a few rounds of Sharks and Minnows, which made us sufficiently energy-deprived. So we stuffed our faces with more food at lunch time.

Campfire Show: We had an amazing show today! Acts included Slideshow by Lily, Paisley, Elizabeth, Victoria, and Gretchen, where they raced jet skis down a very clean sewer until becoming zombies. If you blinked you would have missed the Mind Battle with Cedric, Victoria, Will G, and Jack. Next, the "Commissioners" sang a pirate song and did AMAZING. We had a gripping and hilarious story written and performed by Sam and Jared. Finally, Gabe played us out with some saxophone.





Plus
Saxophone!
Campfire Show
All day
TILTON (secret)
CTF
Came to Village!
Finished ride
Music!

Wish
Mini-Fair was NOW
It wasn't the weekend
Finished my ride
Giant cookie
Cookies & Rainbows & Unicorns
Pie
Fully working ride
Ice cream sandwiches and rainbows.

Day 18

Day 18! Today is the second to last day of Village-related government happenings! After Friday, we are going to be more or less in full Mini-Fair prep mode. This morning we started off the day by singing the Jeep Song, Lean on Me, Bonnie Song, and Eddie Kuchakachakama. Our morning announcements were very important, and included:

BIRTHDAY BASH!: While this will not be at Village, it is without a doubt a very Village-y event. Everyone from camp is invited to Ewan's birthday party Monday @ 4, right after camp at his house. Directions and additional information has been e-mailed and Facebook messaged, if you need it sent again please let me know! There will be hot dogs, CTF, and hopefully cake!

Job Talk . . . : We had a talk about what some options managers have when their employees are not following directions other than just firing them. There are so many more rules than just playing music or giving checks to the bank. Several Peeps were replaced as managers, and Alex took up the responsibility of many of these jobs.

So much Magic™

Currency: We don't have any real dollars, which has been great for buying things and not needing change carried around everywhere. However, we also won't have any money to exchange at the Mini-Fair! A FED Mint Manager job was offered, and promptly given to Guntha, who worked with Caleb, Morgan, Luna, and others to start printing our cash currency today. They still don't have the required 5 foot tall stack . . . We'll see.

Morning work block went very smoothly as plenty of Mini-Fair attractions are being designed and built. There are so many Homesteaders who do not have ideas yet, get crackin'! There have been some great ideas, and some not so great ideas that need a little bit of work before they can come to fruition. Peep furniture is being built for the auction, and as long as we make a bunch of money at the Mini-Fair, we will have some amazing items to sell, as well as some great CAMPERSHIPS to offer next year!

We had snack in the slightly chilly shade today, and determined very quickly that nobody (Victoria, put your hand down) wanted to go swimming. So we didn't! Democracy is amazing. Instead we played some Sharks and Minnows, Elephant Kangaroo Giraffe, and ENTOURAGE! There was also a miniature Magic session at the fire pit.

After lunch, the second work block felt less like work and more like loud noises coming from the radio station. Signs were painted for Mini-Fair attractions, ferris wheels were hammered into oblivion and then reassembled with new paint, and super secret attractions were glued together very very carefully.



Do not miss THE MINI FAIR because we have an amazing clothing theme for Homesteaders this year:
FICTIONAL SUPERHEROES.

Obviously superheroes are real, so these are going to be the ones that don't exist, like Captain Chicken and Bad Grammar Girl. Captain Canada is real, unfortunately for Reginald. Find your old cape from those vigilante days, dust it off, and come down to the Mini-Fair, July 31, 3-6 PM @ Center of Nelson

Plus
Painted my sign
CTF trickery
Mint
Progress
Job
Metallica!
Radio
Mini-Faire ride
Ripped pants, so ripped

Wish
Cookies, Rainbows, AND Unicorns
I had trimmed my nails . . .
That the clay allowed us to fix the cob oven. Way to go, clay.
MORE CTF
MORE Mini-Fair projects
FASTER CORVEE
Pie.