We've gotten to the point in Village where no one really walks anywhere -- everyone has someplace to go and is in a hurry to get there. There's a sense of urgency in the air, a sense of importance.
Peep University has started and peeps have taken a variety of courses: fitness, branding your business, window construction, needle felting, shingling, personal finance (a required course for those who have overdrawn their accounts), 7 turn labyrinths, landscaping, lawn ornaments, peep survival, and bed making. Several students have taken the initiative to write detailed lesson plans and become adjunct faculty. It's fun to hear the students trying out new ideas and language, "Wait, I forgot my transcript." "How many credits do you need for a masters?" "Which one gets you the puffy hat again?" I fear that some of the interest in higher education may be the costuming one gets to have at mini-fair's graduation.
A wide variety of houses are starting to dot the land. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance to build one's house -- things never go exactly as planned. This year's villagers are especially excited by interior design. Houses I've seen include rock walls, ferret beds, tile floors, original art work, wardrobes with tiny little hangers, sky lights, slides, and giant ants. Landscaping has also been popular and several pieces of land sport rock gardens, party lights, prayer flags and as of today, labyrinths. They are some of the most well developed properties I've seen in a long time and will be a lot of fun to appraise.
Businesses are also taking off. We've limited commerce to land time this year to encourage the development of transportation systems (all goods must move across the land by peep power at peep speed.) Yesterday, we had four brownie vendors and they learned a quick lesson about the importance of having a unique product -- one child in particular had to slash her prices compared to the day before when she'd been one of two food sellers. Ah, supply and demand. Other children are trying to defend their market share by branding -- using what he learned in a Peep U. class, one child called his rice crispy bars "Joy Bars." Another child is selling cheese from his Casa de Queso whose motto is "Mi Queso es Su Queso." He's building a cheese shaped house which I think he has plans to make into a tourist attraction ala the Corn Palace. He's also written a book which was published today, "6 Cheesy Jokes for Peeps." Look for it at mini-fair. Other businesses include a pizzeria, several bakeries, Harry Potter paraphernalia (including tiny quiditch brooms!), house wares, smoothies, homemade soda, Mini-foot long hot dogs (pigs in a blanket), portraits, a delivery business, zip line rides, a ropes course, a fitness club, and a car manufacturer.
Personal lives are busy, too. R.D. seems to be officiating at quite a few weddings (he was the priest in the Robin's Twelfth Night which is evidently the extent of his credential.) One frazzled bride stormed into the room with a length of white lace declaring, "Weddings are so stressful!" All of these marriages are strictly religious unions since there are no laws regarding marriage.
And government? Well, everyone is pretty busy -- too busy to get into the conflicts that generally lead to laws. I did have one child state he was going to sue another over a property violation. I asked what law he had broken (there weren't any laws regarding property) and then I asked how he was going to "sue" (there is no judicial system). He laughed -- as a fifth grader he realized there was a lot of work to do if he wanted retribution. He decided it wasn't worth it. As we begin to ramp up for mini-fairs we may find that the towns have more proposals on which to decide. -MMM