Hello, friends of the Village! I can’t believe we’ve been at this for sixteen years. It’s going well! Here’s what’s new. 

We’ve had six years of the business model we still call “New Village” – selling primarily online; doing regular small launches; enjoying financial stability, slow and steady growth, and generally calmer lives. Six years is enough time to kinda get used to it, and to take on the sorts of projects that are possible when chaos is tamed.

Here are some of the recent projects: We moved to our bigger sunny office 2+ years ago. I had twin babies 17 months ago. After they were born, I realized I needed a studio space if I was going to keep my sanity and keep cooking up the whimsy and magic. So I got said studio last July and it has in fact been awesome. I’ve become obsessed with hoarding big blocks of unstructured time to be by myself and do art. 

The main news is that for the past year, we’ve been working hard on several new books for the animals. This is mostly what I do in my art studio, draw illustrations for the animals’ books and fret about them. It’s still not what you’d call fast, but our hope is to do a book for every Villager. We have Reginald Fox’s book, Garden Treasures, coming in July. And we’re finishing up Gracie Cat’s book, which should be ready in November. After that… probably Arthur Lamb? I’m excited about Ella Toad because I love a boat voyage story. I find it suits me to have several things cooking at once.

Reginald’s book is a story about being in a gift economy with the land and one’s community. It’s an idea I learned from Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, and it has really stuck with me. I’m not sure if it’s my immersion in Reginald’s story, or wanting to honor the land that is my home and the animals’ home, or the way I read the news in mute horror most days, or being 41 and landless and the generational foolishness of that. But increasingly, I come back to the notion that I want to make the animals’ world real in our human world. 

Jane's Brooklyn garden

To wit: I was trying to figure out how to grow a garden to share along my front fence in Brooklyn (it’s a rental, see above re: landlessness, but we have the ground floor and the backyard). How to word the sign saying it’s okay to pick; how to move things from the lightly sunny backyard to the shady front fence; how to convince the landlord; whether people would be too suspicious. And then, I was beyond delighted to find people who were already doing this! They’re calling it Fences of Abundance, and they have the endorsement of Robin Wall Kimmerer herself, long may she prosper. Here it is:

https://www.brooklynrewilders.org/fence-of-abundance

I’ve jumped in with both feet - I’m planning a juneberry themed fundraiser for them in a month. It’s my first fundraiser ever and I don’t really know how to do them. But if you’re local and you want to come and appreciate juneberries, let us know!

If you do have a sunny fence line or front yard with some foot traffic, I urge you to put in some juneberries, raspberries, milkweed, goldenrod, etc and make a little bit of Hazel Village real upon this earth. 

So, see it with me: here’s to a future in the city and the suburbs where all the Bradford pear trees have good pears grafted onto them, and all the flowering cherry trees have good cherries. Where everybody’s fence and front yard has good berries and herbs growing to share, and tasty flowers for the butterflies and the bees. And when we walk by this abundance, little children know what they are looking at and they know what to pick, and they tell us if we don’t know yet. And all this softens our hearts and makes us nicer to each other. This is what the Village wants for its birthday. 

Thanks for reading, friends! I think we have many cute things coming for the animals and I hope you like them as much as we do. Thank you for your support; all this would crash and burn without you. ❤️

– Jane

Gracie Cat Birthday Coloring Page

Doll-Size Party Hats + Birthday Banner

An illustration from the storybook 'Garden Treasures', coming to Hazel Village this July 

You may also like:

Journey of a Bat: the Making of a Limited-Edition Animal

The Button Blog

Design Interview with Sara 

Feel free to email us any questions at hello@hazelvillage.com!