yeay for silly!

Seventeen Evergreen - Polarity Song from Lucky Number Music on Vimeo.

c'est la vie

so many goodbyes! so many changes a happening. that time of year, that kind of life. work on the farm is over and i'm the last lonely person around. just me and the chickens, cats, rats, foxes and deer. my preffered choice of companionship? nah! i spent a wonderful morning collecting cranberries with new pals-just pulled a cranberry walnut tart out of the oven for dessert, it's homemade turkey pot pie for dinner. yum! turkey that i missed on thanksgiving, driving away. driving back. a costly reminder to remember. good thing i like driving. not a good thing my memory sucks.

i had a nice birthday away from the farm this weekend. fat and happy in truckee with nathan and the aspens. yeay!
back in action today, i mowed down the last of the corn and the eggplant with the tractor. i was sad to see them go but driving the tractor is the best!!! little red wing black birds guided my way. after we mow the cover crop (legumes, oats, vetch) is broadcast and then all is tilled under and into the soil. the oats in the cover crop we planted where the melons were is already coming up! it looks so pretty and little. everything around the farm is really beautiful lately. my favorite time of the year. it's been cold and dark waking in the mornings and i just noticed how far over the sun has been settingi
i picked some of the last and some of my favorite flowers today-marigolds and strawflowers. also, some hot peppers, and some renegade mint and mugwort. we finished planting the huge plot of garlic and weeded the tiny little onions today too. tomorrows CSA box will barely close filled with beets, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, green beans, peppers, kale, garlic, winter squash, and radishes. life is good.

the amazing Wangari Maathi passed away a few days ago. she started the green belt movement and empowered women to make a living and make a change by planting trees. for her work and her vision, maathi was the first african woman to be awarded the nobel peace prize. a true inspiration.

we harvested the rest of our winter squash today-carnival, sunshine, confection, bon-bon (aka bon-bon barnacle bubble butt). we mowed down the corn, the summer squash, the cucumbers!!! the tomatoes are looking wimpy and all of the beautiful flowers are gonners soon too. birchville is becoming a field of flat again. it’s all coming full circle. seems not long ago that we were plopping all of those seeds in the ground to grow.
it's not all doom and gloom though. our scallions and spinach are coming up and the showy fennel flows in the breeze. the dragonflies are everywhere, making the sky busy and beautiful along with the bees. the fragrant citrus of turkey mullein fills the air and praying mantis cocoons abound.
fall. new moon in libra. balancing act.

happy mabon

the fall equinox is a good time to bring harmony and balance into your life. as the days become shorter and the nights longer until the winter sostice in december, celebrate, harvest and save seed for the dark, cold days ahead.
we have so many yummy things to eat on the farm right now like pears and corn, raspberries and winter squash. i've been collecting herbs like mugwort to dry and saving seeds from popppy's to dill. as things wind down think about what you can lay to rest and look forward to change.

today was pretty awesome. after a quick and easy harvest for the CSA (carrots, cabbage, eggplant, corn, basil, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, and melons!) we got to extract honey from our hives! it’s a once a year deal so i felt pretty fortunate to be a part of the whole process from sweeping the bees off the frames to uncapping the comb with a hot knife to holding down the huge extractor with the jumble of the spin. i ended up getting stung on the arm which made me kind of excited. i never hold a fear for that and even as the bees were swarming around us as we took their honey filled frames from their hives, i only got stung inside the shed, away from the hives as we uncapped the comb, totally random. so great though. it’s good to get stung and so damn good to eat fresh, sweet, raw, unfiltered honey- comb and all.
another highlight of the day was hearing a strange crunch noise in the distance and realizing an hour later that the pigs had gotten out. 5 big fat boys running around in our huge broccoli patch! it was such a wonderful scene. i’ve been taking care of them for the past week and have grown to adore them. i was happy they got a chance to run around free for a bit today. i think they had fun! wrangling them back into the pen was really easy too. they’re so smart and sweet.
oh and the cherry on top of the 11 hour work day of mostly fun was dinner! we made raviolis filled with zucchini, thyme and cheese with a browned butter and thyme flower sauce, yum! i’m pretty proud of my new recipe. soooo glamorous! i sleep now like the pigs, fat and happy. and thinking of my honey

today we found a baby rattlesnake in the weeds we were pulling up. tiny little rattle, slither away under the shade. moved to the creek side. then found a dead one to match. a different snake crushed flat by the tractor.
we chased a gopher out of the potato bed and then found a dead one decapitated by the tractor. we save. we kill. sometimes on purpose sometimes on accident.
praying mantis were everywhere sending their wishes i guess.

wild geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-mary oliver

just beginning to recover from one of the funnest four days in a long time. first there was the nevada county fair where i lived out my fantasy of getting high on life through multiple hours of being upside down while spinning around fast on dangerous metal contraptions with teenagers, dancing wildly, eating corn dogs and caramel apples, and taking home a stuffed animal! the zipper was the highlight as usual. my stomach was in knots we were laughing so hard! high as kites!
THEN the next day i drove to san francisco to meet up with sandals at outside lands for three days of awesome music. we met some amazing people on the monkey bars and it just kept getting better. black keys, tune yards, john foggerty, the roots, dead maus, girl talk, mavis staples, sooo much goodness! left at 4 in the morning to get back to the farm and here I am partying in a different way. we have so much food it's crazy-melons, corn, eggplant, tomatoes, basil, beets, carrots, lettuce, strawberries, arugula, zucchini, cucumbers, CRAZY! damn i'm a lucky girl.

WHOA!!

too excited to post any photos but you HAVE to look up the mud dauber wasp! i got out of the shower tonight and went to put on my shirt and it had a thumb sized, cocoon like mud thingy on the back center of the collar! but it was familiar. andrew had found one a couple months ago and we put it on the window sill awating action. it has since dissapeared so i ran into the kitchen displaying my discovery and then decided the best thing to do was see what was inside!! i crumbled the mud between my fingers and oh my god! 7 spiders fell to the ground! holy shit!!! i was not expecting that! we poked and prodded and they appeared to be dead. what the hell was going on? i had a sneaky suspision that there might be a wasp involved and after a google search of mud wasp spider we found the answer. mud dauber. so fucking cool! the mud dauber wasp builds a mud tube, then hunts for spiders, stinging and paralyzing them then carrying them into the mud tube. THEN, she lays an egg on one of the spiders, closes up the hole and leaves forever, her young to hatch and grow on the spiders!
i've seen a video about other parasytic wasps but holy crap! this thing was on my shirt!
read more about it here. although i don't think it was a pipe organ wasp. the ones flying in and out of my cabin are black and yellow.
http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek020401.html

guess who ate a watermelon from the field today! oh hells yeah!

in these moments when there's time to wonder around the farm i find peace in the beauty of onion blossoms and beetles hiding out inside mariposa lilies. i dream of days laying amidst flowers like these with someone i love. on my own farm, watching the insects fly by against the blue sky and calling out images the clouds are making with my daughter. then i think about what i might dream if that was in fact my life. would i dream of being a lonely intern with nothing? i wonder.

"ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering.
there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
written on this wonderful planter filled with sunflowers and corn on the streets in san francisco.
makes me so happy.

this week....

tomatoes!!!! hot, hot days. strawberry basil crumble. fox in the morning. bear in the trash. mariposa lillies. lots of ice cream. even more flies and mosquitos. 6 stitches. reflection. a much needed break.

my bella

this monday we said our last goodbyes to bella. bella donna, bella monster, big white, stinkerbell, bela lugosi. it was hard as hell. 13 years of adventure, bella and i went through it all together. she was my bodyguard through scary night streets, my lookout alone in the middle of the woods, my unintentional pick up line, my headache when the neighbors called, my happiness when i walked through the door, my tiny dancer, my crazy for food, overprotective best road trip partner ever. my bella.

my heart

litha-the summer solstice

i can’t believe the summer solstice is already here! just a few more days (june 21st) until the longest day of the year and a progression of shorter and shorter ones thereafter. then fall!! holy crap! i’m turning 33 this year in october and i can hardly believe it. i have a myriad of thoughts that go through my head, both good and bad. and then i read this.....

"Fold your wings inward, Libra. A poignant and intense year begins on June 4th, when expansive Jupiter enters Taurus for a year. Taurus rules your eighth house, one of the most complex and internal parts of the zodiac wheel. It rules intimacy, vulnerability, sex, birth, death, spirituality, shared finances, real estate, "other people's money" (taxes, credit cards, inheritances, loans)...to name a few.
It's the place where we merge our most personal resources with others'—no light matter. Needless to say, the next year might not be the most fun time you've ever had, but the opportunity for growth—emotionally, spiritually and financially—is tremendous, especially if you're willing to explore all of your shadows AND your light."

there’s comfort in a little cosmic insight i guess!? anyway, litha is a day to celebrate! let all of our worries fall by the wayside as we take in every ray of sunshine and give thanks for what we have. because even in hard times, even in the dark, the light always shines through! remember to eat good food, drink good drink, and be in good company on this day. celebrate the sun! celebrate each other.

thousands of veggies!

we harvested beets, radishes, turnips, tatsoi, kale, zucchini, and garlic scapes for 344 families this week!!!! how amazing is that?!
everything looked so beautiful in each box-the colors so vibrant and the life so fresh. proud farmers here.
i wish i had a photo of the before and after of our birchville site (8 acres out of our total 12 farmed) where it's gone from green rolling hills to row after row of green growing food. so cool! life is good!

holy ginormous slug slithering slowly accross the driveway. dead doe behind nikki's cabin-whoa! and a beautiful sky to take the gross out!

“the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.” extra so lately with the rain never ending. accepting it more as i remember how useless it is to complain, to fight, to try to control what is out of my hands. remember. remember. remind me again. when the rain falls hard and my heart feels heavy, remind me to accept. remind me the world is mud lucious and puddle wonderful.

this week....

tractor, bees, ice cream, weeds. rain then sun, squash, carrots, beets.
swallowtails, birdsong, sunburn, hope. thunder, fire, bright and dark.
protozoa, worms, rotten corn. giggles, understanding, wind and change.
missing you. missing me.

Good Times!

after a shoulder swelling day of luggin around a 5 gallon spray pack in hopes of "taking care" of our little cut worm problem, i had the wonderful pleasure of sharing some talk with howard, or papa as he likes to call himself. papa owns the second parcel of land we're farming on. papa's 92 and a man like they used to be. his clear blue eyes remind me of my grandma bev and when he started talking about the good old days and how four dollars seemed like hundreds-a living wage for a man working a real job like farming-i knew it was all true. how four dollars was enough for every man and his family to live life well. a home, food for your children, a new car, a nice dress for your wife, dancing on the weekends, the essentials really. how politics have ruined autonomy. when packin pistols and fist fightin were how business was taken care of. and how all the generations would hang out together-take care of eachother and teach one another. the good old days indeed. it's sad how much things have changed, we all agreed. he told us he didn't have too much longer to live but that he was worried about the little ones and about us. i'm a little worried too, when all the wonderful elders like papa and my grandma are gone, who's going to be left to tell us the truth?

A break in the clouds

Smack dab in the middle of one of our giant fields, an easter egg!!! Found in its small rocky nest in the big wide open, a near miss this strange stranded egg, as we seeded radishes. A kill deer perhaps? Mom and pops were no where to be found??????
And the beauty that accompanies the rainy hiker on her quiet journey. Buds, lichen, mushrooms, cacti. I live in such a beautiful area! I’ve grown to love these rainy days in the foothills. The light is low and the colors in front of me just glow against the gray drizzle. Gorgeous when the sun peaks out and everything glistens as the rainbows form on the dewy drops left behind! I am so grateful for this fantasyland only 10 minutes away! Dream on! What?!

mountain bounty

i have the best job ever! there's no going back....

awesomo

saw this piece in lisbon by accident. such a sweet surprise!

and a cow

what a storm! a shit storm! not really. i start work on my favorite holdiay, April 1st and i can't wait. i've been waiting too long-in limbo not knowing what was going to happen. the farm is mountain bounty and it should be bitchin! a positive i hope in what has seemed to be an incessent racket of change and giving up and sickness and instability. i've been lonely. confused. sad. it's good though, i'm learning a life lesson or whatever.
yesterday-my sunday ("funday" as we used to call it) marked the equinox and though i didn't want to be alone i tried to make the best of it and ended up really enjoying myself! it was rainy and windy and a bit cold but i wanted to go on a hike so i drove down the pretty, windy road wondering if i was going to run out of gas to my beautiful destination. all of the wildflowers have just started to bloom and i was in for a really wonderful moment of peace, quiet, and reflection. i needed that! so i got lost on the way back but found gas in time and even a weird little "cafe" to eat weird food in. i love the adventures in life and though i always prefer to share them, i think it was a good time to be okay with being alone. i mean really alone, i didn't even have my bella!
spring is comin though and all the hard shit of winter will soon pass, melt away. i look forward to more peaceful moments and getting really buff arms again.

boa ano!

not quite back in action-a wintery slumber still in bloggo land. but here's a cool photo of portugal-yeay!

i could eat a whole jar of maraschino cherries. i have. lots of times! but this isn't good. glowing isn't good.