my helpers, getting eggplants for the market

peace

house and field updates

ed's been working on the house, exclusively, and i in the field.
ed had help from his 86-year-old grandfather, gutting the house, and from his mother. his gramps is amazing, strong as can be, working as hard as ed, for hours at the time, in the terrible heat we've been having. just amazing, he's such an inspiration. ed's mom was also very helpful in cleaning up all the junk that ed and his gramps ripped off the walls, ceiling, etc.
the house is now completely gutted, with all interior walls taken down, and the exterior walls ready for windows, insulation, etc. our friend johnny, who's a carpenter and does beautiful work will be working with ed from this point, building the walls back up, putting in windows and doors, doing the siding on the outside, etc. i think ed will be doing the plumbing and electrical work by himself. can't even imagine taking that on by myself...

but, i have been taking on the field by myself, which, to be honest, i also could not imagine even a short while back. it's definitely not looking as good as i'd like it to. i can't get to all the weeds - i'm only dealing with the top priorities. i've been able to keep things going, and keep some kind of order and control in there. i've been able to pull out all the potatoes and onions in time, before they went bad in the ground. my dad helped with the onions this week, which was nice. i was also able to get 3 new beds planted with lettuces, asian greens, radishes and turnips. i'm working on clearing another bed, getting it ready for spinach asap (i've had this on my to-do-list for the past 3 weeks...).

there's always so much to do, that one of my greatest challenges right now is allowing myself to stop. i want to be out there all the time, and sometimes i get frustrated when i have to do other things, like cook, or come in and eat. i think this is a big one, knowing when to stop and when to let it go till the next day. i'm working on it.

i really think i hit on something with farming. i love it so much, and for so many different reasons. i love the feeling of accomplishment when i harvest and sell, the intellectual stimulation (there's always so much to learn, so much research to do on plants, insects, the soil, etc), i love the physical work, the fresh air and the sun, and i love how connected i feel with the plants, the earth and everything.

i had a dream a couple of nights ago, that i had to go back to pratt for work. i was so sad about not being on my own schedule anymore, about losing all the freedom i enjoy right now, and about having to be indoors for so long. kind of interesting...

this fall, i hope to be able to prep our new field for next spring, so that we won't have to battle the weeds as much as we did this year. i'd like to plow, till and then plant a cover crop, like buckwheat, or something like that. i need ed to plow and till though, and i don't know if he'll have any time to do it, so we'll see. i also plan to do lots of research over the winter - one thing i want to learn more about is farmscaping, which is basically a way of designing the layout of your farm such as to encourage beneficial insects to come and stay, and hopefuly take care of some of the pests that attack the crops. i need to look into the pests that we've seen this season, and what their natural predators might be, and then figure out what type of flowers i can plant that will attract those predators. to me this is all so fascinating and so big, that i barely know where to start... but i'm looking forward to getting into it anyway.

peace

julia's birthday party

here are a few pictures from my niece julia's bithday party last sunday. i had lots of fun watching the kids play and enjoyed the beautiful food that my sister put out. ricardo made me a great cup of coffee, so the party felt complete, with that.

the patio

girls, girls, girls

julia and aiyana playing train

julia opening her presents, with a little too much help from sena and aiyana

sena and aiyana putting on an impromptu dance show for their little audience

aiyana and i

peace

i'm really happy to share these beautiful poems

this week i discovered a beautiful book of poetry. it's a compilation called "All the silver pennies", by Blanche Jennings Thompson, and reading it has made me so happy. i've been glowing inside, and i almost cannot think of anything else; there's so much truth and beauty in these little poems! every chance i get, i read some more, or re-read my favorites over and over.

sena asked me to read some to her, and at first i thought that she is too young to appreciate them, but of course i was wrong. i read some to her this morning, lying on the couch, just the two of us, and she really loved them. reading aloud to her added a different dimension to my own experience of these poems, so i look forward to doing it again.

anyway, here are some of my favorites, that i'd like to share:

The Coin
(by Sara Teasdale)

Into my heart's treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor thief purloin,-
Oh, better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.

Night
(by Sara Teasdale)

Stars over snow,
And in the west a planet
Swinging below a star-
Look for a lovely thing and you will find it,
It is not far-
It never will be far.

Madman's Song
(by Elinor Wylie)

Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
Better to see your temple worn,
Thank to forget to follow, follow,
After the sound of a silver horn.

Better to bind your brow with willow
And follow, follow until you die,
Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.

Better to see your cheek grown sallow
And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
After the milk-white hounds of the moon.

more pictures

this is rosa bianca egg eggplant. i have yet to taste it, but anita told me it's extra good.

magenta mesclun with dewdrops in the morning

verdolaga is a really tasty green, plump and juicy. it goes by another name as well, but i forgot it.

and here's our kale. i just thought it looked pretty, all sparkly in the early sun.
i cooked some with olive oil and garlic the other night (are you getting tired of this recipe already?). it was so good.

sena and aiyana love to improvise. this is during one of their spur-of-the-moment shows.

sena, practicing her footwork...

the corn is ready. having our first ears was very exciting, as you can tell


peace

4 years of blogging

i can barely believe it, but this month my blog is 4 years old. time went by so quickly. i started it just before aiyana was born, and now i can barely remember what life was like before her.

anyway, i'm happy to say that i'm still very much enjoying posting to my blog - it allows me to express myself in a way i don't get a chance to otherwise; but the nicest part about it is that it allows me to keep in contact with friends and family, many of which are too far away to see or even speak to on a regular basis.

so thanks for keeping posted, and hopefuly there'll be much more to come...

peace

what's going on

we had such a busy week, it was crazy. i don't think i ever worked this hard in my entire life. but i'm feeling good, and want to keep going. i've been sore the whole week, but i think my body's starting to get used to it.

ed's been working on our new house full time. he's so hard-core, it's incredible. he already ripped apart the entire first floor. i can't even fathom doing all that work. he's been sore too - between thee two of us, we feel like two old people....

i've been in the field every day, pulling out potatoes. i think we were able to save them from the blight, which is very exciting. they're big and beautiful, and taste good too. one day, i had peter gabriel's song "digging in the dirt" playing in my head over and over, as i dug out one potato after another. it was funny, i kind of laughed to myself. i actually love digging potatoes. i love the way the soil feels against my skin, and i love the smell of damp earth. the hard part is when i get interrupted, and have to go in the house for some reason, then i have to clean up because i'm such a mess, and it takes a while. i like to just keep working, but the kids need me every once in a while.

speaking of the kids, they've been taking classes this week: sena took drama, as if she needs to be any more dramatic than she already is... and aiyana took an arts and crafts class, both at the montessori school near us. they loved their classes, and i did too, but i'm not crazy about driving them back and forth all the time, even if it's only 10 minutes away.

sena has been really interested in figuring out how humas got to where we are today. she asked me one day "mom, how did all of this started?", and i knew what she meant. that launched us into a huge discussion, which is still ongoing, on evolution, religion, culture, etc. she loves going through the encyclopedia, and this morning she sat on the couch for an hour, going through my anthropology book. she loves the stuff on evolution; loves to read about fossils and artifacts; she can spend so much time looking at skeletons, checking out the different bones, and seeing how they compare for different species. she is so mature for her age, i swear, the conversations i can have with her catch me by surprise every time.

ed and i have been reading "the omnivore's dilemma", which is great, and we came upon a definition of happiness that i really like:
happiness as the ability to express and live out one's true nature.
in the book, this definiteion is mainly used in reference to animals, in particular the treatment of animals at the hands of humans; but i think that it can apply equaly well to humans. i know for sure, that when i look at happiness in this light in my own life, it explains a lot. the freedom to express my true nature - it makes such a big difference in how i feel.

i think that as we get older, we get caught up in our busy lives and forget about being happy. just simply, genuinely happy. we get hardened and cynical, and then we have a mid-life crisis, get a convertible and start dating someone half our age. i think that happiness is much simpler and much easier to attain than we generaly believe. it doesn't require anything spectacular to happen; just a little awareness is enough.

wishing you peace...

pics from this week

sena and aiyana love our mostly wild flower garden

we haven't had any corn yet, but it looks like we will pretty soon. the kids can't wait, they ask me "when?" every day

broccoli raab is so pretty. i sautee it with garlic in a little olive oil, and then toss it with pasta. i'm not a big fan of pasta, but i do like it this way...

corn silk - i can't stop taking pictures of it, i just think it's so beautiful...

i took this picture of aiyana one night as we were just about to go to bed. she is so sweek and snuggly at night and in the morning, i just can't get enough of her

getting the potatoes ready for the market

squishing bugs on eggplant (i've been doing a lot of his lately, mostly on squash and eggplant)

peace

some pics from a couple of weeks ago

julia and aiyana, showing off the beans they picked

aiyana loves to snuugle in the morning...

and to be silly the rest of the day

sena with our latest chicks, 27 of them. sena is amazing at caring for them, so gentle and reliable.

reading is by far their favorite activity

about this week

highlights from this past week:

1. made our first delivery to the food co-op (potatoes and broccoli raab).
2. had our two best markets so far (as far as diversity and amount of stuff sold)
3. had to finally give up on the tomatoes. they all have the blight and we won't be abe to sell any, so we lost the entire crop....
4. but, we were able to save the potatoes, who were also starting to get it, but we pulled them out just in time, and they're all fine. we worked really hard on this one on sunday and monday....

so all in all, i'm feeling really good with things, despite the tomato loss. oh, we also lost some of our squash pants, about half of them. they were infested with the squash bug, and i wasn't able to get them in time to save the plants. the eggplant was having issues with the colorado potato beetle, but i've been squashing those pretty regularly, and i was able to get them in check so our plants are now doing well. we brought some beautiful eggplants to the market and i was very proud of them. they're selling really well too. i'm trying to be really good about checking the remaining squash plants for bugs every morning and night, so i can get them before they lay eggs and multiply out of control.

i've been learning a lot about bugs recently. i got a big book and every time i see something on a plant i try to identify it in the book - that way i can figure out if it's a pest, or a beneficial insect. obviously, i don't want to squish the beneficials, bc they're really helpful in controlling the pests. by next season, i hope to be a lot more knowledgeable on all of this - i hope to be able to plant flowers which will attract beneficial insects, which in turn will help me control the pests. gardening is such a beautiful science, and there's so much to learn all the time. i love how everything works together, and hopefully the more experienced i become, the more i can orchestrate things to have a healthy, self-sustaining garden.

a lady passed by my table yesterday and commented that our prices are high. she didn't stay long enough for me to be able to respond, but if she had, i would've told her about, for example, the countless hours i spend tending to each plant, squashing the bugs on each leaf individually. it would certainly be a lot easier to go out there and spray pesticide on everything and not have to worry about it again, and then maybe our prices would be cheaper too. it's too bad that some people can't see beyond the price, but i have to say that in my experience, the great majority of people do understand what's involved in growing real food, and comments like this lady's are very rare.

ed and i were laughing the other day, because we figured that when we achieve our goal of making enough money to be sustainable, we'll be making about $3 an hour, with all the work we're putting in. we were laughing, but it was also a bit sobering, and it made us question again, if we really want to be doing this. at this point, we both feel very strongly yes. i feel that the rewards of our lifestyle are so great that at this point i'll gladly take the $3/hour.

after being infested by bugs and hit by the blight, i realized that i really need to check all our plants reguarly. so i started a new routine, where i inspect the whole field every morning and night. this has been working really well, and it's also been very rewarding. i love the feeling of being out there by myself early every morning, saying hi to all the plants. i feel connected to them - they bring me peace, and soothe me when i am stressed or anxious. this is one of the unexpected rewards of farming. and there are many others.

ed's been working on the house mostly this past week. he's already gutted 1.5 rooms, and i can almost start to see the way it's going to look when he's done. i'm excited about it.

other than that:
the kids are doing well, enjoying spending time at the beach with grandma every thursday while i'm at the market. they're somewhat helpful with the farming activities, it just depends on the mood they're in. i don't want to make them do anything they don't want to, but is's hard not to ask, especialy sena, because i know that she can do so much. she's been helping me find the squash bugs and beetles, and squish them. she's really good at it, and i tried to make that her responsibility, but she only wants to do it when she feels like it... and she likes me to be there with her, so i guess i can't put it all on her just yet....

sena took a sewing class in a montessori school near us last week. she loved it, and sewed her own skirt, which she's been wearing a lot since, plus two pillows and a bunch of other small things. she did hand sewing and machine too, so now she's a ot more skilled than i am. i coudn't believe when she showed me the skirt she made, it came out really nice.

next week she'll be taking landscape painting or drama, she still has to decide. we've been able to pay for her sewing class with vegetables, so that was nice too.

we're still homeschooling, and that's going really well. both sena and aiyana are realy motivated - they love math as well as reading and writing workbooks, so we do those pretty regularly, and then we just do a lot of informal reading on whatever subject they feel drawn to. farming's been a great homeschooling opportunity as well - sena knows more about bugs and plants than most adults we speak to.

sena and aiyana made up a song yesterday in the car. they sang it over and over:
"everything is perfect al the time, everything is perfect all the time"
it felt so reassuring to hear that...

that's about it for now,
peace