sena, aiyana and i were in the living room after lunch, when we saw a bobcat cross the field in front of our house. he was walking quite leisurely, and we got to have a pretty good look at him. we called ed and he ran to see him. it was pretty incredible.

bobcat's medicine is "knower of secrets".
peace

a little bit of winter

our field: hooptunnels and greenhouse (ed built the greenhouse this fall. it's much bigger than last year's - we have 6 full beds in there and we'll have room for plenty of seedlings when we start planting again).

a little bit of a blizzard last monday....

 the field still looked beautiful

 and the kids were cozy inside the house (they came out and started sledding soon enough...)

this is spinach growing in the greenhouse. some snow came in through tiny gaps on the bottom. we'll have to cover them with hay.
the greenhouse is my refuge in the winter. it smells so good in there and the temperature is just right.

peace

i felt overwhelmed by gratitude and wrote this:

thank you fo so much abundance this year!
thank you for our health
thank you for our crops
thank you for the bounty of food and sunshine
thank you for Nicu

thank you for all that we've learned this year
thank you for the feeling of wonder at your wonders
thank you for Peace
thank you for Contentment
thank you for Hope (and the rainbows)
thank you for the starry, moonlit nights

thank you for the simplicity of our lives, and yet - such abundance.

thank you for a little more Understanding
thank you for allowing me closer to You
loving you and being useful is what i want to do
thank you for guiding me, allowing me to Listen
stepping into the Mystery, out of the fog, ever so slowly...
Thank You!

Happy Winter Solstice!

tomorrow is winter solstice - the return of the light. a beautiful time of year.

last week i attended two soil fertility classes. ed missed one because of a scratched cornea (which he got while clearing some brush in the woods for our new fence ine), but fortunately he was able to make it to the other one. both classes were amazing, and i just feel like i can't get enough of this stuff. it's like that saying "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear", well, i'm there right now. i'm ready to hear this stuff, and ready to try implemet it in the field. these courses are all about how to get your soil in the best possible shape and health, in order to grow the best possible, healthiest crops, which will directly contribute to the health of the people eating them. what i find fascinating is how amazingly complex the soil is, how you need to understand so many different things in order to even come anywhere close to conceptualizing how the entire system works. i am learning about minerals, geology, biology, chemistry, physics, quantum physics, and trying to understand how the complex living organism we call soil works from all these different points of view.

other than that, we've been working on putting together our CSA document for next year. we have over 50 people who expressed interest in joining next year, in addition to our existing members from 2010. so we're trying to get this document out, with the detailed description of how the CSA will work, how much it will cost, and everything people need to know for next year. we'll probably have it ready in the two weeks after the holidays, and we'll put it out then for people to go over and sign up if they want to. i think we'll be doing 80 shares next year (as opposed to 45 in 2010). very exciting.

also very exciting was putting together the 2010 CSA survey results. we already sent the detailed results to our customers, but to sum it up, i'd say that we got very positive feedback, and very helpful too for planning next year's crops. basically, out of 38 people who returned the survey, 35 rated themselves "very satisfied" as far as overall satisfaction, while 3 rated themselves "satisfied", and nobody rated themselves "so-so", "unsatisfiued", or "very unsatisfied". thank you very much to everyone who gave us their feedback.

peace and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

homeschooling

aiyana, working in her spelling book yesterday morning. she's doing really well, already reading some easy books all by herself. luckily, so far, both sena and aiyana love homeschooling, and want to work in their workbooks every day.

(and check out our woodstove in the background, with my coffee press on top of it. i'm loving it!! nothing like relaxing in front of a real fire every night before going to bed...)

peace

back from montreal

it feels good to be back home. really good. ed and i were so happy to be back in our field. we all had a headache after being in the car for the 6 hours drive from montreal, but it cleared up after we spent some time outside.

i feel like i'm becoming wild. i need to be outside every day in order to feel good. i need to be with the plants and trees. and i need silence, the kind of silence i've become accustomed when working in the field, punctuated here and there by the crow of the rooster, bird songs, and geese calling.

i've been sick, got a cold when we were away, so i haven't been able to do any work in the past two days. last night, i had to go out though. too much time cooped up in the house. i went out in the rain to look for earthworms. ed told me that he's been seeing lots of them in our field wehn he goes to put the chickens in for the night. i wanted to see them myself, and i did - they were everywhere, which is very exciting, because they are very good for the soil.

on monday night, ed and i attended a meeting which gave an overview of a course we're planning to take on growing nutrient-dense food. it was very exciting - i'm glad we went. we got into soil fertility, and soil biology, which i can talk about and read about endlessly. i find learning and working with the soil and all the life it supports (including us) fascinating. trying to understand the soil, with all its intricacies and beauty brings me closer to God than anything else i've ever done.
peace

in Montreal

our market is done for now, and the CSA has ended, so we decided to take a little trip to montreal. we couldn't do it during the summer, but at this time, we can leave the field for a few days, and shandra was kind enough to look after our chickens and cat while we're gone, so here we are!

we drove up yesterday, and all went well. the kids were very excited about seeing my parents, buca and bucu, again - it has been a few months.

today, ed and i went walking around the plateau, while buca and bucu spent time with sena and aiyana. it snowed on and off throughout the day, but still, it was fun walking around the city. we stopped for some lebanese food, which wasn't great, but then we found a small patisserie on mount royal, with wonderful croissants, fresh out of the oven. we hung out for a while and i sipped my excellent coffee while ed read "non-toxic farming" to me. we're both into it. that was fun!

ed and i were also excited to see the new bike stations all around the city, where people can rent a bike to get from one place to another, for a reasonable fee. the cool thing is that you can drop the bike off at many different locations around the city, so you're not restricted to returning to the point where you started from. i think this is a great way of getting around, cutting down on car usage, traffic, emissions, etc. the other exciting thing we saw was compost pickup around the plateau area. i read a pamphlet saying that 2000 households in that neighborhood were signed up for this service, and they composted hundreds of tons of food scraps over the past few years. all right montreal! maybe other neighborhoods are doing similar things?

tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nice, and we are planning to go visit my old neighborhood in NDG. i'm excited about taking sena and aiyana there to show them where i used to live. we'll be stopping at this one place i used to like for croissants and coffee - fortunately both my kids love cafes - i taught them well....

on monday we are driving back to connecticut, in time for a high nutrient density farming course ed and i want to attend on monday night.

last week sena was invited to eastern state university, to speak to a classroom full of students about her interest in whales and about her pamphlet, which she put together and has been distributing at the farmers' market this season. she was nervous about it at first, but finally she got comfortable enough with the classroom environment and the students listening to her, and she was able to answer their questions and talk. at the end of her talk, she was given a beautiful gift - a book about the ocean, with amazing pictures and lots of interesting information. it's not a kids' book, but more like an atlas of the ocean, and we're all enjoying it. also, many of the students who listened to her wrote something at the beginning of the book, and it was all very nice, telling her how much they appreciated what she's doing and thanking her for it.
all right, sena!

last week of the CSA

i'm sad about the end of the CSA. it was a great idea to start it this season, and both ed and i feel very positive about it. we put out a survey for our members, and so far their responses have been very positive as well, and helpful as far as suggestions for next year. more about the survey to come...

in the meantime, here's our CSA table last week.

carrots, radishes, beets

 red and golden beets

greens and roots (and in the background the new sliding door ed built to our basement. it replaces the green tarp we had there previously. ed got a lot of compliments on it.)

carrots, bok choy and radishes

 ok, i know i'm getting a little crazy with the carrots, but i can't help it - one more picture:

purple top and golden globe turnips. we've been loving these guys cooked home-fry style, with a little (or a lot for me) salt and garlic sauce on top

rutabagas - amazingly delicious, to me, the ultimate comfort food at this time of year. i cook them like mashed potatoes, boiled and then mashed with salt, pepper and lots of butter.

peace

what it looks like under the covers

this is what our field lookes like these days:

sand bags and hoops, over spinach rows (just coming up) waiting to be covered with plastic for the winter. the covered rows in these pics are mostly root vegetables (beets, carrots, etc.) and they have cloth covers. these veges won't be in the ground much longer, so the protection is temporary. and that sad looking bed on the right in the second picture is the last of our tomatoes, after they got hit by frost! they've done amazing this season.

and this is some of what's under the covers

always amazed at what comes out of the ground...

peace

cousins - Sena, Aiyana, Julia and Stella

can't believe these are my kids and my sister's kids. i feel like i'm still a kid myself...
they're so sweet! we are really lucky.
peace

pretty proud of my carrots

yesterday was the first time ever that we were able to sell carrots we were happy with. carrots have been our most challenging crop, but i think our soil is in good enough shape now to start growing them in larger quantities for the market and CSA.

peace

four weeks left

only four weeks left of the CSA, including this one. can't believe it's almost over... i'm so used to the routine of picking and prepping vegetables every tuesday and thursday. although it is getting a little uncomfortable sometimes, when it's cold and rainy out, and we still have to be out there doing what we do.
in any case, i know that i will miss it, and i will miss the people.
we had some frost last week, and now it's warmed up again, but i'm glad that we managed to cover almost all of our crops and now they're protected, at least for a while, until we start getting some heavy frost.
we pulled out our potatoes, and they did well, but a lot of them were damaged by rodents. i was pretty upset about it on friday, when i was digging up the bed with the most damage. these gorgeous, large potatoes, and 50% of them were gone. there were so many rodent tunnels in there too, and as i dug, 4 mice came out. i kept calling Midnight, our beautiful, nutty, jet black cat , to get them. he's an exquisite hunter and does a great job in the field, but i think we need five more cats to take care of all the rodents we have. they're on the list for next spring.

i've been also digging up the rutabagas and turnips. they're so delicious, i can't get enough of them. especially now with the cooler weather, they're getting so sweet... there are still a lot of them in the ground, and i guess i'd better dig them up fast before the rodents get to them. that will have to be after garlic planting though.

we're planting 6 beds of garlic this week, which is three times as much as we did last year. the demand is there to justify this increase - this year we ran out of garlic in august, and we never even had a chance to bring it to the market, but sold it through the CSA alone. people were really loving it, and saying how much better it tastes than what they buy in stores.

ed's working on the greenhouse this week. this year's greenhouse is a lot bigger and more permanent looking than the one we had last year. we already have 6 beds planted in there: spinach, beets, claytonia and mache. the frame is there, but ed has to build the walls and door this week.

lots of stuff going on....

peace

made butternut squash soup; sauerkrout; pickled green tomatoes, and green tomato chutney - yesterday. i'm happy.

the best part was making the pickled tomatoes and the chuntney with two of our CSA members, who have become friends. they are fun to be with, and very interesting, and it was great spending the afternoon cooking and talking with them. to top it off, they're hungarian, so we are discovering lots of things in common based on our background alone.

one of the best things about our CSA is just this, that we get to know people and build a relationship with them. this feels good to me. and this is why i'm not at all drawn to selling our vegetables to grocery stores or any place that eliminates the direct contact with the people who eat them. i don't see myself packing vegetables in boxes and shipping them out somewhere where i don't know what happens to them. it just has a whole different energy about it...

enjoy this new beautiful day!!
peace

you'd think that by now things would be slowing down a little, with the farming, but it doesn't really feel like it. we still have a lot of crops in the field. some of them need to be harvesed very soon, to avoid frost damage. then we have to store them. our house is already filled with butternut squashes, onions, garlic. the root celler is also filling up quickly with all kings of root vegetables, and tons of green peppers and beans, which my sister harvested yesterday (with a baby on her back!).
the crops that we're not harvesting right away need to be covered, which is a lot of work (setting up the hoop tunnels, with metal hoops, plastic covers, and sand bags).

besides all this, we're getting another 1/3acre ready for vegetable production next year. it's been already plowed, but now it needs to be de-stoned, have any remaining brush removed, tilled, and finally sown with a cover crop.

then there's also the house stuff. we got a wood stove, so we have heat now, just in time for the cold. the wood stove is really nice, and we've all been enjoying hanging out by the fire at night. it's also really efficient, and has soap stone all around it, so it holds the heat for a long time.

getting the stove was a big thing out of the way, but now ed discovered some leaks in the roof, that need to be patched asap, and he was pretty overwhelmed by that yesterday.

it just feels like there's always so much to do...and now, despite having had a great season, we also feel nervous about money, given all the expenses we've had. our big joke is that it's every one of them is a "one time expense"... the roof will be a big one.

let me say it again: farmers are not in it for the money. at least none of the ones i know. if you're not in love with farming, i don't think you can do it.

today i decided that i'm taking the day off and just cook. i feel like i never have enough time to cook, and despite growing so much amazing food, we just end up eating the same things, which are quick to make, over and over (at least it's not pasta). so i'm planning to make some nice dishes for the week, and then i want to make pickled beets, and sauerkrout, and pickled green tomatoes. a bit ambitious - we'll see what happens.

peace

Aiyana



we finally got some nice looking carrots! our soil was not ready for growing carrots at the begining of this season (too weedy, stony and compacted), but it's come a long way with all the work we put into it, and now we've been getting some nice ones. good sign for next year.

peace

CSA Party

last sunday, we asked our CSA members to come to our house for a harvest party. we invited people to join us for some fieldwork at 2 o'clock, if they wanted to, and then a potluck at 4:30.

i really felt that i wanted to give people a chance to be in our field, to connect with the land that grew their food, as well as with us and the farm in general. it was a beautiful day, sunny, not too cool, not too hot. perfect for being outside. ed and i were both very excited to see how many people came out for the work part. we've never had so many people in the field at one time, and it was really fun. we got a lot done in two and a half hours: we harvested all the tomatoes (i have tons of green tomatoes now, waiting to be made into relish, pickles, fried green tomatoes...), pulled out the stakes and the tomato plants, pulled out any weeds, spread compost and tilled. by the end the patch was ready for planting, which we did the following day (spinach and kale). the potluck afterwards was also great, with lots of nice dishes for everyone to share.

i feel like we got to know people more by being together this way, and for me, the whole thing was so much fun, that despite being very tired, i could not fall asleep at night...

many people said that we should do it again, and i sure hope we do. maybe a transplanting party in the spring?

anyway, here are some pictures i took:

the tomato patch when we started working on it

and after it was cleared

the kids also had fun playing while we were in the field

and this is at the potluck, as the sun started to go down.

thank you so much to everyone!
peace

the big bash

Girls!

(ed loves to sing that line from the Beastie Boys, and he makes me laugh, whenever sena and aiyana do something like worry about their hair too much, or take way too much interest in shoes)

but here are the girls, at aiyana's party on monday. aiyana got some cowgirl gear and she's really excited about showing it to kim when she goes horseback riding on the weekend.

 

sena and aiyana hanging out after the party, enjoying some hot squash/pumpkin soup.

sometimes i can get over myself, and that's a big relief. everything is just right. peace and joy. still, most of the time, i forget, and get trapped in the cycle again.
~~~
been doing lots of picking in the rain lately. it poured on both of our CSA days last week, so ed and i got drenched picking and prepping the vegetables. but it wasn't cold, and we just changed our wet clothes a lot.

the weekend was busy, with the saturday market as usual, and then a fair at the Co-op, where ed and i had a table with 3 other farmers. today is aiyana's birthday party, and i'm busy cooking and cleaning - all indoor stuff, since it's too wet and cold to be outside. i'm having fun doing this for her though. tomorrow she'll be 5!!!
peace

split

sunday is our family day, which means that we try not to do too many things other than just being together and having fun. the other days of the week, it feels like we're focused on so many other things, although we're always together, so we decided that sundays should be special and we should mostly focus on each other.
anyway, so we've been doing this for a while, and it's mostly working out. the kids love it, and ed and i welcome the break from field work, and the chance to give them our full attention.

yesterday, sena came up with an idea. she said: for family day, can we pick up garbage along the road?
she has been noticing garbage alongside the road for a while, always asking why people throw it; she also feels that cleaning up will help the whales, because less junk will end up in the ocean. so she wanted to do it.

i have to admit that my reaction to her request, at least on the inside, was split. on one hand, i thought, this is my day off, i don't want to spend it picking up garbage. very selfish, but it's how it went. and on the other hand, i thought, there's no way i can say no to this. i totally want to support and encourage sena, and she's so amazing trying to do these things...so i just said yes, let's do it.

so all of us were into it, and it was actually fun, once i got over my worrying about the kids touching nasty stuff (i made them wear gloves). we went out along maple road, and filled up a large garbage bin. it was mostly beer bottles, cigarette buts, and McDonald's containers. that was actually interesting, noticing what type of things are being thrown out.

that was our dubious fun sunday.

peace

autumn beauties

some of the vegetables on our CSA table this afternoon: red cabbages, pie pumpkins, and kabocha winter squashes - i love the colors, so pretty together...

bok choy, radishes, salad turnips, beets, cabbages, pumpkins, winter squash and Sena.

peace

crisp, sunny days

what a pleasure it is to go outside these days: sunny, cool, comfortable, the air fresh and crisp. sometimes, when i walk into the field in the morning, i feel so moved and so happy that i could cry. i can't believe this is my place of work!

sena told me yesterday that everything comes from the earth. she was excited about having figured this out. we were talking about it at dinner, and how appropriate, since everything we were eating was grown less than 100 ft away from our table. i love feeling connected to the earth through our food, and i'm glad that sena feels it even beyond that.

guitar lessons

aiyana and i started guitar lessons at UConn Community School of the Arts. we're following the suzuki approach, in which the parent and child are learning together. it's very exciting for both of us. here's aiyana with her new guitar.
\



we've got a lot on our schedule these days. aiyana is also taking swimming, and sena is taking ballet. both are attending a homeschooling group class, with Willa, the Montessori teacher. aiyana's still doing horseback riding, and learning about horses with kim and chuck every weekend. it feels like we have to drive somewhere almost every day, which is quite a change from the way it's been in the past few months. fortunately, everything is within 5 miles, so not bad.

peace

i'm loving this cooler weather. beautiful fall is almost here. i can work and be comfortable.

our sales at the market this past week were significantly lower than in the past few. that's because we had less stuff to sell - the tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, beans and peppers are done.
but, the good news is that it was still a great market as far as attendance, and our fall crops are coming in nicely. we're in a little bit of a lull now, as the cabbages, potatoes, spinach, and winter squash are not quite ready, but soon they will be. even with our lowered sales this week, we still more than doubled what we were making last year at this time. at our peak (last week), we tripled from last year. of course last year we didn't make enough to sustain ourselves longterm, but still it is very encouraging. haven't put the numbers together yet for expenses and sales, but overall, i have a good feeling about this year.

with all this demand, we are planning to grow more vegetables, and also get into berries next year. ed and his dad have been working on clearing another 1/2 acre of land for vegetable production. we already have about 200 raspberry bushes which should be productive next year, and are planning to plant more, plus blueberries and strawberries. all very exciting. can't believe i'm already thinking about next season, but i feel like we've learned so much this year, that the only natural thing to do is figure out what we're going to be doing next year.

here are some pics of our field at this time of year:
beets

newly planted beds of spinach in the foreground, then swiss chard, potatoes and other crops further back.

sena and aiyana's seats in front of our house. i think they look sweet.

kabocha winter squash, which i harvested last week. they are curing right now, for about 2 weeks, and i can't wait to have one!

peace

always yearning for authenticity.
silence. stillness. the call of the owl. the howl of the coyotes at night. gazing into another's eyes. laughing. tears.

six years since stanton died. my mother reminded me. i still miss him, although having him was so hard. but he was amazing and i feel like he will always be with me.

sometimes i get overwhelmed with people who seem so disconnected and insane. it happened last time i was at a party about a week ago. just couldn't shake off the feeling of insanity. i needed to come home and go out in my garden. that made me feel more grounded.

i think that there are many troubled, angry people, discontented and jaded and empty, and maybe a lot of that is because they're stuck inside their heads and in front of the TV / computer too much. too little contact with reality. a walk outside may be nice, or maybe just paying attention for a few moments to anything other than the ranting thoughts inside one's head.

but i know that i'm the one that's odd.

another beautiful market day

another amazing market yesterday in Storrs, our best one yet! i can't believe we have four tables worth of vegetables. last year, it would've been hard to believe... i'm having such a good time. i've always wanted to do something that "mattered", something that i found meaningful, and now i am growing food for people, and they're loving it, and coming back for more. it really is a dream come true.

this is me, setting up before the market opened, at 3 o'clock. we had so many people lined up when we did open, that ed and i could barely keep up. we're considering getting some help for the first hour (roxi? maybe next year?).

peace

picking tomatoes

aiyana helped me get ready for tomorrows market. the tomatoes have slowed down a lot in the past couple of weeks, but there are still a few to pick.



peace

every sunday, aiyana's been spending time with kim and chuck (ed's aunt and uncle) and their two horses. she helps kim groom the horses, and take care of them. slowly, she's been working her way to getting to know the horses better and better, and eventually she rode bareback. last week, she rode with a saddle, which she said was less bumpy.

aiyana only rides around the barn, but she's already learned how to get josie, the horse to go and to stop. josie really likes aiyana too, and they're developing a really nice relationship. for aiyana this is a dream come true, and kim and josie seem to really enjoy their time together as well.

these pics are from last weekend, when sena got a chance to hop in the saddle behind her little sis as well.

working on her balance, hands off the saddle (kim is always right along her side, guiding her and the horse). josie, the horse, is very sweet and gentle, and apparently is amazing when she competes in shows.


peace

here is a tomato horn worm. i found it on our cherry tomato plants on monday. it's huge, for a worm, about the size of my middle finger. i usually have no problem with squishing the (many) caterpillars i find on our plants (especially the cabbage family) by hand, but i was not ready to do that with this guy. it makes a pretty loud cliking sounds as it chews the leaves off the tomato plants. those white things attached all over it are brachonid wasp cocoons. we've been trying to attract this wasp to our garden by planting different flowers and generally creative a conducive habitat. the wasp parasitizes all kinds of caterpillars, and lays its eggs inside them, eventually killing them. many conventional farmers spray pesticides to get rid of the tomato horn worm and others, but if you create conditions that will attract beneficial insects like this wasp, spraying is unnecessary. the system will balance itself out. pesticides kill not only the pests, but the beneficials as well, so you become dependent on them.
in case you're interested in reading more about parasitic wasps and other beneficials, here's an article i found online. there are many more, of course.

here's a tomato horn worm without the wasp parasites


and this is our seed garlic, and onions in the background. our onions and garlic were beautiful this year.

peace

sena got dressed up in a hand-me-down princess dress we got from a friend, and wanted a picture by the old maple in our front yard. i like it.

a few days ago, aiyana said to me: "every day is a happy day", and i was very moved by this.
life is so sweet and simple and beautiful when you're as pure as a four-year-old, unencumbered by all kinds of artificial wants and hopes.

another record market yesterday. things have been going really well, and i am very grateful.
it's hard to believe, but even with all our hard work and everything going well, financial sustainability is still a huge issue for us. hopefuly we'll come out positive at the end of this year. all i want is to be able to keep doing this. i don't want a lot of money at the end of the year, just enough to sustain our simple lifestile and to allow us to continue to farm.
peace

we're already into fall planting. can barely believe how fast summer is going by.
but it has been an amazing summer. i don't think we can ask for better crops - they've done so well, with all the heat and humidity we've had. we haven't had much rain, but fortunately, ed and i dug our well and installed our irrigation for the field just in time. it would've been a very different situation without the readily available water...

we have so many tomatoes right now, and they are so good. very exciting, especially after last year's late blight, which wiped us out. these days though, it feels like all i'm doing is harvesting tomatoes all day long, and i remind myself that that's something to be grateful for when i get tired of it.

our CSA is almost half-way through, and we continue to get very positive and encouraging feedback. many people tell us how happy they are, and how they want to sign up again next year. also, they say that they know other people who'd like to sign up. so our waiting list for 2011 is growing, and we will most likely be expanding the CSA next year.

all is good over here,
peace

this morning

aiyana and i went to the field this morning and i had to take some pics of her:

in the chicken coop, getting eggs (i love her expression)

and standing by the zinnias


peace