Shundahai plans for 2017 and beyond

I just sent this message out to our farm contact list, and wanted to share it here as well.

Hello Shundahai Farm Friends!

We thought it was about time for some farm news:

As you may already know, in 2016, due to concerns over the long-term financial sustainability of the farm, and increased competition, we decided that Ed would get an off-farm job. I, Raluca, am continuing to farm, and I am writing this to let you know about our plans for Shundahai for 2017 and beyond.

As I see it now, 2017 will be a transition year, during which we will farm on a smaller scale than in the past, and experiment with some new ideas. We will continue to grow vegetables and fruits, and we will continue to raise chickens, ducks and cows as we did in the past.

To give you more detail as to what is and is not changing, I review the different areas of the farm below:

CSA:

• We are not planning to sell any CSA shares in 2017 (big change and not an easy decision).
• We are, however, considering selling CSA shares in 2018 and beyond. We are envisioning a smaller CSA than over the past 7 years (as far as number of members), but with more diverse shares (including vegetables, fruits and other products).

Farm Sales:

• We plan to continue farm sales in 2017 and beyond, offering vegetables, fruits, meat, maple syrup, honey and other products.
• As in the past, if you are on our contact list, we will let you know when a farm sale is coming up.

Pick-Your-Own sales:

• We will have pick you own strawberries and raspberries in 2017 and beyond.
• Blueberries are growing and should be ready for pick-your-own in the next 2 years.
• Weather cooperating, we should have other fruits as well from our orchard, such as different varieties of apples, Asian pears and European pears.
• If you are on our contact list, we will let you know when all these fruits are ready.

Wholesale:

• We will continue to sell vegetables and maybe fruits to Fiddleheads food Coop in New London, and Oyster Club restaurant in Mystic.

Meat:

• We sold grass-fed beef by the quarter cow last year, and will continue to do so. We are also checking out the feasibility of selling beef by the cut.
• We are considering selling organic chicken as well.

If you’re receiving our emails, then you’re already on our contact list.
For those who are not on our contact list, but would like to be, please email us your name and preferred email address at mail@shundahaifarm.com. Include a brief message to tell us you want to be on the contact list.

We wish you a good year and good health. Please feel free to contact us if you want to.

Like it!

As many of you know, Sena's been very involved in whale and environmental activism. She recently started a youth group, called Cetacean Society International Youth Group. Now, CSl Youth Group has their own facebook page to let people know what they're working on and what events are coming up. Check it out and like it if you want!

on being a player

"And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game." (Terrence McKenna)

this is true. i've experienced it myself. i got the degree, i got the job, and then, after some years, i decided to "stop playing in that game" and i quit pratt & whitney. i wanted to reclaim my life and my time and contribute to the world in a way that was meaningful to me.

but i must tell you there's no sugar-coated, happily ever after ending here. it was really hard and it still is really hard, trying to make it in a society that's designed to reward certain kinds of activity, (the kind of activity that keeps the status quo going), much more than others.

 

but, the journey continues.

peace

Flawed

I wanted to share this article on What Japanese pottery can teach us about feeling flawed. The whole thing is so good; I had a hard time selecting just some passages to quote here:

"Kintsukuroi (“golden mend”) is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery using lacquer resin laced with gold or silver.
As well as a nifty form of repair, kintsukuroi has a deeper philosophical significance. The mended flaws become part of the object’s design, and some people believe the pottery to be even more beautiful having gone through the process of being broken and repaired.

....

The times when we get scratched, chipped, cracked and broken can feel totally shitty, but there can also be a strange beauty in the way we process them and the lessons we take from them afterwards… if we want.Our experiences don’t define us, but they do influence us. We can decide to hide, or we can decide to embrace these experiences that have shaped us in some small way, the experiences to which we’ve applied our own special coating of gold-laced resin. We can decide to cover up, or we can decide to walk out into the world as ourselves, mended breaks and all."

Message from the potato

Women's march in Hartford

So glad I took the girls to the Women's march in Hartford today. A week ago Sena was crying about Trump becoming president, afraid of what will happen, after she heard a snippet of news in the car.

I thought it was really important to bring them to the march to show them that there are many other people, besides us, who care.

It was a sunny, warm day and we had a lot of fun. Many people liked the girls' sign and asked to take their picture. They were very excited about all the attention they got.

Peace

a memory

i was making cheese and listening to U2, and the music brought back a memory from nearly 30 years ago.

there was this night club in montreal that i used to go to with my friend, and it was really hard to get into. you had to wear the right clothes, and you had to look a certain way. i tried very hard to meet the standard. often, my friend and i would stand outside waiting in line for an hour or two, and the bouncer would just pick someone from the crowd to let in, regardless of where they were in line. sometimes it would be someone who'd just pulled up to the curb in a shiny red car. the friend i went with usually got in quickly, but i didn't. sometimes, after she got in, she'd convince the bouncer to let me in too.

thinking about this in the past would sting, or make me angry. but, for some reason, tonight it made me smile. it was almost like a pleasant memory, but pleasant is not the right word.

if i could speak to myself back then, i'd say don't worry about it, because i did worry about it.

but tonight, when this memory popped into my head, i realized that i'm grateful for the experience; because, although it made me more insecure at the time, in the long term it contributed to cementing a sort of fundamental sense of dignity that i now can turn to.

it really does take heartbreak sometimes to show you what you want and do not want, and sometimes heartbreak will save you from following a dead end road for too long of a time.

peace

Tomorrow's march

Here is a picture of the sign the girls made together with their friend for tomorrow's Women's / NRDC march we'll be attending in Hartford, for Trump's inauguration. I did not tell them to do it, they came up with it on their own. They're very excited that we're going.

Peace

On the air

Sena and Aiyana were in the recording studio at WHUS, our local radio station, yesterday. They recorded a PSA (Public Service Announcement) for the upcoming event their youth group is organizing, the showing of Sonic Sea on Feb.11th at 5pm at the Mansfield Public Library.

Danielle, the radio station manager, taught Sena how to work the equipment, how to put different sound streams together and record the PSA. It was really fun for all of us.

Sena did most of the PSA.

Aiyana recorded a little piece at the end.

The PSA should be playing on WHUS from now until Feb 11th.
Peace

Call Me Dorothy

I saw your teachings fall apart,
over the years.

The things you told me to strive for,
The ones you taught me to fear,
What was supposed to make me happy.
Little by little,
Everything unraveled, revealed.

The powerful Wizard of Oz, turns out,
Is a frail old man,
And he is scared.

You taught me to live by the rules
That finally let you down.
And then, through your own suffering,
You taught me,
The real lesson.
And I am grateful.

Now that I'm on my own,
And everything's wide open,
I tell myself I'm Dorothy.
I have my silver shoes,
And I can go anywhere.

One answer

Once in a while, I ask myself "What is love?"
I think that there are different kinds of love. So there are many answers. This is one. (If you have time to read the whole article, it's pretty interesting).

The Central Paradox of Love

“Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other.”

I think that what many people want is to find our gift, and then share it with the world. We want to give it away, but we are afraid that it will not be received, it won't be good enough, it won't fit in with making money, and so on. Maybe we will be ridiculed for it. The search is fraught with self-doubt and fear, but it's also beautiful and meaningful. It is worth it!

I'm sure this has been said by many people, but the other day, when I was miking the cows, I had a very clear understanding that I should not be afraid of failure or success; only of not trying.

I read an article this morning, that made me think of all this (and I felt a bond with the author who grew up in Bulgaria and loved her grandma's garden). Maybe you'll like it too.

The Little Gardener: A Tender Illustrated Parable of Purpose and the Power of Working with Love

A sweet celebration of all that is alive and wonderful, inside us and in the outside world we shape together.
  
Peace

Sonic Sea showing in Mansfield, CT

Sena and her youth group (Cetacean Society International Youth Group or CSI YG) have organized to have a showing of the documentary movie Sonic Sea right here in Mansfield. Here are the details:

Sonic Sea documentary showing in Mansfield, CT:

Saturday, February 11th at 5pm

At the Mansfield Public Library, in the Buchanan Auditorium

Price: Free

Sonic Sea is a one hour documentary showing the effect of ocean noise on cetaceans (whales and dolphins). You can see the trailer here. Our family has seen it last summer in Hartford, and it was a powerful movie, that we highly recommend.

Also very exciting is the fact that Dr. Francine Kershaw, marine mammal science fellow from NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council), will be coming here all the way from NYC to attend the movie, answer questions and engage with the audience afterwards.

CSI Youth Group worked hard and paid with their own money in order to bring this powerful movie to Mansfield, and I highly encourage you to attend if you can.

Last but not least, check out Sena, Aiyana and Emma's articles in the most recent CSI newsletter, under CSI Youth Group news on pages 5 and 6. These girls are here to change things for the better!

Peace

Snowy day

I had a really nice walk in the woods today. It was snowing and everything looked magical.
I hope too are nice and cozy and enjoying this beautiful snowy day.

Peace

Lovely snow

Went to milk this morning and it was magical out there with freshly fallen snow on the ground.

 Looking out of the hay barn

 Weed in the compost pile

Hay for the cows

Peace

New scarf

Just finished knitting this scarf, another pattern off of ravelry. I like it on Aiyana.
But I should stop knitting for a while now so I can finish War and Peace, Tolstoy's massive time which is really drawing me in...

Floored me

I asked Aiyana to write an essay about the World War I Christmas truce as part of her homework. She still has work to do on it. But I am posting here her unedited version, without corrections, because the last sentence caught me by surprised and floored me, coming from an 11 year old.

The Christmas Truce

The Christmas Truce happened during WW1. It happened between the British and Germans.

The British and Germans were both in really bad conditions. They were in a stale mate. All they were doing was staying in the trench and waiting for the enemy to come out. The enemy was doing the same. The trenches were in very bad conditions. They were filled with water. So the soldier’s feet were rotting. Trenches kept caving in.  

Then, on Christmas Eve, the Germans started singing “Silent night “. The British were very surprised.  Afterwards, on Christmas Day, one of the most amazing thing happened in history. A German, got right out of a trench. He started walking towards a British trench. He was holding a Christmas tree. The British, and Germans, started getting out of their trenches, and talking to each other.

Soon they were friends.  They buried the dead people, because “no man’s land” land was littered with the dead, from both sides. They talked and traded with each other, cigars and many other things. They also played football, and the Germans won. Afterwards, they didn’t really want to keep fighting. But, the high officials made them fight.

                                      I think it is amazing that the British and Germans got along so well. Even though they were in so bad conditions.  I also think it is sad, they had to keep fighting. Since they got along well, and they were friends, and could have stopped a part of the war.

                                         I think people should have taken this to heart, and tried to be friends, like the Germans and British.  I wish people would get along, and try to stop war, not just keep killing each other. I think people should learn from this, and see that the people who they are fighting against,  miss home just as much, and are not mean, just doing what they are told. Just like yourself.                                         

Not what I expected to write

Today, I wanted to say something happy and cheerful,  being the first day of the year, but all I have is this:

"And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"

Thank goodness for Cohen and others like him, who understand and can express so well the ambiguity, the murkiness of the human experience, with its pain and suffering, its joys and delights.

I love the lyrics above, because like Cohen, and I suspect, like most people, I have experienced and am still experiencing different shades of pain and confusion and freedom and love and many others in the human spectrum. And I consider myself lucky that despite, or maybe I should say because of this mixed-bag experiece, I am more than ever in awe at life, at its beauty and complexity, and also its simplicity really. I am grateful for my life, and for this human experience.

To know love, in its many forms, even when it hurts, is such a gift.

I am thinking of a mother I know, who lost her teenage son to suicide last year. I hope that she too, feels that love is a gift in the end. And I hope that she and others like her, who can be so overwhelmed by grief, can find a way to go on and see beauty again, and let themselves be touched by love again.

Peace

Happy New Year!

I wish you health and I wish that the new year brings you whatever you need at this time in your life.

May you feel sustained and supported and loved, whatever you're going through. I know that so many of us feel alone, scared, overwhelmed, ashamed....

May we all heal from whatever is hurting us, and may the earth and all its creatures heal, so that we can go on and enjoy each other and the beauty all around us.

Have fun if you celebrate today, rest if you need to rest, and trust the path.

This is one of the memories I will treasure from 2016: hiking and resting in the beautiful Austrian Alps.

Peace

Try again with the cow videos

Don't know why they don't always come through...

"Hurry up and give me my treats!",  she says.
https://youtu.be/aET_1bI7NdE

https://youtu.be/bx2X4ffRVpI