More pictures from around the farm

My chicks are about 4 weeks old now, and growing fast. I'm raising them for meat, and will be bringing them to slaughter around 10 weeks of age. It's hard to think about that, but I'm giving them the best life I can now...

 Peas should be ready by the end of this week.

 Strawberries too, especially if we get more sun soon.

I transplanted my peppers and eggplants today. Tomatoes have been in the ground for over a week, but they haven't grown much, because it's been so cool.

I love being close to the earth. It feels so good. I always think of that Rumi quote, and feel so grateful to be able to live it in my own way:

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

 Eggplants, peppers, carrots and peas

Aiyana

Sena making a basket out of black walnut. We have lots of black walnuts around here, so Sena pruned some branches to use for her baskets. She made 2 so far, and they're beautiful. This is the first one.

 Here she is peeling the bark off the black walnut branches.

Peace

Learn

This is the view out of our farm store, looking to the west.

Bug squishing event extended to tomorrow!

Today we had a caterpillar squishing event at the farm. We put out an invite to our contact list of over 450 people asking people to come and help us kill the gypsy moth caterpillars that are devastating our apple trees.

Thank you so much to Careen, Veronica, Ron, and Raluca's parents for helping us for a couple of hours, and also to Sena and Aiyana and their friend Emma for working alongside us. We were able to go through 30 trees today, which feels great.

We have 50 more to go though, so we are extending our invitation to tomorrow. Please come and help - we will be squishing caterpillars again from 8am to 3pm, and if even a handful of people show up for a little while, we might be able to finish all the trees, which would be so amazing...

Veronica, who worked with us today, commented on how squishing caterpillars proves that we don't spray. Indeed, we don't, and it also proves how much more work is involved in growing food this way. But together the task is less monumental, and we can have some fun too, so we hope to see you tomorrow!

Here are some pics from today to whet your appetite:
This branch and many like it were devastated, see how many gypsy moths you can count...way too many for me!

Look at all that damage

 Ed, Careen, Sena, Aiyana and Emma

Gypsy moths climbing up the trunk of an apple tree. We put sticky tape to stop them, about 1 ft off the ground, and it works! But you still have to get the ones that are already in the tree.

My hands. If you're disgusted, you can bring gloves.

Peace

Pictures at the farm

Ducks at the wash station, cows in the pasture, and Opie and I.

Peace

Into the labyrinth

You walk in to slay the beast

That we have hid in there.

All of us, together,

In greed and ignorance.

Although he is well hidden,

We all feel his presence,

And we’re all terrified,

But we won’t talk about it,

And so his power grows.

You walk in alone,

I see you.

I wish I could come with you,

But that’s not how it’s done.

Instead, take this,

The finest thread I have

Connection of the soul,

This Ariadne’s string,

And follow it back home.

John Waterhouse - I love these

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

The Soul of the Rose

"And the soul of the rose went into my blood..." from Come into the Garden, by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Peace

What is going on?

Feeling sick inside - just found out about two more people, one of whom died, the other severely ill, both around my age. So many people suffering this past winter and spring, I don't know what's going on....
I wish health and help to everybody.

Waterhouse - Miranda, The Tempest


Peace

Compassionate Truth Telling

Speaking from my own experience, I wanted to share this. I hope that it may be of use to someone, especially if you're struggling too:

Many times in life, we learn certain patterns of behavior when we’re too young to understand whether they make sense or not. Nevertheless, they become ingrained, and then, as we go through life, we act them out on a regular basis, even though it may not be in our interest or anyone’s interest to do so. We also come to feel like we need to defend and justify these patterns that have now become associated with who we are.

One such pattern for me is avoiding conflict. My sister said the other day that this is part of our luggage, and she’s right. Since I was young, I felt very anxious in confrontational situation and basically tried to avoid conflict at almost any cost.

When I was very young, I outright lied, or withheld the truth whenever I sensed that telling the truth would cause a confrontation, hurt someone’s feelings, or disappoint them. As I got older and started to develop more of my own sense of right and wrong, when I had to say something to someone, which I knew they would not like or would not want to hear, I would spend agonizing hours deciding if I should say it, how I should say it, trying to predict what their response might be, etc. Many times I would tell a half truth, or near truth, not really getting my message across properly. This happened so many times, in so many situations. For example, all through my 20s, if there was a guy friend that liked me more than a friend, and I didn’t feel the same way about him, which happened quite a bit,  I knew I would have to tell him the truth, and I knew that it would hurt his feelings. I would try to give him hints, and show him through my behavior, but when that didn’t work, I would keep agonizing about how to tell him. Eventually I would say it outright, but not after much time passed, causing much hurt to both the guy and myself. Another situation was with work, when my boss would expect something of me and I would go along rather than disappoint him or cause conflict, even though in the end I knew that was eroding my job satisfaction and performance and that it was an all around bad idea.

So fear of conflict has always been a dominating theme in my life. And even though life showed me over and over how it just doesn’t make sense to act this way, this fear was so strong, and has been so deeply ingrained in me, that it just seemed insurmountable.

But, over the past few years, things have been shifting a bit. Slowly, I’ve been working on letting go of the old pattern, and seen some progress. For this, I am grateful to the people and teachers that inspired me to let go of the familiar and experiment with something new. And, I am most grateful to those who made me feel loved and accepted enough to allow me to tread in new, uncertain, scary territory.

One thing I realized is that just because this pattern has been ingrained in me when I was too young to know better, does not mean I have to defend it, and identify with it for the rest of my life. Now that I have a bit of wisdom of my own, I can guide myself towards something that works better. Sounds so simple, but it’s not easy to do.

It’s still important to me not to hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with that. I found throughout my life, that some people have no problem at all speaking their truth in difficult situations, but they often do so in an unkind, uncompassionate way, insensitive to the pain they may be causing to those they’re speaking to. This includes blaming, yelling, name calling, speaking disrespectfully or in an unthoughtful way.  I don’t like this method, and I think it causes just as many problems, maybe even more, as not speaking the truth out of fear of conflict.

So how to tell someone, especially someone you see on a regular basis, a difficult truth that may upset them? How to tell them that you either cannot or don’t want to live up to their expectations of you? How do you “let them down”? That term itself is so loaded, makes me anxious just to write it.

I realized that what I want, when faced with such difficult situations, is to tell the truth in a compassionate way. I don’t have to justify why I feel the way I do, but instead stay focused on being kind, respectful and truthful.

I realized that being kind includes being kind to oneself. It does not mean, as I mistakenly believed in the past, allowing others to have their way in order to avoid upsetting them. If someone gets upset about me being who I am, they need to deal with that as much as you do.

So, compassionate truth telling.  That’s where I’m at. That’s what I’ve been practicing, and will continue to practice, at least until I find a better way.

I hope this has been of some use, and I will end with a quote from Walk, by Foo Fighters, which has inspired me lately, as I try to break old patterns and slowly but surely “learn to walk again”.

"Learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?
Learning to talk again
Can't you see I've waited long enough?
Where do I begin?"

Peace

"Call me a dog", in memory of Chris Cornell

One of my favorite songs from Temple of the Dog. I love these lines:

" But when it's my time to throw the next stone
I call you beautiful if I call at all
And when it's my time to call your bluff
I call you beautiful or leave it alone"

Educating the public

Sena works on the education team of a whale watching boat out of Gloucester, MA. These pics were taken a few weeks ago. Aiyana went too, and helped out. Thanks to Patty Sullivan for the photos.

this morning

it's a beautiful morning.

take a big breath, first.

then,

take your sorrow,

take everything that troubles you,

see it, hold it, befriend it,

and also everything you hope for,

everything that brings you light.

go out there,

you know you're not alone, 

you know that we're all in this,

doomed and blessed.

go out there

take in this beautiful morning,

allow it to touch you,

be present,

this is your life.

RIP Chris Cornell

Thank you for the music and everything else you gave to the world!

Form "Like a Stone"

In your house I long to be;
Room by room, patiently,
I'll wait for you there like a stone.
I'll wait for you there alone, alone.

Peace

Thyroid

Feeling better today after a good night sleep. Throat still hurts though. Went to the naturopath this morning. He said I have a nodule and swelling of my thyroid. I though it was the thyroid but wasn't sure. He did bloodwork and is sending me to an endocrynologist.
I love my naturopath, Dr. Furlong, so comfortable and easy to talk to, and I trust him.

But what the heck is up with the thyroid. Aiyana has Hashimoto, and now this?
Dr. Furlong said it could be the body attacking the thyroid in response to something that looks similar at a molecular level, such as bad gut bacteria. Anyway, we'll wait and see.

At the end of my visit, out of curiosity, I asked what the thyroid is related to energetically. I also looked up more info when I got home. It turns out that problems with the thyroid are related to an inability of speaking one's truth, out of fear. Holding things in and not saying what you really want to say. Very interesting, since this is a big topic for me, as it is for many other people...

For now, I'm waiting for my blood tests and am taking some goldenseal that Dr.Furlong prescribed. I know my mom will worry. Please don't worry. I'm not worried. I think the body does these things for a reason. I trust my body. Unfortunately, I don't know how much I trust myself to follow its wisdom.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Not going so well

Things are not going well over here.
I'm feeling sick and my throat is hurting, and I feel generally run down.
The cows jumped the fence and got out into the part of the field they're not supposed to be in. They had a tour through of garlic patch, killing a few plants. Aiyana and I got them back in.
Two of my chicks died today. One was not my fault, the other one totally was. I had 16 total, and checked on them this morning. I found one dead for no apparent reason, which does happen. You usually lose at least one out of a batch. Everything seemed ok otherwise, they had food and water and the temp in the coop was good (~95F). Then I went out to the field to do some weeding, and when I came back to chek on the chicks at noon, the temp had soared to 130F! The coop they were in is too well insulated, and I did not realize how hot it would get in there on a sunny day like today. The chicks all looked awful, and I felt horrible. I got Sena and Aiyana and we got them out of there, and put them in a cooler spot. We hydrated them with an electrolyte solution that Sena made, and Sena fixed the coop so now there's more ventilation. We got the temp of the coop back to ~90F, and put the chicks back in. All of them looked fine after all this, except for one who died, and we burried. This is my first time raising chicks, as in the past this was Ed's domain, and I definitely learned a lesson today. Still feeling horrible about subjecting them to that terrible high temperature.
I'm feeling too achy and crappy to lie down, or eat, or anything. I think I'll finish my weeding...and hopefully nothing else will go wrong today....

Hayao Miyazaki

Love is helping each other remember who we are; is being there for each other during difficult life transformations; and is helping each other break free from the negative forces that control us.

These are some of the main themes of Hayao Miyazaki's movie "Spirited Away", which I just watched yesterday, and they're some of the main themes of my life as well.

So far, I've seen two of Myazaki's movies: Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away and loved both of them. I definitely want to watch more of his movies.

I like how these movies have stong lead female characters; always incorporate some spirituality theme; and have a different take on romance than the norm. This is a quote I love from Miyazaki:

“I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.”

Peace

Lots of stuff going on this weekend

Yesterday, I felt tired. There's been so much going on with Sena and Aiyana's homeschooling and so much preparation for all the environmental events they're involved in. And I also had a big harvest this week, so my back was really feeling it...
Luckily I was able to go the the greenhouse, rest and read for a while, and then I felt better.

Then Aiyana and I headed to the Mansfield Library to prepare for CSI Youth Group's showing of "A Plastic Ocean". Everything went well. There were 49 people in the audience, which I think is a great turnout. The town mayor and the recycling coordinator came. Emma and Aiyana from CSI Youth Group did a great job introducing the movie, and speaking afterwards, and the audience was very engaged, with about half an hour of questions and discussion. Patty Sullivan from CSI was great at leading the discussion after the movie, in Sena's absence. Sena was supposed to be there, but there was a last minute plan change. It turned out that she and Ed had to go to Nantucket early for her whale presentation this coming Monday. They were supposed to take the ferry today, but the seas were predicted to be rough, so they had to go a day early.

So I ended up being in charge of setting up the video and microphone and other technical stuff (yikes). But things went well, and we had time to spare before the movie.
Here we are, before the audience arrived:

And here are Ed and Sena at the "Empty the Tanks" event in Mystic yesterday, before heading to Nantucket.

Aiyana and I had an evening to ourselves after the movie. We got Indian food, and enjoyed it very much. She slept in my room, and we got to snuggle more than usual. This morning, while I took care of the animals, Aiyana made me coffee, and pancakes, which we had with hard cheese and strawberry jam. She also cut up a mango that the owner of the Indian restaurant gave to us last night. The whole thing was a very special treat for me, so I'm enjoying this mother's day.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there who's nurturing someone, be it their child, or their pet, or a wild one! Happy Mother's Day to my mom, and Happy Mother's Day to the Earth, our big mother.

Have you seen those weeds?

Two events tomorrow: Empty the Tanks, and A Plastic Ocean

There are two events tomorrow, Saturday 5/13, that I wanted to let you know about. Sena and CSI Youth Group organized the first, and will be participating in the second:

1. A Plastic Ocean: free movie showing at the Mansfield Library, Buchanan Auditorium, 5pm
2. Third annual Empty the Tanks event in Mystic, CT (more details below)

Here are more details about Empty the Tanks, from an announcement by Cetacean Society International:

• Third annual Empty the Tanks event;
• Held outside Mystic Aquarium (Mystic, CT);
• Saturday, May 13th from 10 am to 2 pm.

This worldwide peaceful protest, created for bringing attention to the plight of captive cetaceans, potentially targets every marine park that keeps whales or dolphins. Started in 2013, Empty the Tanks is not a radical movement, but a peaceful educational event that sends a clear message to the industry while at the same time raising public awareness about the issue of captivity of cetaceans in the most positive manner. During past events, we gathered a crowd as diverse as it gets – kids as young as 7, teenagers and college students, adults of all ages, all from different backgrounds and professions. We all had one thing in common: the firm belief that whales and dolphins do not belong in tanks.

This year the Board of Directors of CSI officially endorsed Empty the Tanks, and we strongly encourage you to attend, and to spread the information about the event, so more people will join us.

For more information, see the article by CSI's Olga Pristin in the most recent "Whales Alive!" at http://csiwhalesalive.org/csi_empty_the_tanks.pdf

And here is a picture of me saying hi to a Beluga whale at Mystic Aquarium last year. I had been designated driver for CSI Youth Group, who were going to speak to the Education Director at Mystic Aquarium to advocate for whales in captivity. It was my first time there, and Sena and Aiyana's too. Of course it was amazing seeing the beautiful Belugas, they're so big and cute, and make your heart melt. But at the same time, when you think about what their natural environment is like, and see them in this tiny tank circling round and round, it's hard not to feel sorry for them. It's hard to deny that no amount of education or whatever other reason why they're put here is worthwhile their freedom and separation from their families.

 Peace

Morning ritual and my mom in Italy

I have a lovely morning ritual these days, which I'll share with you:
As soon as I get up, I make my coffee. When it's ready, I take my mug and journal and go out to the orchard. I sit there, in a hidden spot, all by myself. The trees are all in flower at this time of year, and the birds are chirping merrily, as if celebrating life. It smells so good, and it's so blissful! I drink my coffee and soak in the sights and sounds all around. Sometimes, I write poems or whatever I feel moved to in my journal. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to start my day like this.

When I'm done, I go see the cows. I give them fresh pasture and water. I walk around the fields and see if anything needs tending to. I peek inside the greenhouse and water the plants in there. Then I make my way back to the house and get on with the rest of my day, homeschooling, cooking, doing field work, computer work, etc., whatever needs to get done.

And speaking of having a nice time, my mom is also enjoying herself quite a bit these days. She's in Italy, for 10 days, on vacation. She's with a tour, but it sounds like they get to spend time alone as well, which she likes. My mom is really into Roman and Greek antiquity (history, art, mythology, etc.), so that makes it even more special for her to be there. She's been to Italy and Greece in the past, and this time she's visiting Rome, Napoli, Sorrento, Pompeii, Capri, and is now on the Amalfi coast. I follow her journey on google maps and images, and wow, does it look beautiful over there! I am really glad for her. I told her to take some selfies and send them to me. I'll post if she does.

Before I end, I'll come back from daydreaming about Italy, to my farm. I'll post two pictures I took in the orchard tonight. I love the evening light so much. Those soft rays of the setting sun, coming out of the west, before everything becomes dark, are so comforting, and they make everything glow at its most beautiful. To me, that light seems like an embodiment of love.

Peace

Foo Fighters again

Two more great screaming songs from Foo Fighters I've been listening to:"Walk" and "The Pretender". Back in the 90s, I used to love their energy, but now I love that and the meaning behind their songs. Whenever I feel too weak to stand up for something, or to be true to myself, some of their songs are a great booster.




And here are full lyrics to "The Pretender":

Keep you in the dark
You know they all pretend
Keep you in the dark
And so it all began

Send in your skeletons
Sing as their bones go marching in, again
The need you buried deep
The secrets that you keep are ever ready
Are you ready?
I'm finished making sense
Done pleading ignorance
That whole defense

Spinning infinity, boy
The wheel is spinning me
It's never-ending, never-ending
Same old story

What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
You're the pretender
What if I say I will never surrender?
What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
You're the pretender
What if I say that I'll never surrender?

In time our soul untold
I'm just another soul for sale, oh well
The page is out of print
We are not permanent
We're temporary, temporary
Same old story

What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
You're the pretender
What if I say that I'll never surrender?
What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
You're the pretender
What if I say that I'll never surrender?

I'm the voice inside your head
You refuse to hear
I'm the face that you have to face
Mirrored in your stare
I'm what's left, I'm what's right
I'm the enemy
I'm the hand that will take you down
Bring you to your knees

So who are you?
Yeah, who are you?
Yeah, who are you?
Yeah, who are you?

Keep you in the dark
You know they all pretend

What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
You're the pretender
What if I say I will never surrender?
What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
You're the pretender
What if I say that I'll never surrender?

What if I say I'm not like the others?
(Keep you in the dark)
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
(You know they all pretend)
You're the pretender
(Who dares)
What if I say I will never surrender?

What if I say I'm not like the others?
(Keep you in the dark)
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
(You know they all pretend)
You're the pretender
(Who dares)
What if I say I will never surrender?

So who are you?
Yeah, who are you?
Yeah, who are you?