taken from "the satisfactions of the mad farmer"

by wendell berry

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"Growing weather; enough rain...

the peach tree bent with its yield..."

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"the ground, new worked, moist

and yielding underfoot, the feet

comfortable in it as roots;"

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"raspberries ripe and heavy amid their foliage...

strawberries red ripe with the white

flowers still on the vines - picked

with the dew on them, before breakfast;"

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"grape clusters heavy under broad leaves,

powdery bloom on fruit black with a sweetness

- an ancient delight, delighting;"

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"the bodies of women in loose cotton,

cool and closed in the evenings

of summer, like contented houses;"

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"the bodies of men, able in the heat

and sweat and weight and length

of the day's work, eager in their spending,

attending to nightfall, the bodies of women;"

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"sleep after love, dreaming

white lilies blooming

coolly out of the flesh;"

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"after sleep, enablement

to go on with work, morning a clear gift;"

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"the maidenhood of the day,

cobwebs unbroken in the dewy grass;"

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"the work of feeding and clothing and housing,

done with more than enough knowledge

and with more than enough love,

by those who do not have to be told..."

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"the talk of friends, lightened and cleared

by all that can be assumed..."

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"live streams, live shiftings

of the sun in the summer woods..."

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"the quiet in the woods of a summer morning,

the voice of a peewee passing through it

like a tight silver wire;"

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"a little clearing among cedars,

white clover and wild strawberries

beneath an opening to the sky

- heavenly, i thought it,

so perfect; had i foreseen it

i would have desired it

no less than it deserves;"

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"what i know of spirit is astir

in the world. the god i have always expected

to appear at the wood's edge, beckoning,

i have always expected to be

a great relisher in this world, its good

grown immortal in his mind."

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i love wendell berry's prose. deeply experiential, richly meaningful and simply spoken. i've been reading his collected poems over the past couple of weeks, and i'm falling even more in love with his words. while we were camping the weekend before last, callie read us a couple of his poems as we fell asleep, all four of us scrunched together in the tent. i drifted into and out of sleep, callie's quiet voice trailing through the verses....

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i've been collecting ideas, in my head, of the satisfactions i have realized here on the farm...but i'm too tired now to continue...but i will, in time...

wednesday - shower day! yahoo! i'm starting to offend myself :) it's a hot week out here in hoopa; the sun is intense and the sky is clear and free of clouds. thankfully, there's a little breeze...

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this past weekend, linda and callie and cameron and i went on a girls' trip to redwood national park and had an amazing time. we piled into grady's old tacoma early on saturday morning, packing in our bags and tents and sleeping bags and a crate of freshly-picked peaches and plums. we took highway 96 north through weitchpec and then got the gravely highway 169 and took it west all the way out to orick on the coast. we were kickin' up dust with our four-wheel drive, enjoying the majestic views of the hills and trees hugging the klamath river bed. we did some hiking, napping by the sea, sunset-gazing and, of course, talking...i'm going to miss these ladies when i leave!

a quick update on farm life: we've got two new wwoof'ers: ben and jessica, both youngsters from kansas city. they're a whole lot of fun...a combination of extended solar exposure and a tendancy towards ridiculousness on all of our parts has led to hours and hours of uncontrollable laughing...it helps to find humor in something when you're hoeing in the beating sun, sweat pouring down your face!

i've been adjusting to my new living space in the fruit orchard. i'm habitating a great big tent and i've got electricity wired in there and a futon mattress on which to sleep - rather fancy for camping, i must say. nonetheless, it is a thin sheath of nylon under the peach trees in the cherry orchard, and there is a lot of ripe fruit out there that the creatures of the night loooove. my first night was rough; i felt like i was in an episode of animal planet! growling, snarling, panting...fruit coming off the trees like crazy...i was scared to death, to be blunt. so scared, in fact, that i put my bike light flasher on my butt pocket, strapped on my headlamp, grabbed my pillow and ran screaming into the cabin where i proceeded to sleep on the tiny couch for the night. i am SUCH a city girl! i've since calmed down and learned that although the fox and bear and racoon and skunk may be loitering around my tent while i sleep unprotected, they don't care much for humans as food. i'm actually really loving it now and not looking much forward to sleeping indoors again :)

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the crops we're harvesting on the farm are in constant flux. coming in strong now are: the tomatoes (the heirlooms - pleated zapotec and cherokee purple, the sungold and sweet 100 cherries, the red slicers and the pastes); peaches, santa rosa plums, japanese eggplant, cucumbers (suyo longs, marketmores, and lemons). meanwhile, the squash and beets and carrots and greens are ebbing out until the next succession of each comes in.

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i've been having such a good time in the kitchen, lately. i swear that place has good culinary karma; maybe because so many people have been devotedly cooking fresh and healthful food in there since it was built :) i'll share some of my favorite, seasonal recipes as of late...ingredients that are featured in the recipes should be available at your local farmer's markets right now, so get out there and vote with your fork! you won't regret it :)

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Garlicky Hippie Dust Pesto

don't fear the particulate matter that accents this dee-liteful concoction;

hippie dust (nutritional yeast) can be found at your local health food store

and it's a reliable food source of Vitamin B12!

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1/2 cup walnuts

3 cups packed basil leaves (use fresh basil from the markets if you can!)

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or more to taste

1/3 cup *hippie dust* (nutritional yeast (and yes, ok, it's optional!))

2 teaspoons lemon juice

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Toast the walnuts a bit (in the oven at 350F or on the stove in a dry pan over medium/high heat). Combine the nuts, the basil, garlic and salt in a food processor and process as you add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Add in the hippie dust, if using, and the lemon juice while continuing to process. That's all! The pesto should be a slightly grainy paste, not a puree...serve on sandwiches or over pasta or potatoes...it's a jack-of-all-trades sauce that you'll use all the time. Mmm!

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Peachy Salad

refreshing and unexpected. great for warm summer lunches!

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1 T brown sugar

1 T grated fresh ginger

1 large garlic clove, minced

4 t lime juice

1 t soy sauce

a few shakes of hot sauce

a pinch or two of salt

2 T vegetable oil

1 T sesame oil

peaches (about 5-6 large ones, pitted and sliced)

greens (enough to satiate you - spinach or lettuce or mixed baby greens work well)\

sweetened walnuts*, chopped (see recipe below)

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Put everything but the peaches, greens and nuts into a mason jar, screw on the lid, and shake it all up. Voila! Toss this dressing lightly with the peaches and greens in a large bowl and top with the nuts.

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Sweetened Walnuts: melt about 2 T butter in a skillet; stir in abour 1 cup walnuts and cook over medium heat. Toss in about 2 T sugar and stir it up...continue stirring and sauteeing until the walnuts carmelize. Then, immediately take the nuts off the heat.

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Found Fruit Berry Cake

if you can't walk about your 'hood and find strawberries and blackberries

growing, go get 'em at the market! i can't pass these berries up right

now...they're all along our path to the river...

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6 T unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pie plate

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1 cup plus 2 T organic sugar

1 large egg (i get 'em from the hen house at the farm!)

1/2 cup milk

1 t pure vanilla extract

strawberries and blackberries to fit your fancy (i used about 1 cup of each)

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Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 10" pie plate. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. In a separate bowl and with an electric mixer, mix on medium-high speed the butter and 1 cup of sugar until pale and fluffy. Reduce the speed to medium-low and mix in the egg, milk and vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the flour mixture. Keep on mixing until the batter is pale yellow and smooth and pretty...like, until you just can't stop yourself from licking the beaters! Transfer the batter to a buttered pie plate (try to say that ten times fast). Hull the strawberries and slice 'em in half and then arrange the fruit on top of the batter, cut sides of the strawberries down, as close as possible. Make a pattern with the fruit or favor chaos; it's all up to you. Just get the fruit on there and make sure there's lots of it. Sprinkle the remaining 2 T of sugar over the berries. Bake the cake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 325F. Bake the cake until it's golden brown and firm to the touch, about one hour. Let it cool in the pie plate on a wire rack, then cut it into wedges and serve. Oh, yummy!!!!

The low electric buzz of crickets fills the air; a bullfrog lets out a throaty bellow. The wind tickles the branches that hang heavy with ripe peaches; the tent crinkles and whisps, inflating and deflating ever so slightly as the breeze catches its sides. The other WWOOF’ers are laughing in the cabin across the orchard and Nathan is on the phone in his house; muddled inflections from their conversations travel through the air. Every now and again, the sound of a ripened plum hitting the ground punctuates the calm, its sweet juices bursting through its violet skin. Further down the road, a Gravenstein apple hits the ground with a decided plunk, more resilient to the fall than the delicate plums. I can hear the leaves rustling in the forest that is encroaching on the back field; they sound like the river. I imagine that four months from now, when the rains have started and the river is higher, I’d be able to hear its rumbling water from here inside my tent. In the distance, I hear car engines revving and wheels rolling down the gravely roads. Outside, strange and undefinable sounds…a fox eating fallen plums? A bear lumbering toward the peach tree that's growing right beside the tent? Scurrying, movement. I can’t see the colorful and heavy sky anymore...it’s pitch black but for the tiny silver stars twinkling in the distance...

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It's good to be back on the farm....

i just got off the phone with my dear friend kristopher and we had a very important discussion about the evil internet. i told him that i'd just cut myself off from the grips of myspace; i found myself spending too much valuable time investigating non-essential information and i've got quite a lot of essential work to be doing with myself these days. he then made a quip about blogs, to which i immediately became defensive - "what's wrong with blogs?" he explained his thought that they're pretty much the same thing as myspace - an unnecessary and quite self-involved exposure of oneself; he also told me that he feels like a voyeur when he reads my blog. i've heard both those comments many times before, and it saddens me.

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so, i thought this would be a wise time to clarify my intentions in having a blog. in no way, reader, do i want you to feel voyeuristic. i write only what i want to be read; these words, for me, are integral medium of expression.

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i have always been a writer, anyhow. i have stacks and stacks of journals in illinois and in oakland, the earliest of which i started before i could even hold a pencil with confidence; little pieces of paper with phrases scrawled on them stuck in-between their pages; napkins from restaurants across the country with observations penned on them tucked behind the journal covers. i really can't help myself. some people draw, some paint, some sing or play instruments; i write. to express, to communicate, to expose.

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i once asked a dear older friend what marriage meant to him; he told me, simply: "having a witness to one's life." that touched my heart. implicit, to me, in those few words was the desire to share, the willingness to be seen for who one is, the comfort of companionship, but also the concurrent pursuance of one's own path through life.

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this blog, in these past few years, has served as my witness. i grew up in a very close family; my parents were more like best friends than authoritarians, my brother was a much-appreciated source of insight and motivation, and my extended family was always hugely supportive at a moment's notice; along with my old friends, i had witnesses. when i came out to california, though, everything changed. my support network was all still there at the other end of the phone, but they weren't here. my new life moved so quickly; i was having life-changing and eye-opening experiences and i longed to share them, intimately, but i had very few people out here to share anything with for some time.

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i started writing this blog, albeit sporadically, because i wanted to share. although i would have liked express my voice through lyrics or poetic verse or in published text or behind a lecturne in front of a politically charged audience (and still would), i wasn't quite ready for that (and still am not) because my thoughts were (and are) like the gluten strands in a bread dough - being created and strengthened to the point of being able to endure a certain amount of stress and expansion without breaking. this blog was a place to start where i could be transparent about what was on my mind in a well-thought-out and demure way, period. a place to be heard while i was still gathering up the courage to speak to a larger audience.

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in no way do i think that my thoughts or feelings are unique or pioneering. i sporadically get feedback about the blog, and that means so much to me. as many of us do, i seek to be understood; and i seek to understand others, but i admittedly can be hard to get to know well. i've got loads of thoughts that are hard for me to express on the fly in casual conversation, and this blog provides a forum for me to express these thoughts more fully and gracefully than i normally can.

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most importantly, though, my family really likes reading about what i'm doing since i'm so bad about calling regularly on the phone. writing this saves me a lot of phone time and prevents diluting stories by telling them over and over again. i write it once, i say it like i mean it, and that's that! i don't have to call home for months (wink).

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anyways, it's back to business tomorrow. i'm heading to hoopa in the morning and i plan to get there in time to share some vino with my friends as the sun sets over the herb garden. i'm leaving oakland with a lot fluttering around in my mind, and i'm not sure when (or if) i can expect it all to settle down. i intended for this post to explore how it felt to be back in the city after over a month on the farm, but i'm too tired to continue typing...i'll write more this weekend :)

i headed out from the farm last friday for a quick trip back to the bay, and the drive home from hoopa was incredible. highway 299 runs along the trinity river, and while driving, i decided that it's high time i get some rafting done in those waters. there are rental facilities all along the road, so there's no excuse not to head out there some upcoming weekends. i have little to no experience on rivers and in rafts...my last memory is from a family trip to glacier national park where we went whitewater rafting: the memory consists only of an image that someone snapped of me sitting next to my dad, i was about ten, grinning wildly, my paddle (or is it an oar?) dangerously swinging in the air as a torrent of water came towards us...hopefully i'll have a little more contol this time; but i imagine the wild grin will still reveal itself :) i cranked up 'old crow medicine show' and even threw in a little brooks and dunn and wynonna judd for the full effect and i followed the bends in the river all the way out to I-5. i hit a little rain, which emphasized the lush-green cloaked forests that i was speeding through...i see myself moving up to these parts someday...maybe a little more coastal and/or a little more northerly...but near these rivers and forests and mountains...it's so inspirational...so peaceful...so pure. quite a contrast to the city life.

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saturday morning, i made a quick visit to the ferry building farmer's market with new eyes...for the record, the prices on the produce there are darn similar to the prices i see at other markets in the state despite the prevailing rumor that it's a market specifically for the well-to-do. i will say, though, that green fire has the prettiest produce i've seen at any market recently :) go, team! whoa, bundy! whoo hoo! saturday evening i headed over to jupiter where the pacific manouche trio was playing some smokin' gypsy jazz. a couple of my friends, seth and louis, make up 66.667% of the trio, so it was great to see them play...i love their music! chelsea and ella were there, too, and we all sat around after their set eating pizza and spilling cider on our pants. good times :)

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the next day, my friends and i dipped into the ice chest full of produce that grady and linda had so graciously packed for me before i left the farm. there were cucumbers: lemon, suyo long, and armenian, peppers, eggplant, sweet onions, red torpedo onions, thai basil, parsley, genovese basil, squash: zucchini, zephyrs and pattypans, lettuces, garlic, shallots...mmm! i was so excited to share my bounty with these freinds since they are so into good and fresh food!

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for our feast, we made some roasted hoopan vegetable sandwiches - grilled eggplant and peppers and onions and zucchini nestled between ciabatta slices with grilled halloumi cheese, fresh pesto, garlic aioli and crisp lettuce. mmm! heck yes. they were delicious. thank you, grady and linda, for your generosity. the produce was much appreciated by our growing bellies!

garlic salt. garlic powder. garlic pepper and garlic granules. minced garlic and chopped garlic; crushed garlic and garlic-infused oil. i'll never enjoy any of these seasonings again in the same way. after nearly four hours of working in the garlic fields..forking up the garlic (with a giant FORK), tugging it with herculean strength outta the dry soil, knocking off the clumpy dirt on the beard, loading it up and trekking it to the kiwi arbor where it'll dry for a few months...i've got much more respect for the little allium.

i will continue but i'm falling asleep at the keyboard...it's only 10:00 pm...

Written on Thursday, June 28th:

I never thought that I'd be climbing trees for work at 28 years of age...but here I am doing just that. I'd forgotten how thrilling it can be! Grasping for a sturdy branch, pulling myself up off the ground, my feet pushing and skidding against the dry trunk until I'm up amongst the branches. The sun can’t find me in the heart of a tree except through the few openings between the thick leaves. Hidden in that inner world of green, small fruits clump together, each of their stems clinging tightly to a single spur. It's my job to snap off the least fit fruits, snipping the lifelines of the malformed or dysfunctional fruits and letting them fall to the ground in favor of the ideally-hanging, light-green fruits which promise to grow into voluptuous late-summer treats. We'll pull these Asian Pears off the trees in a month or so, biting into one every now and again, for quality control, of course, crisp, cool and sweet. The freezers here are filled with frozen pearsauce (and applesauce, too) from last year's harvests - Mott's Applesauce, go home. Go home! The sauce on this farm is beyond amazing. We've also got ziploc bags full of dried asian pears...incomparable. Too bad I didn't know until this last week that each dried pear slice is one-quarter of a pear. No wonder I had a revolt in my belly after eating sixteen of these the other day. Whoo!

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As the morning sun grew more intense, we weeded and thinned the beets and carrots. We pulled out miniature versions of each root: itty bitty little carrots, thinner than a strand of spaghetti; tiny beets, already deep burgundy popping out from their cradle of soil. I collected the baby beet greens as we worked; they were too beautiful to just sit and bake in the afternoon sun.

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Lunch was delicious, per usual. Nathan is such a talented chef, especially in the realm of herb and spice usage. We had Brio bread, roasted eggplant with sundried tomatoes and beets and zucchini, mashed potatoes, rice…big yum!

Written Sunday, July 1st

I would like to spend every summer for the rest of my life on a farm. I just love it. I was never a fan of summer when I was in the Midwest...sticky car seats and sweaty brows, heavy air, mosquitoes buzzing in my ear, popsicle juice running down my chin, retiring inside to steal away from the heat...when I moved out to California six years ago, I started to enjoy it more except for the fact that my little studio in Oakland always got oppressively hot come May and it stayed that way until late September. While the weather outside was more temperate in the Bay Area, I still dreaded summer a tinge just imagining lying immobile in my apartment at night, trying to fall asleep. But this summer is different...this summer, I don't want to end.

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To be outside working for 100% of the workday; to cook and eat dinner outdoors as well; to have a need for basil and to walk ten steps to snip it out of the herb garden; to wake up every morning to a rooster's call and to be greeted by hens jittery with energy while walking to the bathroom; to spend Sundays brewing beer and racking wine, drying fresh herbs and picking cherries off fallen branches; to feel excitement to wake up at 6:00 am on a Saturday to drive down into the fog and set up the market stall in the Arcata Square; to spend lazy afternoons in Arcata, filling up on all the goodies we don't fill up on here at the farm - ice cream, pizza, pints; to sit in an intimate wine bar off the square listening to dreadlock-headed gypsy jazz musicians; to see my favorite bands and to discover new ones at small and cozy venues; to ride to and from the coast in pickup trucks filled with produce or farm necessities; to wake up and have Cameron, Callie, Linda, Grady, Nathan, Buster and Daisy right there to talk and joke with...I am so thankful.

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This weekend, I got to work the Saturday market and it was wonderful. $1.75/pound for summer squash (all five kinds!); $1.50/pound for the candy onions and the cucumbers; $5.00/pound for the cherries which are hiding higher and higher up on the trees so that now only Nathan and Grady pick; heads of lettuce for $1.50 each; bunches of beets and carrots for $2.00 each...my favorite question to answer at the market was "When were these carrots picked?" to which I truthfully replied "[Just yesterday! Fresh as fresh can be!]"

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In the evening, we all had tickets for the Be Good Tanyas at the Jambalaya. Unfortunately, they would not let Callie in, being that she isn't yet 21, so she and Linda got ticket refunds and headed back to Hoopa early...so frustrating. But the show did go on...with Huckleberry Flint opening around 9:30. I think I've found my new favorite band in them. What energy and talent these kids have! Fiddles and banjoes and guitars and harmonicas...button-down shirts with ties...all of them cute as hell. I can't wait to get my hands on some of their music. The Be Good Tanyas followed and despite sound system technical difficulties, they lulled the crowd into a sexy calm with their slow voices, heavied by their years but still tender with hope and affection.

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We rolled into the farm just after 2:00 am, the night sky bright with light from the full moon...Northern California is so bitchin'!