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'!