entry the first

Life is good. i'm out here with my car, full of work gear, macrame, half-sewn moccasins, feathers, banjo, and ridiculously impractical clothing. two cameras not in working condition. books, oh, the good books. leaving baltimore and heading into the unknown gave me the biggest thrill. an exhilarated sense of appreciation for life in general as well as my particular place in it. i felt like i made this decision to stand behind myself as a particular human being with a story and a dream and ownership over my place in the world. the drive to pittsburgh was gorgeous. the light was just right and there were lots of interesting people on the road. a lot of dogs! a very adorable little boy whose parents smiled back at me! thats rare.
i got to margaret's house, a little outside pittsburgh, in wexford pa, on sunday evening and i felt like a princess upon arrival. for the month or so before, i'd been sleeping on different peoples floors, eating anything free or cheap (difficult when you eat like i do, avoiding many common foods, like bread...) i came to margaret's on sunday and was shown to my humongous basement room with a cushy bed and a vase full of fresh flowers from her farm. then i was fed a feast! tomato salad, spinach, garlic mashed potatoes with kohlrabi, and boiled beets...holy holy.
the first day on the farm was wonderful. its been so long since i've done this work! working with ones whole body is enormously satisfying, especially in the dirt under the sun amongst the beautiful, living, growing things. farm tasks i've done in the past 3 days of work there are as follows: bringing water and scrap food to chickens, cleaning and sorting their eggs, spraying brassicas with a biological insecticide with a hand-pump backpack sprayer... um... what else... cutting flowers for bouquets as well as dead-heading the zinnias- so beautiful, even the dying ones... harvested a bunch of stuff; greens like lettuces, bok choi and tat soi, harvested and bunched parsley, nipped the seed heads off the basil crop, harvested carrots and beets, cut sunflower heads and stems down so they wouldnt cast shade on crops next to them (i saved a few large heads for road snack seeds) ...what else... ooh, shoveled a pick-up truck load of aged horse shit onto the field over the spot where the chickens had previously been. that was fun! i am not being sarcastic. washed everything. i love picking flowers. i can't remember if there was anything else... oh weeding between spinach and carrots. that was fun, we did it by hand pretty slowly because its the last planting and they're important crops for her market and csa, so we were very meticulous and careful. there is a weed that was very abundant out there that i wish i knew what it was because i bet its something good. i tasted it and it was really rich. it almost looks like purslane, but flat and delicate and more of a rosette growth pattern. i think it sends up tiny white buds, tiny like a pin head. do you know this weed??? its very common, i see it all the time in cities and elsewhere, places where sorrel and purslane usually grow as well... anyway.... there is a lot of sheep sorrel in the fields. i nibble on weeds and things while i'm working. yesss.
tomorrow is csa pickup day. that should be fun.
today we went kayaking in a big man made lake and it was gorgeous and so much fun. and my body feels so tired/good. i saw so many birds. and fish jumping. i wished i had a notebook. i was singing/writing songs as i went. i wrote one for real that i can play on the banjo also. it goes like this:

let's go to bed like carrots in the ground.
asleep so sound,
we'll be carrots in the ground.

let's go to sleep like weeds under the sea
swaying on our dreams
sleep like sea weeds

let's go make love like flowers on a grave
flowers on a grave
oh the love we've made

let's float along like dandelion seeds
carried on the breeze
we're dandelion seeds

we have to leave at 6 am tomorrow morning. i want to play banjo and stay on the internet to bid on jobs transporting things like dogs across the country, and i want to stay up and make friendship bracelets and start a new macrame thing and write and write, but i should really close my eyes. when i close my eyes i think about all the people i know and love and won't see for a long time. and all the things i want to tell them. i hope you all read this and know you're with me.