in the near future, i probably won't be updating as often as i am right now. although i really cannot say. i've been unsuccessful so far at updating from my phone. so oh well.
anyway, i'm trying to figure out where else i am going. i'd like to spend the harsh winter months somewhere not so harsh. i'd like to spend the next spring thru fall somewhere with a climate similar to where i expect to farm. biodynamic farming is really important for me to get some experience with. and i want to visit lots of friends and lots of beautiful places that supposedly exist. and i don't want to run out of money.
it would be wonderful to find a biodynamic farm to stay on for a whole season that will pay me. where they do all those things that i want to learn.
and then there's the social animal part of me, which desires to be around likeminded humans of a similar age. and the student part of me who really wants a mentor, an older human with wisdom based on years of experience... and i'd like music. and a weirdo creative joy all around. i'd like to be around people who have a celebratory way of living...
so that's what i'm envisioning. if you know where that is, do tell. the wwoof book is overwhelming sometimes and also underwhelming also. there are SO many farms! this country is huge... and so many sound so interesting, but lack one or two of the main things i hope for in a place to stay a long while. i stayed up for hours reading summary after summary of farms in the book. sheesh. i know it must be out there.
i haven't heard back from the farm i was hoping to visit in arkansas after halloween-in-chicago... so i'm not sure yet what i'll be doing. something.
ok. love <3
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
september 19
my aching bones, man. margaret's been letting me sleep and go to the farm later than her. i feel like a chump. but dude. its hard to get out the bed in the dark. she goes to the farm around 6. i've been leaving around 8. its much nicer for me, but still hard. i've never been a morning person. i wish i could switch it on.
i've been doing so much work! i love it! i harvested butternut squash today, left them to cure in the sun in crates. those crates get heavy. i played banjo a bunch while margaret went in to get her truck looked at- it made bad sounds today. yesterday i harvested beans all morning which made all the muscles in my thighs and my butt sore. when i worked on the farm in ny, i always did stretches for like 45 minutes when i woke up in the morning. i feel so far removed from that now, but that's what i need. and a portable juicer... does that exist? it should. i want to juice things anywhere any time... everywhere all the time...
tat soi is my new favorite vegetable.
moccasins are hard to finish sewing without needle-nose pliers.
i changed the verse in my song about flowers on a grave, its too serious. now it goes
let's make love like flowers do with bees
make the honey sweet
let's be flowers let's be bees
i wish i went to the DIY fair at 2640 in the spring. i wish i knew how to skin and preserve roadkill. there is so much of it i see every day... i keep thinking about how many moccasins you could make from a deer and instead it just rots... hopefully I'll find myself at some farm somewhere learning how to tan hides and such...
i'd like to learn cheese making even though i don't eat cheese... other things i want to learn:
how to mill grains
to tan hides
to make jam
to can things
to do beadwork
to do engine repair
to do regular construction work
to do alternative building like hay bales, etc
all about natural remedies + more about nutrition in general and nutritional content of foods
extracting essential oils
um.... how to everything...
also how to shoot and develop film... i forget... i can't find a new camera battery for the minolta sarah gave me before i left... i did put film in it today, though, so i'll just be guessing on the light meter...
anyway. i'm ready for whatever is next.
i've been doing so much work! i love it! i harvested butternut squash today, left them to cure in the sun in crates. those crates get heavy. i played banjo a bunch while margaret went in to get her truck looked at- it made bad sounds today. yesterday i harvested beans all morning which made all the muscles in my thighs and my butt sore. when i worked on the farm in ny, i always did stretches for like 45 minutes when i woke up in the morning. i feel so far removed from that now, but that's what i need. and a portable juicer... does that exist? it should. i want to juice things anywhere any time... everywhere all the time...
tat soi is my new favorite vegetable.
moccasins are hard to finish sewing without needle-nose pliers.
i changed the verse in my song about flowers on a grave, its too serious. now it goes
let's make love like flowers do with bees
make the honey sweet
let's be flowers let's be bees
i wish i went to the DIY fair at 2640 in the spring. i wish i knew how to skin and preserve roadkill. there is so much of it i see every day... i keep thinking about how many moccasins you could make from a deer and instead it just rots... hopefully I'll find myself at some farm somewhere learning how to tan hides and such...
i'd like to learn cheese making even though i don't eat cheese... other things i want to learn:
how to mill grains
to tan hides
to make jam
to can things
to do beadwork
to do engine repair
to do regular construction work
to do alternative building like hay bales, etc
all about natural remedies + more about nutrition in general and nutritional content of foods
extracting essential oils
um.... how to everything...
also how to shoot and develop film... i forget... i can't find a new camera battery for the minolta sarah gave me before i left... i did put film in it today, though, so i'll just be guessing on the light meter...
anyway. i'm ready for whatever is next.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
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.
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.
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