Journal entry

April 19^th 6:11 am Friday, 35 outside and 61 in yurt. Today highs in the lower 60’s will be cold tonight, no frost warning, but a fire will be needed.

I’m sitting in front of a beautiful fire with a very hot cup of coffee. I ran out of pages in my journal so decided to type away. Yesterday was chili stayed cloudy and very windy throughout the day. The rain from the night before only measured in at ½ an inch so that thing needs to be re- mounted (not level) word has it we received at least five inches of rain the night before and by the looks of the pond I believe it. We missed the bad stuff, the hail, the 60 MPH winds by mere miles. Luck, that’s what that was. Luck. The field looks a little ragged but not nearly what it could have looked like. Whew!

Yesterday was spent digging myself out of a really dirty and disorganized house. The commercial kitchen project we have going is almost complete but the farm house is a crazy place. Cleaned now, scrubbed down to the studs. The kitchen is looking great. Something I’ve dreamed about for years is finally becoming a reality, It’s been hard though and costly. 

Jackie Dill came yesterday afternoon, with Neva and her WWOOF-er  ( http://www.wwoof.org/ ).  They settled in at the cabin, Linda brought a load of wood up and the place was cozy by dinner. They will be up and about foraging this morning and throughout the day for the found and foraged dinner here at the farm this weekend. 

I slept fairly okay woke up a couple of times once to put wood on the fire. The second time I woke up was at 3:45 the night was still and quiet. This is the time of the morning when thoughts can get ugly and your brain can turn on you. I’m ever so familiar with this routine so instead of engaging the thoughts I focus on my breath. In. Out. In. Out. Slowly. Deeply. Then before I know it the alarm is going off and the smell of coffee and firewood fills my senses. 

I’ve been so busy I haven’t made time to sit. I miss my practice and try to practice deep mindfulness as I’m working but nothing is quite like the time and space sitting in meditation. I long to rejoin my breath. Things are down to the wire, the kitchen, the dinners, the field, the goats…. I know it’s only temporary and I’m trying to work with grace but I’m tired. Haven’t had a day of rest in several weeks and am starting to drag. This Sunday though is that day. We’ll milk and do the regular animal chore but a book and a position of leisure is my aim for the entirety of the day. 

In spite of my extreme tiredness, the energy will come to create a six course dinner from wild foods foraged from the farm and nearby.  This is the first dinner of the season. I’m tired but excited and am ready to take the plunge and immerse myself in cooking. This will be my practice today. A place I’m familiar with, a refuge. A still pond that I float on. The wild foods are the current that moves me from place to place, and as I shut my computer I will release myself from all other thoughts and concerns and surrender to flavors, textures and the colors. Ahhhh. What a wonderful thing. 

It is an absolutely beautiful morning.

Competing with the moon

This morning the moon and the security light (I think that is what it’s called) were competing for shadows. Each at opposite sides of the farm. That’s how it is at the farm right now everything competing for light. Maybe that light is the sun, the moon, attention, or a bottle. But living is sometimes a competition that only the strong or the ones pliable enough to be tossed around a bit survive. The great thing about waking up at 5 am is I get to experience the play of darkness. It sometimes feels like such a secret world.

While I’ve been gone from the blog, 17 kids were born and are all thankfully healthy and strong although we had a couple that were questionable. All of the Does are doing fine but one of our girls had quadruplets and we were worried but she is doing just fine, as it turned out another Doe, Ruby who had twins suffered from a light case of milk fever and spent yesterday morning getting love and attention from the vet. She’s on the mend.

Along with the welcoming of 17 new lives we’ve also managed to plant a few thousand broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage plants, 4500 onion plants, several rows of cool weather seeds and the propagation hut is now housing 1000 tomato plants (27 varieties) and baby chard, kale, kohl rabi, pepper and soon eggplant and a few other variety of plants. We started converting the old farm kitchen into a commercial kitchen and that’s been a lot of work, but worth it I’m sure! 

Oh and I got married (in Seattle) It’s funny how I didn’t really think Marriage would change anything. I mean I love this person beyond belief how could a ring and a piece of paper ( a legal document) change anything. But amazingly it does feel different and often I feel the ring on my finger and the greatest Joy comes over me. It’s a reassurance, a profound statement that I and the person I love have made a bond that is almost wordless, meaning the depth of that bond may sometimes go beyond what we can form into words which can do justice to our feelings. So the ring does that for us. It says everything we can’t. It’s silent and powerful, needing no explanation.  So this is a surprise to me and I understand now why getting married has been such an important subject in our culture and society.  Now the debate is who owns marriage. Who has the copy right on marriage? Who is allowed to marry and who is not? 

I have catered countless weddings as a matter of fact I’m catering a wedding reception this Saturday. This couple can marry anywhere they wish, and did.  I will provide the food for their celebration like all the ones before them. I will poor my heart into it like all the receptions I’ve catered before. In spite of the fact that marriage is a privilege that has not been available to me until now, when my home town passed a law making me equal to my family and friends at least in Washington. I’ll take it. Even if it is the skim milk kind at least through the eyes  of legal lenses.

But enough of that right now. Life is all around us screaming for attention. Each moment a flying arrow. Gone so quickly. One day we wake up and realize all the moments we’ve missed all the sunrises and sunsets, all the full moons. opportunities to love our enemy our friends, our family, to say how we feel, to create, to be profoundly compassionate.  To love ourselves so deeply that it spills over into the dear lives of people around us. Not forever but right now, I am here. I am here. I

A bright New Year

I quit making "resolutions" years ago, I do think about and plan changes, generally to do with what went right or wrong at the farm, what needs tweaking and what needs to stay the same. But the desire for self improvement, to be healthier, happier and more organized is a daily thang. So by time New Years rolls around I'm over it. I'm ready to get to work on real tangable things like getting the field ready for planting!

This year I am overflowing with hope, I have lots of exciting changes to soon start writing about and I cant remember a time when I harbored so much excitement in the pure wonder of being alive. 2012 for me was one of the best years as far as the farm goes. It was a year of self awareness, forgiveness, humility, and the first year since I began farming that I had a few dollars in my bank account at the end of the year albeit not much, but more than negative so that's a real accomplishment! This would horrify most but I have the biggest grin on my face right now!

While I don't have a "resolution" I do have an intention. I've been reading this prayer before and after each time I sit. Although I may not see Lord or Master as something outside myself, this prayer has profoundly spoken to me and has become my intention for 2013 and beyond.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying of self that we are born to eternal life.

Happy New Year friends, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you be happy and may you be at peace. And may you eat many vegetables!