Volume+good will

Today was all about volume. We cut 1500 plants for propagation and thinned dozens of apple trees all before lunch. It's amazing what you can do with 77 hands (one of us has a sprained wrist) and a whole lot of enthusiasm. This evening eight of us got together to bake 25 pies in the farm center for a wedding this weekend. Again, I'm astonished by the simple power of numbers (sprinkled with a touch of good will.)

Propagate!

Again the blend of lessons and wilderness collide. Our down garden manager brought a virtual forest of perennials into the classroom today. Seamlessly weaving his lecture on propagation, the dgm cut into the root, stocks and shoots of tender young plants- casting the dregs to the floor as if the concrete were the duff of his pretend woody perennial forest. If it must be done inside, nothing helps inside learning like outside props. Still, eight hours of lecture in a small room on a gorgeous day is hard to tolerate. I've become accustomed to working outside. Stretching my legs and training my body to physical work. Sitting for a whole day seems like a chore, even when what we're learning is interesting. 

Regardless, after the lesson today on asexual propagation, I find myself eyeing perennials with new lust. The knowledge keys of infinite propagation have been handed down to us. The ability to genetically clone nearly any established plant. Gardens and chaparral beware! I'm armed with a set of felcos and nail clippers and I'm coming for you. 

Lettuce Lecture

On the farm lectures blend with meals and meals with lessons.

Bright and early Orin was slicing apart butter lettuces, showing us their structure and inside color, talking about their growth habits and how long they take to head up. The morning fog swirled around the chalet deck and we crunched on baby romaine and let the home made blue cheese dressing dribble down our chins.

Like a seed

For the past two weeks I've been doing a 'sub-rotation' in the Chadwick garden propagation area. In layman's terms that means I've intensively studying the system of plant sexual and asexual propagation as operated in the original Chadwick up-garden. Complete with aging greenhouses built by the apprentices of yesteryear, hand operated ventilation systems, ropes and pulleys, ancient thermometers, hand made flat boxes, and homestyle watering, the prop area, and indeed the garden itself; has won my heart. Indeed, I've quite fallen. I suppose I am yet just another devotee.

The prop area is tucked into the far corner of the thickly planted orchard-garden that is bewitched with plants, wildlife, and the possibility of magic around every curved branch and border path. The footprint of the garden is smaller than most parking lots and I still get lost trying to get from one side to the next. Hundreds of varieties of apples hinder my attempted straight lines, both in planting up beds and while meandering from one task to the next. My very nature is challenged by the layout. Perhaps that's why I've been won over. My heart likes the seemingly insurmountable challenge the garden presents. Just the slope alone would scare off most gardeners- and indeed, I'm just getting used to running up and down the hills with a full wheelbarrow. 

The best metaphor for my present state was eloquently plodded out by our resident Irish seed saver this evening- he described a seed. He said that seeds are at the middle place in a long line of ancestry, how many hundreds and thousands of plants and people lined it's history on it's way to becoming what it is now, and at the same time, it's holds the potential for an equally complex and beautiful future of co-evolution with ecosystems and humans. That's what the up-garden, and indeed my life at present feel like. A seed; perfectly balanced in between all of the experiences it took to get me to where I stand now- looking out to the future of a mass of experiences and growth yet to come. It's an exciting time to be a live.

Cooking for 40. Take 1.

My first day cooking started late last night. Faced with the time old question: ‘what is the difference between muffins and cupcakes?’ Ms Mexicali and I rocked out to the Pixies, suckering passerby’s into our taste testing adventure. Several cups of cocoa powder into our first batch of fifty we began to discern a distinction. Weighing in on the conversation, we had several people pucker their faces at the idea of so much sugar in the morning, others weighed in with excitement about the idea of desert for breakfast.

In folly, looking to morning the recipe, we halved the honey in the recipe and added molasses. Overpowering in taste, the molasses turned our delicately balanced baked goods into leathery shoes, wanting of icing to mask the strong flavor.  Defeated, we began our second batch at midnight.

As I sit in the farm center at 6:30, people stumble in searching for caffeine. The sun shines low through the south-facing window and as he approaches the breakfast table, our Irish apprentice looks at the dozens of baked goods placed out before him and poses the question- ‘what is the difference between muffins and cupcakes’. I sit back and smile.

 

Happiness is...

waking up to the morning chill still hugging your hot water bottle

excitedly dancing around our may pole -a stick stuffed in an empty half gallon organic beer container- to the tune of a mandolin and a fiddle and voices- all before breakfast

listening to Orin talk about roses for hours then
slowly picking a bucket of flowers
and sitting on your stoop to arrange them

stretching on the floor of your tent while
watching suncaught rainbows dance on the afternoon canvas

observing your thighs grow as the bike ride up the hill gets steadily easier

strapping on a nitrogenous fish emultion filled back pack sprayer and
dousing rows of baby plants as a light rain falls

inescapably smelling like cow shit
being up to your knees in compost

ending the day being dirtier than you've ever been
mud covered shoes
weed wacked grass stained pants
hair caked in dust and pollen

braving a cold solar shower in the brave hope of being clean

crawling under the pile of ever blanket you own
drifting towards dreams of what happiness is...

10 Days In

I had no idea what I was getting in to. 10 days in I can safely say that I sorely underestimated how taxing this program would be. My biceps and triceps and calves and thighs can attest to it. As can the flailing state of the myriad of commitments that I made before moving on to the farm. 10 days in, I can officially say: this program is officially kicking my rear.

If it weren’t for the waking up at dawn, or riding up the steep hillsides that separate the farm, the garden and town, or the working physically for the first time in years; perhaps I wouldn’t be reeling as I am now. And maybe had I been unfazed by those activities; perhaps the working part time producing the movie, the tending to summer dahlias, and the maintenance of my long-standing relationships would have done me in.

Regardless of the reasons, I am exhausted. I am finding myself crawling toward my tent at night, slurring my words, rubbing my allergy stricken eyes and looking forward to cozying up to the hot water bottle that has become my nightly bed guest.

But as I nest down under the multi layered comforters that insulate me from the damp chill, my reasons for exhaustion fade, and all I am left with is the utter contentment that I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing. And as the little sign in the garden chalet says I am here for a reason. 

Weekend Respite

Living on this farm is existence in a capsule. Time and space cease to exist. I moved three miles up hill, and I'm on a different planet, surrounded by a new population. Detached from familiarity. Suspended in spring.

 

It's been overwhelming to move out of my well established, much contented existence in Santa Cruz into a new space with 39 intensely passionate individuals. Social interaction has zapped much of my energy as we have bounced from one well planned activity to the next. Between that, physically working, and carting my sore bones from the farm up to the garden and back, there has been little juice left in me to perform menial tasks. Basic hygiene has slumped into the role of a previous priority, over taken by homework, lifework, relationship maintenance, and general adjustment.  

Ushered in by a Friday afternoon of fairly strenuous compost pile building, the weekend has enveloped the farm with stillness. The group breaking up into pods of forming friendships and splinters of solitude. My body and mind were ready to rest. Exhausted, I welcome it. 

Westerlies

He called them the westerlies. Winds blown in from the pacific, bringing spring change onto the farm. We lost three tents to the gale force ladies as they swept across the giant meadow that boarders our farm towards the sea. Those who lost their tents bonded immediately with their neighbors, asking to sleep on their floors and borrow extra blankets. Someone lit a fire in the library and those too cold to return to their solitary quarters piled onto the couches and surrounded the wood stove to start their assignments. As I stepped over bodies to cross the room, I had the realization that inside space is limited. It's become blatantly apparent that sharing space isn't an option here- there is no other choice.

After a day of biking up the hill to the garden, skimming cover crops, and protecting apples from codling moths, twenty or so of us are sitting around the tables in the farm center, a guitar strumming softly in the back ground, a mixture of cards and computers on the long wooden table. We don't yet know each-other's intimacies, but we're close by default. Brought together by a common love, and the cold westerly winds that leave no option- but to share. 

First Day on the Farm

I have finally arrived. 

Woke up in my tent at the top of the world. Dawn breaking over the cover-cropped fields at the UCSC apprenticeship program, the view of the Monterey Bay spreading over the horizon stretching south towards home.

There are 39 of us. Hailing from all walks of life. Cooks, Gardeners, Horticulturists, Teachers, Musicians-- Food Enthusiasts all. I couldn't feel more blessed. Ultimately, this group will become an extension of my educational experience-- their multitude of energy and knowledge augmenting what the garden itself will teach. And as we wandered through the introductions and the registration, all of us are thinking the same thing. Are we really here? Or is this just an extension of our dreams.

It's really to full and beautiful to be real.

More anon.