2 Donkeys Garden

Greenhouse framing in progress!

2009-02-13T20:34:00.007-08:00

February 13th
(posting photo on Valentine's)

It has been a strangely dry winter. The rains have to be coming. We're aiming to get the roof on next Friday the 20th.
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February 6th & 7th

The little greenhouse model is coming to life! Tall and making me want to be a little plant and live in it... Temporary bracing and two holes dug for the "hurricane" feet on the north side - to anchor our mobile greenhouse. This is what I found when I came back from a section of the WSU & Fresh Earth Gardens 'Modern Organic Farming on Small Acreage' class. Rode up with Anne of Gales Meadow Farm to see her seed presentation. Speaking there next weekend on organic amendments and fertilizer. Neil is awesome. Hot, sunny day on Saturday!
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January 30th & 31st

We leveled the two floor sections and Neil installed the south wall while I was at a chicken workshop in WA. We primed and painted lots of boards in the basement for next week.

caught in a vortex

2009-02-05T20:09:00.004-08:00

Not sure I could stop the greenhouse at this point. I am driven by dark unseen forces. I was out there in the dark last night tired from work just standing and staring at the tarp covered shape and wondering why i am building a greenhouse on a rental property and not looking for a real career. BUT I always did like the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where the dad guy freaks out and builds a model of Devil's Tower in his living room. Needed 2 10' 2x4's so i did hit Home Depot for those.

Pallet Nocturnalis + Sunny Garden Hen

2009-01-09T21:29:00.005-08:00

by Neil:
Dragged 4 jumbo 12 foot long pallets from the steel working place down the block. Took one apart each night after work this week. I got about 6 good long 4x4's and 13 good 2x6's. One of the rejected 4x4's was oddly light and the other had a long resinous split. It still gets dark so early here this time of year that this job required a headlamp. This is a quixotic activity that is as much about destroying as it is creating. So now I have enough wood to build the frame for the "deck" portion of the greenhouse - And most of the 2x4 and 2x6 slats that will be the flooring. Got some "Oops" paint from Home Despot to prime them and begin the waterproofing process. It is also damp here in the winter - so water based paint dries real slow. I still don't know how i am gong to fasten the corner posts (uprights) but ....The wood sits painted battleship grey on the sunken patio. See you next week for an exciting episode hopefully having something to do with "brackets".

---

by Naomi:
Neil breaking a pallet apart each night, in heavy rain with winds gusting to 30+ mph, deeply inspiring. He is on a mission. So glad the weather is still and dry today and for maybe a week ahead.

The garden has been on it's own the last month, but today it was in the 40's, sunny and calling for love. Some plants that should have been brought in or covered, passed on and there was a lot of cutting back to do. The catmint has formed this beautiful open swirl of this past year's growth to reveal the new growth in the center. The leeks are alive, the fava beans are almost all dead, some rogue survivors, a good reminder to keep planting diverse cover crops. I pruned the grapes and the arctic kiwis, I had been patiently waiting for the new year... All 6 worm bins are still thriving! Need to design one larger bin that we can efficiently harvest from. Thinking about consolidating all of them and the regular compost and the decomposing food-in-waiting 5-gallon buckets to the north side of the house, to make a service corridor.. I dream of this and have designed a little tiny home for us with this in mind. Aggressively trying to truly manage all of the food waste of six of us who mainly cook and eat at home in this rental duplex, I have a ways to go and am experimenting. It is a challenge. I dream of also composting for our neighbors when I figure it out.

We have started actively mapping out vacant lots and I've been drawing up a 375 - 500sq' footprint design, two-story/units, with as much garden space possible, based on a standard 5,000sq' lot. The hens, their run with a rain garden along its perimeter between sidewalk, the greenhouse, hoop house, workshop, planting shed, worm and hot compost, bike shed, annual beds, perennial fruits, nuts, herbs, veggies, flowers. My work may vary over time, but we really want to put down roots and more than any other goal, I want to craft our urban homestead. A double lot and our food potential would be incredible, but to afford that, we'd need to go further out. We're weighing proximity to neat community and downtown/center of work potential. More on that soon!

As for the ladies, they like the mild weather and got lots of chopped greens. All eggs stopped on Thanksgiving, which was exactly when Mayhem or DIO started in 2007. Everybody molted through the holidays and they are all fully feathered again, combs and waddles still a bit pale. Today was DIO's third egg back (she molted first, alone, gotta be her). Lima had gone into an odd partial molt last February, risen to top bird, dedicatedly tried to lay good eggs and finally this fall went through a true molt and her golden feathers are gorgeous. We're so happy she is healthy. Yay! I hit their dust bath area with rake hoe to loosen it up, they love that.

Our garden areas are really squirrely in terms of quality spots for food. We will sow a lot of flowers again and we're trying to figure out what areas we'll fit our veggies in. Also thinking about what other perennial fruits we could try to fit in, prioritize investing in. Drooling over the FEDCO seed catalogue. Neil made me two cool aqua indoor transplant shelving units for the south window for late winter/early spring.

I'm taking sections of the Master Gardener course this winter, to go along with the Organic Gardening Certification program I took this fall. The first section is this Thursday on Entomology and held less than 2.5 miles away. Woo hooo!!! Oh and I was interviewed for In Good Tilth magazine on soil amendments and already have a few issues in envelopes to mail to a few of you who I think will get a kick out of it... On Thursday I was interviewed by an AP writer on Portland chicken-keeping. I was nervous at first, but once I start talking about chickens and urban gardening and farming.. it is hard to stop..... eeps! I will let you know if an article comes out.

Much love,
Naomi and Neil

Starting out OK

2009-01-02T22:32:00.010-08:00

Happened upon a bunch of wood last weekend. The convenience store just a few blocks south of here was tossing out the old counter top and affiliated 2x4's. 49 of them to be exact - mostly about 4' - and no 2 alike. I guess I am a gleaner and always have been. Nothing like found materials and why is that? I made 3 trips with the dolly and spent a good while pulling nails and screws out with a crow bar on a sunday morning. yee haw. I hope the convenience store is not closing. I have only been there once in the 18 mo. that we have lived here and did not buy anything - but somehow I find those places comforting? Maybe it is because of how they look at night or maybe how they would look if you painted a picture of them at night. Blurry beer neon through window in the rain and cigarettes so much a carton.

Still having slight storage issues as far as the wood but we shall work that out. Some is in the basement and some in the secret room under the front porch. The rain season is here and it is mostly making it impossible to work out side with power tools or paint. So we are inside and have got the craft room up and going finally. And will be very patient about the time line for the greenhouse. But partly this blog is to chart my progress on the greenhouse. God dang also

should mention that I hit Lowe's for a few supplies - wood screws, glue and a clamp to the tune of about $90 - So I am up to $130 total for materials and fasteners.

Compulsions

2008-12-26T18:09:00.006-08:00

Hi - Back after a long absence. Sorry about the silence. Naomi covers mucho on her work blog at Concentrates but now I had to get into the fray.

A while back we came into possession of 30 old windows. They sat on the side of the house on a pallet under a tarp until they pissed our landlord off and gave me the itch to finally turn them into a greenhouse. I am not a builder but lately I have been getting these compulsions to build. Recent projects I have zombied my way through include 2 sets of bookshelves, new doors and flourishes on chicken coop, retaining wall for mudslide in front yard - due to wacky grading during the renovation 3 years ago - that has now caused some craptastic erosion. (We are renters so don't ask me). I generally work with almost all found materials - either wood I find in the area or found nicer pallets that I decon. Some purchases of 1/2" hardware cloth and 2x2's morphed into some gossamer shelves for future greenhouse already. Looking for any and all alternatives to the big chain building stores as well. Trying to avoid Home Depot and Lowe's.

Last night I built a 1/16th scale model of the greenhouse (see photo). So we walked to the Rebuilding Center today and got some hinges and brackets for the greenhouse. And hope to get some advice from my friend Luis who is a real builder in North Carolina.

Portland Veggie Truck Chronicles: a very friendly delivery day + the emergency room + The End (long, but worth reading)

2008-12-25T21:10:00.002-08:00

Written on August 25th, 2007 (one year and four months ago, by Naomi)

I had a really peaceful morning, did a bit of cleaning and preparing for six Everglades-connected friends who are coming from out of town to visit next week (yay!). Got a bit of pre-route stretching in and Neil made me delicious veggie burgers with our onions and tomatoes and a thermos of tea to take along.

They were finished with the harvest a bit early and I was on the road by 11:45am. The first house is our only North Plains delivery. The drive is winding and hilly, passing sheep, old barns, a traditional chemical blueberry farm and then up a steep gravel road (which Neil recently saw a navy blue Bentley coming down from a house even further up...). This couple has some sheep and I could see them in a different pasture today. On my way back down I picked a few blackberries from the truck, as the branches are so vigorous and hit the truck, pushing back the mirrors, even though I am going slowly in first gear. The berries are deep and plump and I imagine they will be very floral, save them for later. When I get back to the main road, there is a semi loaded with long, freshly cut trees-now-logs blocking the exit. When we are on the route, we're not paid hourly, so it's in our interest to get in done in a timely way and great for the customers, but when you are stuck randomly like this or in lots of traffic, you just have to let go and have patience. He was tightening down all the chains on his load. This is something I am more than happy to have patience for. I don't ever want to be behind a log truck coming loose, I'm sure you don't either. When he realized I was waiting there, he looked worried, I smiled and waved, he smiled back, all is good. Another even bigger rig starts approaching down the hill the first one came from, but stopped to give me clearance out. We all gave each other a lot of space.

I was listening to KBOO and there was a beautiful singer I'd never heard before, Eliza Gilkyson, that they were playing a whole set of, a bit 'alt' folk/country. The landscape of pines and hills is so pretty up here I found myself a bit teary listening to this woman's voice weave songs of family and older times. Nostalgic for my mom, realizing we've never had a normal life in the same town since I've grown up, where we could casually see each other for a hike, dinner or tea and talking.

We just did our second farmer's market at Columbia Sportswear yesterday, it went much better than we expected, the people were really great and afterwards we got to talking with Charlie who runs Sun Gold Farm with his wife and son. His wife had come by with her mother - who is 91! and looked awesome. He told us about the history of his family and their farmland and working it together. I thought about being lucky to have lived downstairs from my Grama when I was a kid and how neat the web and closeness of his family sounded.

I also had this odd sensation I've been getting about being out 'west,' where it's normal to see huge trees shorn of all branches rolling by on trucks and on the train coming in from the coast. To wrangle with ferocious blackberries so sharp, yet bearing delicious, insanely abundant fruit. The northwest is so different from the northeast and the midwest just in feeling.

My drive to the next house goes back south passing the turn off for the farm, over Hwy 26 (aka Sunset Highway as it goes west to the Pacific Ocean), and into big stretches of farmland and the city of Hillsboro. A place that feels like it must be (now anyway) a major suburb of Portland, but then sometimes it just feels like it's own contained town that could be anywhere.

So I'm driving and in front of this one neat old barn before the burbs start, there's a sheriff who's pulled over an early 90's turquoise Ford Escort with a big orange light on it and orange construction vests in the back, two bigger white guys inside. Odd, I think, I rarely see anyone pulled over...
The farms dissolve into houses, older ones first and then the new developments and I make the turns into my second delivery. I head back out and on to Glencoe Rd. and in between this house and my next soon turn off - there is DEJA VU! but in a new location.. the sheriff has that same turquoise car pulled over again not 3 miles and ten minutes down the road with the driver pulled out, legs splayed, hands on head, lots of tattoos, grey cut-off shirt, jean shorts and work boots. The sheriff looks classic, the man pulled over.. looks classic. Sheriff intensely patting him down and holding something to his head. It was a weird enough site the first time, much stranger to move down the road and progress like that.

The route continues through Beaverton and into SW Portland. One of the houses is on a dead end street. Last week I saw a woman standing in the middle of the road, I slowed way down, it was really loud. She held a video recorder and a deeply sad expression. Loggers were cutting down the huge Douglas fir trees in what must have been an amazingly dense and vast lot, vacant of humans. I think she must be the next door neighbor. This week it was very quiet, no one in the road. The lot was completely wiped clear, torn up like a huge dirt parking lot with big equipment tracks and no traces of even the beautiful trees stumps, not a single little bush, a clear view over to the next road. The neighboring house, once shrouded by forest, is very exposed. I continued to the house and carried the basket up to the door. The owner is a really sweet woman who was a long time entomologist studying parasitic wasps I believe. She came out in this really great watermelon apron she has and gave me a tinfoil package of freshly baked cookies she'd just made. They were hot in my hand. I was so surprised and touched.

My next stop is a gas station. The odometer doesn't work, so we always stop at the same gas station, Friday and the same one in NE Portland on Tues. There was a very funny man from India who worked at this one for a long time and would ask about farming, tell me about his kids, India and would high five me when I left. Lately there is a blond woman and inside there is a vibrantly red-headed cashier I see when I use the restroom. They were both really nice today. It would be fun to bring them fruit or some flowers soon.

I heard two good interviews with poet and activist Grace Paley, one on Democracy Now from 2003 with Amy Goodman and later an interview from 1985 and '92 on Fresh Air, as she passed this Wednesday at 84.

The Portland area generally seems pretty gender balanced. Construction workers still tend to be male - sometimes very respectful to a woman driving a box truck and sometimes are still guys in a pack. There's been a lot of roofing at one house, I ignore them. Today when I was pulling around the cul de sac though, I saw them all scurry to the front of the roof. Great. I walk the basket up the hill to the porch and one of them has to shout "Nice vegetables!" Thanks. Will they ogle Neil next week? One can only dream...

I had a brief visit in Lake Oswego with my favorite route dog, a husky named Mickey and his nice owner. Apparently he hears the truck far away and often both of them are already out waiting for me when I make it around to her house which is tucked back in a beautiful section of woods at another dead end road. It's pretty cute. We chat a bit and I get a lot of happy, furry affection and kisses. She swears he's not this way with everyone. It's a highlight every Friday. Today, since school had started up, she was back to tutoring, so it was just me and Mickey.

Then I head across the Willamette River to Sellwood and deliver to a few neat victorian houses. The second house had an antelope across the street with a little free sign. It was made of paper mache and asked if it could ride in the passenger seat. How can I resist? A while back, the architecture office I worked with in Brooklyn, wanted to do a coffee table project. I had an idea to make an antelope that would be a 'coffee table' with a hidden tea service in it's tummy. Neil helped me rough it out, but we didn't have time to finish it and couldn't bring it when we moved. I plan to hide it somewhere funny in the yard for Neil to come across... maybe we can then drink tea next to it.. while the chickens try to perch the antlers.

Driving up into SE Portland I suddenly get stuck in a lot of traffic. NPR is talking about Ultimate Fighting. It's interesting, but not the most pleasant story to be stuck in traffic with. Barely inching along, it's usually slow, because I think there's no other option, but today it was hardly moving. Going the other direction were all these fun, painted-on, adventure-looking cargo vans filled with excited people. When I finally got to cross the Springwater Corridor trail (rails to trails), I saw there were runners in a race. Maybe this is part of Hood to Coast?

Then I also saw crazy camp outs, loads of tents in rather fancy lawns near Reed College in the Woodstock neighborhood. When I rang the doorbell at the house I deliver to there, I saw a beautiful harp. It's a house I often hear piano coming from and don't ring the bell, because I don't want to disturb them.

Heading out of SE Portland later, I pass the Aladdin Theater on Milwaukie, while waiting to turn onto Powell. The woman I heard on the radio 6 hours earlier, is playing there tonight and that's how I get the correct spelling for her last name... Gilkyson.

Now I am en route back across the river to Forest Heights, a very expensive neighborhood that used to be a forest and a I drive up and down a lot of heights. The customers are all super nice and today the first house, brings out their empty basket for me and asks if we did the harvests while Polly and James were out of town. I was surprised. I said yes, did we do okay?? He said oh! yes! we didn't even realize a change or that they were away for two weeks back in July. I explain we assisted Carlos, who is an incredible farmer. He talks about how beautiful it is out there - he must have just been out for a farm party I think or to pick blackberries. A few other customers did know when we were doing the harvest, too and were also really nice about it. All these interactions really add up.

Then for the first time, I ventured up into the top of the heights. We drive up this steep road and usually turn left at this crazy man-made waterfall and curve back down. Today, I had to deliver to a customer's friend up in and beyond The Waterfall. It is so steep. The brakes are getting a bit jumpy again and I am thankful to be going up, but also sensing slight vertigo, not sure how all the big houses are stacked up here? Thankfully the house I deliver to is at a level spot and then I am slowly working my way down, thinking affirmative brake thoughts...

I think about how vehicles are shiny, houses are matte. It's very rare that they're the other way around. Cars look wet, you can see reflections of buildings, trees, sky. Houses are often flat, neutral non-colors, stiff.

Another house goes by and I'm on my way to Bauer Crest Estates, to a nice family who's house looks very similar to the neighboring ones. When we learned the route, we were told to look for the one with brick pavers in the driveway. I always think that and note the bricks even though the house has become familiar. It's a very quiet neighborhood where you see some couples or families riding bikes or out for a walk, but you don't see cars parked in the street and there is very little traffic. I pull over to the left, deliver the basket, ring the bell, no one is home today. Usually a son with a basketball or the mom is. That's one of the funny things about the route, you knock or ring and head back to the truck - a little bit like ding dong ditching with vegetables. If they are home, we want them to know the goods have arrived, yet there's no time to wait, just thank you! your welcome! have a good night! - as I'm leaving for the most part.. Is that how the milk man was? He just took the empties and left the full fresh bottles? Were the any milk delivery ladies? Did they get to know certain customers, befriend dogs and neighbors?

I head back and put the empty basket in the truck and head around to get back into the truck. It's just 20 minutes past 7pm, still light out and the houses will start curving my route back towards my own home. This time all on the north side of the highway, but back through Beaverton and Hillsboro to North Plains. As I grab the door and reach my left leg to the step on the truck, I realize my right is not with me. It's caught on the rounded curb, turning upside down behind me and there's a loud crack and I'm on the ground between the curb and the front tire. The pain is deep and all I can feebly whisper to myself is sh-t, sh-t, sh-t, while crying. How did this just happen? Can I drive? I still have baskets to deliver? Realizing I use this right foot a lot on the gas and the brake. I think if I can just make it through for a bit and settle myself down and can use my left leg to launch myself up into the truck on my stomach and reach my cell phone. A bicycle wheel passes by the open door, a man in a fluorescent yellow cycling vest bends to ask if I'm alright. He says he was just coming over to ask the name of the farm, because his family is interested in joining. I get myself together, tell him the farm name, the website. He says, oh, wait, that's all okay, but we need to help you up! He and his wife hoist me over to the customer's calm green lawn. Another couple driving by stops to help. They offer to go home for ibuprofen and ice and the other couple says they can bike back and take me to the emergency room, as part of the right edge of my foot is quickly beginning to bulge out on it's own... I don't tend to need my phone much on the route and today.. the battery today is low. I quickly call Neil, (still crying). The two couples decide it is easier for the couple already driving, to take me St. Vincent's. They are so incredibly nice. We talk about accidents their children have been in. They get me a wheelchair, help me sign in, wheel me around to a good spot, get me water - are so sweet. They leave me there number n case anything comes up. Vicki and Paul. Thank you, thank you.

I get a little red pager that reminds me of the mexican restaurant, La Fuente, in Milwaukee, but I joke that there is no margarita waiting for me on the other end. Everyone finds me each time it goes off and helps wheel me to the various people that are parts of the triage and registration process. Very nice people. The radiologist told me about growing up with cattle on a dairy farm and the path that led him to his current job. We talked about ways to make a living and about farming. One of the nurses told me how just last night, one of the doctor's was saying he wanted to sign up for Pumpkin Ridge Gardens deliveries. It felt very small world to both of us. The guy who made my splint was very funny and kind and we talked about the splint's design and he said they don't use casts anymore in the ER for most breaks, because you continue to expand and contract and that can lead to - and he said some innocuous sounding thing - and that... can lead to losing your leg. We both laughed at my surprise. Jokes with the other nurses were made that not so long ago, people were kind of on their own with this injury, maybe your foot heals and maybe not. And about me becoming a professional quilt maker (instead of a farmer with only one good foot...). Any and all friendliness and humor in the hospital helps.

Neil had to go pick up the box truck and finish the route, then drive back to drop that truck off where ours was parked and find the hospital. It was soooo nice to see him. He made it just as they were finishing up with me. They showed us an x-ray and the three fractures through the 5th metatarsal. One of the most common way to break your foot, but two of the breaks are in zones 1 and 2, which apparently don't get great circulation and are hard to heal. I remembered 'osteoblasts'
from breaking my collar bone years ago and they said yes! meditate on osteoblasts! They are the cells that form our bones...

On the way out this nice older nurse asked if the other had given me a toe warmer and went off to come back with a basket filled with different colored warmers that look like a rectangular mitten or potholder. Hand knitted by her and other volunteers. It was so sweet! I found a cute red and white one, we put it on and they wheeled me on out.

So here I am now today, having been so excited to have positive updates about the route and having decided to really go for it finishing out the season and researching more farm options this winter. The broken foot is a major set back at this time in the season, but I'm still wanting to stay positive.

Then the next day, yesterday, we found out that we've lost our job and house.

The hospital had said that since I was working when this happened, that they needed to file this as workman's comp. I explained I wasn't sure if this farm had it and they said they should and regardless they file it per what a person is doing when they are injured. If you're working, it's run as workman's comp. Today when Neil went to give a sheet we were told to give them, James looked at the form, told him we are not employees and gave it back.

Okay... that really brought some tears and long conversations with family and friends. Neil went to get my crutches, prescription and other errands we needed to do today. When he came back they wanted to talk to him and the bottom line is that we are a 'liability' and they don't have the proper insurances for us to drive, so they are going to drive the route and do the deliveries in the future. I am on my own with my broken foot, they have no workman's comp or other insurance for their business and we have apparently never been employed by them regardless. Neil was told he needs to do the route, though, for two more weeks and then we are to move out or start paying rent. The estimated monthly value of this house being a bit on the high side seemed fine when we were all rationalizing what the hourly wage works out to. Anyone who has come to visit, refers to it as a tiny cabin, cottage or a shack. I was adamantly referring to it as a house and do love this little place. It does not seem like they want us to stay, it seems like they want to get rid of us, while getting our money until we can find a home and possibly try to find another driver (?) - as they know we are settled in here and they know we work for them, ourselves and for the farmer who was their last driver. It's a busy time in the season. It's a tight picture. I have a broken foot. It's a very hard time to do this.

In the coming 2 weeks:
--- This week we have six wonderful friends coming from out of town for a mini reunion and to spend time together. They will be our buffer of loving friendship and a good final celebration of our home here.

--- Neil is scheduled to work double with the other farm we work with, since I am out of commission.

--- We have a lot of vegetables in the field that need weeding, irrigating, harvesting and that's going to be all Neil.

--- We have 2 more farmer's markets on Sept 6th for Nike and the 13th for Columbia. Tricky as to whether I could make all the bouquets, since it's been a pretty physical activity during the markets - but if we have to move by September 8th ?? - those last two don't seem possible. They are a lot of work, dead-heading all the flowers so we have the freshest ones and all the harvest and loading. Losing that income, the opportunity to use the displays we just painted and made, to see the customers and organizers again is really sad.

Somewhere during all this and while I am supposed to keep my foot elevated and peaceful, Neil needs to maintain the work and commitments we have, while also finding a full time job and a place for us to live. We just spent a lot of money to move here and now Neil has to find boxes and pack everything up again, rent a truck. Doesn't seem possible. And most sadly it means we will need to abandon most of our crops, just as many of the amazing 200+ tomato plants, our tomatillos, eggplant, peppers, melon and other veggies we've been caring for and waiting on all these months for, really come on. So let's see, does that make this a pickle?

We have taken this route very seriously and given it top priority. We were asked to commit to a year plus two months, through the end of May, 2008 when this route ends and the new one starts and longer if we'd like. We have 5 chickens we raised from baby chicks, as we planned to stay at least 1 to 2 years. We double dug a large garden and planted many herbs and flowers. Pulled and cut an insane amount of blackberries and other perennial weeds. We just worked for the Olsen's in exchange for firewood, brought home and stacked two large loads to heat us through winter, in addition to the wood we got from Carlos earlier in the season. All of our mail, bills and registrations are to this address. We got here March 29th, painted the house, fixed it all up as best we could, worked on the yard, started training on the route right away with Steve who had made us the most awesome directions and was so truly diligent and helpful. Then did the deliveries together for a long time to make sure we were doing it as quickly and efficiently as we could into June after the new route started and in mid month we switched to one of us alternating days.

There are other things that happened during the time leading up to the "wall," that weren't making us feel great about this living situation, but it's completely unexpected to be told only 5 months into this, that they aren't set up with insurance to actually employ drivers and good-bye.

I feel sad that I won't be able to say good bye to all the customers that have been so kind to me and who I've enjoyed seeing and catching up with every week. I am sad that no matter how hard we worked at this job and were self-reliant, easy tenants who made our own repairs, it's not good enough and it's beyond our control. What is said about us as an explanation, is beyond our control.

So, I wonder sheepishly... did I think I could control life by exuberantly deciding to be positive? Can we still? Can I call myself Miss Gimpy Doodles and will our cats pack the boxes? The cats and the chickens love it here. We have all really made this our home and settled in. It will be very, very sad to move.

Thank you to our local friends who have offered their help, our distant friends and family who listen and share ideas and We are also, again, open to any and all thoughts and ideas.

Hens in Portland !

2008-01-10T12:55:00.000-08:00

Hi there and Happy New Year! We are back. It's been a wild adventure since our last post in August, but all for the best. More on that soon, but wanted to say hello again and share a few pictures of the ladies.

We got our first egg on Thanksgiving morning from either Mayhem or DIO, the two black Australorps and now PJ and Lima are laying, too. Banti our little bantam Mottled Cochin, nests with Lima during all the bcawing as her buddy, but hasn't laid her own first egg yet. We just saw the first little egg of our friends' bantam Cheeks (a cute, tufty bantam Araucana), at 9 months, Banti's 6 now so it maybe a few months. It's so fun to share with our neat upstairs neighbors

Cats with feathers who happen to treat us with their amazing eggs.

We're in Portland now, with the hens in the front yard and the most plant and ag related jobs we could find, veggies and flowers in the ground at home and plans for intensive 'yard farming' and a building a little greenhouse out of windows and wood we've collected. Life has thrown us a number of scary curves in a short matter of months, but we've been finding our way forward and are really happy. So thankful for our wonderful family and friends!

Naomi is managing Concentrates Inc, an organic agriculture supply shop (check out the new blog there), and Neil is working with West Coast Plant, an organic indoor plant company. Puff and Jeff, our furries, are holding down the home front, they supervise the hen's safety and keep an eye on our resident flock of crows. And then there is daredevil Sammy, our local squirrel and a dedicated troublemaker... (not to be confused with 'Happy Squirrel' who is with our friend's daughter Madeline, finding her first egg Christmas morning)

We hope you are staying warm and cozy this winter.

Much love,

Naomi + Neil

Prep for our first Farmer's Market

2007-08-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

Through our friends Jessica + Michael (gracious hosts when we landed in Portland and our first visitors out here on Easter..) and their friend Jesse, we got to meet with the woman who runs a private Farmer's Market at Nike. We thought it was a simple, off the cuff market, but it is a full-on, really neat sounding event with 30 vendors. We met with the woman who runs it and she gave us a detailed introduction, tour and has invited us to be a part of their last two market days in August and September and one that is just starting at Columbia Sportswear, too.

Today after harvesting in the morning for Bon Appetit, we worked on our market signs and display. The ladies loved that we were home, since we let them roam when we are. They are constantly exploring, taking dust baths, finding new perches and hiding spots, herding each other around to new foraging areas. The Australorps (vultures...) are officially iridescent green sheen over their black feathers today and yesterday was the official pullet puberty voice change to early cluck speak versus bird singing. And their feathers are all so soft. Big personalities and only about 3 months old.

Much sign painting, fabric and wood activity occurring. Also we sold our first peppers of the season! And finally unleashed our Papalo herb out into the world. It was our best harvest yet. The only slow veggie is the eggplant, high demand, plants look great, but the fruits just maintained status quo this week. It's been cool and cloudy with some rain and they are not putting out until there is some more HEAT, but they are so pretty and the eggplant we've eaten so far is sooooo good, we've put it in everything from burritos to eggs. Dusky and Oriental Express. Excellent. Our earliest pepper is the Islander in it's meaty deep purple state. Jalapenos are hot and the Hungarian Hot Wax are pretty, yet mild.

Here's a new drawing Neil just finished for a show he's in with Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington, MA.

We're also sending off a piece we made together - the horse and fish over there on the right of this blog - to a show at UWM, where we met back in the day... titling it 'Hollywood Hills' after the place we made it while doing a bizarre art residency, which we'll have to write about someday.

WALL + the economics of small-scale farming

2007-08-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we officially hit a wall. It was a slow, soft thud. As impenetrable seeming as coming up on a pale grey concrete wall with no edges.

Mid to late July has been a hazy month for us. It felt like something foggy and difficult was ahead of us. We've been talking more and trying to look to the winter. Have we ever worked this hard and made this little money? Is that what's going on? We rationalized that it was just a time between our crops where the field looks great and filled with potential, but our eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, melons, beans and other veggies are still steadily growing but not ready. And maybe this is a big part - the time between seeding in early spring, potting up more than once for some things, transplanting out and then there's a point where you keep them weeded, but they are on their own and don't need you anymore for a while.

We thought well - if we just plan better next year, maybe we can work this out and we'll continue growing. Granted we're only on a quarter acre and as we joke "flying by the seat of our overalls." The restaurant we sell to also has 60 day terms, so we haven't seen any income from our harvests yet. We've been working really hard, only hoping to break even on very frugal expenses, but realized recently we may not. It took a lot out of our intensely earned savings to move all the way out here and and we finally invested in a truck, realizing we finally needed to decide on a newer, safer vehicle for the two of us. We know all these factors add up. A lot has happened in a short span of time.

During the past few weeks we've gone through some unforeseen experiences, we don't want to get into detail about. These bring us to a speedier need for change and major re-thinking, though. We were looking happily ahead to the winter when crops slow down as that time. Knowing we'll need to line up other jobs, but also hoping for some quiet indoor time to read, research and plot our next season's course. Right now we have savings left that we hope to use for a future down payment, some farm work and the CSA delivery work to cover our rent, food and bills. And the precious little checks should also start trickling through from the restaurant soon, but we have come to an evaluating point much quicker than we'd thought. Mainly, can we continue to balance financially, focus on the farming and for the beautiful crops we have coming on, selling them through the restaurant and the farmer's market we just got into Thursdays from Aug 16th through mid September and preserving them as best we can. Or do we need to adjust now and get outside non-farm work sooner than planned?

The WALL is 'can it be done' (by us) in the future. Can we farm?

We are trying not to be too hard on ourselves. At the same time we are trying to be very realistic about what we've already learned and the actual funds, labor, equipment and land needed. There are so many costs associated with farming, even on a micro-scale. We knew it would be a LOT of work. Physical, manual, labor, repeat, repeat, repeat. We knew it would psychologically be pretty daunting, but somehow I think we thought we could make the numbers work. Learn this year, aim to break even financially by being extremely frugal and strictly maintain savings earned through other work this winter. Then plan in the winter and take what we've learned into the next season and hopefully do it with a bit more financial cushion so that it wasn't quite as terrifying and at least seriously explore trying to purchase miniature land of our own... And this is all still possible. We know we need to talk to more farmers and other small businesses and round ourselves back out a bit. I think we just want to make sure we are sane in our coming choices.

We've come to realize we initially thought we were more realistic about this endeavor since my mom was going to move out here and we were going to try to find a place together and possibly she would be involved in whichever farming direction the place we could buy would be suitable for. This changed a while back and we realize now, we should have looked harder at the sanity of our plan to continue on without her as our teammate. We've found that the neat farmers in our age range often have some crucial degree of teaming up with their parents, through living on the farm together, funding or volunteer farm help and that may be a very essential part both in camaraderie and financial viability to start and sustainability for the long haul that we don't have. Granted, maybe we should have looked into the midwest more, to be near Neil's parents in Iowa or in Wisconsin where my mom has stayed. For traditional farmers who need hundreds of acres, land prices are soaring due to the ethanol push. It's likely that small acreage for what we are trying to do is still less, but the demand and community support is also less among other considerations. A main issue that I hope will be explored further in the media is the nuts and bolts - how does it work for any young farmer today who does not have family land, from the micro-scale organic farm/market garden to the hundreds of acres in corn or soybeans farmers? The way we value real estate today, how can this work?

Speaking of inspiring farmers our age, we met two great farmers earlier this year when we were venturing to meet farmers while they still had a bit of time to talk in February and March. Katie and Casey Kulla run Oakhill Organics, are very inspiring and keep an honest, candid blog about their life. During our own farm work this summer, they have been a great source of community for us, through their writing. Although they are far ahead of us in the journey to farm, every week they discuss things we are usually experiencing and wondering about in some way, too. From - cultivation a.k.a weeding to identifying all those weeds, the feeling of rushing, what their experience is after leasing and now being on their own land, making time to take care of physical and mental well-being, fatigue, unforeseen events both good and bad, visiting other farms in season, suburban development pressure, ideas of isolation vs community, maintenance - all the way to the importance of financial sustainability. A key issue!

We would like to be able to work together like they do, long term, live in a small hand-built home and farm in some way or have some small business together. We're just at a point of trying to re-evaluate if and how we can actually make that happen (and someday afford minimal health coverage).

We're in this amazing, beautiful area of mountains, farmland, proximity to a very hip city and metro area of wonderful people who care about supporting local farmers and businesses and who are very environmentally interested, smart and pro-active. You could not ask for a better place to do any of the things we're interested in.

Yet all this adds up to real estate being very expensive. There is an Urban Growth Boundary and there are protective land use laws, but that sometimes seems to just mean that if you've got the money you can buy up the large acreage agricultural land and just have a lot more space between you and the next McMansion estate. It doesn't mean okay those with money can build a big house on a small patch of land over here and this excellent agriculture land we'll preserve and sell or long-term lease at economically affordable prices, in tiny all the way to large acreages, per what small-scale farmers can actually make - to a variety of farmers.

So yes we could afford land in the boonies somewhere, but will you have the buyers and supportive community to make it financially viable? How do the economics work out for young people who want to farm, to enter the fray where land = 'Real Estate' = stock investment? And where as a society, we still often make food choices based on what is least expensive - out of need or habit, regardless of whether the food is healthy for you and grown in away that is healthy and sustainable for local communities and the greater, long-term picture.

We could rent a home and lease farm land indefinitely, but we know it's not realistic for us. For one we can't determine how long we can live or farm, even at our current locations. Where we live, we really adore our little house and have to rein ourselves in on all our ideas to continue sprucing it up (and it's almost too neat to look out the kitchen window and watch our chickens adventuring around). Then where we're farming, the couple who owns the land five miles away are amazingly kind and positive, it's very peaceful there. At any time, though, one of the owning couples can decide or need suddenly, to sell or change what they're doing. It's not up to us and we understand that. Also long term, we see there are so many advantages to living on the land where you are farming, but talking about life as a 'Roving Farmer' is another post. We do want to move towards owning something of our own and having a solid home base. It logically takes reliable income to get the loan to own even a very modest patch of ground or tiny fixer house. Right now we can't quite see the path between what we're doing farming this way and the ability to own any bit of land to grow and in return sell to and be supported by this amazing community around Portland or further outlying towns. All of the land is prohibitively expensive.

We want to be able to be invested in our home, surroundings and community for a long time.

Sometimes I realize I am homesick, but I don't know where for. It is partly the fact that our friends and family are in all different parts of the country, I miss them and there is no one magical place where all my favorite people can be. But this lack of place feeling is something we want to solve and to have a sweet place where friends and family can at least visit and stay and a place where we can grow long term friendships new and old. Maybe that sounds odd to say 'solve' like it is a mystery and we are detectives in our own life, but it feels like that.

I was reading this aloud to Neil and he said it's just this strange place to be in. There is so much support for what we're trying to do right now in terms of general awareness and the popularity of books like Omnivore's Dilemma; Animal Vegetable, Miracle; Plenty and others, but we don't actually make enough to purchase them and even if we could it would be hard to take time to read them right now...

How does one get to actually be a local, officially or un-officially organic, grower or producer?
How do the behind the scenes equations actually add up?

With art, we realized it is a high-end luxury product (is that a duh?) where there are an extremely small number of possible buyers. To make art long term, you need to be financially supported by your spouse/partner/parents or independently wealthy. Period.

With other hand crafted products, you may have a wider base of regular people who can want what you make and support you. We thought a lot about what we would enjoy making as our life's work. We wanted to work together, both like to be outside, enjoy plants, dirt, birds, critters, being physical... things that lead to farming. We thought with eyes and imaginations flung wide open - herbs to make tea! veggies! flowers! some day goats! cheese! wine! - just depending on what property you can find and somehow buy, who knows what we could do!!

Then we learned, oops... With animals we are told the money flows away from you very easily and back in.. not so much. With wine, you need money for a particular type of land, infrastructure and plants even if you are just growing grapes to wholesale and not bottling your own, which we do not have. With herbs or fruit, you want some permanence so that your perennials can thrive and you can continue to learn about and adapt to your micro-climate, among other things involved with making a living from them.

With veggies, we thought - ah ha! annuals! we can do this on leased land!

And I will pause with my funniness to say that it is really neat and amazing we've been able to move out here and so quickly be growing so many things. And really there are so many buyers from CSA subscribers, to restaurants, markets. Every person eats at least three times a day and will always need to. Growing food is a very important craft.

But a number of people since we moved here said "There's no money in farming." (As in - you guys know that right? Or "Ohhh..." when realizing we're trying to do it together full time - as in oh.... dear, you know at least one of you needs a full time job, and to farm in the off time and the other needs to do the work of at least two or three people, right? and you still really need some un-paid friend, family or apprentice help, you do know that right???)

Oh fine, for you we thought, but hey! maybe our equation will add up differently! we have no kids, we live simply, we've got desire, brute physical force, the ability to work unlimited hours on end, two brains, we can do this!!

Now we're just not so sure and feeling sad about our boundless enthusiasm, (naivety)... Maybe this is covered in a book we haven't read yet... Is it?? We're just getting spooked that the things people have said to us are the things we'd like to shout at all well intentioned art students at so many colleges around the country. Hey! You're going to be an art teacher, right? Oh hey - you! You're not? You're just going to be an "artist"? What are you getting your masters in? You know you'll need a career to make money in, right? Okay, just writing that here I feel like ah yes... I sound like a parent... or a kooky older person. And every one's experience is different. We're only talking about ourselves and what we kick ourselves for. We know that, umm.. we fear that we'll be letting people down by trying to talk about our own fears and the struggle with figuring things out.

We can at least say as we've been trying to perk each other up - that we wanted to have an interesting life and we do! Both good and bad with lots of odd times, we have succeeded in this goal so far, it's definitely interesting. And we know it's a luxury to be in what is technically still a time of war and be pondering what we'd like to do with ourselves, while fearing no imminent danger. And that is also something to think and write more about.

So, to wrap these ponderings up... There are all these variables in life: place, money, relationships to other people, labor. Lately we feel there is this puzzle to crack with our variables. It could be put together in who knows how many ways, but we need to put it together. We're trying to sort out the most essential pieces we'd like to be in the puzzle and see how we can realistically put it together with what we have and who we are. Making the money to survive in a meaningful way where we can work together and enjoy what we do, even while living very frugally, seems very challenging.
We are coming to realize our life might look very different from versions we'd like.

For now we are trying to strike a balance, acknowledge some serious realities and try to plan ahead (while staying calm..), but focus on caring for our crops and embracing this unique experience. We already get shivers of sad nostalgia, knowing as hard as certain parts are, there is so much we will miss if we are unable to continue in this path. Appreciate this time while we are living it.

Thank you to everyone who has shared details and feelings about the inner workings of their lives or is willing to in the future. It is so helpful to us as we try to draw a sane map forward.
We are open to any and all ideas and thank you so kindly for reading.

Courtney + Michael

2007-08-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

Everglades guides, so wonderful to see them and meet her husband Michael, cook lots of yummy food and talk. Neil and Courtney were guides at the same time and Michael worked with Outward Bound, met Courtney and they continued guiding down there for a while. They also think about farming in the future. The where and how are definitely things they consider. It was great to show them the farm, Michael so happily sampled everything. They are off to climb Mt Rainier. They also are great with yarn - she crochets and he knits - beautiful hats he had just made one that he knitted and then felted for her and a super intricate Fair Isle pattern he was working on for another hat. It was really sad to see them off. Possible they will be back around Labor Day... we hope. Before they head back to California to teach at an outdoors school they've been working with for the past couple years. Very inspiring.

I love ladybugs + Biggie farm photos

2007-07-30T19:38:00.000-07:00

More farm photos coming soon - took extensive plant details, maybe I can post them in an online photo album and link to that... Here are a couple views of the field to start:

Red table grapes still tiny green...

2007-07-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

Here are the little grapes outside the bathroom window on the east, still tiny and growing every day.

Grapes engulf the north !

2007-07-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

From the moment we landed and happily pushed our way through the blackberries and bamboo along the north side of our house while exploring, the old vine quietly sensed he had us.

Oh wow! I run into an old hard branch of, and quickly discover, the massive gnarly old grape vine right outside our bed room door. We are both mesmerized.

Right then, he knew he was right. He knew he had us. He knew it was time to slowly, but thoroughly, take over the north side of the house. From east to west and amassing over the roof towards the south.

I think his ally is this beautiful red rose that has steadily grown up out of the vast Saskatoon berry tree outside our bedroom window. The second rose has just come on. Reminding me of my Grama, who loved roses and died on Valentine's Day ten years ago. I've never lived anywhere with roses growing out my window.

Lemon Balm hanging to dry

2007-07-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

The Puff and The Leg Lamp guard the Lemon Balm.

All the tea and culinary grade herbs have been going in the dehydrator or warm oven, but the massive lemon balm harvest from Biggie is hanging to dry with the lavender and hopefully will go into soap or some other concoction eventually. It has a much more floral, pleasantly perfumed smell dry, versus the more tactile lemon scent when it's fresh.

Bouquet I put together for today's route:

2007-07-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

The harvest and delivery days continue. They are long days, but I do really like harvesting flowers and making bouquets, too and it is inspiring for us to work with and talk to Carlos in the early morning. The customers who order flowers are mainly regulars every week. It's pretty neat to see how the flowers that are ready change weekly through the seasons. Grown with years of good compost.

Pear tree in front of our house

2007-07-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

Rainy day harvest for Pumpkin Ridge Gardens

2007-07-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

This morning was our second harvest with Carlos for Pumpkin Ridge with some very welcome rain. The family is on vacation for a couple of weeks. Carlos rocks, he is great to work with, very pure energy, sharp with the numbers/baskets and best ways to harvest, wash and prep and he's funny.

It was nice after so much sun and dryness, to be out in the rain. In the stillness of the early morning, digging carrots and sorting them in piles of ten for a total of 580+ Many delicious yellow and green zucchinis and patty pans (the yellow color is so helpful for picking in those giant squash leaves). Beets, potatoes, scallions, onions, garlic. Enormous rainbow chard leaves and kale - both growing in the greenhouse to tropical proportions and basil.

I've been checking weather on weather underground, but I'm not sure they're the most accurate. It showed a very slight chance yesterday and did not show it was indeed actually raining from 3:30am on through the day, just cloudy and a 20% chance, while it was raining. We got a better tip last night from our friend Courtney's husband, Michael who was on Mt. Hood with good weather sources... and he was right. She's guiding a trip in Yosemite and hopefully they will visit us soon while they are up around here.

So I'm going to compare NOAA and see if there's a strong difference. Any other good sources?

(Pink Bee Balm, Goldilocks Rudbeckia, Red Crocosmia... flowers look especially vibrant on a rainy day to me. Harvesting and making bouquets for customers while Polly is away, too).

Lavender Anna

2007-07-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

Went to the Lavender Festival with Anna yesterday. There are three lavender farms within 7 miles of us and a lot more in Yamhill County that we weren't able to make it to.

I found Anna at the one behind this pretty old church. It has a nice farmhouse with a breezeway, recently bought by a lawyer... I think the neighboring farm helps take care of the plants and the festival set up. A number of interesting old timers selling lavender lemonade (so delicious) and other treats, directing parking, saying hello. Anna is an awesome photographer and I know she took a lot of really great photos, but in the meantime I like this one of her getting ready to document the field.

The Ladies move into their Bamboo Pirate Chickie Raft

2007-07-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

Lucky chicks set sail on 7/7/7 ! Very smooth transition, they were all thrilled to be outside and immediately foraging, so it seems that giving them patios and feeding them lots of greens (and some chick grit to digest it) worked well. It's great to watch them fly and run around with more space. And now we non-feathereds have our little office and sun room/workshop back and the furries have a newly appreciated full reign of the indoors.

Scythe from Shadybrook Rd.

2007-06-29T18:19:00.001-07:00

There is this fascinating older woman named Dolores who lives on an old farm near us. She is sweet, intelligent and reminds me very much of my father in a comforting way. Her home is deeply eccentric and layered with special objects, great books, plants, a dog named Buddy. I really like talking with her. Chickens stroll around. Two of them are best friends and a bit on their own versus the rest of the ladies who are older. Their names are Butterscotch - a buff orpington I think and a little bantam named Brownie. She also has an amazing peacock and a couple of pea hens. We've seen the peacock way up high in the barn calling, his tail is insane, it's incredible and they can fly so high. She lends me a lot of great herb and farming books and old copies of ORGANIC Gardening and Farming magazines, including one with Ruth Stout on the cover from February 1957, when the words Gardening and Farming held equal weight on the title. I've also been itching to buy a scythe, but good ones are expensive. Maybe they are on my brain so much, I don't know if I brought it up or not?? but Dolores gave me this awesome old scythe. It needs a lot of work, I'll take a photo, I love it.

Chicks are BIG + beginning of the Raft

2007-06-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

The chicks are really growing up...
going from little down puffs to feathery ladies in what seems like only a couple of weeks? Here is a photo of their new Bamboo Pirate Chickie Raft in progress (yay!) and some of their current D-Lux cardboard and wire cabin. One of The Vultures voices is slowly changing from little bird chirps, to the beginning of a bawc sound, but still mainly little sweet birdie chirps. We've only heard a few isolated attempts. It's hard to really imagine them clucking, much less laying eggs... Here they are getting a brief visit, as the little ones are getting bigger and want a patio, too.

They love greens and they all get completely wired up at the sight of us in the hopes we have some. Teaching them to be good, proper foraging ladies out in the wild backyard. We have tried letting them together but it's still a little alarming, so we're mainly letting them be separate and hope they'll get along when they move out in a week or two and have a lot more space. The little trio of Banti (the Bantam), PJ (the Barred Rock, black and white stripes named after lady rocker PJ Harvey) and Lima (a Peruvian Araucana named after the capital of.. Peru) want their own Le Patio. The Vultures have a lot to discuss amongst themselves right now and want their patio privacy.

We've added on to their housing a number of times now. It started out with the two Australorp chicks while waiting for the feed store to get some Araucana chicks. The Aussies or The Vultures, as they've come to be known, now that we have the younger three are bigger, look like baby vultures (in our imaginations) and are currently a bit inconsiderate about their new buddies or it's just that their reptile feet and sharps claws are already as big as the little chicks soft downy heads and that's scary. So when it was just the two, we started them in the galvanized tub with a chicken wire top in the office. Then the three younger ones came and we made a divided 2h x 4w x 2d box. The cats were banished to the porch at night and when we were gone just in case and we were lulled to sleep by lots of little bird chattings every night. Then when it was warm enough, we took the office back and moved them out on the sun porch and the cats switched places and seemed to realize they missed us. We added on Le Patio for The Vultures and gave more interior space to the little chicks who still needed more enclosed warmth and then now that they are bigger, they demanded their own private patio (not pictured, but a nifty wire bike basket turned and attached sideways).

And we've begun the raft as our version of a mobile "chicken tractor" which can be moved around the yard and garden beds for foraging, mowing and fertilizing. After thinking through other designs and trying to find a weather appropriate (damp winter), secure and inexpensive plan that would give them some height and room to enjoy, we decided to try to use some of the bamboo growing on the north side of our house. We thought about a curved structure and different heights and settled on making one we could walk in half of for cleaning and gathering eggs, which they can also hop and fly a bit in and a lower portion to peck around in. We're going to do hardware cloth on every side but the bottom to keep the predators out and chicken wire on the bottom, to keep animals from borrowing up and under or just lifting it up since it will be so lightweight. Here's a lashing detail and The Puff guarding the ladies' feed.

Portland Veggie Truck Chronicles + National Pollinator Week

2007-06-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

Some of the beautiful Icelandic Poppies and Foxgloves from home:

On the route I see so many good bumper stickers in Portland and the metro area. I've got a lot scribbled down on various bits of paper... I'll get around to typing them up to share with you one of these days. In the meantime, love these two.

Driving this route really fires my brain up about humanity, housing, food, what it is to be alive as a human - to be this funny animal we all are.

And I see so many versions of houses. Houses, houses, houses. They stretch on and on... Variations on the form of what we think our basic needs are - ideas actually based on the major building industries' decisions about 'standard' materials and the building departments which follow on the industry's coattails and set the regulations for your hut.

So many strict structures, with sharp lines. Many staring blandly out like impersonal hotels. The photo is from Forest Heights, neighborhood of perched megabuildings, looking out on views of each other while vying for the mountain sunsets. I've got some more thoughts and photos to come on the Heights in the future...

These materials we can not make with our own two hands. Without far away factories we never set foot in, heavy machinery, un-thought about toxic chemicals and the laborers.

These materials form what our ingrained imaginations see a 'home' to be.

Granted many around Portland and in the woods are quite cute to me and I'll take more photos of those in the future, too. Same building materials, though, just different imaginations and skill interpreting them.

Drywall, the 2x4 stud/stick, cement, glass, you know - imagine all the parts to your house and what it would be like if the parts weren't manufactured for you. So interesting (not even available at the dump or neat rebuilding center to reuse).

Regardless of income - What would it be like if everyone had to build their own shelter in this country, themselves. What would that look like? What would the food people eat now look like if they were responsible for growing their own and bartering with each other for what else they needed?

Right now those basic needs, food and shelter, are shaped by the income generated through other tangled lines on our corporate driven, consumer society. Each person is literally a cog in the overall machine. Or an ongoing play with a huge array of characters playing their roles. You generate a certain amount of money and then choose to place it back out in exchange for housing, food, vehicles, clothing, trips - all work done and income earned by other people who then go on and place their money out in exchange for their versions of the same needs and wants.

The income your cog generates, determines and often displays whether your house is truly basic with minimal square footage or if it has been frilled out and elaborated on often to a grand square footage scale. And whether your food is as good as you'd like it to be or if it's the most caloric value you can get while stretching your dollars. It is generally not that affordable to make choices that are as local, organic and supportive for food or as green, environmental and humane as a person would like for housing, clothing, vehicles and other goods.

There are an amazing number of Prius cars in this area, but if everyone who needed to save on gas and/or wanted to try to make a better environmental choice, could afford a hybrid car, they would really be everywhere. There would also be a lot more well insulated, low-e windows and efficient appliances, solar panels and lots of other neat energy conserving technologies that can be expensive up front, but do save people money in the long run if they can afford it initially.

-----

Okay, this is the area my brain goes in when it's not deeply listening to OPB/NPR.

Speaking of which, I heard today that it is National Pollinator Week. The website is really neat.

Here are some photos from home and some of the flowers we hope help the pollination go 'round (Banti is looking out from the window above the cosmos):

We would have very little to eat without pollination! In case you don't make it to their website, this is text describing important pollination info:

"Pollination is vital to our survival and the existence of nearly all ecosystems on earth. 80% of the world's crop plants depend on pollination. Pollinators, almost all of which are insects, are indispensable partners for an estimated 1 out of every 3 mouthfuls of food, spices and condiments we eat, and the beverages we drink. They are essential to the fibers we use, the medicines that keep us healthy, and more than half of the world's diet of fats and oils. Insect pollinators, including honey bees, pollinate products amounting to $20 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

What is pollination and who are pollinators?

Pollination occurs when pollen is moved within flowers or carried from one flower to another of the same species by birds, bees, bats, butterflies, moths, beetles or other animals, or by the wind. This transfer of leads to fertilization and successful seed and fruit production. Pollination ensures that a plant will produce full-bodied fruit and a complete set of fertile seeds, capable of germinating.

Why are pollination issues worthy of attention?

Today pollinators' existence may be threatened. Since pollinators are largely overlooked, assessing their condition and economic importance; seeking to understand their circumstances, biology, and benefits better; and working to help keep them healthy are positive, pro-active approaches to conservation."

NY Friends and Mamo visit within a few days

2007-06-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

Our first visit of friends from out of state... Gail and Eric just came from New York to visit us. Yay : ) !! and brought my favorite 'veggie' gummi bears from the co-op and other treats, like a very nifty green cutting board and their happy smiles... The last time we had seen them was October 1st when they kindly helped us load our moving truck in Brooklyn, including the old claw foot tub we hope to someday make a new home for, and kept us calm. I had to put the city picture of them in downtown Portland by the 'tall' buildings and in the country photo Eric's wearing a cool yellow shirt with 'Gowanus' the name of our old neighborhood and an extremely polluted canal, now becoming very fancy (ie. Whole Foods spends years trying to build on a brownfield site and condos eagerly wait in the wings to line the infested shores..), that we used to walk over on the way to the subway... Here's a photo Gail took of our address sign and Lima + Banti.

I felt an interesting feeling I can't quite place - having to do with friends from such a specific place and part of our recent lives, who in a certain sense represent that- here now in this very different new place and time of our life. Have you ever experienced that?

It was also our first reason to take a day off... so maybe that tilted my perspective on life.

We went to show them Biggie and to the Rock Creek Pub for lunch. We had a little dinner party with them and Mish and Steve. Neil cooked delicious burritos and we set up tables down by the fields from our house to watch the beautiful sunset.

The next day Neil had to do the route and I took them places our friends Jess and Michael took us to when we were out last summer. To the rose garden, Pittock Mansion and downtown; the industrial area by Hwy 30 which I thought they'd appreciate as crafty artist/builders they are. Gail saw this nifty train car and wanted to cross the tracks to go by the fear caboose and I think in the picture I am fighting her from doing that and she is saying alright little mother hen pipsqueak, i won't cross the tracks, gotcha.. and Eric in the car is saying, any day ladies, rental car is parked illegally... then the Rebuilding Center and Mississippi neighborhood and then had dinner with their really neat friends Dimitri and Jessica, who had moved from New Jersey and were staying with her parents in the Irvington neighborhood where she grew up. (We deliver to a lot of CSA subscribers there and think of it as the Knott St. neighborhood...)

She made these amazing pizzas. Mmm... We talked a lot about life, dreams and work. He seriously explored farming and boat building, but came to the conclusion that it would be too financially challenging to start with two young children (who are very smart and funny by the way). They are headed to Seattle and he's about to start architecture school. We talked a lot about all the neat things we'd each like to do and the difficulty in the end of making the numbers work. That he came to the realization that he was going to have to fit himself into one of the pre-laid down career paths available. Jessica is an artist and illustrator and showed me and Gail how to make crocheted bags out of plastic shopping bags, by cutting them in to strips, knotting them together and crocheting away. Very cool. We also talked about making and selling things like that, as the three of us like to be crafty, but also how much time it can take to make something you want to sell at an affordable price someone can actually buy. Hours versus income. She also introduced me to The Complete Tightwad's Gazette, gave me the awesome pizza crust recipe, and other Portland tips like Knitten Kitten, potholder looms, "Goodwill As Is" by the pound, Interstate Farmer's Market, 4over4.com and vistaprint.com, also screen printing with cross-stitch and puffy paint. It was hard to see Gail and Eric off, just as easily as they are here, poof, they are gone. Off to his grandparents anniversary party in Spokane. Thank you for making a special trip to visit us!

A day went by and the next monumental visitor appeared. I think my Mom actually just visited on Father's Day. I showed her around our house and we took lunch to eat with Neil, Steve and Mishelle who were working at Abundant Harvest, that was really nice. Then we went up to Biggie and she seemed pretty impressed and it was neat to get her outside opinions and view on it. And she got to meet Robin and the cat, Snaggles, photos were taken... she's going to mail them to me, but I don't have any in the computer to put here. We planted some red coreopsis flowers together in with a pepper row. We'd had an idea to somehow make it to the ocean for a hike as it's only an hour away and I haven't been there since we moved here, but she'd been on a trip up the coast on her way up to Portland and there just was not enough time before she needed to catch her flight. She was here less than a day and then also, poof, gone on a plane. Too fast, but very special to have her here, too. Definitely something unusual about people visiting you from the place you knew each other to the place you are now. I guess people leave these traces of themselves in memories of being at your home with you. And that's really nice.

Biggie in early June: Ermosa, Red Sails, Mustard, Papalo, Spinach...

2007-06-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from this past weekend, before we harvested Monday morning:

Red Sails Lettuce and Olympia Spinach, you can see the drop off in size at a distinct spot. That is not a planned succession... That is what we are now nick-naming the "Mystery Fertility Succession"

The land curves in many ways and this must be a bit of a natural swale where the topsoil has been washed away, more than other areas. It is like a pool though, sharp, steep drop off.

This is Red Giant Mustard, beautiful and very spicy.

Green Butterhead Ermosa Lettuce heads, these are really pretty and taste delicious. Neil would like to keep them whole as they are and dress them with sald toppings, that you could then slice into to eat.

Our field is growing! Neil pounds t-posts for the tomatoes. If you can see the the butter lids, they are coated in tanglefoot to capture errant flea beetles in lieu of them dining on our broccoli.

The Papalo plants have a unique citrus enhanced cilantro style taste in a succukent leaf. These could grow to 6' tall, right now they are small, growing slow and steady.

Genovese Basil in the foreground, followed by Red Rubin and then Sweet Basil in the back. Tiny Thai Basil are riding out the cool weather with some distrust. We're sorry guys, we hope it heats up for you soon.

And a Brandywine Tomato, pruned and planted deeeep and soon to begin above ground pruning, to train for the trellis.
Mmm.. tomatoes and basil...

Portland Veggie Truck Chronicles - Solo Drive

2007-06-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

Today I did the route alone - to start freeing up more time, so one of us can work on our farm projects. Neil's doing the route this Friday and we'll alternate from there.

It went smoothly. Tues is now 77 locations. Every member I came across was very friendly. Strangers and I; smile, nod, wave - knowing how good it feels to be treated kindly in the smallest interactions. It is a long day, all those little moments help recharge my battery, I hope they make other people unexpectedly happier, too.

Between farming and doing deliveries, my upper body is trying to catch up. I need to do more push-ups, chin-ups and yoga this winter. Sometimes I carry the basket on my head... This week they were brimming with delicious broccoli, spring onions, lettuce, spinach, beet thinnings, spring cabbage, snap peas and many with eggs and walnuts.

I did see a man on a blue scooter with a silver helmet that had a blue mohawk running down it.

1st harvest for Bon Appetit !

2007-06-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

We had our first harvest for Bon Appetit this morning! We are selling with Steve who is an established Farm to Fork vendor. He captured our first harvest of spinach and butterhead lettuce and our drop off at Intel with the talented (and funny) chefs Micah and Jesus. Micah is also a CSA subscriber, very cool, and all around big fan of Steve (as are we!).

Since we are farming by the seat of our overalls... we are working on our succession planting and planning, but we've got a ways to go in this department to catch up with the opportunity. We've got greens coming on for a few weeks and more in the works and then there are all those tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, edamame, (Neil's cantaloupe project..), assorted veggies, flowers and herbs. It would be really great to get a steady supply of produce going out locally year-round, while also making and selling our own concoctions of teas and other products locally and beyond. It seems like the numbers can work in the future, through some serious planning and more continued hard work. We've talked about possibly partnering with Steve and Mishelle on the restaurant produce in the future. Lots of possibilities. Modest as our sale was today, it was thrilling to have produce to sell and a person to sell it to. Our sincere gratitude to Steve for his energy and excitement about farming and his generosity in helping us get started. Thank you!!

Little Baby DEER + Tomato-a-thon

2007-06-03T23:22:00.000-07:00

Today we worked with Steve and Mish planting their tomatoes. 600+ for their CSA and restaurant sales and to dry and can. Salsa and Sun-dried Tomatoes!

In the afternoon Steve's brother and his wife came by with a baby deer they rescued, whose mother had been hit by a car and was wandering near her when they were on their way home. They have been getting goats milk from 'Pacific' momma of the new baby goat 'Willa' - who are on pasture at the farm right now.

We had so much fun with this deer, so sweet.

Steve bringing the tomatoes down and Lime in the Hole! - tomato prep and planting

It was a pretty monumental day of planting. And hot! At lunch we had a strawberry toast under the apple trees and at the end of the day, we managed to prop the camera up on the cart for a group photo. As dusk began to settle, even though we were all pretty tuckered out, we decided to go to the Helvetia Tavern to celebrate. None of us had been there yet and it's just a few miles from the farm. It was a great idea. One of those days when dinner and a cold beer tastes soooo good.

Back in mid May at Abundant Harvest + Goats

2007-06-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

*spreading compost, yes Neil and Steve are human powered 'tractors,' where we will plant a couple rows of tomatoes and mainly peppers in June
*laying the drip lines for irrigation *setting out yellow, tanglefoot flea beetle traps
*a geek armored with clothespins for row cover *just picked lunch greens!

We met with two more chefs from Bon Apetit who are interested in buying from us. In the winter Steve had them out to see the new field at the Olsen's (Biggie) when Steve had just had the field disked, and even though we had a ways to go at the point of their visit - they were really excited to see how far everything was coming along. Very inspiring. Then we were caught treat-handed, loving the goats...

Portland Veggie Truck Chronicles

2007-06-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

Mid March - here is a photo Steve took after dropping us off at the Max train in Hillsboro. We had just 'moved' up from Eugene, out of the apt we had rented there, with all of the belongings we had with us packed into the Volvo. We met Katie and Casey of Oakhill Organics (check out their super blog!) on the way up and came to meet with Mishelle and Steve again about working with them on Abundant Harvest, also farming a plot of our own, taking over the route and moving into the cottage at Pumpkin Ridge Gardens. We both had caught a bit of a cold during a farm visit in Grants Pass with Mary and Vince of Whistling Duck and their cute kids (well worth it - they are wonderful and kindly spent a long time talking with us and making a delicious dinner) and may have just been at a point of having worn ourselves down some, so back up near Portland for these meetings, we felt a bit fuzzy, but it went well. It was excellent to see Mish and Steve again, they cooked a yummy dinner and their energy and enthusiasm is contagious in the best way. We met with Sharon and Brian of Dos Sequoias for tea and got into a bit of politics ; ) and with Polly and James of Pumpkin Ridge who made us a tasty lunch. Farmer hospitality we hope to return!! In this photo we are on our way to the airport and back to the midwest to round up our things, patiently waiting at Neil's parents for the final leg of their journey. We ended up leaving our car at the farm, flying to WI/IA and driving back in a Penske truck in time to move in on March 29th.

Now we're here and among other things, we've made it through the first two months of the route. The new season has just started and the route has changed. The backbone is the same, but there are changes and additions. We drove with Polly on Tuesday and James on Friday to sort out any kinks in the directions. It went good and it was nice to talk with them more about life, farming, politics and family, as we all otherwise tend to be very busy. (photo from a sunset at the farm in mid March, coastal mountains in the background)

Being on the route is like going on an 8 and 1/2+ hour road trip. We could make it to Sacramento...

Hopefully we will feel good enough about the new route soon, that we will transition to one of us doing it on our own to free up more time for our farming. And then maybe some day we will figure out how to take a day 'off'...

Sleep + Vegetarian Crocodile Dreams

2007-05-31T22:19:00.000-07:00

The benefits of a good bed are profound.

And new to us... We've slept on a number of goofy mattresses in the past. For example, a 'Super Single' that was like being on a raft. And in strange spots, such as underneath a work table next to a 2x4 we came to affectionately nick-name '2bie' - as in 'Who's turn is it to sleep next to...' and currently - 'We made it through '2bie' we can do this! (make it through a difficult time)... Then we bought a bigger mattress from a chef, but maybe it was too soft? Then a futon, decadent in purchase price and craftsmanship, but which in practice, came to feel like laying down on smooth rock.
(putting our quilt from Neil's grandma on the nifty new bed for the first time, two months ago when we moved in, The Puff supervises and approves).

As we were loading up our possessions for the final 2nd leg of the move to Oregon in March (no bed) and Neil was convincing me we should use the 'bed'room as that and not as a workshop space (which is what i generally want every room to be.. i'm learning) I knew we needed a real mattress. It was painful after the expense of moving, but we had momentum. And a moving truck. And a lot of physical work on our horizon. We took our Penske truck into Hillsboro before we returned it. We went to Sleep Country in our overalls and farm boots. A very nice salesman worked out an excellent deal to sell us a very comfortable, full size floor model for what came out to be a bit less than half the retail price. Yay! He also gave us a new, perfectly simple bed frame. He was awesome. He subscribes to Mother Earth News, would love more Oregon specific heirloom vegetables and told us he could give us a lot of free plastic in the future if we can use it, because they don't have a good way to recycle the plastic they move mattresses in. We've picked up some already and used it to shelter our hardening off area. We hope to get more and try to stitch big pieces together for a hoop house and row tunnels.

So, since this sleeping need is inevitable.. every night.. it is nice to finally have a good spot to recharge our mind + body batteries and for our muscles to recuperate. Maybe most people have figured this out, but if you haven't, buy the most comfortable mattress you can afford.

Here is a link for Radio Lab's great recent show about Sleep !

It is fascinating that we sleep so soundly for a third of each day. Not just half our brain, not with one eye open. Not laying in opposite directions, foot to head, to see a possible predator first. And then there are those wild dreams.

We heard a man on the radio talking about how cheese may affect dreaming. Okay I had to go find it, here is the link to a short audio clip on a study by the British Cheese Board on how Eating Cheese Can Alter Your Dreams

Mmm, fresh home-made goat cheese + sweet dreams : )

April Flower Patch + More Photos

2007-05-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

We got a whole 'thumbnail' drive of photos from Steve and Mishelle - thank you!! Steve is great at documenting while we work - we are trying to do the same. Looking back already, it's pretty neat to see how things looked just a little while ago and how they are progressing + growing quickly!

In the moment, sometimes we are so busy that it is tricky to appreciate or understand the experience. Photos do help us revive memory and add perspective. And hopefully they can help bring friends and family closer, since we don't get to see most of you right now, until you visit...

If any of you do start any matter of 'blog' with photos and/or writing (hint hint), we'd love to keep up with your thoughts and adventures. We really appreciate the ones we read, they connect across the miles. Also if you don't know how and want any tips on starting one, just ask : )

Lots of photos from April and May, starting with these photos from April when we all worked on Mishelle's flower and herb patch:

*hand cultivation with Mish *Neil with snake friend
*raking out the compost *rounding up an escapee with Steve's belt

And then a couple of weeks later in early May, we continued on the patch:

*Steve with the 'claw' *all prepped to plant sunflowers

and I will have to get recent photos up soon, because the herbs have taken off and there are big, beautiful flowers blossoming now in mid June.

3 more chicks

2007-05-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

Rounding out our little flock: 1 Araucana/Ameraucana, 1 Barred Rock and 1 Mystery Bantam who looks like a penguin.

The Mystery Bantam may be a rooster or a hen. The striking black and white coloring seems unique. Most likely a Cochin. We'll find out... it's fun to not know yet. Right now the bird looks like a mini Elvis Penguin bird, because it is a feather footed breed.

They are all very cute, 5 to 7 days old, soft and friendly.

I was just going to get two Ameraucanas. I was curious about whether they were two different breeds and if one had ear tufts. After sorting out that they were the same as Araucanas, which are of Peruvian descent and just sometimes called by the americanized name - 'Ameraucana' - Josh, the chicken expert of the Wilco Feed Store... said they sometimes have ear tufts and sometimes don't, but the Araucanas they have are not the rarest true breed. Either way, this bird will be our hen who lays neat colors of green and blue eggs. What she will look like is a bit of a mystery, like the Bantam.

I thought instead of two of those I should get a Rhode Island Red for Neil. For some reason they were not on my bird radar, but I thought I'd surprise him, since he kept bringing them up. I could sense Josh had reservations. I pried and he politely described that in his experience that can be a bit like 'female dogs'... and if I was looking for a really friendly bird, they were more hit or miss. He recommended a Barred Rock as a breed with the friendliest birds he's had. They have black and white stripes and lay brown eggs. So far she does seem really sweet and gentle, more than any of the others. Her feathers stick out a bit and she is the most downy and might be a bit younger.

---

Meanwhile, the Australorps have been nicknamed The Vultures. They grow by the hour and have a lot of energy. I did experiment letting all five together and the little ones definitely hold their own; throw their little wings up and back up the big ladies and they all seem excited about each other.

That said - The Vultures feet are bigger than the heads of the little ones and easy to step wrong in their excitement - so they've got a cardboard divider for now. Eventually the two ladies will get official individual names. Australian words? It just hasn't come to us yet. Personalities still developing...

They love fresh greens.

Tomatoes are in !

2007-05-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

The Long Tomato Hike + Holding Pen

2007-05-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

The tomatoes have been growing at an exuberant pace. They have been taking over the greenhouse:

We have been carrying them all outside during the day to harden them off and bringing them in at night. It's been warm during the day, but dropping into the high 30's and now low 40's at night.

Last night we made a roofless, plastic, rectangular holding pen to buffer them from the wind.

It was like being on a long hike to relocate them, 3 to 4 at a time, up to the field. Bend, wrangle them carefully into your arms, march steadily up, bend and slowly lower them to the ground. Keep repeating!

Waxing gibbous moon over 60% in the sky above us. And here's a photo of what seems not that long ago of Neil and some baby of our baby tomatoes...

On Saturday we will begin to put our tomato gang in the field. Including tomatillos, we have around 200 plants, including 14 varieties of tomatoes. Woo hoo!

Start of Abundant Harvest CSA

2007-05-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

Today we worked with Steve on the first harvest for their 2nd CSA season. Some of his family came to help out, too. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. We harvested a lot of greens! Red Sails lettuce, Mizuna, Mibuna, Tah Tsai, Kale, Arugula, Belle Isle Cress and the wickedly flavorful - Wrinkle Krinkle Crumple Cress! Also there were leeks, so delicious, Oregano and Chocolate Mint.

It is quite a bit of work to harvest, look for damage, weeds or critters and then do the washing, spinning, sorting and some bagging. While it is a "field" washing, it is still a serious project...

It went great and the pick-up room was full of so much good food. They have 35 member households in the Hillsboro area who come out to the farm to pick-up their share every Wednesday and another 15 members in SE Portland. One of Mishelle and Steve's friends host the drop site there. The first delivery for that is tomorrow and then every other Thursday.

Here is a photo of Mishelle with Lupine from her flower garden:The planning and work Steve and Mishelle have done and continue to do, while being so happy and friendly, is very inspiring. We feel lucky to be involved with them.

As the first members were trickling in for their veggies, we cleared out and headed over to Biggie to get a few hours of work in before home to eat and sleep...

Paving of Pumpkin Ridge Drive

2007-05-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

On our way home, there are always people on our tails trying to push us past the speed limit. The stretch of Pumpkin Ridge Road is curvy and deer are often on one side or another and we're not tempted to go faster.

It is always a relief to turn on the blinker and turn on to the slow gravel Pumpkin Ridge Drive that means we are home.

Right now, any cars, pick-up and delivery trucks that drive by, go slowly on the unpaved gravel road. No hurry. It is soothing and gentle, like the idea of small town rural life. Even though they drive slow more for themselves to keep their vehicles less dusty, it is really nice for all of us when we're outside and for the saftey of all the animals.

Fancy homes are encroaching down the road though. We have not gone very far past our house yet, but we know they are down there with an expensive golf course... and the people getting to the rural fanciness, want to do so in a fast, clean fashion. Polly and James did their best to fight it, but they were out-voted, it has just gone through and construction workers have already begun widening the road to prepare it.

We're glad we got to experience a bit of the slow times.

Deer Fence !

2007-05-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

The deer fence is up around our plot and Mishelle's flowers! It looks amazing. It is 9' high and made with t-posts, wild filbert trees, deer netting and baling twine. There are multiple doors for access and the bottom can be easily lifted for weed maintenance.
While I was at the eye doctor - Neil, Steve, his Dad and Mishelle - put it all together. It is really neat. Neil and I had a celebratory hoeing afterwards, as everything had been covered with mesh and it was so good to be able to see and easily get at everything.

Also my eye is good. There is a divet from the corneal abrasion that is healing, no ulcerated cornea or infection. She said that the general dust from working outside can irritate it and to just be mindful of that and the cells may or may not heal as strong as they were before, so keep it happy with regular eye drops and salve.

CHICKS !

2007-05-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today we brought home two little chicks!! They are incredibly cute. We set up a little chickie roost for them ahead of time in a steel tub with a heat lamp, pine bedding pellets, water and chick starter. I put chicken wire over the top and a red blanket over part of the tub, they seem to like the coziness and feel safer there right now. Their new home is by a long window in our office that goes down to the ground. The cats are relocated to the sunroom/workshop indefinitely. They are curious and so far fine about this, but we weren't able to put together a door yet and until then... they are not to be trusted.

Jeff in exile, looking for love:We got our chicks from Wilco, which is a feed store in Cornelius, only 10 miles away. We got our supplies last week from another feed store in Aloha, but weren't ready with our hot roost yet. We may get one more Ameraucana, from them this Thursday so we have a little posse of three. They lay really neat tinted color eggs.

These two girls are Black Australorps. The breed is originally from Australia via Black Orpingtons from England in 19th century, they became Australias' national breed. Right now the chicks are mainly black fuzz with a white fuzzy strip running down their chests. When they grow up they will be all black with a greenish sheen and sparky red combs. They are said to be kind and gentle, lovely layers of brown eggs. While their egg production slows as they get older, they average 10 - 12 years and up to 20! We figure that in 3 to 5 years, we may get a couple more, raise them until they are hens (1 year +) and slowly introduce them to the other ladies until they are all friends.

As I am typing this, I am attempting not to obsess over them... I have a serious photo thermometer through the mesh so I can see what the temperature is at and adjust it. As Josh, chickie specialist at Wilco, affirmed, they are the best thermometer - if they are huddling under the lamp portion they are too cold and if they are wedged away it is too hot. I am aiming for the right temperature. It is not 98 degrees. I backed it off, but it ended up dropping to the low 80s and eventually they were under the lamp, so I eased it back down a bit and 90 seems to be pretty happy temperature for them. I have the utility light clamped to a very sturdy red hook I put in the ceiling. I can ease the cord ever so slightly either way and clamp it tight. I see there will be a lot of adjusting as they grow.

They were initially pecking at the bedding pellets trying to eat them. This was making me a 'mother hen'... At the store the were on mesh (for poo purposes) with a food trough on the side, so I put food in a low bowl because they had never seen the standard feeder with holes. In here though, they seem to think - party! It's all food on the floor! Woo Hoo! It's not and I worry they will get sick. I try to pet and encourage them toward the food. I filled the main feeder to the brim so it would be very easy to get at. No luck. Granted they are suddenly moved and it is just the two of them, not their whole herd.

Now I confess.. it was just 6:58pm, I realized the feed store closed in two minutes (technically)... I called and Josh answered. I sheepishly asked if it was okay they were trying to eat their bedding. He said it was normal because it's new to them and so different from where they just were and that he's never lost one because of it. Very relieved. I had forgotten to ask when they hatched. He told me just last Tuesday the 12th, so that makes them 9 days old. Have I mentioned how cute they are? They really give you a good look when you are hanging out with them. It is very calming to watch and talk to them with their little tiny chirps. And when they get sleepy and start to doze off, wow. Adorable.

Here is one of the sites I originally was looking things up on Feathersite. Barry, who created the site has lots of photos and info on any bird you can dream of researching. Another great site is Murray McMurray. You have to order 25 at a time, but they carry a lot of other things, the site is also great for research and if you were able to go in on an order with other people, it's pretty neat. Some day I would love to have a Wyandotte hen. I saw a silver one in France and through much recent nerdiness, just narrowed down the breed.

The box they road home in.. possible names? (the Puff is also in exile on her perch above the grey ball on the left)

Two final notes:

1) We had an errand list, (we try to combine as many things into one concise trip), so we got our Oregon Driver's Licenses today and that helps us feel quite official and then on our way to Wilco, we had a stop planned at the library where I had books on hold. I got two chicken books, Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens and Keep Chickens! (soon the neat little library in North Plains will be part of the Washington County system and that will be awesome, right now we go into Hillsboro).

2) I have a love/hate relationship with the NY Times online, some articles drive me batty and I wonder if their writers understand the deep ironies they lay out, but I enjoy reading these pieces outloud to Neil in the appropriate character voices... I am still a bit addicted to at least checking the front page and the most emailed articles. Tonight I see that in the 9th Most Popular emailed list there is an article called 'All Cooped Up in a Manhattan Co-op' and think - could that possibly be about chicks??? Today? Indeed it is and there is a photo of a fancy apartment and a girl with a black hen on her head and a photo of their multi-story coop. Funny timing. I do have to say I would have been deliriously happy if I could have raised hens in Brooklyn, but I am so glad to be having hens that will get to forage all over the land outdoors here. We have lots of ideas more their mobile coop / tractor. They will have a long deluxe farm life with us.

Portland Veggie Truck Chronicles- TUES + Equal Rights...

2007-05-08T22:58:00.000-07:00

This is the first of many writings about what we see in Portland while we are out delivering farm fresh, organically grown veggies for the CSA Pumpkin Ridge Gardens. We may not end up doing a CSA ourselves, but Polly + James and Carlos are our farming idols. They have amazing energy, knowledge and intuition and grow incredibly delicious produce. They've been doing this for 17 years and we are very inspired by them.

Our house is on their farm and on Tuesdays and Fridays mornings they harvest and we head out as soon as they're ready to deliver the baskets door to door at each family's house/office. Right now Tuesdays have 75 different houses and is more city and Fridays have 53 different houses and is more rural and suburban, ie. very curvy, winding and hilly... The route will change as the new season starts and some customers change in the beginning of June. It is a year round CSA and a true model of learning to eat what can be grown locally throughout the year. Members who have been with them for many years having an even richer experience of seeing how different weather patterns and other factors affect the crops each year. Very neat.

So! Now that we are more comfortable with the route, I've started to note some of the wild things we see and other thoughts that come to mind. Some of the random thoughts, may appear quite random... and some of the things we've already seen seem surreal.

Sightings:
1) This may have really kicked it off - Sunny day around 3pm. We saw what appeared to be a white teenage girl, alone, who had strewn herself backwards across the front hood of what appeared to be a red Pontiac Sunfire or ?, legs sprawled, in a mini jeans skirt, with her shirt tied up in a knot above her belly. This was just barely off NE Ainsworth, a fairly main drag busy street with a decent sized boulevard near NE MLK. We have never seen anything else like it.

2) Hip man, 30's in slim black jeans and black t-shirt on his bicycle, with an awesome hot pink helmet with furry pink strip down the center. I was so instantly overjoyed, I thumbs upped and he smiled and waved.

3) A man simply mowing his lawn. Who smiled at us as we drove by. This may not sound odd, but I'm not sure if one of us is automatically smiling first or nodding at people we pass or they start it, but people are truly the friendliest I've ever experienced. We give and get a lot of nods, smiles and waves. Even when they're just out mowing their lawn. Love it.

4) This was nice, totally normal looking guy girl couple walking down the block, I think this was on SE Stark near 28th. She was walking normally, long blond hair, perfectly balancing a deep blue frisbee on her head as though it was not there.

5) The purple Irises seem to have all started blooming today. This is also a really neat thing about the route. Left to our own devices we would notice certain changes around our home, but when you are out covering 120 miles a day twice a week, you really realize what is in bloom, because you see it repeatedly all over town.

6) Little league is in action

7) Beautiful sighting of Mt. Hood today. Sometimes you just catch it and realize it's not clouds in the distance, it's a massive, snow-covered mountain.

8) Basketball Hoops. It is like there is a calendar or a city wide movement. Suddenly there are portable hoops lining the curbs all over the place. Even without children in the middle of the street - one of our least favorite things to see safety-wise - it is one more thing to look out for in addition to the TREES. And, no, they don't make these things fluorescent colored, they are black and not terribly visible.

9) TREES !!! They are beautiful. They are everywhere. Many diverse species represented. Some are cut to a 90 degree angle at 12' per the law. It can look really cool and when you are driving at this height you notice all the 90 degrees angled tree areas. Our truck is 10' 6". Many trees on side streets grow unabashed. You can do your best, drive in the middle of the street most of the time, you will still hit many tree limbs. It is a fact. We try to drive very slow in the lowest spots. When more trees were in bloom we really were pain-staking. A point for those in the street, their front home window or in low normal cars, please know that we delivery drivers are doing our best, but there's only so much one can do sometimes.

10) We cage in our rocks. I appreciate them not sliding down along the road. It does remind me what a funny animal we are. Caging our rocks so we can blissfully speed right by without thinking about their natural desire to roll down steep sides we cut into.

11) Okay, speaking of the basketball thing. You may think, come on Naomi, it's nearly summer. Spring fever at a minimum. Let people have fun in the street if they need to. Call us raging safety-prudes. Here's the worst example: Towards the end of the route we are up in NW Portland in the hills. There is a section where you drive as slow as you can, but you know at any moment someone can (and does) coming barreling down as though there were fluidly room for two. There is not. Many narrow, completely blind curves. Coming around one we come immediately upon an older fancy man with three young kids - hidden just beyond a madly blind curve, with a dog and one of these portable basketball hoops. There was NO warning. It was one of the most dangerous, insane things we've seen someone think it was okay to do. And we drive ssssllllooowww there. Hardly any other cars we see can be said to be zipping very slowly through there. We tried to smile, wave, wait for them to clear. The man gave us an ominous look as though we had to drive through his backyard. You DON'T get a backyard when you choose to live in the hills. You get a lot of neat trails and views, but the road is not your yard. Okay, that's my rant. Grown-ups, protect your munchkins. Use a flare or put a cone out if you really need to do something like this.

12) To end on a positive, Salem passed a Pro-Family Bill - see the Human Rights Campaign for more details. It is about time that we grant more equal rights not less ! "The Oregon Equality Act, which passed the state House by a vote of 35 to 25, will outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing and public accommodations." and this one's not perfect, but it's a great start - "The Oregon Family Fairness Act, which passed the state House by a vote of 34 to 26, would (will) establish domestic partnerships for committed same-sex couples and provide all the same state-granted privileges, immunities, rights, benefits and responsibilities for same-sex couples entering a domestic partnership as are granted to married couples."

1920 - Women celebrate the passage of the 19th Amendment granting them the right to vote.

Not that long ago.

They put forth the amendment in 1878. It took 42 YEARS for WOMEN to be granted the right to simply VOTE.

A legal right that needed to be 'rationalized' and vigorously fought for, which is now taken for granted.
Something to seriously remember.

I'm trying to figure out why we are not more accepting today as a people.

As a society, a herd of people animals, we must stand up for equality and fairness for our fellow people. Work towards greater care + protection and not at expanding discriminatory laws.

The rights for many of us are fairly new. And people today cannot pick and choose who they like and who they don't and enact laws to bar legal rights from them, right?

It is no longer acceptable keep down and subjugate with laws: women, non-white ethnicity, related to age or dis/ability, it happens, but you better keep it discrete. It is okay to discriminate at your darndest, one last little corner of the population people can sniff out.

People who choose to love a person the 'majority' don't approve of, as though it is any of anyone else's business what goes on in another person's bedroom. Wow. But that's what it is. It is acceptable today to be against 'gays' in a legal fashion. And even, or especially, those so recently in the same discrimination boat or still in it, need one last group to step on and try to rise above. And they do so with an often venomous righteous fervor and a blindness to the sad irony.

- japsgaysblacksspicks - Short biting words. What is this instinct for ultimate superiority? And why has this spread from mainly those good ol' boy white men as discriminators to the vast population. Why has the superiority over the "other" disease spread to Women and to every version of European/Latin/African/Japanese/Chinese/Etc.-American and other specification we make of person - to seek something we can be far better than. The Gays. You can't walk around saying you're against The Japs anymore. That's not cool. But against The Gays, super chic in public in most of America.

It's okay, come on now, we can ALL get together on this one and publicly hate GAYS.

Why is this so often fueled and certified by Religion ?

Voices of Civil Rights is a concise view starting in 1868 with the all important 14th ammendment, and the long road from 1875's Civil Rights Act, which still today does not quite cover us all?? through today.

1929, The League of United Latin American Citizens formed to fight discrimination, segregation and abuse. The Japanese Civil Liberties League also forms for similar purposes to encompass Chinese Americans and other people of 'color' as well.

1954 which was quite a year with Hernandez v. Texas - the first Mexican American case which turned the tide in striking down discrimination based on ethnic and class distinctions, primarily between "white" and "Hispanic." 1954 you had the White Citizen's Council, proud anti-desegregationists. While also in 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated public schools.

The work of Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association in the 1960's. Finally the 1965 Voting Rights Act and The Age Discrimination Act of 1967.

What about that good old Equal Rights Amendment? Now reffered to as the Women's Equality Amendment (& Washington Post article) as of March 26, 2007 when it was reintroduced. The original was introduced in Congress in 1923, written by Alice Paul as:

Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It has never passed after 84 YEARS.

Now it says (since 1972 to today):

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

These simple 52 words are still not a law. Men, I'll go out on a limb and say Wealthy White Men in Political Power, some of them have all sorts of reasons to be afraid of this simple, logical consitutional right (of Women) and have argued against it for 84 years through today.

Yes, there are other protections that have been enacted, but not this blatantly basic one which should have been granted ideally in our initial Constitution, if not in 1923 or any year leading up to 1982 or right now in 2007. Right after the man gender kindly, after 42 years, decided to let the other woman gender - the one that bears the human babies that keep this race of strange animals going, simply have a vote. But hey, constitutionally Men and Women are not equal, it is not actually that simple of a matter. Who knows what might happen if they were! Horrors!

What if we then moved forward and said hey, no really, EVERY PERSON is actually equal no matter what !

How can we live in, as they say, 'This Day and Age,' and not believe that equality is a core societal value. A - I dare say, actually a deeply moral value.

The biological impulse that appears to drive so many people's righteous superiority/survival of the viciousist nature is a doomed one. So much like the often companion belief that we are not on the path of causing detrimental climate 'change.' Consume. Consume. Consume. And look after your own tail. And your own tail alone. And every once in a while take some actions to make sure no one catches up and has a chance at your pie in any way.

-----

Anyway...

Yippee! to Oregon for taking progressive action. It is about time. All of these steps make a difference.

I do love the diverse majority of progressively positive, kind, intelligent people here.

Attack of the Western Spotted Cucumber Beetles

2007-05-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

Western Spotted Cucumber Beetles have chosen to eat our spinach. We spotted them last night. They are a neon lime green color with black spots, an elongated ladybug shape. They are not our friends. I found and ended three of them who were under leaves. Neil went this morning and sprayed half with a lime/ash/water mix and half with a cayenne/garlic/water mix. We'll see if either helps stop them.

We have heard a lot about the devastation they can do, from 'aesthetic' munching of holes in greens to feeding on roots and spreading plant viruses. We are open to any and all thoughts on countering them. Here is a publication from ATTRA, the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, on all species of Cucumber Beetles. The photo is from their article. The beetles we have are much more neon lime green colored.

We have a lot to learn about pests, diseases and predators - the destroyers and the beneficial. Sharp curves ahead... We will be growing with entirely organic methods and as sustainably as we can, employing permaculture concepts as we grow.

It is time to make some well insulated BAT houses and employ all matters of bat seduction! Here are links to Bats Northwest and Bat Conservation International. Seducing the bats is a bit more long term, so in the meantime calling all beneficially parasitic nematodes...

Perennial Herb Patch: Day #6 + our first PGE Bill

2007-05-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, today was a pretty big day here for our Lil' Pump plots. We mixed the dolomite lime, feathermeal and greensand in one large bucket and Neil spread a measured amount on each bed. I followed him down every row with a cultivating fork. It is so much like confectioner's sugar on a brownie and then you make it crushed oreos, more on the chocolatey looking side... Then we planted our Red Clustering Sunflower seedlings and we direct sowed Marshmallow, Flax and Bronze Fennel. The greens you see are a vigilant row of Hakucho Edamame that was planted in March in Eugene when we didn't know we'd have anywhere to put it in the ground. So it is here in celebration! We've got four different varieties we are also planting at Biggie.

So, yes, so far those are annuals marauding in the perennial patch, but are for making concoctions and most are not interested in being transplanted. Neil also dug up another bed for his tasty Coffee Chicory project. They have tap roots and were very eager to go into the ground. We may plant our Cilantro/Coriander and the Epazote in the same area. We planted some other little patches of the red sunflowers, too. It rained towards the end of the day and we had another nice dusk rainbow in the east. Oh- and today when our mailman came by in his red pickup, he brought our first utility bill !! I get pretty excited to see that little pickup come rolling down the gravel road everyday with possible goodies, but who knew I could get so excited about paying for electricity? Well... it just was pretty neat to realize how much we've gotten done before ever getting our first bill here. It's exactly our 5th week here this Thursday night. (Happily the bill was pleasant since we've been very tiny in usage and lived the month without heat).

Perennial Herb Patch: Day #5 + Tools and Supplies

2007-05-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

Neil started very early in the morning dragging all the blackberry refuse from the bamboo area all back to where we have the cut up branches from starting our perennial patch. Potted up lots of the ultra early Stupice Tomatoes into 6" pots. Then he mixed all the compost and older potting soil we'd rounded up into perennial each bed. More bamboo was transplanted and the huge, amazing old grape vines were tied up on stakes to bring them out from the bamboo and the blackberries. The grape vine has also been discovered to be sunning itself on our bedroom roof. It did use the bamboo to climb to the roof and the blackberry is out, so it should have much better sunlight from the west this year. We have been told it produces delicious red seedless table grapes by the bushel full.

I went on a mission with a precise route I plotted with mapquest to Biggie greenhouse to water, Steve at Dos Sequoias to pick up our lime and feathermeal, the doctor, the social security office (replacement card), Home Depot for a gutter, misc and manure fork, Target for first aid things and baking items, 7 Dees Nursery for rooting hormone and innoculant and Trader Joe's - where I strategically priced out prices per pound on our staple items and bought a lot in serious quantities. I am getting good at quality, price per pound, shopping. We can't get to People's co-op very often and don't have our own stock pile of tomato sauce and other canned goods yet.. so we end up at Fred Meyer's, New Seasons... but we are working on a healthy economical pantry filled with more of our own things over time. Apparently not that many women shop in carhartt overalls and the cashiers seemed pretty entertained. One of them said she hadn't seen anyone in them since she came down from Kodiak and mentioned they seemed bulletproof.

They are sooo comfortable and handy.

In Target I had heard a woman on her cell phone talking about how Hawaii just hadn't seemed to be the right place and for now she was trying Oregon, but maybe it would be Seattle and that people said, that's so Scrubs and that she didn't watch tv. But I figured out she is a nurse and the Scrubs show based on nurses in Seattle.

Alaska, Hawaii. Another clerk had moved here from Arizona. It was just interesting to be out and absorbing people a bit, over hearing the context clues. Remembering, oh yeah, people go to and from these places because we are on the west coast. People in NY clearly go all over, but it's a very different context than here. Here it seems a lot of people are seeking out this Oregon climate over another that is maybe more severe - hotter, drier or colder and that this one is just right like goldilocks. I don't think that is any one's reason for living in NY. Yes please! sporadic temperatures, short spring, intense hot humid pollution summer and spiky odd winters. The climate is not the reason. People with money who can, flee in the summer. And other times of the year, you instead you live indoors. You have drinks in a climate controlled environment that is not your home, with whatever decor you can dream up, whatever food you can imagine. It is available. The world, inside, in a one small surface area. And if you are really deluxe, you go from home, to car service, to your indoor locations for shopping and eating. Climate is a consideration for travel and vacations.

I digress. I got home, the sun was setting, I had lots of supplies and Neil had really worked hard. I found him in the greenhouse and we looked over all our plants and then enjoyed a bit of the sun setting over the mountains before heading up. We really do love living here.

Farm Name

2007-05-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

In case you haven't read this at our old site, here's the story of our name...

We were originally excited to be REBEL FARM after we watched this awesome short animated film Grocery STORE WARS. It is hilarious and inspiring and we do believe in rebelling against the commercial-monoculture-factory farms that produce nearly all the food our country consumes.

But! Alas, as yankees who grew up in the midwest and otherwise occupied very liberal cities, we didn't understand that to many people, "Rebel" = "Confederate"

For example, calling ourselves 'The War Mongering Elephant Farm' might initially give people certain first impressions we're not aiming for...

With that thought in mind, we went back to a name we wanted to call ourselves last spring when we were possibly going to try something in France: 'Les Deux Anes' which means The Two Donkeys.
As we are, indeed, flamingly liberal and fond of donkeys. And since we're in the states we're going english and we've designed a neat '2' for the number.

It may be a long time before we are lucky enough to have an actual donkey as part of our family. We are your donkeys. Donkeys that farm. Very friendly, hard working ones, who work in a two person herd. We are excited to draw up our emblem and make drawings for tea packages and other products we'll be crafting this winter from our dried herbs and other produce. You will like : )

xox,
N + N

Big Day of Bed Prep at our 'Biggie' Farm Site

2007-04-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

Today we had an awesome time prepping beds over at what we've nicknamed our 'Biggie' farm site.
This site is on land owned by Scott and Robin Olsen. They are great people and really excited to have their land being used for agriculture. They just bought a fantastic New Holland tractor and have a 26 year old Yanmar, too. We worked with them, they both drove the tractors, loaded up with Nature's Needs and then Neil, Mishelle, Steve and I raked it out into piles and then evenly over the beds. It was so empowering to have 6 of us all working in sync. We spread dolomite lime over each row by hand. Then Scott came back in to do a final tilling of the beds. Very inspiring day!!!

(photos to be posted soon...)

Perennial Herb Patch: Day #4

2007-04-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

Monday: We were back at prepping the beds. It is an irregular patch, so we talked over how we thought we could get the most uniform sized beds out. Then Neil cut bamboo stakes so we could begin measuring and marking it out. We managed to get 10 nice 2' x 23' with 1' paths and a couple smaller beds towards the farm's 'tractor road'. Very exciting! I walked out all the strings, tying at one end, tossing the twine over and Neil would put measure, put in the stakes and tie them off. It worked really well. There is so much good fluffy soil, we couldn't stomp the paths down, so we are making raised beds. Digging topsoil from the paths to add to the beds. We are planting mainly perennials here and some flowers, so we really want to make these beds the best we can now as we won't be digging them up again next year like annual beds.

We love having the bamboo around to use as stakes, strong, lightweight and readily available. Neil transplanted some on Saturday to start curving it around from the driveway a bit. It is similar to blackberries in that it spreads. But it is very functional and doesn't try to hurt you... It is a great wind and sound block on the north side of our house.

We listened to Terry Gross with Bill Moyer's on Fresh Air for the last hour we were digging 7-8pm. It helped. My uncle John sent us a link about this Moyers' special - BUYING THE WAR - it sounds fascinating and makes us wish we had a small tv for PBS. Moyers is back weekly with his new show 'Bill Moyers Journal'. Hopefully we will be able to get it and other episodes through netflix this winter to watch on the computer.

Quite a bit more digging to be done, but the prep is really moving forward and it takes a long time for most of our perennial herb seeds to germinate, so we have time.

All Cleaned Up !

2007-04-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

We worked with Steve and Mishelle at Abundant Harvest from 8-2pm weeding the flower and herb beds to prep them for planting and also spread an amendment called Nature's Needs, that is made here in North Plains, on some of the vegetable beds to make way for another 5 cu. yard load to be brought.

Then we went over to check on and water our seedlings in the greenhouses. Got back home by 3pm and cleaned the house and ourselves to get ready for our second friend visit, Rachel + Matt.
We had a great night and it was her birthday eve..
Neil made delicious burritos and they brought chips and drinks - including a local wine made in Forest Grove, OR by David Hill called 'Farmhouse Red' - really sweet. They brought their mud boots, so we walked around the farm and into this really wild blackberry maze at the bottom. We have not made time for exploring, so it was really fun and nice to laugh so much, too.

Perennial Herb Patch: Day #3

2007-04-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

NEIL-Awesome!!!! was up pre-dawn and out digging up our big perennial patch, he spent all day outside working in the rain, moved the barn wood pile, set up storage along the barn-garage, transplanted bamboo + Naomi started digging up a 7' + 15'(?) plot along the east side of the house, also in the rain.. and pulled the dock and coltsfoot weeds from the front garden. We had tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch. Neil is a super power. Naomi seeded strawberries + tomatillos and took down to greenhouse.

Rainbow at sunset.

Friday CSA Deliveries

2007-04-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

We try to take it easy before the delivery route. They are usually ready for us between noon and 1pm. It's a long demanding day which we respect. Neil did work on the perennial patch a bit in the morning, but we mainly got ready for our first Friday doing the route alone. It was a wonderfully sunny and warm all day, clear blue skies. Perfect since this is the really curvy, winding roads up and down day. I drove and Neil navigated and ran the baskets. I do love driving the truck. It's quite an upper body strengthener as we do so many stops and sooooooo many turns and curves and up hills and down windy hills. It is a big rig sized wheel and you are the power for the steering... Someday we'll graduate to being able to do the route individually, but definitely not until later this summer as we'll have a whole new route to learn when the new season starts in June. Then we'll have that same season for the coming year.

I managed to quickly snap some photos of how beautiful spring is here when we were stopped.

Major Seeding Day

2007-04-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

There will be no knitting activity until deep winter. In the meantime, wooden knitting needles make great seeders! If a hole is needed, it is easy to poke the correct depth. Hardly any seeds we're planting go deeper than a 1/4" and some rest on top... Then you wet the tip of the needle and you can pick up one to as many seeds as needed per plug and when they touch the damp soil, they release and voila! Seeding requires a lot of our concentration and not talking to each other as we are counting in our heads and trying to keep track of dark brown specks of seed that are the same color as the dark brown soil mix...

The Wrath of the Blackberry Vines / Perennial Herb Patch: Day #1

2007-04-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

First I must say how thankful I am to be dealing with real blackberries. Not the kind that mean you have a serious office job and must be in constant contact with bosses, clients, co-workers even when you are nowhere near a computer.

But the kind that bear succulent fruit. The kind that we've paid a lot of money to occasionally treat ourselves to a small pint of out east. The kind that prior to Oregon, we would never have imagined hacking to death with a vengeance.

But hack to death we have.

The blackberries are ready for us. They see us coming and they are prepared.

So are we, we say, shrugging it off. We've got long sleeves, long pants, serious boots, snips and a feverish desire to make way for some perennial beds.

The berries laugh. Have you seen what we can do? Cut us all you want they say. Thorns like the sharpest cats claws, curving, catch and hang when you excitedly take a glove off to salvage some moss... They wait and get you when they can. They are amazing. They hoard things that are not picked up in time. Archaeological digs is what Neil called it to Polly and James. We find their past projects and often that involves a lot of pots. The blackberry vines grow through that rich potting soil and make a sharp V growing back up and out, which ensnares the pot. They shoot roots out right there to anchor the pots or other bounty down and leaf forward. Their roots are little leaves of what they will become.

I tried to honor them.

I talked highly of them while we hacked and piled their stems up for long term composting.

I took photos in awe of them.

And earlier than Neil, I called it a day. It's addictive work, but I knew we had planned a good deal of indoors night work and that would need leftover energy. The sun was about to set. We were also set to work with Steve for the first time at 7am on Sunday, transplanting tomatoes and other seedlings.

We had cleared the bulk of the patch we want to till up and start planting in. We had created a lush pile of potting soil from emptying all the pots we found and we had, for the most part, unearthed a handy 3 part compost structure.

It was still so nice out though and Neil kept hacking. I thought, maybe I'll stay out a little longer, too, see if there's an odds and ends bit to do and then straighten up with Neil when he's done. So I ended up on the other side of our large northern bamboo thicket. I moved some broken pieces in out of the drive, accessing what we could cut, where we might want to transplant from. I was about to round the corner back towards Neil and was pushing in some broken bamboo, noticing some old blackberry vines. Hard, dry and sharp thorns, thinking about cutting them out another day.

I don't know how it actually happened, just that as it was, I felt an intense stupidity and then a freakish pain.

A vine took it's retribution. And thorned me in my right eyeball.

So fast, my eye was wide open. Wrestling bamboo, with spring-loaded thorn-vines mixed in at eye level - incredibly unwise. Dusk was a contributing factor.

Lesson of the Day: Respect the Blackberry Vines. Understand they are prepared for you + spring-loaded with thorns that are like having a cat claw you directly in the eye. Wear EYE PROTECTION.

*****as a footnote: Neil wanted to go to the hospital. I resisted as we don't have insurance and thought I could keep it closed and sleep it out. I did flush immediately, lots of watering, I iced it on and off and founds pressure points to help it water more. Then had a fitful 15 hours of laying down and trying to stay peaceful, it hurt sharply a number of times, but by 11am seemed to be fuzzy and not sharp and here I am. Grateful and a mistake wiser...*****

Peppers, Egglpant, Broccoli, Cabbage and Tomatoes, Oh My!

2007-04-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

Polly gave us a great surprise gift of seedlings today that were ready to be potted up or directly planted. It was great to talk with her, too. We went over what areas we can use around our house and which trees they planted and learned a bit more history of the house. She's going to find their photo album from when they lived here and Seth who is now 17, was 1.

We set up on our work table outside and filled up lots of 4" pots, went through to choose the hardiest seedlings and snipped the rest. The transplanting went great. The weather was sunny and mild. We used the volvo as a staging spot, the black roof and hood were quite toasty.. and then loaded each completed tray in as we finished. When we were done we drove over to the greenhouses at Scott + Robin's.

They were home and it was the first time we'd seen them since coming back. Robin gave us a solid greenhouse operating demo and showed us all the Lemon Balm, thousands of volunteer plants we can transplant and use. Also a Cuban Oregano plant and succulents she's happy to have us take cuttings and make use of.

As soon as we got back home, we went to town on the area Polly said we could use. More on the blackberry clearing adventure tomorrow, back to work for now.

Portland Area Farm Visits

2007-02-21T13:23:00.000-08:00

Heading back up to Portland on Friday to talk more with some of the neat farmers we met on Saturday in Corvallis. We are visiting Shari's Dancing Roots Farm, Katie and Casey of Oakhill Organics and Steve and Mish of Abundant Harvest. We are also meeting with a man who owns a farm in the Northwest hills of Portland and is looking for organic farmers to use it as a growing site.

We will also get to see some of the Icelandic Horse ladies at our friend Rachel's and visit with our dear friend Anna while we're in town.

to all the roaming cats of oregon

2007-02-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

we must confess...
part of us is.. always on the look out for cats. our cat is happily with Mamo until we're ready for him, but it is so sad to be without him right now. and everywhere here - there are cats. cats on porches, just behind fences, prowling down the block. and there are cats that come running to us. cats that tumble down and nuzzle the ground a few times on their way over to us. cats that meow back to us. we are in love with all of the cats. we crouch down, put a cat nose finger out, speak meow and hope they'll come over. we worry this may make us a bit pathetic. yet... no dent is made in our indulgence of cat spottings and affection. time stops and some unique balance takes over.

we do appreciate the wise sages who look with curiousity at the humans excitedly taking notice and attempting to speak cat with them, but stay firmly rooted on their porch or lawn. we don't try to lure them. it is unlikely we would let Jeff roam free... and why tempt cats who are living so responsibly.

last night we decided that we would stay on for another month at the hostel apartment through march. it was a complicated decision and a relief to settle. we are trying to have a sense of stability while also trying to stay flexible to other possibilities. bittersweet. extremely and rewarding and challenging in the same moments - to try to take this time to choose how we would like to live our lives and gaining strength in being open (versus any umm.. panic at not taking the 'safe' reliable path).

so, while working last night, there was suddenly something in the window. we are on the second floor. my heart jumped up in my throat. then we processed. through the foggy window was a cat, all the way up on our window ledge. we opened the window so she could come in. she did and purred loudly the whole time. we were in heaven. lots of petting and nuzzling, then she toured our room, lots of sniffing. very soft and well behaved. we recognized her as one we see outside. i actually relocated her a couple mornings ago, she seemed to have come out from under the old volvo early the morning of the Small Farms conference.

we take this unique cat visitation as a good sign. we also just opened my make shift curtain, realizing that if she were to.. umm... come back again... how would we know if the curtain is closed?!... we're home! come over! any time! animal withdrawl!

simple happiness from fuzzy animals : )

Small Farms Conference at OSU in Corvallis

2007-02-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

* 7th Annual Small Farms & Farm Direct Marketing Conference *

This conference was excellent. These are the sessions we attended:

1) What to Eat: Personal Responsibility vs. Social Responsibility - Dr. Marion Nestle (NM+NW)

2) Novel Crops for Niche Marketing - Panel of four experts from very different fields (NW)

3) Farm to Cafeteria: How Small Farms Can Sell to Big Institutions - Reps from OSU, OHSU, Bon Apetit and Dave from Egor's Acres (NM)

4) Farmer's Markets: Finding Your Best Fit - A panel of market managers (NW)
Women & Small Farms: Exploring an Oregon Women's Agriculture Network - led by two extension agents, Melissa Matthewson and Melissa Ferry. With talks by Linda Moist from Pennsylvania's Women's Ag Network and Nicole Strong from Oregon's Women Owning Woodlands Network (NM)

5) Soil Fertility Management - Dan Sullivan, OSU Extension Soil Scientist (NW)

6) Explore Divers Direct Marketing Opportunities - Shari from Dancing Roots Farm, David Hoyle from Creative Growers and a woman who runs a serious blueberry farm (NM)

7) Five Things You Should Know About Your Customer - Lucy Norris, a researcher with the Hartman Group (NM+NW)

OSU's Small Farms program has also started Oregon Small Farm News, a free online publication.
The image at the top is their 1st issue, available now. We love the resources on the Small Farms site!

Isfaxa Farm : Icelandic Sheep & Horses

2007-01-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

We got to visit Bonnie and Peder's Isfaxa Farm
They are in Woodland, WA and all animals Icelandic; sheep, horses, dogs and someday chickens. They know all of their herd by name and they have a BIG herd, all very friendly animals.

This is a photo of Floja happy in the snow and to the right is their horse Baldur with a goat and I am not sure that the high level of cuteness on this inter species mingling is legal...

I am a born vegetarian, but Bonnie and Peder have a waiting list for their lamb meat - so it is apparently very desirable, contact them if you are interested. Bonnie also sells beautiful fleece and wool, which I would like to get into in the future when we are able to have livestock. They do not milk their sheep, but Neil is especially interested in doing that and crafting cheeses and yogurts.

We hope to visit them again during lambing in mid March!

Whiteaker Pirate Neighborhood in Eugene, OR

2007-01-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

Neil's last name - "Whitacre" and the neighborhood have the same pronunciation. There are little black flags with the word "Whiteaker" and a skull framed by bones and a sword underneath, in windows, on porches it's like a secret pirate club neighborhood. Neil likes pirates... maybe I do to. It's an interesting place. We'll take photos. Yellow DAFFODILS are already blooming! There are eccentric porches and very colorful homes here. Feels a bit like New Orleans.

So with a 5 week lease to start, we are finally in Eugene to explore this area. Managed by a nice man named Mac, we are pioneering what was the men's dorm. We picked it because it has a big south facing window, top floor, it's own bathroom and kitchen. When we got in, we took a part the bunks and set it up so we could have a sunny office/bedroom.

Later this spring, this will become bunkland again, but for now the privacy and ability to get busy with all of our research and planning, is excellent. And hopefully by April we will have a lot more figured out. One foot in front of the other.

Happy Landing Tavern

2007-01-11T22:02:00.000-08:00

PORTLAND, OREGON --- The week of January 7th, 2007

Okay! We flew from Milwaukee to Portland and got in very late. Our friend Anna had left her keys in hidden spot and cute notes. The adventure begins! ...well on Monday we go for a hike around what -for a golf course- was pretty, huge trees and park paths. We leave a happy message for the farm couple and are feeling great. We thought we should limit the time in the tipi and go down on Thursday, meet them, make sure everything is good for all of us and then come back a few days before they leave. Seems wiser even without bringing Jeff.

Well, later on Monday afternoon we got to check our email. There was a disturbing email from the wife of the farm we were going to take care of. It really set us back. It had been sent on Sunday, the day we were flying out. We've been communicating since August... It took us a few days and a lot of talking and we realized it would not be a healthy situation for us, along with the fact that we had already moved our arrival back a month for them and they admitted they still did not know when or if(?) they would leave.

We are extremely grateful for our kind friends in Portland who sheltered us while we re-grouped and worked on a new plan. Thank you Anna and thank you Jess + Michael.

Happy Landing Tavern in Gresham, OR

Jeff and Kennie Pepper

2007-01-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

Jeff is 6 years and Kennie Pepper is 6 months. They love each other. Jeff is much more mellow, Kennie is FULL of pepper energy. They snuggle, they have stealth wrestling events, they are painfully cute on their own, but together it is almost too much.

Mamo got Jeff a really nifty soft sherpa case to fly in. He got familiar during a few trips to Muscatine, IA to visit Neil's parents. We take Jeff everywhere. He came on our 5 week road trip from NY to OR and camped with us. I can't imagine not having him, but Neil and my mom have made a serious case for leaving him with her in Milwaukee until we are ready. I got really teary, but I know it is best for him. He's got all his favorite spots in her little home and he and Kennie do love each other. And the caretaking that we thought was so firmly set up, doesn't seem to be going how we'd thought. A tipi no one has ever lived in the winter, that is not set up, that was not used out here by the Native Americans - for an unknown length of time...

Non-fiction Books

2006-12-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

This is our ongoing reading list, continually in progress and open to recommendations! We have not read all of them yet... any thoughts on ones you have read or are pining to would be great. It's so nice to talk about books.

ADVENTURE

Atchafalaya Houseboat: My Years in the Louisiana Swamp - Gwen Roland
The Bull Fighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People - Susan Orlean
Cross Country - Robert Sullivan
Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy Bradley, America's First Martyr to Environmentalism - Stuart B. McIver
Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
The Legacy of Luna - Julia Butterfly Hill
The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession - Susan Orlean
My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere - Susan Orlean
Rowing to Latitude: Journey's Along the Arctic's Edge - Jill Fredston
Search for the Golden Moon Bear: Science and Adventure in Southeast Asia - Sy Montgomery
Small Places - Thomas H. Rawls
Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches - Jill Fredston
The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise - Michael Grunwald
The Tapir's Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest - Elizabteh Royte
This Cold Heaven - Gretel Ehrlich
Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer
A Whale Hunt - Robert Sullivan

COB + HOME

Building with Cob : a step-by-step guide - Adam Weismann Katy Bryce
The Hand-Sculpted House - Evans, Smiley and Smith of The Cob Cottage Co.
Home Work - Lloyd Kahn
Shelter - Lloyd Kahn
The Cob Builders Handbook - Becky Bee
Rocket Mass Heaters - Ianto and Jackson

COMPOST

Composting Toilet System Book: A Practical Guide to Choosing, Planning and Maintaining Composting Toilet Systems - David Del Porto Carol Steinfeld
Create an Oasis With Greywater: Your Complete Guide to Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systems - Art Ludwig
Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator: Edible Essays on City Farming - Spring Gillard
The Humanure Handbook - Joseph Jenkins
Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants - Carol Steinfeld
Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling - Carol Steinfeld David Del Porto
Worms Eat My Garbage - Mary Appelhof

EQUALITY

The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family - Dan Savage
Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage - Stephanie Coontz
Thinking in Pictures - Temple Grandin
The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap - Stephanie Coontz
The Way We Really Are: Ending the War Over America's Changing Families - Stephanie Coontz
Why Marriage?: The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality - George Chauncey

FOOD + OTHER ANIMALS

Animals in Translation - Temple Grandin
The Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal - Eric Schlosser
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - Michael Pollan
Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey. The Sweet Liquid Gold That Seduced the World - Holley Bishop

GOVERNMENTS

An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire - Arundhati Roy
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq - George Packer
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream - Barak Obama
The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile - Conversations with Arundhati Roy, Interviews by David Barsamian
The End of Nature and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future - Bill McKibben
50 Simple Things You Can Do to Fight the Right - Earthworks Group
50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change - MoveOn.org
Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right - Robin Morgan
Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 - Joan Didion
How the Republicans Stole Christmas: The Republican Party's Declared Monopoly on Religion and What Democrats Can Do to Take It Back - Bill Press
The Prince - Machiavelli
Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken
9-11 - Noam Chomsky
Reefer Madness - Eric Schlosser
The Truth - Al Franken
Welcome to Doomsday - Bill Moyers

HOMESTEAD

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology - Eric Brende
Continuing the Good Life: Half a Century of Homesteading - Helen Scott Nearing
Country Wisdom Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land - Editors of Storey Books
The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book - Carla Emery
Foxfire Series
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture - Toby Hemenway & John Todd
Good Dirt - flower couple
The Good, Good Pig - Sy Montgomery
The Greenhouse Gardener - Anne Swithinbank
Growing Herbs: For the Maritime Northwest Gardener - Mary Preus
Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Natural Gardening - Steve Solomon (Territorial Seed Co.)
Herbal tea gardens : 22 plans for your enjoyment well-being / Marietta Marshall Marcin
Herbs for sale : growing and marketing herbs, herbal products, and herbal know-how / Lee Sturdivant
Homesteading Adventures: A Guide for Doers and Dreamers - Sue Robishaw
Introduction to Permaculture - Bill Mollison
Lasagna Gardening - Patricia Lanza
Living the Good Life - Helen Scott Nearing
New book of herbs - Jekka McVicar
The New Organic Grower - Elliot Coleman
The Next Whole Earth Catalog
Permaculture: A Designers' Manual - Bill Mollison
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability - David Holmgren
Rainwater Catchment Systems for Domestic Supply: Design, Construction and Implementation - Erik Nissen-Petersen
Second Nature - Michael Pollan
Water-Wise Vegetables: For the Maritime Northwest Gardener - Steve Solomon
Wise words for the good life : [a homesteader's personal collection] - Helen Nearing
You Grow Girl - Gayla Trail

POLLUTION by HUMANS

Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots - Alanna Mitchell
Effects of Air Pollution & Acid Rain on Fish Wildlife Their Habitats Lakes - US Dept Interior
Fresh Air for Life: How to Win Your Unseen War Against Indoor Air Pollution - Allan C. Somersall
The Future of Ice - Gretel Ehrlich ! (Greenland to Argentina)
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash - Elizabeth Royte
Gasp!: The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air - Joe Sherman
The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures at the Edge of a City - Robert Sullivan
The Particulate Air Pollution Controversy, a Case Study and Lessons Learned - Robert F. Phalen
Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird - Andrew D. Blechman
Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants - Robert Sullivan
The Silent Killers: Indoor Air Pollution - Pete Billac
Smoke and Mirrors: The Politics and Culture of Air Pollution - E. Melanie Depuis
Toxic Air Pollution Handbook - David R. Patrick
Washed Up: The Curious Journeys of Flotsam + Jetsam - Skye Moody
Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash - Susan Strasser

RATIONALITY

Atheism: The Case Against God - George H. Smith
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon - Daniel C. Dennett
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason - Sam Harris
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - Charles Mackay
Freethinkers: A history of American Secularism - Susan Jacoby
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
God, the Devil and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory - Niall Shanks
Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings - Marcus Borg, Jack Cornfield, Ray Riegert
Jesus Rode a Donkey - Linda Seger
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism - Michelle Goldberg
Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why - Bart D. Ehrman
Why Christianity Must Change or Die - Bishop John Selby Spong

SOCIAL + SCIENCE

Are Men Necessary? - Maureen Dowd
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism - Daniel Harris
Freakanomics
Keep Your Brain Alive
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America - Barbara Ehrenreich
The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less - Barry Schwartz
Saturday Night - Susan Orlean
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife - Mary Roach
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

To Neil's home town paper: The Muscatine Journal

2006-12-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

(written and published in December 2006 - this provoked a lot of online and family debate)

We tried leaning on Iraq pretty hard.
We went over there with enthusiastic young people and vague
marching orders, but with no knowledge of the culture and no
grasp of the language.

The phrase "know your enemy" should apply in 2 ways.
One: to know the customs and motives.
Two: to actually know who it is you are fighting.

Sadly, we seemed ignorant in both areas.

This is of course assuming that it was even noble to enter Iraq
in the first place. A small smattering of paid-off buffoons in the
Bush gang got us deep into this mess. Now, as Keith Olbermann
of MSNBC asserts, they should finally "pull over to ask for directions".
Annoyingly it seems consulting the Iraq Study Group was just a
surface fake. This gang of completely inept chickenhawks will
likely continue its assault on sound reason.

Is it that after 5 years of tragic bumbles in every area they suddenly
took genius pills or received an ethical morality injection and will
decide to listen to the Iraq Study Group ? These Study Group fellas
barely fall outside Bush's small insular circle anyway.
Not likely we'll see any profound change.
I expect more hiding, lies, and evasive no-content answers from
all the Oil Warriors in that short list of first string failures we elected.

Unlike the Iraqis under Saddam WE actually have the tools to remove
this despotic Corporo-Government of ours. The NeoCon and Halliburton
cartel built a decent little 8 year empire with nepotism and Daddy's
name. But all it may take is a little more blowback to get the ball
rolling back in the right direction.

It seems it already is.

by Neil Whitacre

Documentaries

2006-11-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

This is our ongoing documentary list, continually in progress and happily open to suggestions. Many of these films are available from Netflix and also in parts on youtube.com, which is turning out to be an amazing source of getting documentaries out to the public. Frontline has a similar way of watching full report episodes in parts on their website - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/

Rural Route Films - www.ruralroutefilms.com/home.htm - we highly recommend seeing this festival if it is anywhere near you and finding the films they screen wherever you can.

Rooftop Films - www.rooftopfilms.com - they were in our building in Brooklyn, NY and screened on the roof and many other locations. They are a great source for all kinds of very unique films.

We hope you enjoy the list!

HAVE SEEN:

A Class Divided - Frontline: teacher Jane Elliot, in small town Iowa 1968, lesson on discrimination - brown eyes vs. blue eyes
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer - Nick Broomfield, an amazing after story to the real woman 'Monster' is based on
American Job - Randy Russel + Chris Smith (docu-drama... made by good friends of ours, Randy is a great writer, actor + artist)
American Movie - Sarah Price + Chris Smith (Sarah is another very talented friend we are big fans of, she has more films below and coming out)
An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore
The Big One - Michael Moore
Born Into Brothels
Bowling for Columbine - Michael Moore
Bush's Brain - about Karl Rove
Butterfly - about Julia Butterfly Hill
Caesar's Park - by Sarah Price
Control Room - about Al Jazeera News - extremely unsettling and very thought provoking!
The Corporation - a must see film !
The Education of Shelby Knox - young christian girl in Texas, debates sex education with entire town
The End of Suburbia
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Errol Morris' First Person: The Complete Series - features Temple Grandin
The Eyes of Tammy Faye - surprisingly very touching, Naomi cried...
Fahrenheit 9/11 - Michael Moore, we got to see this in a super diverse, packed audience in Brooklyn that was very vocal
'Grey Gardens
The Ground Truth - Iraq Veterans, watched at a moveon.org screening
Grizzly Man - Herzog + the tragic footage of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard
Hell House - wow. please watch this, especially if you haven't heard of Christian Haunted Houses
History of Disbelief - Jonathan Miller
Home Movie - Chris Smith
Horns & Halos - about the Bush biography 'Fortunate Son' - www.hornsandhalos.com
How's Your News
Kon-Tiki - 1950 raft expedition by Norwegian explorer
Kurt + Courtney - by Nick Broomfield, (who is so good), back story to sad, suspect outcome
Mad Hot Ballroom
The Natural History of the Chicken - PBS, charming
Occupation: Dreamland - Garret Scott, co-director who we had the joy to meet, he has since passed away. the film is excellent!
Okie Noodling - fishing with bare hands in Oklahoma, by Bradley Beesley (also see Summer Camp)
Our Daily Bread - elegantly paced, eery, clean depiction of factory farming and livestock in Europe - very important film http://www.ourdailybread.at/jart/projects/utb/website.jart?rel=en&content-id=1130864824947
Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times
Reel Paradise - John Pierson accidentally making fun of himself and his family for two hours? set on the island of Fiji...
Rize - dance movement with roots in clowning, break dancing and an alternative to gangs. inspiring.
Roger & Me - Michael Moore
Search for a Safe Cigarette: Nova
Searching for Angela Shelton - sexual abuse
Spellbound
Stevie - by director of Ho0p Dreams
Suffering and Smiling - Femi Kuti, by Dan Ollman (another friend we are a big fan of, this is his first solo documentary)
Summercamp! - by Sarah Price + Brasley Beesley
This is Our Slaughterhouse - Matthew Boerman, 2003 filmmakers family business, which he worked at 11 years from age 10
Truth, War & Consequences - Frontline - similar doc as 'Uncovered: The Whole Truth..' (below) but even better
Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
The Universe Within: Nova
The Up Series - every 7 years, following kids through adult hood in England
The Virus of Faith - Richard Dawkins
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price - sad and important to watch
The War Room
The Weather Underground - anger over Vietnam and racism, violent protest - Sam Green
When the Levees Broke - about the levee failure during Hurricane Katrina, by Spike Lee + Sam Pollard - very good!
The White Diamond - by Herzog
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
Word Wars - about Scrabble
Who Killed the Electric Car? - this will make you mad, in a good way, but mad at our government
The Yes Men - by Sarah Price, Chris Smith and Dan Ollman

TO SEE:

Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony - apartheid, South Africa
American Dream - Hormel strike, air traffic controller's union
The Agronomist - Haiti human rights activist Jean Dominique
Biggie & Tupac
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
Born Rich
The Brandon Teena Story
The Bridge - San Francisco
Brooklyn Bridge: Ken Burns' America
Bukowski: Born Into This
Burden of Dreams - doc about Herzog
Bus 174 - brazil hijacking
Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Bush Family Values - we've heard to watch this first, followed by 'The Party's Over'
Children Underground
Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed - Shirley's run for president
Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy: (3-Disc Series)
Cowboy del Amor - Cupid
The Creek Runs Red - hazardous environmental pollution plaguing Picher, OK, by Bradley Beesley (Okie + Summer Camp)
The Cult of the Suicide Bomber
Dark Days - NY underground rail tunnel people
Deadline - death row
Death in Gaza
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
The Dream of Sparrows: Iraq Eye Group: Vol. 1, 2005
e-Dreams - Dot com frenzy
Elegy: The Life and Work of Breece D'J Pancake - about the author, we'd love to see this, 2003, 10 min, Jason Freeman
Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero: Frontline
The Farmer's Wife: 2 discs
Farmingville: POV
Fata Morgana - Herzog, Sahara Desert
The Fearless Freaks - about the Flaming Lips, by Bradley Beesley
Fire Wars: Nova
Florilegium: The Flowering of the Pacific
4 Little Girls - Spike Lee
Full Frame: Documentary Shorts: Vol. 1 - 3
Gates of Heaven - pets, Errol Morris
Ghosts of Rwanda: Frontline
Gitmo: The New Rules of War - Guantanamo
Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner... - Herzog, three docs
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
Gunner's Palace - Iraq soldier film made at same time as 'Occupation Dreamland' not sure how we haven't seen this yet..
Harlan County, U.S.A. - coal miner's strike
Heir to an Execution - rosenberg, communism
Home of the Brave - Viola Liuzzo, civil rights activist murdered
How to Draw a Bunny
Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral
Hurricane!: Nova
Incident at Oglala - FBI + Native American
Is Wal-Mart Good for America?: Frontline
Jesus Camp - featuring Ted Haggard in prime condition... we've seen clips on youtube
The Jesus Factor: Frontline - on George W. Bust and Christianity
Jupiter's Wife - NY homeless woman
Kinsey: American Experience - PBS
Land of Silence and Darkness - Herzog, blind, deaf woman
Lessons of Darkness
The Meaning of Food
The Merchants of Cool: Frontline
Mr. Death: Fred A. Leuchter Jr.
Nanook of the North
New York: Episodes 1 - 8
Newton's Dark Secrets: Nova
Noam Chomsky: Distorted Morality
Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause
Paragraph 175 - Nazi homosexual 'eradication'
The Party's Over - we've heard to watch this right after watching 'Bush Family Values'
The Persuaders: Frontline - Advertising
Protocols of Zion - people who believe Jews responsible for Trade Center
The Road to Guantanamo
Rivers and Tides
Searching for Debra Winger - actresses over 40
The Secret Life of the Brain: Disc 1 - 3
The Shape of the Future - Israel, Palestine
Sicko - Michael Moore, release 2007, health care
Slacker, Slacker - Michael Moore
Slasher - Auto Sales
Sound and Fury - deaf children and cochlear implants
Southern Comfort - transsexual ovarian cancer
The Story of the Weeping Camel - Mongolian Camel Mama
Style Wars - PBS, NYC graffiti
30 Days
THIN
Triumph of the Nerds - Silicon Valley
Triumph of the Will - Hitler propaganda 1934
The True Meaning of Pictures - Appalachia
Tupperware!: American Experience
Tying the Knot
Typhoid Mary
Unconstitutional - Patriotic Act
Unprecedented
Unzipped - Fashion
The U.S. vs. John Lennon
V-Day: Until the Violence Stops
Voices of Iraq
Waco: The Rules of Engagement
Wheel of Time - Herzog, buddhist pilgrimmage
When We Were Kings
Why We Fight - war doc, filmed during Iraq
Wisconsin Death Trip
With God On Our Side - relationships of Evangelicals and Republicans from 1960's Nixon and Billy Graham throught to GWB's buddies
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
The Work of Director Michel Gondry

.:. Winterhorse Park .:. Icelandic Horse Farm

2006-10-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

Mamo and I before our first ride at Winterhorse together.
With my favorite horse there, Vinur, before a trail ride in Kettle Moraine Forest in Wisconsin.

Officially moving from Brooklyn on Sunday October 1st, 2006

2006-10-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

With Jeff here, we're all loaded up and ready to hit the road.
We are eternally thankful to Gail M. + Eric M. who came to help
us early in the morning with fresh Margaret Palca muffins.
They kept us sane, freed the claw foot tub and helped make it all fit.
Got to say goodbye to Sidney, Joey, Justine and to Lucy who was
moving from the Can Factory the same morning. As Justine said,
"The time of the elves is ending." We had a great sunny brunch
we G + E outside up on 5th Avenue (no time for a final co-op trip..)
and then headed out over the Manhattan Bridge, through the
Lower East Side, out the Holland Tunnel and through the stink and
polluto puffs of New Jersey for the last time!

Bye-bye Concreteland !

Mamo Von Fuzz Bear (a.k.a. mother of Naomi)

2006-09-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

The fuzz was freed from a very dark long term situation this September
with the help of the energy-filled Mamo Liberation team. Here she is
free and glowing.

The Old American Can Factory + the five year lease

2006-05-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

I was invited to move to Brooklyn in September of 2001 to have a five year lease on a huge studio space.

It was lined up the weekend before the - I can't figure out how to write about that. I don't like the numbers nickname. I called it the day the world blew up. Maybe that is a limited view, but those explosions did seem to start the downward political movements that have not stopped.

I had just gotten back from a summer film job in NYC. I'd spent a lot of time downtown, because I'd stay at the production designer's apartment in Greenwich Village. Our schedule was so intense and filled with people that I often ran downtown late at night because it was - for that city - very clean, still, quiet and safe. There were no people at night and I could run all the tension and density out. I liked those tall buildings then. They oriented where south was, since most of the time you'd be north of them. And there mass and at night- just dark, absorbing, massive past real comprehension.

The day of the planes I had to work on a Dremel Tool commercial in a suburb of Milwaukee. It was sunny and surreal and I felt ill. Everyone was slightly quieter but just went about silly commercial crap. But I guess I don't know how you take a time out in this world.

How you take time to be scared or sad.
You don't. You work.
You move the economy forward.

I didn't feel scared about moving, maybe at the time it deepened the connection somehow. I worked hard to save up as much as I could and then cut it - it's hard to stop working when you're making money in one spot and have nothing lined up in the next.

It was the third week in October, I drove a truck out with a new furry friend, an ex-street tough named Meow Meow, who'd been roaming my neighborhood meowing alot and looking for love... right before I moved.

2,000 sq' of space all to myself at first. Not sure exactly how I patched it together in the beginning. I worked some film jobs and as a prop shop, making things for film. Then built out to studio spaces to rent as art studios.

This is too step-by-step explanatory.

I moved to this big space in this big borough of a big five part city.
A city I loved visiting, going to see and adventure everywhere I could.
I felt tough and thrilled. I thought, if I was a writer, I could move here.
I could have a tiny little apartment and live off of the people and the
energy and write.

I don't think I really thought about nature as an entity to have or not have back then. I just thought - space.

If you want any of it - do not move to New York City.

And then I was offered this BIG space

And I needed to move away from the situation I was in. This was the magic rabbit hole. How could I not move? There are those moments that feel like fate and you look around to see if there is a more logical or more comfortable path to take and seem to find none and so you jump in. (not anymore, but...)

Neil came aboard my makeshift pirate raft in the can factory in 2003 and let me know my cat's name was really Jeff. Jeff? I resisted. Firmly. But it was true.

Jumping forward in time for now... we need to get away (peel ourselves away) from this dense city. This incredibly unsustainable economy, layering of humans and all possible matters of profound pollution that are not even acknowledged here by the majority who own million dollars apartments and want nothing of it.

You can have all the money you want, you can drink fancy water shipped from other countries, insulate yourself in wealth, filter the air in your private apartment big or miniscule and take nothing but car services for daily travel, but you are ALL breathing the same air. When you step out side. And you must. And oddly, in all the inumerable posh restaurants and even in Bergdorf's, they are still not pumping in air from the Green Mountains of Vermont, straight to you. You cannot buy that. Rich or poor, you cannot buy healthy air in New York City.

And there is no move towards planting on all possible rooftops and surfaces. It is of this moment and for this moment and when it crumbles, hopefully you have enough money to jet away in time.

At the same time there are brilliant people here, driven, fascinating humans of any type you can imagine to meet. Of every background, ethnicity, belief systems, income. In that human sense, there is nothing else like it and that humanity is amazing.

For us we need out of here and have only stayed this long to save for our future. To breathe clean air, hike, animals, garden or farm, build our own little cob house, a root cellar, hold the reins on our own modest economy.

To live sensibly with an understanding that really we are just animals. Perspective.

Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania Farmhouse

2005-11-29T15:50:00.000-08:00

We woke up at 6am to make our apple and pumpkin pies (the early shift so the rest of our friends could sleep in a bit and cook later) and it had snowed overnight and transformed the fields and woods into this still, beautiful, snowy land. Very fun baking and eating while snugged away in PA in a wonderfully creaky old house with friends...

1997

1997-01-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

we met in art school in 1997 and have been friends ever since. it took us six years to realize we might really appreciate and love each other.

we were both intense artists at the time, spent all the money we earned working to make sculptures and installations. in milwaukee, wisconsin. we shared a drive and a belief it was possible to have a career as artists. now sometimes we kick ourselves a bit for not pursuing original interests in science, philosophy, social and psychological studies... but it is part of who we are and we've each learned a lot.

our current passion to live and farm as sustainably as we can and to continue research, reading, writing and crafting - to live what we believe in - deepens our bond.

critters for life.

- drawing by Neil Whitacre, 2003 (made in the Everglades and I swear I have just come in to ask Neil what he'd like for breakfast and am discovering that a Hammerhead Shark came for revenge)