24 Friday Apr 2015
Posted in Writing
{In celebration of National Poetry Month, I’ll be posting a poem each weekday through the rest of April, and I invite you to join me! Leave a link to your poem of the day in the comments section below.}
11 Saturday Apr 2015
Every year the transition to the farming season slows down my blogging. Outside, the earth is trying to thaw even as snow sloshes down every few days. Each time I walk to the greenhouse I hear water running in streams beneath the snow, and I linger to hear the flow gurgling under my feet, promising thaw despite the low-pressure cold fronts that persist.
Sun is coming our way, though, and inside the greenhouse we are seeding, watering, up-potting. Waylon has his own spot in the greenhouse, cuddled with the dogs on the camping pad that Edge has been sleeping on these past few weeks so he can stoke the wood stove fire through the night. Of course, Waylon toddles all around the gravel floor, making games of putting rocks into yogurt cups and pouring water from one bucket to another as we seed.
The greenhouse is a place of growth for all of us, seeds, toddler, mama and papa: family.
14 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Nature/Environment
Tags
{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. {a tradition from SouleMama}
05 Tuesday Aug 2014
Posted in Farming
Today is the first day in over two years that we’ve woken up without sheep in the pasture. I still remember the excitement of bringing them home on the 4th of July: the sunny drive to Starkhollow Farm in Huntington, where we loaded two ewes and four lambs into the pickup truck; dodging independence day parades on the way home; unloading them into their new pasture in front of our yurt at Applecheek Farm, where we lived at the time, only to have the sky open up and storm down on us. After it passed, we found the sheep drenched and eating grass, seemingly un-phased.
I remember moving them to our land that fall, how beautifully they dotted the pasture, bright red and orange foliage framing the field. I remember our first lambing season, how they all did it themselves, except for Dove, who we got to too late, and her big ram lamb was born dead–how my heart ached for her the next few days as she baaa’d and walked from lamb to lamb, sniffing to see if it was her own until finally her cries calmed as she came to understand he was gone.
And our first fall of harvesting lamb, the tender goodbyes was said as we touched their fleece before driving north to the slaughterhouse–how delicate and delicious the meat was afterward.
Then, of course, were the many hours we spent moving fence, herding the sheep back into their paddocks after escapes, chasing them out of the garden, asking the question why do we have sheep?
That question set hold this spring and grew stronger each day as the sheep demanded we leave the garden and tend to them instead. But the weeds! The seeding! All the work of the garden called for us, too. After months of questioning, the sheep have all finally left, some for greener pastures, some for the butcher. Part of me wishes we could have found homes for all of them, but we got into the sheep business to raise meat, and so the last six will serve this final purpose: to feed our family and customers, giving back some of the energy we gave to them.
Some day we’ll bring grazing animals back to the land, but for now I must admit it feels good to have a reprieve, to wake up to a quiet morning and not worry that the sheep are having breakfast in the garden; to hear coyotes at night and not worry if the charge in the electric fence is too low. I’ll enjoy the extra hours each day to devote to the garden and the many half-finished projects waiting for our attention. And when we pick up the meat at the butcher, I’ll eat with awareness, my eyes closed in gratitude, thankful for what the sheep gave us.
18 Friday Jul 2014
Posted in Farming
29 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Morning Inspiration
Tags
I came home on Friday night to find a bouquet of flowers waiting on the yurt step with a small note attached to it. It read: Happy Freedom Day, Katie! ~ Mary
It was my last day of work at my off-farm job–a job that I did enjoy, with people I loved seeing every day. Once the summer began, though, balancing farming, writing, and being a mama with another full-time job became too much, and something had to give. Questions of security, happiness, fulfillment, and family arose in the weeks leading to my decision: would it work to lose my consistent paycheck? How much money was I really making after factoring in gas, commute time, and car repairs? Could we afford to pay a farm employee to make up for my absence? What kind of family life do we want to create? Is this job contributing my happiness or to my stress level? What is my time worth to me, and what do I want to spend it on?
After all this, I came back to what I’ve always known: I want to be a Mama, to be part of Waylon’s days and not just his mornings and nights. I want to be a farmer, to move my body throughout the day and let soil and sun stain my skin. I want to be a writer, to put more energy into writing and to make this a bigger part of my life. Despite all the benefits of my off-farm job, I found what was pulling me away was much stronger than what was keeping me there. And still, as I took down the pictures and cleaned up my desk at the office, I felt a small bittersweet pang inside. Everyone I worked with sent me off with hugs and encouragement as I walk this path of creating a life that brings me truly alive.
And so, when I found the flowers and Mary’s note, the joy and gratitude that welled up inside me felt like a confirmation. Freedom Day. We have this choice every day: to be free. It’s not always simple. It’s not always clear. But it is always there.
There is a poem by David Whyte, called Sweet Darkness, in which he writes:
You must learn one thing: This world was meant to be free in Give up all other worlds Except the one to which you belong.I’m choosing this world here on a western hillside. This world of garden, pasture, forest and sky. Where I wake every day to snuggles with my baby and breakfast with my husband. Where I move slow enough to feel roots growing from my feet down into the soil and feeding the flower of my body. I’m choosing all of this, knowing it will not always be easy or comfortable, but that it will be true and enlivening.
And I wish the same for you–that you may walk the path that brings you alive. That you may celebrate your own freedom day every day.
15 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Family
This morning:
Waylon wakes smiling, Papa already has chai made, and the three of us laugh as Waylon bounces on the bed.
Papa puts his boots on, gets ready to do chores, and straps Waylon in the backpack.
Outside, clouds blanket the Worcester Range, the cricket song of last night is replaced by bird calls through the trees. Water is still in the air after two days of rain despite yesterday afternoon’s sun, but it feels good. We all needed this: the soil, the plants, the animals, and us. We needed to be quenched, cleansed, refreshed.
It’s Edge’s first father’s day, and today we’ll work, doing what we love, cultivating the garden, seeding a new round of lettuce mix and asian greens, assembling the hoops for a hoop house. We’ll end the day at my parents’ house with barbecue chicken and wine. But first, father’s day breakfast! Waffles with ice cream and slivered almonds. He most certainly deserves it.
Father’s Day Morning, Sheep and chickens in the pasture
08 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Farming, Nature/Environment
Tags
family, farm, home, inspiration, life, photography
It’s been a week for close-ups.
Everywhere I look, there is a scene I want to dive into. Waylon’s eyes pull me in as always. More than once this week I’ve felt the strain of tiredness and a lack of time, but then Waylon looks at me and laughs, and my frustration melts away. Of course. This world is meant to be celebrated, and I know of no one else that reminds me of this more fully than Waylon.
Last night the two of us visited the sheep in the pasture. Edge is the main shepherd on the farm, and so it had been a few days since I’d said a proper hello to the flock. They contentedly grazed as the sun sank toward the horizon, happy to have a fresh plot of grass for the night. The lambs are in their second month now, and plumping up on milk and grass. The ewes and rams were shorn last weekend, suddenly looking skinny sans their winter coat, but now I look at them and see their muscle, the brightness of their inner fleece, and they look so cool on these hot days.
Waylon stared at the flock moving through the grass and offered some noises of his own. He’s saying so much these days~all in oohs, ahhs, dees, daas and mamamamas. He’s taking the whole world in and learning to converse with it. More and more he’s not content to stay in my arms, but instead wants to crawl all over the place, to see the world close-up.
That’s the anecdote for anything, isn’t it? To get close, dig in, to paint ourselves with soil and life. In the evenings when I come home from work, the only way to erase the computer daze from my eyes is to visit the garden, to laugh with Waylon, to take the hoe and cultivate. To cultivate the life I wish to grow one close-up at a time.
09 Tuesday Jul 2013
Just under two weeks away from my due date, and tonight I’m feeling agitated. Mosquitoes suddenly showed up in droves inside the yurt, and my hands are beginning to hurt from slapping them together with the force of an insect death trap. We’ve got the fan on high to keep them at bay, and after over an hour of constant slapping, it seems almost safe to say we are back to a normal number. It’s also safe to say I am overly frustrated in general today. It happens like that, some days I wake up and know my emotions are running high and I’ll cry at least twice, while other days I wake up and any little thing has the ability to elicit an immediate frustration response. Mostly these days are separated by a few weeks, and all the other days in between are good, great, wonderful. But for now, let me get a few things out of my system…
I am seriously considering boycotting the farmers market until after my baby is born. Edge and I drop off CSA shares there each weekend, and it is amazing the amount of people who immediately touch my belly without permission. I’d say about 2% of people even ask, and the rest just go right in and rub directly over my belly button, which is the most sensitive part of my belly and hurts when it’s rubbed. Last weekend I finally realized I could get my hands over my belly before an acquaintance could get theirs on it, thereby giving me some protection. The acquaintances are the hardest to deal with–I’ve had a hard time finding a way to tell people not to touch me, and at least with close friends and family I can just flat out say it without worrying about sounding polite. To be honest, most of the time I don’t mind if people I love touch my belly, but how does being pregnant give others automatic permission to rub an intimate spot on a person’s body? A pat on the shoulder is fine, a hug is welcome, but would you go up to anyone else and start touching their stomach? If I get up enough courage, the next time someone who hardly knows me touches my belly, I’m going to take that as permission to touch theirs right back and give them a good rub while remarking on how their belly looks.
Woo. That felt good. Thanks for listening. I guess when it comes down to it, that really is my sole grievance. It has been difficult at times to look out at the garden and see so many things I want to help with, but know that physically I am not able to do them right now–no broadforking, raking, making beds, making compost piles…even pulling old successions and getting beds ready for new ones is exhausting and uncomfortable, but I have enjoyed slowing down. It’s been at least five years since I was able to soak in the heat of summer without working out in the field tending to crops or moving animals (okay, I am tending crops and moving animals still, but on a much more relaxed level–Edge has been taking care of the daily chores on his own since June). I’m taking naps, going swimming, writing in my journal a lot, and learning the movements of the stars at night, which is one blessing of waking up so much to pee. I’m in the final stretch, and sometimes it feels like it could be any day, though it could still be a few weeks. The mystery of it all is one thing that will never go away, and that is okay with me. It makes slowing down, breathing and noticing the stars that much more enticing, as if I will get a little closer to the answers even as I delve deeper into the questions.
So the rant is over, and I feel calmer. Three more mosquitoes down in the last minute, and I think it’s time for sleep.
Inside, my baby is nestled, getting ready to tell me when it’s time.
03 Sunday Feb 2013
Posted in Nature/Environment, Writing
Soft clouds hung in layers across the valley this morning, hiding the mountaintops but revealing the middle: the hour-glass field, the mountains’ arms reaching through the mist into the valley, and a gradual clearing to the North where Elmore rises at the end of the range.
It is the first time since Tuesday that I’ve woken rested with a clear head. Last week, clouds clung to the ground, the fog so dense that from our front door even the barn looked blurry. The air warmed and clouded my head, too, infusing my sinuses with pain, creeping soreness into my throat, swelling my eyes until I could only lift them halfway.
The fog always lifts, though.
We did the chores together this morning, and as I walked to the barn where Edge was feeding out the hay, the morning clouds dissipated and the mountains woke up through the mist. I stood at the fence with eggs in my hand, watching the sheep around the feeder, their thick fleeces specked with hay as they pulled last summer’s grass through the slats. Even through last week’s rain, they often chose to stand outside instead of under the barn roof, their fleece so thick and warm they didn’t seem to notice. Now the clear cold air is returning, and with it the sun. I look up to see the sky again and imagine trees on the mountaintop, their branches laden with hoar frost, the forest quiet and still but for the wind and the rustling of animals moving across the slopes.
