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Kate Spring

~ growing a deep-rooted life

Kate Spring

Tag Archives: travel

Traveling Light

25 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by Kate Spring in Nature/Environment, Wildness

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

nature, photography, Seasons of Beauty, summer, travel, Vermont

Morning Light

Summer grows roots from my feet into the soil of this land.  The sun bleaches streaks of blonde in my strawberry hair, and freckles emerge like seeds on my skin.

The earth and light do their part to keep me here, though the wind blows in some afternoons and I feel the old pull of travel tug at my chest.

On morning walks with the dogs, Waylon on my back, I follow worn paths through the forest and imagine the roots of my feet rolling up and down the land like waves, loosening my body with each step so I may follow the breath of air.

Some mornings before I finish my tea, the light travels for me, and I step outside to move with the rising mist and sun rays filtering down toward the soil, whispering a single word: soften.

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I remember the tug I often feel while traveling, to stop in one place and dig in, to find the veins of the land and match my rhythm to their pulse.

The morning turns to day imperceptibly, suddenly, and tasks take their place in my mind as the sun rises high into a clear sky.  It’s time to tend to the fields now.

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All day the light travels, bringing evening about, and we hang our tools and prepare dinner and sit outside to eat as the earth tilts away from the sun and the sky dances itself into sunset.

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The air is still and my chest is quiet and my soles root into grass.

The light deepens into night, and though I’ve not left this land all day, I’ve witnessed movement, been part of the full round stretch of day and the long exhale of twilight.

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The Desert in Winter

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Kate Spring in Travel, Wildness

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Desert, Joshua Tree, Joshua Tree National Park, nature, photography, spirituality, travel, winter

P1050057 P1050058 P1050077 P1050078Sometimes it’s the dying things, the prickly things, the all-dried-up for winter things that require us to look more closely.

Sometimes, even after two and a half weeks along Coastal California, dripping with figs and ripe with berries, it’s the desert in winter that finally wakes us up.

It’s the desert, which we almost reluctantly slouch into, that finally brings the rain, and after, the sunrise breaking over clouds, pouring light into the void and our own faces.

It’s the desert–coyotes and ravens, roadrunners and rats, mountains of rock and the dry crunch of sand–that moves with the simple knowing that it is enough just to be exactly what we are.

 

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What the Redwoods Taught Me

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by Kate Spring in Nature/Environment, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

California, lessons, life, nature, place, Redwood Trees, spirituality, travel

In Big Basin Redwoods SP

As a child, I didn’t understand that vacations were not inherently relaxing.  That was before I knew of making travel arrangements, booking flights and rental cars, saving money and keeping track of spending.  Childhood vacations were whimsical and magical and free of responsibility.

I remember visiting the Pacific Northwest, seeing redwoods for the first time and gaping at their size, at how even after they’d fallen over, their presence pulsed on as nurse trees, giving life to new saplings taking root.

I remember walking along Rialto Beach in Washington State: we went so far down the coast that the tide threatened to keep us trapped atop boulders as it lapped at our running feet.

This is how vacations are supposed to be.

Or at least, this is what I grew up believing.

Our trip to California was our first true vacation as a family, just the three of us, and I think it was magical for Waylon, just as the whole world is magical to a toddler.  For my own part, I wobbled between relaxation and stress, if for no other reason that I am an adult who has forgotten to be present always.

Still, some things came back to me.

On El Capitan State Beach, we walked north along the shore until the tide began to roll in and the steep coastline rocks jutted into the water, cutting off our dry escape.  In reality, only our ankles were in danger, but that immediate excitement infused me as I ran south to the higher ground, thinking of Rialto Beach.

In Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the trees rose up so high we couldn’t see their crowns, and when I put my palm on a cross-section of a recently fallen redwood, it seemed to smile, by which I mean, the steady presence of ancient trees continue to spread out even after they fall.

As children, we go on vacations without expectations.  As adults, we learn to hold our expectations tight, as if we are holding our child’s hand crossing the street and cannot let go.

Eventually, though, we get to the other side.  At some point, we have to open up our hands and release whatever it is we hold.

The Redwoods brought me that relief.  It’s impossible to be among big trees without opening to amazement.  They encircle you, trunks reaching up, canopies opening, roots stretching out beneath your feet.  Being so close to ancient life seemed to slow my own life down, making magic visible again.

John Muir said, “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

I’m not sure I can put into words yet what I received, but it wasn’t always what I expected.  The trees, though, they taught me again to slow down, to stand in quiet awe, to understand that life is missed if we are not present.

Inside a Redwood

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Unscripted Hours on the Beach

02 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by Kate Spring in Travel

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Beach, California, family, life, simplicity, travel, vacation

On Pismo Beach

It was the mornings I loved the most.  For most of our trip, we’d wake near the beach, walk over a sand dune or beneath eucalyptus trees and their long, reaching branches, and blink into the tide.

Those unscripted hours found us walking, running, chasing waves, stopping to inspect sand dollars, and watching as Waylon splashed in cold streams of fresh water that ran into the ocean.

chasing waves

There is so much to do wherever we are.  We went to California loaded with suggestions, with places we must see and things we must do, but I forgot them all.

Sometimes the best way to see a place is to not do much of anything.

How much can you learn from a long stretch of sand and salt water?  How much do you have to learn?

Not very much, I realized.

Just this: breathe where you are, be where you are.

morning on Pismo beach

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Along the Central Coast

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Kate Spring in Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

California, California Central Coast, Camping, family, Joshua Tree, ocean, photography, travel, winter vacation

Three weeks in California took us north from LA along the central coast, through Santa Barbara, Big Sur, and Santa Cruz, past San Francisco and up to Point Reyes National Park, before cutting east to Tahoe City, and then south again to Joshua Tree before finally returning to the airport last Wednesday.

Waylon meets the waves at El Capitan State Beach

Waylon meets the waves at El Capitan State Beach

hiking to a boulder field

hiking to a boulder field

Egret at sunset

Egret at sunset

Big Sur

Big Sur

camping among the redwoods

camping among the redwoods

bouldering at Castle Rock SP

bouldering at Castle Rock SP

evening on the ocean

evening on the ocean

view from our camp

view from our camp

hot springs running into a river

Buckeye hot springs, on the east side of the Sierras heading to Joshua Tree

camp

camp

A young Joshua Tree

A young Joshua Tree

nap time in Joshua Tree National Park

nap time in Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Trees

Joshua Trees

And now we are home, far from the 70 degree warmth of LA, heated instead by our wood stove as smoke rises in the single-digit air.  And we’re happy.  Maybe it’s the vitamin D we soaked up out west that still pumps through our bodies, but I think it’s more the fact that we are in the place we created, the place we chose to put our roots down.  While we let those roots stretch across the country, they always pull us back.

We celebrated our homecoming with a snowshoe through the forest yesterday, and as the dogs leapt and bounced through the fresh snow, we turned to the world at hand: white, bare, open.  The perfect canvas to start our dreams for another year on this land.

along for the snowshoe

along for the snowshoe

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Filling up on Fruit

12 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Kate Spring in Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

California, fruit, travel, winter

It took two days, a canceled flight, and multiple re-bookings, but on Friday night we finally landed in California.

We’ll be here for the next few weeks, and blogging will likely be sporadic.  As my friend Emily Buck says, we’ll be disconnected from the internet, and therefore more connected with the places and people in front of us.  It’s refreshing to turn meanings around and see that we can be “disconnected” when we are staring at our phones or computers, and connected when we look up to see another’s eyes.

So in that spirit, I’m keeping this short.  But I will tell you this: Citrus bought in Vermont should not be allowed to share the same names with the freshly picked fruits at the Farmers Markets here.  As I bit into a tangerine yesterday, I realized I’d never really had a tangerine before–the thin skin exploded with tangy, sweet juice in my mouth, so filled with water it was as if I were drinking.

So we begin our journey with fruit: persimmons, avocados, tangerines, strawberries, and cherimoya–fruits I didn’t know existed–now fill our shopping bag, and we’ll continue on like this up the coast, filling up at Farmers Markets and soaking in the sun along the way.

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Doing the to-do list, in the rain

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

farm to-do list, life, New Jersey, puddles, rain, travel

We packed the car late on Monday night, slept for a few hours, then tucked Waylon into the car-seat and drove away at 3:45 am, south-bound for New Jersey to meet our new nephew. Before that, a long list of things to do:

  • cover all the crops with remay in case of frost
  • bring all onions and garlic to my parents’ house for storage (by next year we’ll have storage in the farm store, but for now the wind still whips through the barn boards and uninsulated walls…so off to Barre it is)
  • Complete the ditch needed to bring electric wiring over to the farm store
  • make pesto (parsley, cilantro)
  • pick up random stuff on the ground
  • clean yurt
  • make snacks for the road

The wood pile is half-split and the ditch is almost done, but 40 containers of pesto are stacked in the freezer, the onions and garlic are safely stowed at my parents’, the garden is transformed into rows of white covers, and we managed to leave the yurt in a respectable state and had a half dozen banana-almond muffins for the drive.

In the midst of it all, we’ve had rain for most of the last week, an element we are rejoicing over with the hope that enough will pour down to replenish our well before the snow sets in.  Even when it washed down on us during last Thursday’s harvest, we smiled to see the pond filling up and the world around us dripping with water.

We didn’t mind the rain that pummeled the windshield as we made our way in the early morning darkness down to New Jersey, where here, too, the clouds have gathered, but we don’t mind that, either–after all, how is a child supposed to learn about puddles without the rain?

discovering puddles

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A Northern Jungle

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Travel

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Tags

home, place, travel, Vermont

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So much will change in four days.  Last Thursday Waylon and I woke early in my parents’ house, and the four of us–Nana, Gramps, Mama and babe–drove to the airport and flew off to Chicago.  As we made our way west for one of my best friend’s wedding, Papa stayed home and tended the garden, moved the sheep on pasture, and brought spring greens and starts to the Farmers Market.

When we left, leaves were just beginning to explode from the tips of branches.

Clouds drenched the ground and hovered over Vermont while we celebrated in warm Illinois sunshine.  By the time we flew home, the eastern landscape had transformed again: forests shifting from translucent green hues to thick dense foliage.  A northern jungle, I can almost drink the maple leaves that pour and open all around.  After this long winter, even the trees are calling out in song.

Waylon and I took a day to recover from the travel, though we’re both still a bit tired.  It’s good to travel, to reunite with friends, to celebrate love.  And it’s good to come home, to walk the familiar path to the yurt door, to look west to the mountains and watch wisps of clouds rise after a rain, to be wrapped up in Edge’s hug, to greet the dogs–bodies wiggling and tails wagging–and after four days in the city, to ground myself in the quiet of this hillside farm.

 

 

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Writing on the Beach, the First of March

01 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Nature/Environment, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

life, nature, ocean, travel, writing

We’re on vacation. 

In the midst of garden planning and deciding when to fire up the wood stove in the seed house, we realized it was our last shot at one for the next few months.  So we left Vermont on Wednesday, and now here we are, in Cape May, New Jersey.  The bird observatory is still quiet as the spring migration is yet to commence in earnest, but the salt water, sand and sea birds are invigorating none the less. Edge’s parents have a condo here, so not only does Waylon get to see the ocean, but he gets to spend time with Gammy and Gampy, too, which means Mama and Papa get to spend time alone together.

We walked on the beach this afternoon, barefoot in the sun-warmed sand.  We drew a flower, branching and tall, in the sand, and I wrote:

I AM: LOVE, FREE, IMPERMANENT

High tide will come and wash my words away.  There is something invigorating about this.  As if it is a rebellious act, a person not focused on the eternal, but rather the momentary.  How much of what we do is for posterity–when do we instead let ourselves be washed away, wiped clean without resistance?

Writing on the beach, I left something of myself in the sand, knowing the sand will in turn release it to the water, and my sentiment will be carried away to float out wherever it may.

After, I faced the sea, the white fringed waves crashing and stretching up toward us.  “I bet the water is really cold,” I said.

“As cold as it can be.  Only one way to find out,” Edge said.

So we rolled up our pants and walked towards it, the water retreating as we approached, then surging forward again, enveloping our ankles, numbing our skin as an icy blanket.  Though I began to trot back, whispers of childhood and wonder pulled me toward the sea again, chasing the waves as they slipped back into the deep, then letting them lap once more at my feet.

Tomorrow we’ll bring Waylon to the ocean, too.  By then my words will be gone, my sentiment spread out on the waves somewhere, the sand brushed clean by the salt water.  What freedom there is in this world of wind and water: to be blown or washed away, to begin anew with each gust, each tide rising in and out.

 

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Away, Home

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Kate Spring in Family, Travel, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

family, home, life, thanksgiving, travel, Vermont

Thanksgiving came, and with it a mini-vacation for us.  We packed up the car with potatoes, rutabaga, carrots, onions, garlic, squash, beets, and one large turkey, tucked Waylon into the car seat and headed south to New Jersey, driving through the night on Tuesday and arriving at Edge’s parent’s house just as early morning travelers were taking off.  My father-in-law came down the stairs as soon as we entered the kitchen, and as the house woke up I laid down and fell asleep.

The drive was worth it, bringing us away from the to-do lists and unfinished projects and into the warmth and light of a full family home.  We slept in, watched movies, played games and made art with our nieces, and cooked and baked and ate.  Waylon and Autumn, cousins only two weeks apart, met for the first time, bringing laughter as we watched many expressions pass over the two babes’ faces.  As hard as it is to leave the farm, being away brings a necessary break, a chance to be with family, to see past the to-do lists and let our minds wander out into more creative territory, rejuvenating us.

We stayed until Sunday, and with many hugs we were on our way, driving back in daylight this time.  The dogs wiggled and scratched at the door when they saw us, and I smiled at the familiar greeting.  Part of the luxury of getting away is then coming home: stepping out of the car, buzzing and overtired after a day of driving to stretch beneath the sky, wide, dark and twinkling, to breathe in the cold quiet of home on an early winter night, to crunch through the sticky layer of snow to the front door and open it once again.

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Welcome!

Kate Spring

Kate Spring

Welcome to The Good Heart Life: an organic gardening and lifestyle blog where we grow beauty, joy, and nourishment for the body, soul, and earth. I'm Kate Spring: organic farmer, mother, and chief inspiration officer at Good Heart Farmstead and The Good Heart Life. Grow along with us, and together we'll cultivate a more lively, joyful world one {organic} seed at a time.

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