Gratuitous daffodil shot

Another sign of Spring in some places. This was taken in the wilds of Connecticut last year.

Garlic should be worshipped by some cult

One of the signs of Spring.

This photo is from last year. In the background you can see, from right to left, the old corn crib we used as a packing shed, the 77 RV I lived in for several months, and the machine shed that featured, among other things, a fairly large half-pipe that attracted skaters from all over.

It's a blessing and a curse

The season is coming. Almost seventy here the other day. It's like waking up.

I sit here, earbuds in, succumbing to the music. Which is about as good as it gets to me. There is nothing better than good music. And really, there's no explanation for it. It might as well be some bleeps and boops, strums, pounds, knocks. Which is what it is. But for the life of us, we have no real explanation for why music brings us pure joy. I'm as close to a rational dickhead as you can get, but I still accept things on faith. Music for one. It's a spiritual (fuckin' a, you read that right) experience for me, and I don't need an arguable reason. Same with being outdoors, exploring, immersing myself in whatever it is. I don't really care what "whatever" is; I think that's when I'm at my best. The rest--self-identifying as rational, trying too hard to feel the unexplainable, rebelling in some small way--is all bullshit. I could probably be a really good Buddhist or Taoist if things were different. Good thing or bad? Who knows.

I really wasn't meant for this time and place, I tell myself. But, being honest, maybe I wasn't meant for any of the times and places. I like to think I could be John Muir swaying in the treetops. Or Aldo Leopold observing the land. Or Montaigne questioning everything. Or Kurt Cobain killing myself.

Don't fret over the last, I have enough self-esteem and appreciation for being alive. But I can relate to the feeling. I always could. I like extreme feelings, though/because I can't express them properly in my everyday life.

So, tomorrow I plan on going to some karaoke in the city, where, no doubt, the music will be middling to terrible, but the beer will be cheap. And friends will be there--along with other people I don't know much or at all.

And we'll have fun.

Bees leaving the hive

Just a couple pics from last season. It kind of freaked me out a little, even though I know better on a rational level.

They swarmed, found a spot to hang out for a moment, sent out some scouts, and a few minutes later the whole pile took off in a giant cloud toward the creek. Pretty amazing to see up close.

You thought I was gone!

Ha! And so did I. For a little bit.

But. I'm back. For maybe a little bit. Or a while. Who knows. But I'll try.

Quick summary for any stragglers: farmed again, just south of Chicago, with great folks (updated links coming soon). Lived in an RV with no water, no stove, and some electricity. Learned more about building, composting, manure management. Cut and planted and dug sooooo many potatoes, but I still love them. Summer squash can kiss my ass. I'm a new fan of the wheel hoe. Bees are fuckin crazy (when they swarm like three times in a single season, and they're right by the packing shed, right?). The Earthway "precision" seeder can still kiss my ass (but I can empathize with it a little more). I like soil blocks for seed starting. Kale might be my favorite crop to grow for sale (but come on America, when will you learn to love the kale?). Maybe this coming summer won't be as hot. This past fall and winter were something I might need about 12 beers and a half a pack of cigarettes to write about. Maybe I'll just skip the blog and go right to the novel for that one.

So guess what? I'm farming again this year. In the outskirts of the western Chicago suburbs. My long journey away from the suburban wasteland has brought me full circle. I still don't know how I feel about this situation, but I'm trying to embrace it. This is life. Or a life.

More later. 

Growing again

So, we got a van. A crappy one. For cheap. I think it leaks three different fluids, but it managed to get us across the country. And it still runs. While the gas mileage sucks compared to my dearly departed Kia--and it is much less reliable--the bright side is that it holds lots of stuff, or people, or maybe both. So far so good. But I'm trying to top off the transmission fluid, and it's proving to be a project. Even the simplest things... right?

Yep, the simplest things have been problematic lately. I won't bore you with the details. But simple is definitely not to be confused with living simply. The past few months have been anything but an act of simplicity for us. We've been living way beyond our means and desires lately, and it has taken its toll in many ways. At least for me. I think living in such a way makes all the simple things much more of a project than they need to be; or maybe it leaves me lacking the patience to deal with the simplest of things.

But whatever mumbojumbo I'm talking about in the previous paragraph can just float away and be gone as far as I'm concerned. We're settling in at the new place, already constructing a couple hoophouses and learning some new ways of growing (like bottom-watering your soil block seedlings started under cheap-ass fluorescent lights).

More details about new farm experiences and re-immersion to come. For the moment, we're working hard, getting situated in our small, primitive RV, and readjusting to the flatlands. The farm we're staying at is a narrow, 500 ft-wide strip of vegetable-growing diversity in the middle of king corn and it's scantily clad consort, queen soybean. Today, the land is wide open for miles, save the occasional farmhouse, the seemingly rarer tree, and millions of acres of corn and soybean stubble. Many of our neighbors under the considerable power of the AMDs and Monsantos of the world busily blast their near bare soil with tons of deeply extracted anhydrous ammonia. Soon, we'll be surrounded by vast forests of magically grown commodity crops. It'll certainly be a different sight.

In the meantime, we've got potatoes and spinach to plant.

(Internet access is rare, so updates may be spotty for awhile)

Back to the Midwest

So, we're going to be rambling our way back to good ol' Illinois (which is where we're originally from, for any new readers out there), where we'll be apprenticing for another season on a diversified small farm. We decided that family and long-time friends were important to have near us (relatively) as we anticipate finding some land to settle down on for the long term. It'll be hard to give up my dream of living in the beautiful mountains of the Southeast. I mean, I really felt at home there, but some things are more important than other things. And at least I got a chance to be there for a time.

But first, I've gotta find a new car. My long-lived and trusty '98 Sephia was destroyed in an accident. Got a couple weeks to find a replacement and then head halfway across the country and move in to a new living space (which is going to be: a motor home of some small size, on a farm about an hour south of Chicago). We'll see how the cats like their new digs. Or, how we will, for that matter.

We can't wait to get dirty again.

This and that

Oh blog, how I've neglected you. Readers, if any of you are left out there, let me tell you that I've been living in a place with a virus-ridden computer, and, besides, I haven't been inspired much to write. We've been trimmin and cuttin down trees up in CT. Well, to be honest, we do the ground work while an experienced treeman (wife's uncle by marriage) does the rope climbing. There's lots of downtime otherwise, and I've been trying hard to find a place to relocate to come spring.

Connecticut is a nice place to visit. And Chicagoland, where I'm typing from now, is kind of an interesting visit, but not really, if I'm being honest about it. The former is way too steeped in the culture of money, and the latter is a contender for ground zero of the imminent destruction of suburban sprawl, happy motoring, and faceless centralization. So, you know, for me, lately, inspiration is hard to come by.

Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed a good bit of my time in Connecticut. Hanging with family, learning to butcher a deer, tinkering with cars, meeting some great people, seeing the ins and outs of tree care: all things I'm grateful for. And the Chicago area has my core family and lots of cherished friends.

But I feel better when I'm living purposefully, working the land, watching the clouds, helping the neighbor bale hay, laying on the ground, fishing the stream, kicking back with some tunes or a movie and a beer after busting my ass all day long.

I see winter gripping almost the entire nation right now. Up in the north we'll get our obligatory January thaw before the wrath of another cold spell. Then it'll turn again, and we'll have to start thinking seriously about planting somewhere. Got prospects back down in WNC right now, but nothing concrete.

Looking forward to it though.

The closing of another season

You see, for us, it's too easy. The past couple of years (and this one is playing out the same) we have finished up with the main tasks on the farm and have gone on with our lives. We've left behind many of the odds and ends that get done in the less busy times--all those chores you put off for one reason or another.

We take a few bagfuls of food and find other employment. Winter passes. Then spring comes and, voila! we're at the farm, and it's ready to go, all the little things taken care of. It's not how I want it to go down, but that's how life has played out so far. We're hoping that next year will end differently.

Yeah, it's hard leaving the farm. I need to be there to change the oil, care for the animals, chop more wood, start new projects. I need to be there to come up with next season's plan, buy seed, work around all the little obstacles that arise. But our country doesn't seem to really care about having small farmers (and stopped caring a long time ago), so we're learning the best we can.

All in all, it was a helluva season. So much rain, so many pests and plant pathogens. It really was educational.

The autumn colors were spectacular as they made their way down to our cove. Now it's mostly muted reds, browns, and yellows out there, which have their own beauty.

This week we pack up and move on out. We'll head up to the northeast where we'll work with trees and enjoy a little downtime with some family.

I'm going to miss these mountains while I'm away. And Asheville, too, because it's a great little city to visit a couple times a month. And there's the music, and all the trails, and the great food, and wonderful people. Shit, whatever happens, at least I got to live here and enjoy it all for awhile.

We hope to find some land--to own (somehow), lease long-term, as part of a partnership, or whatever, we're open to anything really--for next year. So, if you know anybody who wants to help out a couple of poor wannabe farmers/homesteaders with a place to settle, we'd love to hear from you (preference for southern Appalachia). If we can't make that happen, we'll be searching again for another apprenticeship opportunity, with an eye toward learning more about farming with animals, seed saving, and basic construction.

So, it's transition time. I'll be posting again soon, probably from a different location--with more random rambles though, less farm talk (for a couple months at least).

Handling your hoe (rural version, ch. 1)

A couple days ago I was out weeding our two remaining beds of leeks. It was an odd weeding job because the deer had been grazing on the weeds they like to eat, leaving shortish weeds with fairly stout roots (hard to hoe and pull because of the deep-set roots, hard to pull, also, because of the lack of grip space to yank 'em up). Deer don't like to eat leeks (at least these don't), and most of the rest of the field has just recently been put into a cover crop of rye, vetch, and clover (all of which are mere seedlings), leaving the nightly congregation of deer in that field to munch on nothing but weeds. The main weed was a yellow-flowering fast grower (whose name escapes me) that just absolutely dominates our farm throughout most of the year; deer seem to love it, but they left others, like dock (deep, stubborn roots), to grow unabated. So, hoeing was rough. And the inevitable hand weeding that left many broken roots in the ground was discouraging . It was slow going.

I find that when you have such a weeding job in front of you, it's nice to slap on a pair of earbuds and let music help you along. For instance, Modest Mouse assisted me in the leek-weeding endeavor. The schizophrenic vocals over a steady funk-like beat helped rhythmize and energize my hoe strokes to efficiently uproot (or at least chop off sufficiently until the first frost comes) those pesky bastards. Neko Case helped me slow it down a little--let me feel the cool, pleasant breeze under the completely blue and sunny Carolina sky, helping me find some odd grace in my hoeing technique. Because, what's weeding without a bit of contemplative, sensual pleasure? And then Paul Simon brought me back to the rhythm, giving me that final push of energy to get the job done. Plus, there's no not liking weeding when Simon inquires about the 50 ways.

Sometimes I don't need music to accompany me. Often just being outside, doing real, meaningful work to survive is enough. But there are days when you'd rather be doing nothing, or else something easy. Though it's tempting to just give in to laziness (which happens sometimes), certain things just have to get done. And I really wouldn't want it any other way.

*****

The trees are really coloring up now in the higher elevations. The reds are out. But yesterday our high temperature hit 80, which was, um, perfect. Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, they're expecting snow and freezing temps. Love it here.