We just built a couple of cold frames this past week, which is what we will use until we can afford to build a greenhouse.  Cold frames are handy for starting little plants, keeping them protected and warm in the early spring months.  I can also pull the window frames up and out from the wooden frames, and plant lettuces and kale directly in the ground, letting them grow all through the season, and well into the winter.  If only I had made these over the summer . . . we could have a nice batch of greens in there right now.

The cold frames are part of a longer term plan to get our little homestead a bit more prepared to face the vagaries of climate change.  As much as possible, we are trying to create a place where we can be resilient in the face of power outages, extreme temperatures, massive precipitation, and drought.  Yesterday's hurricane didn't cause much damage in our immediate area, and for that we are very grateful.  But if we are going to experience, as Andrew Cuomo said to the President, "a one hundred-year flood every two years," there's no reason to think that we won't have another extreme weather event this fall, never mind whatever comes next year.  Last year, in western Massachusetts, we had a tornado in June, Hurricane Irene in August, followed four days later by a tropical storm that dropped four inches of rain in 24 hours on already oversaturated ground.  And then, of course, there was the 18" of snow we got right before Halloween.  So I'm trying to get it into my head that these are not one-time, or rare events.  These are periodic, and random, and I want to be prepared.

Among the things to consider:  Water, in floods and droughts.  In addition to buying rain barrels to hook up to our gutters, to allow us to capture rainwater whenever we can, I'm also going to be building up the soil's capacity to store water. This spring I'm going to dig shallow trenches a couple feet wide within the gardens, pile up old wood in the trenches, and then re-cover them with soil; when wood is decomposing underground, it acts like a sponge, able to absorb excess water and to release it in times of drought.  This technique is called "hugelkultur" (a German word).  We don't want to have to put a strain on our well in times of drought, so building up organic matter in the soil is key to storing water.  I also want to slow the flow of water down the slight slope of our land, so that when it does rain, the water can be absorbed into the soil, rather than just running off the surface, into the road, and into the nearby stream.  In order to slow the water, I am going to create swales and berms, or small hills and valleys, along the contour of the slope.  Imagine water running down a slope, then meeting up with a small trough right before a hill that extends 6 feet wide or more.  The water will pool here, get absorbed somewhat, and excess will flow around the hill and continue down the slope, only to encounter another hill.  Our greatest slope is located where our fruit trees are planted, so I am going to create berms on the downward-slope side of each row of trees.  You can see a picture of this technique here.

There's so much to do--build a greenhouse/hoophouse to protect plants from hail and keep them warm, plant a range of perennial fruits and vegetables that thrive in extremes as well as "normal" temps, figure out a way to heat our home during a power outage (we've got a pellet stove, which is dependent on electricity), build a root cellar to store food during the winter, switch to solar-powered electric and hot water, get a composting toilet . . . It's a bit overwhelming, and events like Hurricane Sandy make it clear that the faster we can implement these changes, the better.

I know that some people consider it unseemly to talk about politics in the midst of natural disasters, but, at least to me, politics and climate change events aren't separate things.  On the one hand, we have a political party, the GOP, that takes great joy in mocking efforts to address climate change (when they are not outright denying it even exists), and that has stated a desire to defund FEMA and leave rescue and relief efforts to private business and the states.  And on the other hand, we have a Democratic Party that has finally, finally, finally started to forcefully articulate the notion of the shared public responsibility we have to one another, the fact that we are a society not just a collection of individuals, that we are all in this together, and that we need each other--and public servants like firefighters and police and FEMA--in times of crisis.  Now FEMA and government programs are not perfect.  But their ability to marshal resources and coordinate efforts on a national level is unparalleled. Government has an important role to play in facilitating our common good--our public treasury, our infrastructure, our education, our disaster relief, our safety nets, our safety and security.  So the question, as related to climate change and disaster relief, is this:  Who do you want in charge--the people who believe in smart, effective government, or the people who think government should be so small you could "drown it in a bathtub"?  There are people across the country right now who need disaster assistance, and I am so very glad that FEMA hasn't been dismantled.  And if we are ever, ever going to do anything about climate change, it will have to happen on a national level, and with the international community.  It's not something we can just leave to localities and states. We've got to do what we can for ourselves, but we've also got to work together for the common good.

Before paintingAfter painting!Getting settled in our new home, painting, tending the vegetables, and building out the new garden beds for next season . . . it's been a whirlwind. I like nesting, and I'll admit that it's been a bit hard sometimes to pull myself away from the decorating and organizing of our home back out to the weeds. But every time I get outside, I remember why I love farming . . .

Staking young tomato plantsSheet mulching creates new garden bedsWe planted about 20 pepper plants, 12 tomato plants, and 8 eggplants, and a smattering of basils, Holy and otherwise. I was so grateful that we got such a good crop--though we had to chase away the chipmunks from the tomatoes, without much success. Still we harvested many, many pounds of delicious vegetables, ate them fresh, grilled 'em up, and preserved them for the winter.

We loved hanging out at the town lake

and the back deckFriends and family from near and far (CT, NY, DC, VA, FL and Amsterdam!) visited, making our new house a home. We went to the town beach, hung out on the back deck, even went all the way to Essex for gluten-free fried clams. What a treat! Go to Woodman's, people, if you've never been. Absolutely worth it.

they don't stay small long . . . We got chicks, who grew into chickens. Really fast. They "graduated" from their brooder to the outside coop just last week, after they had reached six weeks of age. It took a night or two of shining the flashlight in their roost, but they eventually got the idea, and now put themselves to bed right at dusk. And we adopted a lovely mouser named Jasper, who's bringing me presents of dead mice on a regular basis. The thing is, it actually makes me really happy. I'm hoping he'll be a force against the chipmunks, voles, and moles that have laid claim to this place. And chase away the rabbits, too.

Grateful for a bountiful harvestI canned salsa and diced tomatoes, roasted and skinned and froze poblano and anaheim peppers, cooked up and froze great big batches of bangan bharta (curried eggplant and tomatoes) and creamed chipotle kale, and picked quarts of raspberries to freeze alongside the peaches from our local orchard. We're drying apple slices in the dehydrator as I write.

And I've been playing around with pork, cooking up a scrumptious meal of slow-cooked pork jowls on top of homemade nixtamalized corn tortillas. Probably one of my best meals ever. And I made headcheese. You take a pig's head and simmer it for a few hours, then remove all the meat and put into a little terrine. Then you simmer the stock another couple of hours; let it cool a bit, and pour a small amount of liquid over the meat, just to cover. Refrigerate. The stock turns to gelatin, and, voila, headcheese. Delish. Plenty of adventures here at . . . well, we still don't have a name for this place yet. (Suggestions welcome!)

It's been a busy four months! But now the winds are shifting, the temperatures are dropping, and I'm feeling a pull back here, to this blog. Someone told me in the last few years that we shouldn't think of ourselves having a "crazy, busy life" but, rather, a "full" life. I like that. Life certainly is full, and I am so grateful to be able to experience so much beauty and laughter, even with so much sweat and so many tears. As I exclaimed to my friend Eileen, trying to explain my aching love for the world, "We get to experience all this . . . and tomatoes, too!"

And now there is yet another a new adventure. I'm starting a proofreading business, called "Another Pair of Eyes," to help financially support the farm. I'd like to build good fencing, a small barn, and a greenhouse, and all that takes capital. I've decided that the best way I can do that is to rely on my strengths in writing and editing, and offer out my services as a proofreader. The homepage for this website is now dedicated to my new business, instead of the blog, which now can be found among the menu options on the right of the page. Take a look!

I hope you'll remember me if you ever have a document you'd like to have proofread, and I hope you will suggest my services to your friends and colleagues. Thanks for your support and for spreading the word!

The conventional path is to use polyurethane to finish floors, which basically creates a plastic coating on top of the wood. Due to the VOCs emitted (volatile organic compounds), this means you are breathing in toxins. Polyurethane coatings get scratched and dulled, and the only way to deal with that wearing is to sand the whole floor and re-coat it. After doing some reading and thinking about this, I began looking into alternative floor finishes. My goals were multiple--to avoid the toxicity, to avoid the environmental pollution resulting from disposing the waste, to be economical and spend as little money as possible, and to be able to maintain the floor finish over time. Turns out that polyurethane is a relatively new process, only in use for about the last half-century. Before that, people used oils, like linseed oil, to seal floors and protect them from water damage. The oil penetrates the wood and protects it.

But when I looked online to learn about oil finishes, it seemed daunting. Few people seemed to be in the business of doing oil finishes, first of all. But I realized if I could do it myself, I could cut costs, perhaps. Some protocols called for using a buffing machine, which I don't have and which I might be intimidated by, at least at first. Some methods took many days, because you need to wait awhile in between applications--I was impatient, and wanted to be living in our new house as soon as possible!

Finally, I spoke with my friends Sam and Leslie, who built a house that was designed in an environmentally conscious way. They used a product that they applied themselves, and that they were really happy with--an oil-based finish out of Germany, by a company called Osmo. I began reading about this product, and realized that it looked like it would meet all my criteria. It's very eco-friendly, and any scratches can be spot treated--which means that I should never have to sand the floor again. It's easy enough to apply, so I could refinish the floors myself.

Osmo Polyx Oil is applied by scrubbing the oil into raw wood or a newly sanded floor. It's a workout! You use a stiff-bristled brush and scrub the oil into the floor in a small area, until there is no excess left behind. Then you move to the next area and repeat. It took me about four hours to apply the first coat to an area of about 600 square feet. The odor was not too bad, but I wore a respirator to be safe. I slept in the house with the windows open that night, and then applied the second coat the next day. It was safe to walk around in socks after the second coat dried; we waited to put down any furniture for 10 days, and we waited three weeks before putting down a rug.

The floors have only gotten more and more beautiful over the last four weeks. At first, they were a little shiny, but as the Osmo oil kept working its way into the wood and curing in the air, the floors began just to look like natural wood. I love to see and feel the grain under my fingertips when I touch the floor, and it feels great under foot, too.

In the end, splitting the job by hiring a person to sand the floor and applying the Osmo myself cost about the same amount as hiring someone to sand and polyurethane the floor. But I hope that the cost over the next few decades will be much less, as we will be able to touch up any scratches, and should never have to sand or refinish the floor in its entirety again. And it definitely gives me a feeling of pride and accomplishment to have done the oiling myself. You can't put a price tag on that.

But I have to admit to being a bit overprotective of the floors. We now have a no-shoes policy for the house, and each bit of furniture has felt pads where it makes contact with the floor. I sweep frequently, hoping to get up all those tiny little sharp-edged rocks and prevent them from disfiguring the new, beautiful surface. I suppose I'll relax a bit, eventually. But being this up-tight makes me feel kind of bourgeois. Am I really that concerned with appearances? Didn't I give up my subscripton to Dwell, didn't I stop lusting after modern design when I decided to start farming, when I remembered the moon and the stars and fell back in love with the natural world?

Somehow it was easy, when I first moved to the nuns' farm, to just turn away from my city life and start anew. I just brought a couple small bags of farm clothes and a couple books, and that was about it. But in the last year, I've been pulled to re-integrate my sense of design with my life on the farm. Maybe I don't go out to contemporary art museums, sip cocktails at fancy bars, or wear funky shoes anymore--but part of me still loves the aesthetics of those experiences and things. Maybe nowadays I wear dirty jeans for several days running, and put my hair in pigtails. Maybe a big night out nowadays means going to sit on the town common with an ice cream cone, and listening to a local band. But I still love the simple lines of the couch that Anne and I found eight years ago, and I'm happy every day when I see it in the living room. I love the modern Italian dining table that we bought, and the translucent orange chairs we chose to accompany it. I look at these things and I look at the workboots by the door, next to the mallet and trowel and twine, and wonder how they all fit together...

I suppose we are all more complex than we seem. I love modern design, and farming, and bad sci-fi, and local organic food, and hand-woven rugs from far-away places. I make choices within that matrix of affinities and desires, and endeavor to remain true to my heart and my values. It's actually been a little humbling to re-integrate my "city self" and my "farm self" these last six months or so. I realize that I had been feeling more than a little moral rectitude in turning away from consumerism, that I was feeling a bit superior in choosing a simpler life. Setting up our own place has meant making a lot of choices about things--keeping, discarding, buying things. It was easier, in many ways, living at other people's farms, making do and being satisfied with other people's stuff.

Now, in our own home, I'm thinking about surfaces, about appearances, about ecological choices, about priorities, about needs versus wants. Every purchase requires so much consideration. Is it necessary? Can I get it locally made, US made? Can I find it used, on Craigslist? Should I buy the more expensive, better made version, rather than something that will have to be thrown away in a few years? Will this particular thing help us save energy in the long run, even though it will cost more now?

And I'm thinking about wanting to make a welcoming home, one where people can feel at ease--while I'm also wanting to preserve the beauty of the newly finished floors. But if the house is going to be a home, if it's going to be a homestead, I'm going to have to let go. To appreciate the beautiful things, and to let them be lived on, and with. To let the surfaces reflect my deeper values, in addition to my aesthetics. To let the surfaces reflect a life well lived.

Just staring at the water...

This week brought us a chicken tractor.  I had grand plans to build one myself, but when I found one on Craigslist, I decided to earn my carpentry chops sometime later and just get one that's already been built and already been loved.  The person who sold it to us is a Landscape Architecture grad from UMass, who's done amazing things with his property.  He also does tree work, and I just might be calling on him later to help me trim back some of these evergreen trees...  Now that I'm ready with housing, I'm picking out chickens.  More on that to come.

We've bought a number of things from Craigslist recently--a rug, a table, a bird bath, and a chicken tractor.  In each case, it was a real pleasure to meet the folks selling the item, to learn a little bit about the history of the item, and to wish each other well in our respective paths.  It's been truly heart-warming.  Everyone has their story, their particular slice, and to get a glimpse in and have a moment of friendly connection with strangers is humbling.  We are all just trying to live a good life.  Well, almost all of us--you do need to watch out for the occasional scam--I put an item on Craigslist the other day, and one of the responses offered to pay me more than I asked and to send me a check, and to send me money to cover the movers' costs...it was a bit suspicious, so I did a little research and found that this gambit is a typical scam.  Someone sends you a (fake) check, often greater than the amount due, and then asks you to wire them back the overage.  The check turns out to be forged, you are responsible to your bank, and somehow they get into your bank account through the wire transfer.  I don't really know how it works.  So--if you are going to use Craigslist, just do your transactions in cash and in person, and you'll be all set. 

In other news--there are so many new flowers in bloom, and I'm truly at a loss.  We are lucky to have found this beautiful place, lucky to wake each morning to birds singing, to be able to enjoy the colors and fragrances of the many plants...and we are also a bit stymied!  We just don't know the names of so many of these flowers and plants, and would love to know.  So take a look at all the pictures I took the other day, and if you see one you know, leave a comment identifying it.  Let's do a little "crowdsourcing," open up the floodgates of the wisdom of the masses...

I do know this guy pretty well--the Black Seaman tomato.  All of the tomato plants have set fruit already, and I'm very excited to see them doing so well.  The garden they are in now is partly shady, so I didn't have high expectations.  But perhaps they will flourish and give us a few good bushels.  We can hope.

The peppers are a bit slower, but some of the plants are setting fruit. We should have a good crop of jalapenos, cayenne, and tangerines (sweet), at least.  And the first flowers are appearing on the eggplants.  Keep your fingers crossed...  We made delicious Bangan Bharta, an Indian dish made of eggplants and peppers, and froze quart-size bags of it.  There's only one bag left in the freezer, so I am hoping that we'll get a good crop and end up with brimming-full freezers once more.

But so much is out of our hands, like everything in life.  I feel like my heart could burst from the happiness and the hope, all rolled together, that I feel when I walk through the garden.  If everything thrives, if they continue to flourish the way they are right now, if all the plants don't get damaged or dessicated or devoured by critters...if, if, if...

It's like that logic statement.  If x, then y...  All I can say is from my experience from the last few years: if the harvest is good, we will celebrate, and if the harvest is meager, then we will cherish what we glean.  Last year, I lost most of the 250' row feet I planted of dry beans, and much of the 30 hills of dent corn I planted.  The plants grew so well, I was actually wondering how on earth I would ever shell the beans and corn at harvest-time.  Turns out I needn't have worried.  In the great rains that followed the hurricane last August, almost all of the beans moldered, hanging in pools of water that could not drain because the soil was so sodden.  I tried walking among the plants, to see if I could lift them out of the puddles, but my boots sank 6 or 8 inches into the muck.  The corn was fine, just inaccessible, and I figured I just had to wait a few days to retrieve it from the field.  I ended up having to wait more than two weeks before the soil dried out enough to venture back in. And in the meantime, the deer got in and gobbled up at least half of the corn.

But we did harvest some beans and some corn.  And we appreciate them all the more, I think, because of our intimate experience with their story.  I know what they went through and what I went through, and now they are in my hand, in my bowl, nourishing me all the same.  With the corn, I make masa for tortillas or tamale pie; the beans are a staple for Anne's lunches, packed in tiffins and brought to work. 

This year, we are only growing tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.  What's in the garden now will feed us and give us great pleasure, though we'll have to rely on the supermarket much more than in the last few years.  But I can see a larger garden emerging, just beyond the edging, right where that sod is now.  Next year, at this time, the lawn will be full of plants and flowers, and we will walk among them with hearts full of happiness and hope, wondering what the harvest will bring.

Imagine this:  a somewhat conventional front yard, barn-red cedar siding.  Three small steps to the front door.  From the road, off to the left, you see a number of small fruit trees...apples mostly, and a peach, maybe a pear...And a sizeable red shed toward the rear.  In my permaculture mind, I call this area "the orchard." 

Just past the shed (to the right, in the picture below) is a wide open sunny area, bordered by the neighbor's small Arbor Vitae trees, perhaps 1/4 of an acre.  The ground covering is mostly clover, some interesting weedy tap-rooted plants that I don't know their name, lots of plantain, and a bit of grass.  Beneath this is the septic leach field, so it must remain an unbuilt area in case there are ever problems in the future.  We hope next year to have a couple dairy goats grazing here.  This is "the pasture."

We love the shed.  At 10x16, it's a great size to hold our new lawnmower, a reel-style mower made by Fiskars, and lots of other stuff.  Reel mowers are powered by humans--you just push, and the blades cut.  That's it.  It's light and easily maneuverable, and I love it.  I also have all my garden tools and supplies, soil amendments, potting materials, apple crates, and more in there. 

Looking directly at the front of the house, and on either side of the driveway, you see grassy areas and perennial flowers and bushes.  Honeysuckle, poppies, anise hyssop, and so many plants I don't know yet...  In my mind, in the future, this area has more wildflowers and transitions into the orchard with an area of currants and gooseberries and hazelnut trees.  I imagine this area to be "the meadow."

At the end of the 30-yard driveway you can see two more areas.  To the right is a wide open, sunny and grassy area, bordered by pine and other evergreen trees.  This area will become the vegetable garden; I've got piles of compost, woodchips, and strawbales to lay down and prepare the soil for next season.  And in the back of the house is the existing perennial gardens--8 blueberry bushes loaded with fruit, a 10x15 raspberry patch, a grape trellis, and maybe 100 different flowering plants and bushes--lavender, chamomile, thyme, columbine, three or four different roses, ajuga, tall grasses, a strawberry-like groundcover, and so many more.  The blueberry area is enclosed by stakes and deer netting, and covered with tobacco netting to keep the birds out.  It's a bit makeshift (and a bit too short) and we'll have to build something better next year.  In the center is a small vegetable patch, where I've planted tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that I started back in Conway.  They are thriving, with small fruits on nearly all the tomato plants already...

Standing by the raspberry patch, and turning toward the rear of the house, you see that the rather conventional front is complemented by a more modern back.  The second floor is almost entirely a continuous dormer, giving the backside a contemporary feel.  On the ground level, sliding doors open out onto a large cedar deck--where we've got some folding chairs and apple crates, and our new grill.  The grill is kind of a funny thing--it's such a suburban icon, but to us it also meets a key permaculture principle: redundancy.  Our kitchen stove is electric, and should the power go out, we know we can heat hot water and cook food on our gas grill.  I also want to build an outdoor firepit as a secondary backup.  But one of the main ideas of permaculture is close observation, and I need to closely study the land and our use patterns before I build anything more permanent.

I didn't mention some of the less desireable aspects of the homestead--our mole in the front yard, the squirrels and chipmunks who are very much at home in the gardens, and the Rose Chafer, a new bug for me--a lot like the Japanese beetle, overwintering in the ground and emerging late May-early June to eat as much flowers and leafy material as possible.  I spent a good 7 hours the last two weeks picking Rose Chafers off of the raspberry leaves and grape leaves and honeysuckle leaves and and and and dropping them into a container of soapy water, where they drown.  It's an unfortunate task.  Hopefully we will have less of them next year, as almost all of the ones I got were mating.  Fewer mated bugs=fewer baby bugs next spring.  At least that's the hope.

Ok, that's it for today.  I'll take some more pictures and write up a little inside-the-house tour soon.  And as I undertake projects and document them here, I'll try to point out whenever possible how each aspect fits into our permaculture thinking and planning.  It's a funny thing about sight and about vision--so much of what I see in the homestead is in my mind's eye, in my best hopes and dreams for how things could be.  Some folks might look at this place and just see a regular house and a yard.  But for us, it's lush, full of life--with animals, edible plants, insect life--a happily buzzing interlocking set of ecosystems, working together, supporting us and each other, singing...

Space to think (Utila, Honduras)

It's amazing that this has come to pass.  Starting about four years ago, I began laying awake at night, scrolling through the real estate listings on my iPhone, dreaming of moving back to western Massachusetts.  But I couldn't see the path to getting there.  We had good jobs in NYC, but we hadn't really been saving.  For 15 years, I had been in love with New York, and because real estate prices are insane there, we never really put much effort into thinking about, never mind saving for, a future home.  I figured we'd just rent forever.

But then, all of a sudden, I was done with "the city."  I needed to move, but couldn't figure out how to make that happen; to complicate matters, Anne was pretty happy with our life as it was. There was quite a bit of anxious paralysis as I tried to figure out everything in advance.  Eventually I learned that I just had to take a step, and trust the path to unfold before me.

I've written before about a trip we took in early 2009 to Utila, Honduras, and how I had an awakening about myself, the Earth, and the cosmos.  As if that wasn't huge enough, during that same trip I met a bunch of expats whose life stories made plain that it is possible to radically change one's life.  I loved talking with Ed, a man in his 70s who had worked in the midwest in radio and in the insurance industry, until one day a friend took him sailing.  He realized that all he wanted to do was sail, and so he did.  He gave away all his suits, quit his job, and took a job chartering trips in Florida.  That was 40 years ago.  And I learned so much from the example of Dave, a successful architect from Los Angeles, who one day decided he had had enough.  Now he lives cheaply and happily, building structures for himself and friends near Rio Dulce, Guatemala.  These expats showed me that it is possible to just walk out the existing structures and narratives of your life, and do something different.  You can't plan out each step, you have to make the way as you go.

Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace el camino al andar.
(Searcher, there is no road. We make the road by walking.)

--  Antonio Machado, Selected Poems ( Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982)

Given our particular circumstances, Anne and I have made the way slowly, transitioning one step at a time, rather than leaping forward.  First, I quit a job in which I was finding little satisfaction, and moved to Bluestone Farm.  Anne and I adjusted to living on half the income we were accustomed to.  We started living more simply, and got used to seeing each other only on the weekends.  In the summer of 2010, Anne began spending more and more time at the farm, until she was mostly commuting into the city for work, rather than out of the city.  We happily readjusted to seeing each other every day.  Then, in early 2011, I took another step, finding a position at Open View Farm, here in Massachusetts.  As the months passed, Anne's weekend commuting got a bit tiring, and she began to work a few days a week from the farm.  Then, just a few months ago, she was able to find a great opportunity in Amherst, a new job with enticing challenges.  On February 20, we moved out of NYC--almost exactly 3 years after that fateful trip to Utila.

Our plan was to stay here at Open View Farm for another long while, saving money and eventually finding a place of our own.  I'd long dreamt of having my own farm, maybe even a small business.  Maybe in another year, we thought.  In preparation, in March I signed up to take a month-long course for first-time home buyers; Anne was scheduled to take it in May.  We had plenty of time to learn the ropes, we thought.  But you never know what's around the corner.

On March 17, we went to pick up some farm supplies in Belchertown, just south of Amherst.  I was feeling a bit under the weather, and was impatient to get back home, but Anne wanted to take the scenic route home.  A few minutes down the road, Anne saw a sign for an Open House.  I wasn't that interested, and rejected the idea.  But Anne was insistent; "What's the harm?  I've never been to an Open House.  It'll be fun!" she said.  So I turned the truck around and we went back.  Having no expectations, we were pleasantly suprised by everything we saw: a small grove of young fruit trees, well-established raised beds, a good-sized raspberry stand...a flat sunny 1-acre yard with lots of possibilities for small-scale farming.  A solidly built, clean, barn-red, 1500 sq ft Cape.  We could immediately imagine living there--it felt just right. Best of all, the house is right off the bike path to Amherst; 30 minutes ride to town.  Anne's commute would be just 10 minutes by car, or half an hour on the bike.

We chatted with the listing agent, and left with a bit of excitement.  And the more we thought about it, the better it seemed.  Although I had been imagining something more remote, and with more land, we couldn't stop thinking about the benefits of the bike path, and of the proximity to Anne's work.  We had been assuming that she'd need to drive 30 minutes each way, in order for us to find something reasonable in cost.  It felt like a really good spot for us, surprisingly.  And because the house is in such good condition, with a newer roof, replacement windows, boiler, and septic system, we would be able to start investing in the garden, rather than in repairs.

Over the next two days, Sunday and Monday, we talked about the house non-stop.  We drew pictures.  We searched the internet for any information we could find about life in Belchertown.  We applied to be preapproved for a mortgage.  We went to see the house again, with our realtor.  And on Tuesday we got a phone call from our realtor that two other offers had been made on the house--did we want to make an offer?

And we did, and our offer was accepted, and now here we are, a few weeks from closing.  We've done all the steps: the home inspection, the various water and termite tests, securing a lawyer, paying deposits, getting the appraisal.  We're waiting on the bank to approve the mortgage, and hope to hear from them in the next week or so.  The closing is scheduled for May 31.  I've already got someone booked to sand the floors in a couple of the rooms on June 1.

All that's left to do is wait, and try to be patient.  I'm not very good at being patient.  But I just keep reminding myself that soon we get to start putting down roots.  This has been my deep longing--to commit to some land, to settle into a home, to be in a place for the long-term.  I want to plant a tree, and be there when it begins to bear fruit.  Our lives have been in transition for so long, with so much uncertainty.  We've been moving, moving, moving, making the way one step at a time, and now, we will stop crossing distances and, instead, go deep.  I can sense that it will be a different kind of "making the way", and I can't wait.

It's been an amazing couple of years, and I'm so grateful to the sisters at Bluestone Farm and to Emmy Howe and all the folks at Open View Farm for holding me so well during these years of transition.  I'm incredibly thankful for all the learning I've gotten to engage in over the last few years.  I had never gardened before visiting Bluestone Farm in 2009; now I've got dreams of starting my own little farm business, and I feel confident that I can successfully grow vegetables, and raise chickens, and perhaps even goats and bees. 

And beyond all the practical gardening and livestock experience that I've gained, I've learned so much about myself--my strengths, my weaknesses, my true desires.  Here's what I know: I'm determined, strong-willed, and I've got a lot of physical stamina.  I can envision things in detail, making concrete snapshots of plans in my mind.  I can research a great deal of information quickly, sift and process it, and make decisions swiftly.  I learn fast.  I also am stubborn, unwilling to admit fatigue, prone to procrastination, and incredibly impatient.  I have very little mechanical or engineering smarts, and I get quickly frustrated in such situations.  I have a hard time slowing down enough to explain things to other people; I am overly independent.  And I want to create something of my own, something beautiful, something complex, something that lives and evolves, something I can grow with.

Knowing all this, in the visceral, embodied way that I do now, is powerful.  I feel like I'm coming into my own, and I have a level of confidence in myself that I don't think I've ever really felt before.  The anticipation that I'm feeling right now is about much more than just buying a house--it's an eagerness to get started on this new chapter of my life, it's knowing in my core that I'm ready to start.  Maybe this is part of being in my 40s: having a deeper sense of self-knowledge, and feeling the assurance and empowerment that comes with such knowledge.

I don't know yet, for sure, if I'm going to start a farm business, but I am leaning in that direction.  I've been researching a couple of possibilities (goat milk? specialty peppers? seedlings?), and will be writing more about that in the future.  For now, for this summer, I'm planning only on planting as much as I can as soon as we move in, building garden beds for fall crops, and designing a permaculture garden plan for the longer term.  I'm reading two great books:  Gaia's Garden and Edible Forest Gardens.  (For the home-scale gardener, I'd highly recommend Gaia's Garden; for those interested in landscape design and professional work in permaculture, Edible Forest Gardens is indispensible.)

Stay tuned--I hope to be updating this blog much more frequently as I continue making the way, diving into this new creation.

First of the seedlings

Which sets me to worry.  (Not that that's very hard to do...I seem to be prone to fretting.)  But I do worry about the impact of such a warm and dry couple months.  Especially when driving past the rivers, at such low levels.  Seeing no snowmelt streaming down.  Reading the forest fire warnings of recent days.  Witnessing the apperance of mosquitos in March.  These are not good signs.

But what is there to do, but go forward?  I'm thinking about all kinds of rainwater catchment--rain barrels off of gutters, improving the soil to be able to absorb the water when it comes, planting rain gardens with water-loving plants.  I'm thinking about reducing the strain on the well, about conserving water, low-flow showerheads, remembering to shut off the water while washing dishes.  I'm thinking about people who've lived with drought for years, who walk for miles to get fresh water.  I feel lucky, grateful, and still worried.

So today I'm going to soothe my soul by planting some seeds.  It's finally time to start the peppers and the eggplants, and next week, I'll start the tomatoes.  I love these little guys.  Who knew you could have such love for a whole family of plants?  But I do love the solanaceae, or nightshade family.  Those sun-loving plants that are so colorful and delicious.

When they are just the tiniest of seeds, it's hard to imagine them growing into a 3 wide tall eggplant, or a 5 foot tall tomato plant, or a pepper plant with hundreds of chiles on it.  But they do, with a little tending and attention.  And some water.

So let's give thanks today for the rain, whereever we are.  Think of the tomatoes to come.

As long-time friends know, I was for a time quite smitten with the TV show "The X-Files."  Smitten enough to videotape every episode off of network TV, in the process amassing a large collection of VHS tapes.  (Which are now in storage.  Can't seem to throw them away, even though we no longer own a VCR.)  In the show's opening sequence, text flashes across a gray-blue dusky sky, reading: "The Truth Is Out There", an allusion to Agent Fox Mulder's quest to prove the existence of extraterrestrials.  Well, I can't say whether there are aliens out there, but I do know that we are not alone in the universe within.

We are populated by bacteria--100 trillion bacteria by current estimates.  These bacteria are the main actors in our digestion, affecting not only the breakdown of our food and how much nutrition we gain, but are also implicated in the workings of our brains, including feelings of anxiety and depression. I've spent much of the past couple of years being fascinated by the outside world, the life in the soil, the cycles of the seasons, the impossible grandeur of the Universe.  What a joy to discover that there's a whole other, equally complex and beautiful ecosystem inside, what scientists call the "microbiome."  Wired magazine has a succinct breakdown of the different bacterial communities of our bodies--check it out here.  And if you're interested in reading more, I highly recommend the book The Wild Life of Our Bodies, by Rob Dunn.

So how did I get interested in bacteria, anyway?  Last summer, I started feeling like there was something wrong with me.  I woke every day exhausted, no matter how many hours of sleep I got.  My joints were stiff, arthritic.  I ached all over. 

I didn't want to talk about it to anyone, because I was embarrassed . . . and worried.  Here I was, a new farmer, and I was afraid that my body was not up to the task.  I should have felt healthier than ever--I'd been eating healthy, organic, home-grown food for more than two years, eschewing processed food altogether.  I'd been regularly working outside doing strenous manual labor, and I had improved my strength and endurance.  I'd given up cigarettes and alcohol years ago.  Yet I felt worse than ever.

At the end of July, I read a book review on BoingBoing.com about Gary Taubes's book Why We Get Fat.  Taubes is a reputable science journalist, and had reviewed thousands of medical studies in writing his 600-page book Good Calories/Bad Calories.  Why We Get Fat is the layperson's version of that larger, more scientifically written book.  His basic argument is that a diet high in carbohydrates means the constant release of insulin in the body, which leads to more and larger fat cells.  Cut out the carbs, stop the insulin flood, and the body will automatically begin to lose the fat.  (This is similar to the Atkins diet, but Taubes calls for a more well-rounded approach.) 

Feeling as awful as I did, this seemed worth a try.  I figured if I could lose some of the excess weight that has been my despised companion for many years, maybe I would feel better.  So I cut out all grains (wheat, rice, corn, oats, etc.) and all sugars, including almost all fruit.  Instead, I ate pastured meat and eggs, raw milk cheeses, and vegetables.  With lots of good saturated fats, like butter, cream, lard, and coconut oil.  After about 10 days of intermittent discomfort, as my body adjusted, and I suddenly began feeling better.  The near-constant hunger I had become accustomed to disappeared.  I became satisfied with much less food.

The discomfort felt in the beginning of reducing carbs and sugar is a result of "die-off", in which the bad bacteria in your gut that thrive on those substances begin to starve, and then die.  This results in headaches, fatigue, and sometimes allergy-like symptoms and irritability.  But getting these bad bacteria under control, and nurturing the growth of good bacteria, was worth it.  Within just a few weeks, the weight began just disappearing--no additional exercise, no grueling cardio.  And I wasn't ever hungry, because I was eating good fats that satisfy.  I felt so much better that I didn't even miss my old comfort foods: pasta, bread, rice, potatoes.

In the last few years, I've come to read a great deal of unconventional arguments about diet, ideas that go completely against the grain of most nutritional thinking.  Most conventional wisdom about weight loss says that you just have to eat less and exercise more, and eat low fat foods and more whole grains.  That's all.  But it turns out that that's not true, at least for some of us.  Over the years, I've dieted and joined gyms and paid for personal trainers.  And I always felt terrible.  Reading blogs such as Cheeseslave, Food Renegade, and The Healthy Home Economist have gotten me used to thinking about food in new ways, such as the healthiness of saturated fats, the presence of "anti-nutrients" such as phytates in grains, and the powerfully destructive effects of sugar.  Slowly these ideas seem to be gaining acceptance in more mainstream circles, perhaps as part of the rise in popularity of "Paleo" and "Primal" eating programs.  The best book I've found that explains the science behind "primal" or "paleo" eating--eating meats, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, like humans have for most of our 150,000 year history, and eschewing grains, which only appeared on our dietary scene 10,000 years ago--is Primal Body, Primal Mind, by Nora Gedgaudas.  In addition to discussing insulin, leptin and other hormones that affect weight, this book describes how our psychological health is affected by the foods we eat.

There's a lot more to this story, which I'll write in bits and pieces in the coming weeks, including learning that I have a thyroid condition and an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.  And, happily, that after 6 months of intense research, dietary changes, and new medicines and supplements, my most recent bloodwork shows that my Hashimoto's disease is almost under control.  It's been an intense bunch of months, since I first read Taubes's book in late July.  In that time, I've spent countless hours reading and researching, and experimenting.  I was lucky to find a good doctor on my second try, which has made a huge difference.

I'm also lucky that my life right now has allowed me to focus on healing from this disease and improving my health. It's been like a part-time job, sifting through all the information out there.  Our medical system too often creates situations in which the patient feels powerless and uninformed, and dependent on experts for healing.  Perhaps it's just in my makeup, or perhaps it's because I've been reading the things I have for the last few years, or perhaps it's because my disease is poorly understood by conventional medicine, but for whatever reason, I've been able to be empowered around my health.  Maybe my bacteria are naturally inquisitive too . . .

At any rate, I'm working hard to care for my microbiome, to think about how I'm nurturing those trillions of critters inside.  I'm eating homemade yogurt and sauerkraut, filled with good probiotics.  I'm taking a powerful probiotic supplement called Bio-Kult.  I'm avoiding all sugars.  I'm cooking with lard, and drinking lots of bone broths.  It takes some discipline, but I feel better than I have in years, and the weight keeps coming off.  As the Wired infographic shows, lean people have more than 200 additional species of bacteria in their gut than obese people.  More diverse and better bacteria . . . less excess baggage.

My bacteria and me--we are going to conquer this thing . . .

Last week we got about a foot of snow, which remains blindingly white, and hard-crusted.  Even though it disrupted some of my plans, I was deeply grateful for the snowfall.  Not only because it promised much-needed eventual moisture for the gardens, but also because it meant that it was winter, still.  At least for a few more days...

I do not remember ever wanting the winter to linger as I have this year.  I paced through the unsettling warmth of January and February, wishing for snow, snarling at the brown dead grass, and fretting about the unseasonable temperatures.  After the giant snowfall (maybe 18"?) in late October (and the devastating hurricane of August), the absence of snow this winter seems to confirm that our seasons are all twisted up, and that I should be prepared for another blizzard in May.  Wouldn't surprise me now.

It's distressing, this tumultuousness, this inability to count on dividing lines between seasons.  I worry about our being able to reliably produce food in an increasingly uncertain climate.  Bad timing to have a new passion for growing food, as it appears to be headed for an even more challenging future. 

In the face of this reality, I am chagrined to find myself resisting the calendar, trying to deny the fact that it's March already.  Wishing that somehow it was still January, that we had 8 more weeks of winter ahead.  I should be excited to start celery, parsley, and onion seeds, but I'm dragging my feet.  I'd rather sit by the woodstove and read a book.

I know that part of this longing arises from the sheer busy-ness of this winter--I want to hibernate still.  It's been an incredibly busy couple of months--December was consumed by a big vacation (learning to ski!), and the holidays.  January was also intense--I joined a writing group and began a new health regimen, and Anne was in the throes of deciding whether to take a new job and to leave NYC.  And then in the first three weeks of February, her decision was made, and we had to find a moving company and a new storage unit, pack, and vacate our apartment.  In the midst of all this, there were seeds to order, beans and corn to shell, and dried peppers to grind.  The winter went too fast.  And people wonder what farmers do all winter...

But, in the end, no amount of resistance or desire for rest changes today's date, or the fact that it takes a long time to germinate celery and parsley seeds, and even longer to get those little plants sturdy enough to be planted outside.  I've got to start now, even if I'm not ready to go.  At least it's bright outside, clear blue and shimmering white...