Nettle Beer

This morning there was a random dry spell and we were able to plant out the rainbow chard, adult lettuce, and celery. So far we’ve only planted a few other vegetables (onions, peas, broccoli) but starting next week, planting will really start to pick up, as will lots of other things around here. I feel ready for it, and am thankful that we’ve been easing into farm life so far. The days have been challenging, yet manageable, structured by physically active mornings and lighter afternoons - which makes sense as we build stamina and bigger muscles. 

Clearly, we're new at this!

 

Tonight, Ashley’s friend, Digit, came out to help us brew beer. We harvested nettles from the backyard to give our beer an herbal aspect – nettles are a potent source of minerals and have been used medicinally to treat all kinds of ailments including kidney stones, arthritis, digestive issues, menopause, etc. I have a feeling it’s going to be quite a step up from me and Cory’s Mr. Beer attempt at peach lager. Lol. 

Before we brewed the beer, I had a moment of acknowledgment: my body had officially passed a tolerable level of dirty. My hair was clay-like as if it had been dipped in beeswax and my face, arms and hands were a significant shade darker than the rest of me. Since it’s been cold and rainy all week, there's been no hot water; therefore, I hadn’t allowed myself to even fantasize about a shower. But tonight, even though the idea of a freezing bath in the rain absolutely terrified me, I decided: the mess that was me could not go on. So. I boiled three gallons of water to pour over me for when the cold water became unbearable. Went to my room, did five minutes of jumping jacks to get my heart rate up. Ripped off my clothes, whipped a towel around me, and ran out the back door. Later, when I shared my experience with everyone, Ashley said she remembered hearing something across the fields that had worried her one of the chickens was being attacked by a raccoon. That’s to say, I expressed my extreme discomfort vociferously. Anyway, it feels AMAZING to be clean. If only for tonight…

Tomorrow is Pie Friday! It’s Horton’s tradition to end each week with a farm meeting over pie (or some kind of dessert). As I’m sure you’ve gathered thus far, pretty much everything we do around here involves food! 

Harvesting Nettles!

Put A Bird (On) In (It!) Your Room!

After a labor-intensive morning of cutting salad mix and digging out greenhouse #2, we all loaded into Rita’s station wagon and took off on our first field trip! We spent the afternoon helping out Jen and Ted at the Food For Lane County Youth Farm, a non-profit located in Springfield. The farm grows vegetables for the county’s food bank and also serves as an educational site for the community. We spent an hour or so planting onions and spreading manure in one of the greenhouses. Then, in what seemed like a cruel joke, Jen asked for volunteers to help her lay out agrabon. We all just stood there, speechless, looking at each other. After the silence crossed the threshold into awkward, I finally offered to do it, everyone else sighing with relief. Yeah, not our favorite chore after yesterday’s agrabon shit show.

We got back late and I fell asleep as soon as I slipped into my two sleeping bags. A few hours later I was startled awake by a thudding sound coming from the boys’ rooms above me. Thudding, feet pounding, furniture being shoved all around, laughter – I seriously had the thought that there was a game of musical chairs going on. I laid awake for twenty minutes, trying to let go of the extreme irritation I felt - but I only grew hotter. Finally, I whipped out of my sleeping bags, shoved on my boots and threw open my door, ready to scream out - - (like I used to do to the drunks outside my window in DC) - - when I caught Lisa heading upstairs. Hiding my original intent, I asked calmly (and almost with a sense of concern, lol) “What is going on up there?” --- Apparently, when Bobby crawled into bed, exhausted like the rest of us, he came to find that a little sparrow had taken up occupancy in his room while we were out. It would not stop chirping - as if it were a bright spring morning - and despite their creative efforts, he and Paul just couldn't figure out how to catch it.

I sheepishly ducked back into my secure, insulated room, and thanked my lucky stars, again, for Sabina’s borrowed car and my keen foresight to be the first one here – without which, I very well could have been, the unfortunate one trying to catch a bird in the middle of the night. 

Put a Bird on It!

Typical Spring Weather

So it’s been raining pretty much nonstop for four days now. Surprisingly, I’ve been holding up rather well. The insulated rain boots I hemmed and hawed over spending eighty dollars on have been a friggin life saver. Plus, the cold, wet days have inspired us all to bake, which heats up our living space like a little oven. The winds were so powerful yesterday that they pulled up all of the agrabon (protective sheet-like material used to cover the beds we’ve planted) we had carefully had laid down last week. Today we spent the entire soaking morning slipping around in the mud, untangling the damn stuff and pulling it off the field to dry (maybe, someday). By the time we were done we all looked like swamp creatures. “This is typical spring weather”, everyone (literally EVERYONE) keeps telling us over and over again, “it rained non-stop through June last year”. I really wish people would keep information like that to themselves. When it comes to bad weather predictions I’d rather the bliss of ignorance.

A Lazy Day

Today we were given a project to work on this season called the ‘faux farm’. It is a vision of our ideal farming situation and a plan of how we would actually carry it out. A cross between a vision board and a business plan, the project takes into account where you’d like to live, what crops you are interested in growing, how small/large scale you’d want to be, other things you’d like to incorporate into the farm/garden (use as a community resource, CSA, farmer’s markets, etc)., how much money it would cost and lots of other factors. At the end of the season we will present our plans to the group to be critiqued! My first thought was that I’d like to grow bananas because they’re my fav. and because it’d mean that I’d have to be somewhere south of the border = year round warm weather (Mom – I could grow them in Hawaii!). I’m not really interested in the business aspect, though I’m open to whatever comes along that feels right in the moment. I’m here more so because I’d like to learn to sustain myself and a community of people - ideally in a barter/trade situation… Anyway, it’s going to be a cool project.

Since it’s been pouring rain with winds reaching 70mph, we got the afternoon off. Bill said that similar weather in the past has actually blown the greenhouses away! Which made me chuckle, thinking about being swept away in a greenhouse over the valley, pitchfork in hand. So, I’ve been camped out in front of the space heater eating and reading with everyone else also eating and reading. Rita came back from her weekend at home with three chickens that we are going to raise as a group! We hope to get more in the next few months so that we can slaughter them for a feast in the fall. Her parents also bought us a 12 pack of beer which is awesome.

We walked to the welder neighbor’s house last night and delivered the cookies. The first words out of his mouth were “you kids wanna smoke a fattie?” We initially laughed it off, assuming he was kidding. But he stared at us with big eager eyes and it was apparent that he was for real, at which point we awkwardly declined. He had a poodle too, which was odd and kind of comical because the thing looked so much like one of the sheep out in his front lawn. What a nice old guy.

chillin with Lisa

some other thoughts...

My first trip into town was yesterday. In order to catch a ride, I had to leave with the truck that goes to sell at Saturday market at 6:00am, which was no prob. since I had been up since 3:30 having a manic episode induced by overindulgence in IPA the night before. (The anticipation of putting on a clean pair of pants and some sneakers also being a major contributor. Wow, that sounds like a sad life.)

Being back in the mix of Eugene felt like a visit ‘Home’, and I realized how fond of this place I am becoming. Also, I don’t know if it was because of the nice weather or what, but I saw more attractive people that afternoon than I have seen in four months of being here, combined. So that was a high point in the day. The low point was probably when Erin told me that I smelled a little like a compost pile. (Which really surprised me because I’d showered a day ago, and it had been several days since we’d been in the thick of compost.)

Anyway, I got supplies to make bread, chocolate chip oatmeal raisin cookies, and kim chee (Korean-style spicy fermented cabbage) – my cooking goals for this week. The yogurt I made with raw milk last week came out amazing - I can’t believe how easy it was- just heat the milk to 115 degrees (if you want to keep it raw. Heat to 185 if you want to pasteurize it, or if the milk is already pasteurized) let it cool to 110 then stir in ¼ cup of starter or you can use a heaping tablespoon of store-bought yogurt that contains live cultures. Then pour it into jars and incubate it for 8 hours (I used a cooler). That’s it!

Whatever I end up doing with the rest of my life, it’s going to involve plenty of time in my day for cooking, walking, and creative projects. Screw my old life of rushing around to and fro work situations where I was forced to operate from an alter-ego that left me miserable and with barely enough time and energy to fit in a morning jog. , but elitism is a product of Civilization, and I am committed to living and operating in ways that not only challenge the accepted norm, but actually work to deconstruct our societal system- for the sake of all living things. (Woa, that was quite a jump – from yogurt-making to activism in less than one paragraph  - I have to continue my thought though-) Our society operates and depends upon the violation and enslavement of a class of people (enslaves us all really – in different ways) to poverty, to inhumane, dangerous, back-breaking work that keeps a privileged minority in power and maintains the status quo. I am reminded of Endgame, a book critiquing Civilization by activist Derrick Jensen. The book begins with twenty premises; all which reflect this imbalance in one way or another.

“PREMISE THREE: Our way of living – industrial civilization – is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.

PREMISE FOUR: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence down by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

PREMISE FIVE: …It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control – in everyday language, to make money – by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.”

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I realize that in being so open about my current thoughts and beliefs, which probably seem radical to some of you, I make myself vulnerable to those who disagree or are uninterested in peeling back the layers. I want to be clear that I am not trying to separate myself from the ‘evil system’ or sit in judgment of the actions of anyone else. I am just a part of industrial civilization as the next person – I participate in the degradation and violence, no matter how much I try to avoid it, because our way of living is currently founded on these principles. However, I am no longer capable of ignoring certain facts, and feel compelled to speak out and attempt to act in accordance with what I believe to be true and right and authentic for me. (Something that has been cultivating within me for a time now, not just from one week here on the farm. ) I think that we all have gifts to contribute and essentially all want the same things at the end of the day. That is why I feel it is important to reflect upon how we go about getting to the end of our day, and discuss not only the ways in which we feel we fall short but also to generate new ways of thinking and eventually collaborate on creative solutions to benefit our land bases, our communities, and our individual lives.

Thanks for reading – love to you all!

Bobby, Paul, and Lisa washing out the planters

“…what we’re doing here is in no way sustainable…”

-Part of Bill’s response to my inquisition into the origins of and methods used to come up with the soil mixture used on Horton’s crops. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated his honesty and level of awareness. He told us all of his early, idealistic days as a budding farmer- he and his friends were highly critical of agricultural norms, and swore to never conform. He said that his experience as a farmer has been one of sacrifice and hard decisions – always striving to make choices that aligned with his core beliefs, but also needing to consider the survival of his farm.

We did a batch of soil mix as a group, dumping precise measurements of the different components onto the garage floor, which we then mixed together by shoveling it back and forth. The mix is composed of coir fiber (shredded coconut shells), earthworm casings, vermiculite (ground limestone), bonemeal, rootzone, and ground kelp. Bill said that without the mixture, the farm would never function on the scale that it does now (which is relatively small – about 6 crop acres). What I found interesting, since half of the group (including Bill) identify as vegetarian, is the fact that the soil mixture is not, and that no one seemed to notice, or at least no one commented on it. I was going to say something, but then restrained myself because it seemed off-topic. But, I was thinking about it all day. It’s exactly what Lierre Kieth’s book The Vegetarian Myth brings up as a problem with some arguments for vegetarianism. Our food cannot grow without death of living beings. No matter how hard we try to take ourselves out of that life/death cycle (by not eating meat, not purchasing leather, etc.) we will never escape it because we are an integral part of it. The soil we use and the organic vegetables we grow here at Horton (or on any farm) depend on the essential minerals and elements contained in bone (read: dead animal) or in animal waste products. Also, I can see the counter-argument, which is that obtaining bone meal or fertilizer doesn’t have to involve the killing of that animal. An animal can just die on its own, and animal shit is going to happen no matter what, so animal byproduct in soil isn’t the same as choosing to eat meat or other animal products. It’s in no way a black and white issue.

That being said, I want to add that in my mind there is a difference between factory farming as opposed to pastured, chemical-free, grass-fed animals/organic, non-factory farmed vegetables. I’m not suggesting that we should just throw our hands up in the air and have a free-for-all just because “everything is all life and death”. I think, like with everything, there is a balance to be found, and many opportunities to make informed, healthy choices about what we consume and consciously or inadvertently support.

That being said, I also want to point out that if we’re really interested in Change, debating over being vegetarian or non-vegetarian, eating organic vs. non organic, recycling, hybrid cars, or obsessing over/proselytizing other personal lifestyle choices that we feel are ‘healthier’, ‘better’, ‘greener’ is really just a distraction from the more dire issues – i.e., what kind of place will the earth be for my great-grandchildren? What can we do RIGHT NOW to stop or at least slow the destruction of our land base (because without healthy soil, air, water, ecosystems, etc. we will have no food = we (human and non-human beings) will die).

I’d be interested to hear what others think about this!

In other news, our little group forgot to cover up the solar panels, and the pipes burst in the freezing night. The system costs thousands of dollars which basically means that we will not have hot water or another warm shower ever again. Bill held his cool, but it was more than a tense morning which included an extremely awkward group apology. Tense it was until our welder neighbor came over and freakin FIXED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a small miracle. A cloud of despair and the anxious anticipation of hard times ahead dissipated and whoops of joy continued throughout the day and into night. That dude is totally getting some thank you cookies this weekend.

We got the trellis set up for the peas!

“…it’s not like you need to tuck them in and sing them a lullaby…”

-Bill’s instruction on how to most efficiently plant the ‘starts’ (seeds that have been started in the greenhouse).

Seedlings in the greenhouse

Seedlings from greenhouse moved to the fields!

We’ve started our first week right out in the dirt – harvesting spring mix, planting broccoli, weeding garlic, row covering, and, of course, shoveling shit. The days have been beautiful and sunny though the nights and mornings have been frigid. Lucky for me and my score of a room, I’ve hardly been complaining. My barn-mates come down and huddle around the kitchen space heater in the mornings reporting interrupted sleep and frosty breath. (Don’t get me wrong – I, too, am also huddled around the space heater, and sleep with three layers, two pairs of socks, a hat, one blanket and two sleeping bags.)

I am having a blast. Bill and Deborah (Horton Road’s owners) are amazingly generous and loving people. They have opened up their home and land and hearts to us, whom they hardly know, and live with intention, awareness, and compassion. My barn-mates are also an inspiration to be around. Lisa, Bobby, Paul, Rita, Ashley, and Stacey are all intelligent, creative, and hilarious. We’re planning: to make beer, wine, fruit leather; a hoe-down; group mural; road trips, and more. Deborah runs workshops in the farm Zen-do, and friend of the farm is going to teach weekly yoga sessions. Our hard work during the days feels good and meaningful and is balanced by laughter, relaxation, amazing food and a sense of community that I haven’t felt in such a long time. Gotta love the honeymoon period. 

Weeding some garlic!

Day One

Rolled up at 8:41 am. Got the room. Bahahahahah. (Shout out to Sabina Carp - - thank you soooo much for letting Erin and I borrow your car. Hopefully Erin got to rinse it off before getting it back to you. ‘Muddy’ hardly describes the situation out here…. And thanks to you too, Erin! ) 

Ashley, the farm manager, greeted us with breakfast and gave me the run-down on some barn-living basics (i.e., “the composting toilet is only for #2 – just pee outside, wherever –“ ; “be prepared to find bats, birds, rats, owls, and other critters in your bedroom at some point”). And lo and behold - within minutes of unpacking the car, one of the several barn cats had nuzzled its’ muddy little self into my nice clean sleeping bag. Most of you know my aversion to cats, and so can picture my face. But, I tried out my new mantra: “this is just my life now”. Mud, rain, rats, cats, and never quite coming away from the shower feeling completely fresh. I figure it’s going to be kind of like living at Bonaroo, only FOREVER, and minus the jam bands and overflowing porta-potty’s. But hell, this is how I have always dreamed of living. I’ve pared my life down to 8 boxes and a guitar, am sharing a space with like-minded people, am doing physical labor that has an actual purpose, and have the rest of my time to make art, read, hike, and be outdoors. I think I’m going to be pretty happy here. Plus, I think it’s about time to revisit my inner dirty hippie! Yeahhhh, patchouli.

But, I’m not gonna lie… when Erin drove off today, I kind of panicked for a few minutes. The landscape of thick mossy trees, tall green grasses, and the perpetual gray mist suddenly felt foreign and untrustworthy. But my mood was lifted when Ashley informed me that a package from my sister had come yesterday! ( Thanks for the sweater Cait, I love it! ) So, I put on some beach boys and made my room look nice and once everyone arrived we made pizza with fresh herbs and veggies. All in all, a great first day here!

My new home....

Click Here For Barn Tour!

Click Here For Barn Tour!

Let the Layers Begin....

My new adventure begins tomorrow at 6:00am.  Yes, because I'm eager and excited, but moreso because I NEED to have that room with the insulation. There are five bedrooms in the old barn, and only one has the sweet promise of a good night's sleep undisturbed by shivering fits and numb extremities.

When I got hired at Horton Road, my first thought was whether or not I'd realistically make it in the cold months ahead -- which I know is lame - -  but the truth is: my body has a low tolerance for dampness and cold. It just does.  If I'm not warm, I'm simply not able to be a real person. 

So.....................I've been preparing....because I am determined to overcome my limitations and have great fantastic fun. I've got long johns, smartwool, fleece, sweaters, face masks, ski mittens, raingear and can thankfully fit two pairs of pants on at once. I may look like a bumbling snowman and have the dextarity and finesse of a beached whale, but I'll be goddam warm.

You know what else warms mah soul, that's some Ninkasi IPA... I'm off to say goodbye to Eugene!
Wish me luck!