First things first

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Originally uploaded by n_yoder

Ok, so the biggest thing that happened this week: Farm Baby!!! Our Farm Advisor (she was Farm Manager last year, but is out on maternity leave this year) gave birth to a healthy baby boy! Frank David. Its so completely exciting, and to be around an infant just after its born - a rare and precious gift. And now Mother's Day - so special. We've been rejoicing on the farm.

We also had some other things happening, but the arrival of Frank David was certainly the knock-your-socks-off event. We cultivated the field crops, which is a fancy way of saying we began an ongoing process of disturbing the soil around the plants in the field rows, to kill unwanted plants (weeds) and to discourage new weeds. To do this, we use hoes. It turns out, hoeing is a lot harder than it might seem. We'll get a lot more practice at this, so that's good.

We also completed a sowing - planting lots of seeds for germination in the greenhouse. There's a lot involved: making potting mix for the flats, getting the flats cleaned and sterilized, getting the seeds organized, and then filling the flats with soil and placing the seeds in. It turns out to be a long set of tasks, to get the sowing completed.


Then we also did a little stint with removing aquatic plants from the pond. There was compost (although i wasn't on the compost crew this week) and we received our Summer Project jobs, plus our tuesday chores. Summer Project is one aspect of the farm that is assigned to each apprentice, so we take special care of that set of tasks. I'm assigned to handle the veggie boxes for our CSA (small CSA - community supported agriculture - for Muir Beach). So there was a lot of housekeeping this week.

We had a tea ceremony demonstration for the apprentices last week, and i attended my first tea class. It is good to be back in the tearoom. I've been away from tea for about 2 months over the time of the move and transition, and i'm glad that we have tea here.

Wendy Johnson came to give a talk on Wednesday. She talked about ... everything. She was wonderful. She has a powerful presence. She spoke about practice, about bringing our Zen practice to our lives, whatever our lives are. For her, its growing food. So she spoke about how this is so critical that we bring our practice to the world, whatever the case may be of where we are in the world (living in a monastery, working in an office). It was Cinco de Mayo and she spoke about war and peace, and several of the Spanish speaking members of the temple read one of our daily chants in Spanish. I loved hearing the Spanish - it was poetic and songlike. Beautiful.

As Mother's Day draws to an end, i am struck with how much gratitude i have for my Mothers, and for all the Mother's of the world. And, we also call the planet "Mother Earth". So it feels like maybe Mothers are all connected, through the Earth? I only hope that i can uphold my end of the bargain, and be a caring steward for my life, for all suffering beings, and for this one and only planet. May we all go in peace.