Gasland 2 - coming soon to a backyard near you

What happens when you wake up to bad news?  What do we do when our backyard is suddenly next door to oil and gas development?  Is there anything we can do?  My friends are walking the route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, holding that question.  Josh Fox seems tireless, in his effort to connect with people and document what's happening regarding fracking around the USA, and now the world.  

I had the honor of attending a (FREE!) screening of Gasland 2, along with q+a with Josh Fox, Wilma Subra, and Al Armendiaz in New Orleans.  The screening was hosted by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, at the amazing Pyritania Theater.  I felt exhilarated, being in the same room with these advocacy and awareness (through science!) heavyweights.  I felt abuzz with energy, and also i found myself humbled and overwhelmed with the knowledge that these three people have worked with such incredible dedication to investigate the truth of fracking, and to bring those truths to as many people as possible.  Also, i'd been wanting to ask Josh Fox if he knew my friend Sarajane - the both of them being from Pennsylvania, and they're both totally awesome.  I didn't get to ask that - but i did get a photo.

The film is a nice conclusion, a nice summary to the conclusion of each progressive-ideals path i've walked down recently.  The conclusion is that our democracy is broken.  Its not like this is new news; more like its just helpful to have one more group of people searching for truth come to this conclusion.  And i do find myself reinvigorated to organize around environmental issues and awareness in the Deep South.  Onward!

Insects and Hurricane Katrina

Its 8:15 pm.  I'm waiting for my dinner to finish cooking.  Savory bread pudding.  I made it because i finally made bread again!  But then the bread didn't turn out *quite* as tasty as i'd hoped, so i decided to cook it in a pot with other good things, and it'll all taste great.  Stomach grumbling in anticipation of dinner, and my toe grazes a wire underneath my desk.  FREAK OUT BECAUSE THERE'S AN ENORMOUS BUG ON ME!  No, upon investigation we learn:  it was just a wire.  Sigh.  My reflexes are...changing.  Every little tickle or sensation becomes a potential scenario for waving hands and swatting oneself uncontrollably.  Because if you don't investigate what is touching your foot, then sometimes you look down and there IS an enormous bug crawling up your leg.  The other day i put my shoes on and thought, "what did i put in my shoe?".  It was, of course, an enormous freaking cockroach.  So there's obsessive sensation-panic, and there's obsessive checking clothes, towels, furniture, bedspreads for any crawling/flying/spineless thing.  Becoming attuned to the tropics (er, well, subtropics).

This all might sound a bit overdramatic, but - there's no escape, and no one is immune.  Everyone has the gigantic cockroaches, in their house, every day.  Like my landlord said:  its not like there will be a time when you don't see them.  Just know when to worry.  When to worry is when you start seeing little ones:  then it means they're breeding inside; otherwise they're usually stray from the outside.  How do they get in, you wonder?  Because the house seems hermetically sealed, due to the crushing heat that happens every day.  They get in when you open the door for a moment.  They get in through the drains (shudder).  But i'm hoping to make peace with them, and find some balance of living with the insects, and but also willing them outside.  Unfortunately for them, i think this means killing them sometimes.  In the case of cockroaches, it does.  I'm not sure what people do, who won't kill cockroaches.  Just the thought of them running around all over my dishes and clothes and toothbrush - it just sends shivers down my spine.  Maybe i need to just buck the hell up, and deal with it - its just an insect!  its not even poisonous! - but for now, there is an extermination system in place, for when they're inside the house (note:  if i find one inside the house, and i can catch it, i do try to keep it alive and put it outside).

Another note on invertebrates:  i am continually amazed by the numbers and variety of insects and spiders i see and hear, here (here, here!).  So far, i've seen, in addition to the cockroaches: millipedes, 3 or 4 kinds of wasps, bumble bees, 3 or 4 kinds of butterflies, moths, hummingbird moths, cicadas, fire ants, flies, mosquitoes, 3 kinds of spiders, and beetles.  Mostly, there are bugs that i can't identify - especially the wasps and the beetles.  There are also lots of flying insects that i'm not sure of their ID.

In other news, i've been reading a non-fiction book about Hurricane Katrina - one survivor's account (and she relays stories from several of her friends) of being in the storm on the Gulf Coast, and the aftermath.  Its absolutely riveting.  I can't put it down - even with the mountains of schoolwork i have.  The book is:  Under Surge, Under Seige - by Ellis Anderson.  My landlord gave it to me to read; she's one of the friends who shows up in the book.  I want to know all the stories.  And now, visiting some of the places she (and other people in their storm stories) are talking about - the stories become all the more poignant and striking.  And, the stories are utterly heartbreaking.  So much loss.  How does one individual cope with so much loss?  How does a community cope?  Then, in with the loss is amazement and gratitude for people helping each other, people managing to survive despite the (very-stacked-against-them) odds.  One thing is very clear:  my hunch that Hurricane Katrina is a benchmark around these parts was spot on.  There is not a single person who hasn't been affected by the impact of the hurricane, and the aftermath.  Next up on my reading list is a book about Katrina in New Orleans:  1 Dead in the Attic.  Two things i've enjoyed so far in the book:  people saying that "Hurricane Camille killed more people in 2005 than in 1969" and Katrina was "The Great Equalizer".  The former refers to the previous worst hurricane in Gulf Coast recorded history - Camille.  People thought, "me/my house/this neighborhood survived Camille; it can't be worse than that", and so they stayed or didn't otherwise take necessary precaution, and it was WAY worse than that.  The Great Equalizer is that everyone was affected.  The richest man in Hancock County, disheveled and waiting in line to get a bag of ice.  The mayor, house demolished with nowhere to go.  Everyone, rich and poor, educated and not, privileged or not - everyone was the same to Katrina.

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IMG_0313.JPG, a photo by n_yoder on Flickr.

Back porch

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IMG_0311.JPG, a photo by n_yoder on Flickr.

New house kitchen, great room.

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IMG_0323.JPG, a photo by n_yoder on Flickr.

Hello! We're goats! (Also at my new house)

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IMG_0328.JPG, a photo by n_yoder on Flickr.

My new house!

Welcome to Mississippi. Would you like to buy a house/some land/a trailer?

Arrival in Mississippi

Creeping across the country, slowly if you're watching me from a bird's eye view, from the air.  Yet in my car, i'm hurtling through the air atop roads with bumps and turns and nuance, at top speed.  Sudden, and gradual.  Portland, Seattle, Boise, Moab, Albuquerque, Texas, Austin, New Orleans, Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis.  These are some of the names i encountered along the way - all with their own mystique, their own character, their own humidity.  I arrived in New Orleans late on a Thursday evening.  I could smell the hot, humid air.  The warmth and humidity engulfs me whenever i step out of the car, outdoors.  Sunset streaks the sky, cirrus clouds painting pink swaths above me and thunderheads gray, white boiling off in the distance ahead.  The highway approaching New Orleans is mostly surrounded by swamp and forest - raised highway, bordered by water and trees.  I see many, many birds (cormorants?), whom i can't readily identify, not flocking as such, but more like streaking across the sky like the clouds, one or two, every few seconds, so that in the end there are a lot.  They beckon me on, silently inviting me into this new place replete with birds and names unknown to me.  Other names crop up, intriguing and asking for investigation:  Atchafalaya, Ponchartrain.  What is there?  What are their secrets?  Who came before me?

As i travel around the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, one thing has become abundantly clear:  Hurricane Katrina changed the landscape:  social, ecological.  Katrina is a profound marker for this region.  Everyone has reference to Katrina, and people, buildings, communities are located around August 2005.  On the gulf coast, there are blocks standing empty - "if you know where to look, you'd know there used to be a building there", i'm told.  As it is, it looks like a rather peaceful lot.  But there's a big cement slab underneath the brush and ivy; telltale of the structure that used to sit on top.  Every community, every sector of town:  there is evidence of change, post-Katrina.  There are the shored up, stately houses, towering over everything on stilts.  Not that this region wasn't accustomed to storms; there are sections of towns where houses are required to be on stilts due to regular, shall we say routine, flooding.  But Katrina seems to have been a game-changer.  I had never visited New Orleans before last week.  As i exited off highway I-10, i saw the Superdome i'd heard so much about during Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath.  Now, the area around the Superdome is still, 8 years later, in somewhat of a shambles.  I phoned the friends i was trying to navigate to in the city.

"What street are you on?  What are the cross streets?", they asked.   I had no idea, and as i drove down a large, busy street - there were no street signs for many blocks.  Not on the thoroughfare street i was on, not on the side streets.  I thought at first it must be that the city has some unusual placement of signs that i didn't see, or that it was a sign of the city's impoverishment (which, i think, it is) - but then, when i had finally found my friends, they told me:  no, this was a remnant of Katrina.  Missing street signs, including an on-ramp to the highway, i found missing the next day; gaping potholes and road damage that still hasn't been repaired; condemned buildings and houses; these are all glimpses of the city struggling to get back on its feet after the storm.  There are many gorgeous dwellings and wonderful gardens in New Orleans.  And there are still many signs of destruction, too.  

The place i've arrived feels like the tropics.  Its still considered sub-tropical, but coming from San Francisco Bay area, and Seattle before that - its been a long time since i've been in hot, humid summer.  The air at night is thick and moist, and fireflies dance outside in the flowers.  Day and night, this place is teeming with life.  Butterflies, crickets, mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies, bees, wasps.  I've seen great egrets and cattle egrets and a sapsucker and raptors and turkey vultures and killdeer.  The cormorants continue to streak across the sky, every now and then.  And this, all within a span of a few days.  The roads remind me of the tropics, too.  When i was in Costa Rica (twenty years ago now, but still), everything was "se vende" - for sale.  Here, i see waves and waves of For Sale signs on fences and buildings; on everything.  For Sale!  For Sale by owner!   I'm not sure if its a remnant of Katrina, or an indicator of the region's economic slump, or some combination of factors, but everyone seems to be selling and not many people buying.  When i went looking for places to rent, i saw indicators of economic despair, as well.  "We'd be willing to sell the place, too, if you're interested", said one landlord, eager and hopeful.  "Oh, you'll be in school?  Do you think you could get my daughter a job?  She's a teacher", said another.  This was the first place i've rented an apartment or room that i can remember not having the landlords from each place asking for quick decisions, because of demand.  Weeks go by, and rentals are still open.  A colleague mentioned that now would be a good time to buy a place, and it may even be barely possible on our student stipends, but the problem is that the property isn't worth anything once you own it.  Its the reverse logic of investing in property.  People seem to be saying:  you invest in property here, if you really want to be here.  Not because you want to make money off of it.  New Orleans seems to be a bit different of a story, where there is the remaining devastation of Katrina, but also pockmarks of remodeled houses and lofts selling at better prices.  One thing is for certain:  the region has a dynamic, vibrant quality to it that draws people here, and rests in people's bones so that they don't want to leave.  

I have somehow wandered into a small sanctuary, to live in.  The place i settled on is a house, cool inside (but not cold), with gardens and goats and cats and flowers and acreage.  Its out in the country, at the edge of Mississippi state line.  There are horses and ranches and farms, and woods and rivers nearby.  Its so remarkably quiet.  Sure, i miss my view of City Hall all lit up for some occasion, i miss my view of the Bay Bridge and the BRIGHTER GREATER murals.  But here, there is no paved street outside my window.  There is moon, and mist, and insects buzzing.  There is the rustling of the tree's leaves.  Ginger grows at one end of the garden, and when i walk out onto the porch, i know i'm in the tropics again - transported instantly by that intoxicating scent.  

Wednesday:  first day of classes.  I have the feeling i'm a the foot of a mountain, or maybe i should say the edge of the swamp.  I can see the swamp, i can see how rich it is and how many stories and mysteries it must hold.  I want to know all of the stories, and be able to tell them properly, to sing the song of this place.  And i feel excited to be formally learning about the world oceans.  So the journey begins:  understanding the language of oceanography.  Dictionaries and translating and slowly building vocabulary to then venture into the swamp, and spend many days and nights learning and immersing.  There is work ahead, and our fearless guides have stood up before us and prepared lectures and staked their careers on imparting knowledge, know-how, humor and good will.  There is much to do.

San Francisco street art

San Francisco is chock full of incredible street art.  Have you seen some of it?  What have you enjoyed?  I've started a small photo catalogue of the things i've run into - excluding the "big" walls like Clarion Alley or Haight and Laguna murals (even though these sites ARE incredible).

Check out all of those photos by clicking here.

And, let me know what you're seeing.  

One of the reasons behind wanting to document street art is this idea that street art is often ephemeral - a piece is often only up temporarily, or may be something fleeting or mobile, like an art car.  So i wanted to document some of the things i see - with an intent to be able to visit the sites, but also to realize the impermanence of street art and the beauty in that.

Beautiful Dreams, 4 of 5

Beautiful Dreams, 4 of 5, a photo by n_yoder on Flickr.

SF Street Art, a set on Flickr

Tribute to John-Alex Mason

This is a tribute to my friend, John-Alex. He died last year, 2011, in October. I still can't believe it. He was 35 years old, an extraordinarily talented musician, a beloved father, friend, husband, son, brother. He had a quick smile, an incredibly humble and open approach to life, and he was a true friend to me.

I met John-Alex through a mutual friend. We didn't spend all that much time together, but we became fast friends anyway. He was interested in conservation biology and planning, which i was steering toward as well, in my studies and eventually my career. Even after he quit the conservation planning track for a career (to go make incredible blues music), he consulted with me as i wended my way through the trials and tribulations of finding my own path. He counseled me on several cornerstone occasions - times when i was considering a big change or taking a risk for my job, my path, my life. He shared his insight with me, and encouraged me to find my own way, without judgment. I miss him dearly, whenever i come to find myself understanding that he is indeed gone. Most of the time, his death doesn't seem real; like some off-color joke, told to an unappreciative crowd and leaving a bad taste in our mouths. What do we do with this, with the loss that is inevitably part of life? We grieve, we find ways through, we tell stories of remembrance.

John-Alex, i'm thinking of you this week as i make some decisions about my life path.  And i'm thinking about your widow, and your children.  I wish you were still here.  There must be a new normal for this world without you in it, but our lives will always be moved by your genuine, shining presence.  You made the world a better place, and now i can think of your contribution, and i think of how short life is in every way, and how there's no time to lose, to celebrate and appreciate each and every moment.  Like one of my Buddhist teachers said, its like counting the stars.  We will never get there, but we still try, over an over, and appreciate all the beauty along the way.

So long, dear friend.  I miss you.

California dreamin'

Okay, so we (the royal "we") are posting again. I know, its been a while. I've been a bit busy and preoccupied with Zen studies and doing lots of Nothing. So. We'll see how this goes, but i aim to post more often now.

 I'm living in San Francisco. How can i exist in the noisy, busy, breezy city? I keep asking myself this, and i don't have a good answer yet. Chop wood, carry water. But it does seem really different at the temple in the city, than the temple in the mountains. I've started volunteering for the GGNRA - a lovely little acronym of a place, made up of vastly different stretches of land: park, forest, mountain, beach. I'm helping collect, and eventually analyze, samples of zooplankton and invertebrates in the Recreation Area. Specifically, i'm working at Mountain Lake (in the Presidio), at Rodeo Beach (Marin Headlands) and Muir Beach. I went to the Presidio yesterday to meet with the folks i'm working with and get a sense of the project. Afterward, i went for a jog at Baker Beach. I realize: i seek out the ocean, i seek out wild places, wherever i go. I was overjoyed to run at the lapping waves' feet, to chase the foam up and down the pebble-strewn wet sand, to have the company of White-Crowned Sparrows. And there are fascinating bits of wildness, throughout the city. So what is wild? What is my value - do i like watching wildlife, if they're birds nesting in the old telephone pole across the street from my window? Or do i need to be out, away from the squeal of wheels on the buses and the roar of sirens? I'm not sure, but i certainly seek out wildness and experiences of watching and interacting with wildlife and plants, any chance i get.

 California dreamin'. So it goes.

Green Gulch Farm, September - Goodbye, Apprenticeship!

September. It was incredible, busy, and incredibly busy. Here's an overview of some of the things that happened:

- Potato Dig!
We hosted the broad community on the farm to dig spuds. It was great; we dug about 80 boxes (!) of potatoes.


- Food Awareness Month
We've re-activated an environmental action and awareness group at Green Gulch, the "Ecosattvas". Our first major endeavor was to designate September as a month to raise our community awareness about food and environmental issues around food production. September is a traditional harvest month, in the northern hemisphere, so it seemed appropriate to delineate the month this way, and our group is very passionate about local, healthy, organic food systems. We had a number of activities for the residents here, and for the broader community, aimed at celebrating food and looking at food systems. The crowning event was our annual Harvest Dinner and Dance. We prepared food from the farm, and the farm and garden crews did the cooking (with some highly valuable help from the kitchen crew). The menu:

--> Foraged Foods Salad (ONLY wild ingredients were used, except the dressing!)
--> Stuffed Magda Cousa zucchini with Indian spicy red sauce
--> Potato Masa Griddle Cakes
--> Rose Geranium Pound Cake, Apple Pie, Fresh Blackberries, Ice Cream
--> Wild Juice - recipe from Juicey Lucy (thanks!), with nettles and kale and loveliness

Then, after the feast, we danced! It was a real, down home square dance, and it was fantastic fun. 2 hours of foot stompin, whirling fiddlin fun. We decorated the pool deck with christmas lights and kerosene lanterns, and it was lovely.

We also made a Food Miles map for produce purchased for the Green Gulch kitchen (that coming from outside of Green Gulch). This spurred ideas to create an ongoing list of foods and food miles for many different ingredients in the kitchen, and that project is still active. We posted a "Pick of the Week", a poster featuring a vegetable of the week.

All in all, Food Awareness Month was a resounding success, with lots of discussion around food and food politics.

- Ending of the Farm Apprenticeship
The apprenticeship ended in October, but everyone was keenly aware of the close coming, of our 6 months together as a crew, and for us as apprentices. Two of the apprentices were departing for other venues, so there was a bittersweet tone to the whole thing - celebrations and goodbyes. To mark the ending of this moment, the farm treated the apprentices and staff to dinner at Greens Restaurant. The feast was glorious, positively. We had a kitchen tour with Annie Somerville, the head chef and long-time friend of Zen Center (see photo).


We had some donations of wine, and the weather cleared up for an exquisite sunset, which we could see perfectly out the soaring windows. A night i will remember for a long, long time. It was so lovely to celebrate with the crew, and to share a beautiful meal together.

So then it became October. On our last day of work, two of our friends came down to the farm and serenaded us while we worked! Cutting arugula and listening to angelic voices harmonize - it was like a fairy tale, and it made my last day really special.



For my birthday, and during my break between the apprenticeship and the beginning of Practice Period, i took off for a 3-day backpacking trip to Yosemite National Park. The weather was incredible - sunny and warm during the day, clear and cold at night. I soaked up the sun, and felt so much joy being in the cool mountain air of the mountains.

Yosemite is vast, and i was stunned by the beauty all around me, all the time. It was really magical and i hope to go back someday, for longer to explore more.

Now we've started Practice Period - a 2 month period of intensive Zen study and practice. The schedule is more focused on Zen practice, less on farm work, although i am still working on the farm. However, due to this turning inward, as i've heard it called here, i plan to take a break from posting and blogging until after the practice period ends (Dec 7th). Until then! Go forth, be well, and take your place.

Green Gulch Farm, early August

The sun! The sun! We FINALLY have some sun. Not everyday, but sometimes, in the afternoon. Its glorious, positively glorious. I was thinking at how strange this seems sometimes. I had an email from a friend in St Louis, MO, talking about how beastly hot it is there. And i remember being there, and the beastly hot, and thinking about how a place with cool, cloudy, wet days seemed like a dream come true. So then, now that i have that, it doesn't seem so nice.

I've been noticing how a large part of what i think about is being off somewhere else - somewhere from my past, a pleasant memory, somewhere that i want to go, from my future or fantasy. Either way - its so often somewhere ELSE. Even when i see, everyday: dragonflies in blue and red, hummingbirds playing and perching near me, flowers of myriad shape, color and scent exploding into being, wonderful food prepared for me, work in the soil and playing with plants, and exquisite company of friends and loved ones. How can i want to be anywhere else? Yet i am. Today, there was a ceremony, at the end of an intensive retreat. One person asked the teacher: when i sit here, from dusk until dawn, my mind is off wandering the hills, roaming all about. What can it possibly be looking for? Answer: the place between dusk and dawn.

A friend and i were noticing together our absence from each moment, and agreed to make lists of what we see, sense and appreciate each day. Here are some of the things i've seen in the past few weeks, that have presented themselves as gifts:

Coyotes, on the farm fields
Bobcat adult and cub
Ravens
Pink lilies, erupting suddenly from nowhere on a long stem, pink flower trumpet
Old friends
Point Reyes - seabirds, juvenile gray whales, California sea lions
Stories of family of river otters (otter pups!) in the farm fields
New friends
The stars, emerging from the fog cloud cover
Pink clouds and eggshell sky of dusk, with bright moon rising over Coyote Ridge
Redwoods towering and gigantic over the boardwalk at Muir Woods
Fresh beets, just washed and bunched
The scent of red kale in bunches, freshly picked
Blackberries off the bush
Apple pie
Caramel the cat, sleeping basking in the sun
Lunchtime dip in the cool reservoir after the sun emerged and made the work hot
Folding laundry, surrounded by deer and fawns



There are many, many things that i am grateful for, and the more i think about it, the more there are. Now the trick is to turn the things that i dislike around, into things i am also grateful for. That one is much, much more difficult than recognizing the things i do already notice as gifts.

Also, there are the ravens. The ravens, ravishing the fields! Mischievous? Hungry? Its unclear. But they are here. And we've begun to cover the entire new plantings with floating crop cover, to keep them from pulling out our plants and leaving them to desiccate and die. So we've managed to keep the crop cover on the new plantings, but we lost the majority of the lettuce in planting 9 to the ravens. We made an heroic effort, and planted and re-planted, but to no avail. The birds still came and pulled everything out again, and so there will be a stretch when we may be without much lettuce to offer.

So at this point, we're harvesting almost everything that we will or have grown this season: brassicas (kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, red mustard), lettuce, beets, spinach, herbs (dill, cilantro, parsley), leeks, scallions, potatoes, summer squash, dandelion greens, foraged greens (nettles, purslane), chard.



My favorite items to harvest are beets and potatoes. I find it completely satisfying to root around in the soil for tubers. We've completed our last major sowing for the season, and we continue to sow lettuce for the kitchen garden (that's where we plant and harvest baby lettuce, mostly for restaurant sales). So it feels like the 5th month of this apprenticeship: we have a good idea of the crops we harvest, and generally what goes into harvesting and packing out, and then disseminating to the world.

We've had some other pesky pests, like flea beetles, and the California quail have been munching some of the lettuce, but nothing is so devastating as the ravens have been. So, we keep on keeping on, and try to do what we can and ask a lot of questions and make great effort. This feels good.

Green Gulch Farm, July

Well. Its been a whirlwind of a month! There were lots and lots of Things happening - roughly ten thousand. So here's the recap:

1 - my dear friend Kate visited, and helped on the farm for a few days.



2 - Then there was the 4th of July, we went to the Marin County Fair.


3 - The next day, on the 5th of July, Green Gulch had their annual Interdependence Day celebration, with kooky costumes. Myself and my compadre Sam co-emcee'd the event. It was tons of fun.



4 - Then, i went to Colorado for a week! It was a fantastic, spectacular trip, full to the brim with visiting family, seeing friends, and participating in my dear friends', Ariella and Erik's wedding. I was honored to perform their commitment ceremony, in the mountains under the crisp blue Colorado sky, evergreens swaying in the grass filled meadows of the Rocky Mountain foothills.


5 - Then back in Green Gulch, i went to work at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market for the first time (we rotate who works there between apprentices).

6 - Friends that i met from the wedding, came to end their across-the-US trip in San Francisco.

This has all been lovely, and full, and rewarding. Other things have been happening too, not quite as lovely, but just as important in the dance of life. Its been cold, and socked in with fog here (actually, its more like cloudy, and sometimes misty), for virtually the entire month. We'll get bouts of sun, sometimes in an afternoon, but the routine has changed on the farm so we all bundle up good before heading out to work now. Also, the raven/crows have been wreaking havoc in the fields. They pulled up ALL of our lettuce from our most recent planting. Its quite disturbing; i have it from an expert that they are probably eating seeds. However, in order to do that, they tear out our newly planted starts (they don't bother much with the direct-seeded crops) and toss the starts a-skelter. So we found rows of crops torn out the ground, and we feverishly replanted. After doing this several times, with considerable effort, and we covered the brassicas with floating crop cover cloth, we put up a scarecrow (well, my hero Marshall put up the scarecrow) and we waited. The ravens pulled out all of the lettuce, despite all of these noble efforts on our part to thwart their mayhem. So, there has been a hold put on the new planting: until we can re-stock with enough floating crop cover to cover the entire planting, its not worth it to spend the time putting starts in the ground. Its depressing, because we all know there will be a few weeks (more?) without much lettuce. And, lettuce is our major crop - its the thing we sell the most of. So i'm feeling a little wary of when that day comes, that we can't bring (much) lettuce to the markets. We'll see - maybe it won't be so dire.

All for now - i'll be posting again more frequently now, just a hiatus with all the chaos of July. Go forth. Try hard. Enjoy yourself. Watch your step. Take care of your practice.

Farmer Monk Pride

Last weekend was the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco. San Francisco Zen Center has a float in the parade every year, thanks to the efforts of some vigilant practitioners at City Center. A few of us from Green Gulch decided to participate, and we brought flowers and rainbow chard decorations from the farm. It was glorious. The parade was stunning - it was huge, with these large, motorized, loudspeakered, dance-music, hordes of people floats. It was so uplifting to see so many people gathered, in the parade and as spectators, to celebrate queer pride and diversity. Our float was decidedly different than many of the others around us. We were quiet (no loudspeakers), not-dancing, carrying parasols or rainbow chard, or sitting zazen on a flatbed truck. So what warmed my heart completely was the outpouring of support from the crowd. People cheered so loudly for us - it was so uplifting. I had this ear-to-ear grin the whole time.

I felt so cheered up by the whole thing, and by the city's embrace for the cause. The streets all over town (not just The Castro) were decked out in rainbow flags. It was a full, city-wide-feeling event. I am also really glad that Zen Center has a presence in the weekend's festivities. No one is excluded from Zen Center based on their sexual orientation.

The past couple of weeks have been great, and mad. So busy, with the markets going now, and harvesting 3 days a week plus all the other normal stuff. It feels good, but it does feel like more of a workout now than it did before the markets started.

The next couple of weeks are busy, too, and i might take some time off from posting as i have friends visiting and then going to Colorado for a vacation and wedding. Here's a photo of a farm dinner we threw together last week - it was glorious! Almost everything, from food grown on the farm.



Eat well, be well!

Green Gulch Farm, wk 9

Planting
Harvesting
All-day all-women's sitting
Tea ceremony with Tracy-sempai
Contra dancing
Organizing the CSA program
Sunday farm stand sales
Pie for snack



We completed the planting in record time this time - we went well into lunch, but we finished before 13.00, with no extra help. We must be getting faster! I think its the harvest. We're all in this speed-mode now, after having harvested 3 weeks now, and we're getting faster and more comfortable. Plus, when i see Emila or Sarajane harvest, i realize that i COULD be going about ten times faster than i am. But with practice, i feel i have gotten faster...i just think i now have this theme of barreling through everything at TOP speed, ingrained in my blood and bones. Also, the soil was particularly soft and forgiving for the first few beds of the planting. We planted "the usual" - two hundred thousand lettuces (not really, but a lot), brassicas (brocc, cauliflower, cabbage, kale), chard, beets, spinach.

We've been having some trouble with the crops that we direct seed in the fields: beets and spinach, mainly (plus some of the herbs). We're not sure why there are problems, but there are these long patches where nothing germinates, and then there are other areas where the plants are really puny, if they ever germinate at all. Its a little frustrating, because we harvest a shedload (hmm, that's about 9 boxes or so) of spinach every week.

It was glorious and warm over the weekend. There was a new moon, and i had the privilege and pleasure to attend an all-women's day long sitting with Wendy Johnson and Linda Ruth Cutts. I enjoyed it a lot - they had adorned the altars in the meditation hall with items representing the four elements, plus symbols of our connection to nature and the ocean. There was some illuminating discussion of some of the figures in the meditation hall, such as Kuan-Yin, who is standing atop two dragons of compassion, each of whom have a pearl of wisdom in their mouths. She is pouring compassion into their mouths, and she holds a mudra which we practiced with (one-handed, the "OK" symbol in the USA).

I also had the sheer pleasure of going out dancing over the weekend - except i have realized i hit the wall of exhaustion much sooner now that i get up before the crack of dawn every day. Its been a bit funny, because this week we had a later schedule, interim schedule, where we get up a bit later - but i'm still totally tired. Go figure.

Anyway, things roll on, and the farm is bursting with food. We're becoming more of an oiled machine, by the week. We also had our first person go on vacation (Dan! We've missed you!) and its quite striking how much we seem to bond and depend on each other, for sharing work and moral support. It was highlighted by the absence (of more than a day) of one of the crew, for me.

Green Gulch Farm, wk 8 - 2 Months! Tired and Happy.

I guess it makes sense that i've been here 2 months. There were a couple of signs, this week, that made me realize that i'm no longer a newcomer here.
- not all tasks are brand new
- we completed the sowing without much supervision from staff
- i'm no longer even tempted to make jokes about "hoeing"
- "the reefer" seems like a perfectly normal name for the walk-in refrigerator down on the farm
- many extraordinary things (Muir Beach, growing vegetables, seedlings, redwood trees, wildflowers) seem ordinary now
- we've started harvesting and selling the food that we put in the ground when i first got here

Last week was a crazy-week. Usually, we either have sowing or planting - last week we did both, because we were planting cucurbits (summer and winter squash). We only plant squash once in the season, like potatoes, instead of the other crops where we have multiple plantings of each crop. So it was squash planting time, and we also harvested for both farmer's markets (our first week at Ferry Plaza on Saturdays). We worked hard, and we rallied together, and got everything done. It felt good, and it felt like we had really given the tasks a solid effort. I was tired, and happy to be providing food to people in a local market - healthy local food. Its a miracle to me, that we can do this, but in the same breath i'd say that we are changing the world by doing this. Each person, each leaf of kale, bunch of spinach and clove of green garlic makes someone's life healthy and delicious (including mine).

We also had students (9th graders) from Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco visiting, working on the farm for an hour each day last week. The students in this freshman class had been taking a course on Meditation and Mindfulness for the past year, and they were also studying water systems. I worked with a small group of the students each day, doing different tasks with them. Each day, i asked my group to try our practice of working in (functional) silence for a bit. After we finished work, i asked the students to reflect on their experience on the farm, and they had diverse and rich insights into their work and the farm. Some of them liked working in silence, others found it difficult or distracting. I guess i was surprised that any of them liked it at all, and there were some other lovely comments about how they noticed the sounds and scents of the farm (birds, green growing plants) when they were working. I was a little nervous to work with the students, and then in the end i felt very uplifted to have shared this piece of the world and a glimpse of our food system with them.

I also attended the 4th installation of a San Francisco Zen Center series commemorating Suzuki Roshi's book, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind". The series is called "The Experts Mind", and there were two visual artists presenting their work and vision last Thursday evening. I was feeling tired, but i was so delighted to learn about these two artists and their work. The first presenter was Arthur Ganson. He has made a series of "delicate machines" - complex gears and wheels and cranks and shafts, all clicking along and turning, but made of material as fragile as paperclips. He is interested in technology and computers and art, and the intersection of the three - and i was completely captivated by his ideas.

The second presenter was Elizabeth King. She's a sculptor and animator and painter and glass-blower - and an absolutely fascinating person. She had such a passion for what she is doing - she wanted to know the intimate details of all the materials she works with, and she has studied these details for years. She makes a lot of sculptures of the human body, and especially the head, and she studied how to make glass eyes. She had this infectious interest in what she was doing; she seems to want to know everything there is to know about how to make a replica of a person. I couldn't help but be moved by this enthusiasm and passion. I decided its no so unlike any of our lives - if we are really moved by something, we might be best served by pursuing it relentlessly, until something shifts.

I received news that my friend Tanya gave birth to a healthy baby girl! I am overjoyed at this news. She was overdue, and i was glad to hear the news. These momentous miracles are all around us, and i wish to acknowledge them and give thanks that i'm here to witness any of it.

Onward!

Green Gulch Farm, wk6+7

So much happens in a week, it sends me reeling when i sit down to write. One of the things i'm noticing is how many different moods, different modes, different emotions i can have in the span of a week. Its wild, really. A lot happens, even if seemingly nothing is happening.

But i was talking about the plants and the farm, too! We planted the 4th (?) planting in the fields last week - we barely squeaked it in, just in time for the rain! It was some major rain, too. We planted the same things as before: lettuce (lots!!), brassicas, and a host of other things in smaller quantities: parsely, flowers (Nicotiana).

We had a work-party in the Kitchen Garden (the hand-worked section of the farm), so its looking well cleaned up as compared to before. We've turned all the cover crop in, on the KG beds, so its looking really nice. We planted lettuce and arugula, and we cleaned up the edible flower beds (Nasturtium, borage, Calendula) and chives.

Last week we also harvested for market (Mill Valley farmer's market, Fridays 9.00-14.00). Our plants from the first field planting are big enough to harvest! So exciting. We brought to the market: red mustard bunches, kale, spinach, salad mix, head lettuce, green garlic, herbs - chives, thyme, mint. We harvested in a downpour, but despite that, it was really fun to see the harvest (photo courtesy Dan).



Things start to make more sense (the boxes! all the crazy types of boxes and storage and systems) after seeing that. I feel like i don't harvest very fast yet, but hopefully with time i'll get more efficient. My manager said to me that she doesn't know very much about farming, really - that with all of her experience on farms, the main thing she knows how to do is harvest. Since we spend so much time harvesting, that makes sense to me.

We have so many varieties of lettuce. I'm beginning to learn some of them. But its sort of mind spinning:
- Galisse
- Tango
- Natividad
- Breen
- Brunia
- Baby oakleaf
- Greenleaf
- Aerostar
Its amazing - its fun to learn them, since mainly i know them from the sowings and i can't identify each variety yet. But we're getting there. I also learned (er, re-learned?) last week that Swiss chard and beets are the same plant! And i learned that all peas (green peas, snow peas, snap peas) are all the same species, Pisum sativum L., just different variants or subspecies.

Happy Memorial Day! I think this is a good day to envision a world where we all listen to each other, and resolve our conflicts peacefully, and take pride in our culture and heritage.

Green Gulch Farm, wk5

Lots happening on the farm. We planted part of the 3rd field, we had birthday celebrations for our May farm birthdays, we took a field trip to the Edible Schoolyard at MLK middle school in Berkeley. See photos of the Edible Schoolyard trip, here. It was incredibly inspiring, to learn about the Edible Schoolyard, and the massive changes that have taken place at the middle school, since the project began. Not only is there now a green space and active garden space producing food that the kids eat and enjoy, the program has worked with the school to change the cafeteria - building a new building equipped with a full kitchen where cafeteria staff cook and prepare meals from scratch. This is all a complete opposite, to what was there before 1995: where the garden is now was a paved acre of unused, neglected blacktop. There was no cafeteria: the school cafeteria lay fallow, doors locked as the school didn't have enough money to keep it open. Instead, there was a trailer outside on the basketball courts, where the only thing students could buy to eat was a "walking taco" - a bag of chips with beans and heated cheese poured into the bag. Now every student in the school has to attend some program in the Edible Schoolyard garden and kitchen - so they are exposed to elements of gardening (growing plants, tilling the land, working with farm animals, e.g.), plus cooking. We sat in on a 7th grad "Iron Chef" competition, where teams of ten kids were given the same ingredients to work with, and they had to create delicious and thoughtful dishes in 45 minutes. I almost cried when one girl was explaining how she made the salad dressing with rice vinegar AND red wine vinegar.

I was also really impressed with the diversity of crops being cultivated at the Edible Schoolyard. From flowers to fruit, vegetables, grains and animals (chickens) - there's a wide variety to learn about and work with. Good job, Alice Waters - thanks for making this program, and inspiring other communities to take up similar mantles.

Back on our farm, plants are growing! The plants from our first planting here - now a month in the ground - are getting BIG! Its totally exciting. And, the potatoes are up. Things are humming right along. The fog has started, and some rain. They tell me the rain is unseasonable at this time here. That's all for this week!

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.