top of the morning

good morning of foraged berries and nick's honey. the boyfriends are out fishing. the sisters are about to go running through and around the big island's farms. and the aged p's are reading. good river morning.

we made it

it's monday morning here in canada. i just finished swimming laps between two islands and it's nearly time for lunch. the pace of the day...coupled by the cool breeze and the temperate water...and the nearly 900 miles of driven miles makes me wonder if that really was us just four days ago. running away at dusk.

the day had started off innocently enough. fiona and billy had already taken a carload of our most coveted pots, pans, tea cups, and overalls north the week before. despite their help and the attempted early organization of that first carload we were left with a series of unruly small bags and boxes and buckets. it took the better part of last thursday to tetris all the pieces into the bed of the truck...with some last minute surprises like a Second 50 gallon barrel of filtered veggie oil. once the bed was packed and strapped in with tarps and bungies we serenely planned that we would load everyone up. the bees, the chickens, the duck, the pigs, the cow, the traditional domestics (a la cats & dog). then we would shower. eat. leave.

but it was nearing Dangerous Temperatures once the noah's ark was loaded and we didn't have time to do anything but go. so go we did. we left just a couple hours before sunset. in the heat of it all. without showers. in clothes still caked with carolina mud.

we drove through the night to ensure the coolest weather for our cargo. i am so grateful and so genuinely surprised that everyone made it to the berkshires safely. the farm we arrived at was more magical and serene and welcoming than we could have ever hoped for. we spent the past several days there. embedding our flock with theirs. these good people are going to watch over our animals until we return in september. then we will repay them with two months work this fall. it won't be difficult. they may work us from sun up to down. but it comes with fresh cow's milk and cheese and yogurt and homemade granola and bread and blueberry wine and seven beautiful men and women all bathing in a creek and eating around one table and trying to live and farm through life like nick and i.

so there i was. and there the animals were. and here i am now. g&t in hand...taking a small break from farmlife to enjoy how the other half lives. the half without chickens waking them up at dawn.

the new farm. testing out a mobile blogger app.

before the crazy outweighs the hot

 

 you could call it writers' bloc. or blogger bloc. or more aptly just foggy brained. but i cannot think of a word to write to you. i spoke several weeks ago of a feeling of surreality. of not fully grasping my present. and here it is again. on the eve --or the penultimate eve-- of our departure i am a shell of my former farmer self. i have been so preoccupied with the details of the move that i in turn become even more preoccupied with consuming every last moment on the farm. which creates this overly sensitized being where i am so dramatically in-tuned to my surroundings that i must look like i'm on psychedelics.

like yesterday afternoon when the lightening storm swept over the farm and i stood on the back patio, arms akimbo, breathing in the whooshes of rain along with the clouds. wondering how the sky knew that when i let go of a breath it should let the rain fall harder.

like this evening as we drove across the farm in elizabeth's '79 vw bus, the speakers blaring a 1920s era jazz tape, the stars already high in their position. i let nick talk and talk as i silently tried to count each star and turn the music up ever louder humming to myself a tune i had never heard before.

or just now as i walked through the dark pig pen to check on our sick sow mavis. the air was completely black. and i wasn't scared. i'm not scared of the dark on this farm. but i was attuned if you will. attuned to the indelible presence of bubba, the 800 pound boar, who was somewhere in that pen. lurking, the only way a boar of that caliber can exist at that hour, no matter their kindness in the daylight hours. i heard every ant that crossed a leaf. every mosquito that landed on mavis. every chicken's rustling feathers settling as i scooped feed to the sow and poured water on her hot head and back. listening for bubba. i looked like a jumping hot potato with every sound.

i will embraced the crazy that has overtaken me. i know that the farm still needs me, even if i have done farm chores in my underwear (it IS hot) for the past 3 days. even though i have been making a valiant effort to drink All Of Our Wine by myself. even though i only have 2 more days here.

i'm trying to reconcile leaving with being madly in love with a piece of land. with the ecosystem that this land has fostered. it's not pretty. so i thank you for having gotten as far as you have. 

with tuesday night now turning, dutifully to wednesday, i can safely say, that we are leaving tomorrow. the truck is two-thirds packed. i will try to reign in the crazy so that i can bid adieu to this place with some dignity and with some clothes on. 

orangie photos:

1. the sunnies finally bloomed.  i was so thrilled, they had been mocking me along for the past 2 weeks. i was sure i was going to miss their entrance. 

2. in a surprise turn nick collected honey sunday evening. loads of it. and he does it without any mask or suit or gloves or smoking. it is bad ass. i say it is dangerous and beg him not to do it and stand with an epi pen, paralyzed at the front door, as he beekeeps. but i must say, the boy has a way with his bees.

3. tequila sunrise peppers. hate the name. love the color.

4. the steam was so intense in the morning's mugginess that the camera lens kept fogging. 

pack it up...

i don't know that there are many physical feelings of relief greater than that one i had today, in the open field of the turkey pen. panting under the hot sun as i labored with the bird's water trough. after 3 straight days of 100°s and going higher. after lying naked and restless everynight with no air conditioning and no wind in the night skies. after covering myself in sweat and mud and stench from an early morning in the pig pen....

i was just finished with using a pail, i held it in my left hand and i heard a drop hit it. and then another. i looked above me and saw a dark, cartoon, rain cloud hovering there. well, that would be nice i thought to myself and the cartoon cloud obliged and let loose its contents. it poured. poured. for nearly 15 minutes straight. and we all stood there. all humans, birds, pigs alike. everywhere on the farm. and thanked the heavens for their mercy.

the skies cleared and the sun got right back down to his task at hand. as though the rain had been a temporary slip and would prefer you didn't mention it. and so we are back to Sweat, Mud, and Stench. back to packing. back to chores. back to canning. back to cleaning.

photos: 
1. linens are washed and folded and shuttered into boxes to be sent north.
2. i am the inefficient packer. the one that likes to pack things in millions of little boxes and cases.
3. nick made a winter's ration of tomato sauce.
4. the rugs are sunning themselves, preparing for their sentence of an indefinite storage.
5. the succulents are posing an issue. how do you pack a prickly plant?