wandering and rambling

mariposas mañana

2007-01-31T15:43:00.000-08:00

Hola mis amigos,

Well, we´re here in Angangueo, Mexico in the state of Michoacan. Somewhere in the surrounding mountains are clouds of butterflies. Tomorrow, bright and early we will venture out into the pine and fern forest to find them. The town here is built on a steep slope with narrow winding roads. The homes are all squat and brightly colored with laundry and flowers hanging from the windows. Our hotel has a little terrace\roof to sit on and view the hillside. It is pretty idyllic.

Oh my, I have a lot i could talk about. We´ve had some pretty magical experiences the past few days. but before i get into that i just want to note the extreme number of clowns and circus animals that we have come across while traveling throughout mexico. seriously, there are so many clowns - kevin agrees that we´ve seen at least a dozen in the less than 2 weeks that we´ve been south of the border as they say. and - lets see - 1 tiger, 2 lions, one bear, i think 3 camels, and probably some more that i can´t think of right now. and not all in one place. and we never actually went to a circus. crazy. generally the clowns were seen in separate occasions than the circus animals too. this was not something i was expecting to find in mexico in such numbers.

So we spent almost all of our first week on the coast, and some of it was awesome, and some of it was infested with retired americans and canadians in rv´s and expensive food and senior frog. Since turning inland, though, we´ve been totally loving mexico. We spend a couple days in a city called Colima that was so special. i think if i ever expatriate to mexico, i´ll probably go to colima. it is a small university town with gorgeous gardens and a church on every corner. sunday night there was a big mariachi concert in one of the aforementioned gardens and an oaxacan festival in another. Saturday we were wandering around and passed an open door through which was a striking piece of art and jazz music and couches. we had to do a double take to realize that this place was a coffee house. After visiting the festival de la virgen de la salud (the virgin of health) we went back there to find that they were having a concert of aztec music that evening. so we hung out and met the owners, jazz musicians - one from mexico city and one from Maryland - this cute little african american man named bindu who had studied in new orleans. they were so amazing and welcoming and had started this coffee house to create a safe haven for the arts in colima and encourage kids to get involved with the arts. Kevin invited them to Chicago to play at the loft and they just might come. And they welcome any of our friends to come perform there. It is truly a magical place, inhabited by a magical couple. Bindu has some amazing stories to tell and he´ll ramble on for hours if you let him. which you should.

i can´t possibly spend anymore time in front of this machine.

i love you all.

viva mexico

2007-01-26T11:12:00.000-08:00

i´m in mexico and blogger is in spanish, pero yo hablo español muy bien, so it is OK.

so i´m in another country so it is time for me to go back to this old thing right?

kevin and i are in jalisco on the pacific coast in a small town called Melaque. It´s been cloudy, but the water in the sea is warm, so there has been plenty of swimming with fishies and baby turtles (ok - i only saw one baby turtle, but it was cute enough to kill a whale). Yesturday i found myself in the middle of a feeding frenzy as a school of small silvery fish surrounded me, followed closely and intently by a huge flock birds. Pelicans, terns, gulls, egrets and boobies (he-he) divebombed the water all around me scooping up as many fishes as they could swallow. A few lucky ones took refuge from their feathered foes in my bathing suit, which incited a giggle in me that lasted for at least an hour. It was by far the most comical swimming experience I have ever had.

The bird watching has been superb. I´ve never seen so many pelicans in my life, let alone the numbers of blue footed boobies that hang out on the rocky shoreline. Flying boobies everywhere! It is like a dream come true.

Soon we´ll be headed inland towards las mariposas in las montañas.

adios mis amigos.

you don't know how right you are, son

2006-10-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in a cafe. there is a family of four next to me. the son, probably 11 or so just said "Dad, if you want to be a buisiness man and be really rich like donald trump you must sell corn, and lots of it"

He proably has no idea just how right he is.

read the Omnivore's dillema if you haven't yet.

Salute! Farm & Vineyard from the sky

2006-10-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

2006-10-07T16:02:00.000-07:00

when we last left you the farm was going to be quiet. well that was short lived.

i now have 5 new roomates. 2 brothers, thier cousin, her husband and their 4 year old with bright red hair, thick glasses, a rare blood disorder and without a quarter of his brain. he might be a superhero. he's defintly a miracle. he is missing all of the part of the brain that manages speech, and yet he has been ble to learn to speak quite well. i like him. his name is richard.

there are 2 cats too. i like them too.

as for the adults, they are good people. they play a lot of video games, watch fox news, and eat velveeta, but the hate bush, so we can get along. I'm going to try to get them to eat tofu, but i think i'll have to sneak it into something without telling them first. i did that with eggplant and it seemed to work.

there are 3 weeks left of the season. it has been a good year. lots of yummy veggies and great people who like yummy veggies. i've got 4 months off and i'm coming to visit you.

farmers market

2006-08-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

i just found this website...

http://www.woodstockfarmersmarket.org/

i go full time on the farm next week. i'm super excited.

silas & abraham & sheri & blair leave in 8 days. i'm going to miss them, despite the fact that silas peed on me today and i had to clean up abraham's diarrea that didn't make it to the toilet.

it is going to be quiet here on the farm. come visit me. bring some furniture.

randon acts of kindness

2006-07-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2003118972_kindness11m.html

another reason for composting toilets

2006-07-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

Every time you flush the toilet you are using more water than most people in the developing world have to use all day.

so go pee outside.

The woes of the South Central Urban Farmers

2006-06-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard about this, i do not blame you because there has been grossly little about this in the media:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/14/1424243
http://www.southcentralfarmers.org/news.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_756

LA police in riot gear were sent into the largest urban community garden in the country to forcibly shut it down so that the 14 acres used by 350 families, mostly of mexican decent can be bulldozed to build a fucking warehouse. this is one of the most telling signs of the horrible sickness that infects our country and our culture. an independent organization was willing to donate 10 million dollars to buy the land to save the farm, but the owner, Ralph Horowitz, declined, saying it was worth at least 16 million. He paid less than 5 million for it in 2003. He was then offered the 16 million, but said he would never sell the land to the farmers because he was pissy for being made to look like a villian in the situation. there are candle light vigils every evening to protest the destruction of the farm. if you are in or near LA, please go light a candle for me.

holy pastries batman

2006-06-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

i got lost in strip mall hell today driving around in circles- in a minivan none the less- trying to find things i need for the farmers market and biding time before the eye appt i made on a bit of a whim (i'm getting some kick ass glasses that are purple & bright blue) and i got hungry. i think to myself, " well, that french pastiserrie over on the other side of the parking lot across from the gap and the pottery barn looks better than the "south of the border" themed crap back over by the walmart and the circuit city and the second office max i've seen today. they'll at least have a croissant."

the name of this french pastiserrie is "St Roger's Abby French Pastiserrie" but i do not think too hard about that as i am every so oddly walking over to it from the borders i had been browsing when the aforementioned hunger came over me. i go in and am immediatley mesmerised by the gorgeous pastries and promise of organic coffee. and then i look around to realize that all of the women working there are wearing habits. and speaking french. the place is run by french nuns. a french pastry shop in the middle of a strip of strip malls in algonquin, illinois run by honest to god french nuns. i had to conciously control my jaw from dropping at the beautiful oddity of it. they use the money they make from their holy handmade sweets to help the poor in chicago. i see many cream puffs in my future.

next time anyone comes out to visit me, i promise i will take you to see the nuns.

after the rain

2006-05-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

we had a beautiful rain today, thunderheads galore, breaking through the stifling first summer heat.

the plants are lovin it. i'm lovin it too.

it cleared up just in time for dusk. i wandered out to view the layered evening cloud colors, barefoot through the wet grass to the far fields where the summer squash have gone to early fruit. my toes happy in the mud, every step sending earthworms back into their holes as they felt my vibrations. there were so many of the wiggly squiggily creatures. i began to tip toe so as to not squish any of them and to encourage them to stay on the surface so i could watch them in all of their slimy glory. i wish i could have gotten silas & abraham out of thier beds to go on a evening worm safari. they would have loved it. i remember they joy of going out to the grass after a rain fall as a child to play with the worms. and the snails. i really liked the snails, the slimy trail they left in their wake.

and i got to see a snake and a frog today. cool.

2006-05-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

how could i refuse brandyn's eloquent insistance to "blog dammit"...

our farm is starting to look like a farm now - meaning there are vegetables growing where there were once just weeds and dirt. it is very exciting and my anxiety about being ready for our first CSA day is a bit quelled. we've got 17 families that we are providing veg for this summer, although heaps more have inquired about the CSA at the farmers market. so we'd better grow some veg for them. a couple weeks ago - right at the one month mark - things were looking a bit dire. we still had a bunch of plants to put out and we had a week of rain keeping us from doing anything we really needed to do - like plant the tomatoes. but now that is all done and the first lettuces are ready and the zuchinni's have flowered. all is well. so 2 weeks from tomorrow right about 4pm people will be coming to collect the begining of their organic bounty that they have entrusted us to provide them. it is pretty exciting.

if anyone wants to come help, you are more than welcome. or if you just want to come hang out in the shade and drink iced tea while i toil in the dirt, you are welcome to do that too. Lara and Mary came out and helped us plant the onions which was a HUGE help.

the farmers market is great. there is a wonderful community here in woodstock that i am beginng to get a glimpse of as i meet people at the market. and i can sell my jewelry there - i sold 1 piece last sat. which has renewed my interest in making more.

also - if anyone wats to move out here from mid aug - the end of october - let me know. the house is big and i'll be all by my lonesome. or if you don't want to move out, but you want to spend a lot of time here - that would be cool too.

it was super to get to see brandyn & nicolas and to rock out to the warsaw village band for georgia's graduation celebration. i almost melted when the women began to sing.

i must go let the cat in now. cioa.

cool people doing cool things

2006-05-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

professional kayakers in a veg oil & biodiesel fire truck spreadin' the word to kids from alaska to chile...
http://www.nrpw.com

living ecomachine boat theatre...
http://www.caravanstage.org

beef a roo.

2006-04-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

oh my i have much to talk about. where to start? maybe i should write more than once a month...

well i guess the obvious place to start would be Beef - a - Roo.

i learned to make soap at a workshop at angelic organics.(what does soap have to do with beef you ask? - just wait and see ...) we used goat milk and i managed to spill the lye all over the place and got to meet some really cool cats and got a tour of the farm - which i just salivated over of course - they have a 2 story composting toilet, lots of handy machines, and a bright orange barn, as well as goats, chickens, horses and a dog named mango. after the lovely afternoon of soap making fun, almost the whole crew drove out to rockford (less than 10 miles away) to get dinner together. we were searching for a recomended indian restaurant, but ended up in strip mall hell where every place was either too shady or too corporate. after driving around in circles for a while and then setting off through the maze of parking lots on foot, still finding ourselves thwarted in our search for a decent bite to eat, we decided to fuck it and go to chillies - but alas - the chilis had a long wait this saturday night in rockford. so what does this famished team of soap making semi idealistic 20 somethings see off in the distance? Could that sign in front of that wooden lodge really say "Beef-a-roo"? It is rather far away. It must really say beef and ribs or something to that effect. No one would actually name a retaurant Beef-a-roo, would they? Well, either way it looks like a steak house and it looks locally owned and even though we all like organic veg, we all eat meat too, so off we go - on foot across the large sidewalkless intersection and down the street towards shining beacon of beef in the distance. As we get closer we see that it is in fact called The Northwoods Beef-a-roo. We start a cheer - Beef - a - roo - beef, beef - a - roo. i say beef you say roo -- you get the picture. as we entered the log cabinesque retaurant we immediatly realized why they laughed at us when we called and asked if they took reservations - it was a fast food restaurant, not unlike a locally owned arbys, but with a northwoods forest theme - complete with a stuffed brown bear and antler chandelier. i guess there are a series of different themed beef-a-roo's throughout rockford - including, but not limited to 50's diner theme and the firehouse beef-a-roo.

so it was a wonderful day of making new friends and bonding over soap and beef. i hope to hang out with them again soon. yay for new friends.

The Cranes are back!

2006-03-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

and so are the great blue herons. they have a rookery at the edge of the property, huge nests at the top of oak trees overlooking a small wetland area to the west. they look like teradactles when they fly and there are atleast a dozen of them nesting here. they fly much lower than the sandhill cranes that are mostly just passing through on their way further north. a friend of the farm, scott came over yesterday and took us out to look at all the birds. with the warmer weather, birds of all types have repopulated the land. the sound of our returned neighbors is astounding. quite the opposite of the winter hush.

2006-02-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

i just looked out my window and the outside is doing that thing where it is sunny and snowing at the same time. i love that.

2006-02-22T21:29:00.000-08:00

i am back in woodstock after a couple weeks on the west coast travelling with puppets and visiting dear friends. It was so good to see brandyn & nick & bill & amazing brian & becca. yay visits, short but sweet.

today sheri & i went out to angelic organics - one of the largest csa's in the country - csa being community supported agriculture where people buy shares of the farm in return for a box of veg every week during the growing season. if anyone gets the chance to see "the real dirt on farmer john" possibly playing at an indie film house near you, unless you are in india, go see it - very good documentary staring none other than farmer john of angelic organics - so sheri and i were a bit star struck aswe headed to this farm about 30 miles away to pick up 18 60lb bags of high quality dirt in bags with donkeys on them (pictures of donkeys - not real ones). we didn't get to meet farmer john, but we did get to check out their csa learning center - a beautiful straw bale and round wood passive solar lofted building surrounded by chickens goats & HUGE work horsesmunching away and got to meet some mighty nice people. they have soap making and cheese making workshops coming up that i am very excited about. anyway, we got our dirt and spring is coming! we are instaling a green house as soon as the ground thaws, but are going to use the front sun porch on the house as a makeshift seeding room until the greenhouse is ready. i'm so excited.

i read today in mother earth news that people are researching making biodiesel out of pond algae. it is estimated that 1 acre of algae will be able to produce over 3500 gallons per year of biodiesel. to put this number in perspective, an acre of soybeans only produces 48 gallons per year. my, my that is exciting.

winter wonderland pictures

2006-01-25T08:13:00.000-08:00

hello friends!

i apologize for my long absence.

i'll have to tell you all about my family vacation to belize, but right now i just want to pass along some photos that my new friend (hehe) Katrina took. They are of me and the farm where i live the morning after a snow storm.

here's the link...

http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=136241138143801110/l=78379236/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

if clicking on it doesn't work, try pasting it into the address bar. that worked better for me for some mysterious cyber reason.

enjoy!

2006-01-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

happy 2006 friends! may this year bring surprises, gifts, and beautiful challenges to us all.

trashing the world

2005-12-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

for their birthday, which was thanksgiving, i made the boys a collage on the playroom wall out of old national geographic pictures. the bottom is sea life then it goes up to land and land animals, then the sky and finally starts and space at the top. in the top left corner was a picture of the earth from outerspace. a few days ago silas ripped off the picture of earth, crumpled it up, called it trash, and then proceeded to take it to the kitchen to throw it away. i am not certain how to interpret this action. is it possible for a 2 year old to be ironic?

2005-12-17T19:03:00.000-08:00

i tried to get abraham & silas to write a bit about their feelings on the state of the world, but they were not nearly as interested in pushing buttons as i thought 2 year olds would be, so i'll have to write something myself.

READ THIS BOOK - Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. it was written by a guy who was one of the first people to go to developing countries and convince them that they should take big loans from the world bank and other such sinister organizations that they would never be able to pay back, thus forever indebting them to the US. the future of imperialism is now. the book is interesting both in its honesty about the inner workings of corporate and governmental greed and in the personal drama of how perkins continued to convince himself, for 10 years, that what he was doing was somehow ok. read it. tell your friends.

right after leaving the farm in wisconsin i wrote a long piece about all the wonderful people i met this summer and all that i learned at the pleasant hill farm. it was beautiful. it would've brought a tear to your eye. so of course, the computer timed out and erased it when i tried to post it. in my frustration, i neglected to rewrite it, and now i am sad. so i just want to give a shout out to Katya, Laurel, Kenzie, Jody, Asa, Nate, Andrew, Tony, Jody Epstein, Erica, Amanda, Randy, Sid, Duncan, Frank, Ellen, Aaron, Daisy the dog, and of course, Farmer Rob himself, who manages to gather all these wonderful people about him to grow some damn tasty veg and a beautiful community. thank you all for enriching my life in countless ways.

please excuse the scatological nature of this blog entry

i hope i am using that word correctly.

it is almost christmas! and boy howdy, it is a winter wonderland out here on the prarie. last night i agreed to pick blair up from the train station at 1am before realizing that the car was stuck at the neighbors. between our farm and the neighbors house is a field which offers no windbreak for the blowing snow, causing a pile up of said blown snow in the dirt road leading to our driveway which the car was unable to breach. so i pulled on my mongolia boots - there is something to be said for winter boots made by a culture of people who have spent hundreds upon hundreds of years trudging through snow - and budled up and made my way into the cold midnight air. it was magnificent. mars was proudly red to the east and the moon was directly overhead, just past full, still bathing the land in a bright silver light. I've always loved when there are shadows at night, and it is even better in the snow. with the land all a sparkle and the only sound my footsteps, i was happy to have an excuse to be outside, walking through the chill.

buying local is fun

2005-11-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

i bought a turkey from the lady who raised it for tomorrow's feast. i went to her house, a mere 3 miles from where i currently reside, where the bird had roamed free with heaps of freinds and no wierd chemicals, and traded green paper for the tasty carcass in her kitchen while her cat was running around doing cat like things and her daughter was watching tv. her name is cristin ann. thank you for your delicious turkey, cristin ann.

on a side note - cristin ann's 8 year old daughter is a vegetarian. not because she has feelings for the animals, but because she does not like to chew that much.

who knew il. was so much like the ocean

2005-11-16T12:22:00.000-08:00

it is snowing. lightly, but consistently. a mighty wind has been blowing here on the prairie for 4 or 5 days. i am not convinced it will ever stop, but it makes the sea of grass beyond the kitchen window wave like soft coral in tropical waters and the starlings take to the air by the hundreds, moving en mass with the chaotic grace of a school of fish (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/BOW/EURSTA/).

the land is more flat here in northern illinois that in southern wisconsin, but i am beginning to enjoy the variety hidden in the starkness of the prairie as i learn to look a bit closer. this is not to say there are no trees. there are actually quite a few wooded areas, they are just a bit smaller and not a part of this bit of land that is my home for the winter months. here, part of the land has been cleared for farm land, and part of it is home to a natural grassland, but the edges are ringed with mighty oaks rising out of the grass. if my memory from the north park nature center in chicago serves me right the actaul term for this landscape is prairie savana. that makes it sound much more exotic. this bit of land is bordered by a conservation area and on knuckles and my first exploration session we were lucky enough to spot a large buck sprinting past and a bird of prey i have yet to identify, but seems larger than the red tail hawk that are common around here. magical.

all this talk makes me want to go outside right now. i'm not sure if either myself or knuckles are up to brave the crazy wind out there, but maybe we should try. sheri tried to take the boys out earlier and they only lasted about 3 minutes - and if it is too much for energetic young boys to play in, i'm not so sure about myself. maybe i should just go have hot chocolate instead.

2005-10-31T18:48:00.000-08:00

i was peeing and thinking about how i need new undies and wondering about the availabilty of organic cotton undies and then i thought - maybe i should make organic cotton undies. that would be neat. and then i thought about how maybe i should grow organic cotton instead. hmm... i don't know anything about growing cotton. all i know it that most of the clothes i am wearing were made with lots of pesticides. i don't want pesticides in my panties. in fact i think pesticide free panties are my right as an american dammit.

today is halloween. boo.

i am very scary.

boo.

my time on the farm is almost up. which is good because it is getting cold and dark. i poop on fall back time and the sun setting at 5pm.

boo.

i got you that time.

laurel - the other live on the farm intern - left this weekend. she broke up the band. she and katya and i were going to start the dirty booger jug band with laurel on the melodica, katya on the violin and me on the washboard and saw(nevermind that i do not play the saw yet). but now all our musical hopes are dashed as laurel returned to fairfield, iowa - home of the trancindental meditation movement - which is crap acording to laurel.

i always have lots of things i want to talk about that i forget as soon as i actually get to a computer. hmm...

2005-10-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

right now all i want to say is that i love you all very much and am grateful to be blessed by so many beautiful people in my life to learn from and laugh with. thank you. i anticipate nothing but more adventures and stories and challenges and i look forward to every moment of it. autumn has revived a glorious energy in my soul that i am trying to nurture with all my might, and although i miss each one of you dearly, i love hearing of your adventures. it is wonderful to be alive.