Patience, Grace and Homesteading
The chill air means its time to get the garlic into the homemade garden beds from fallen wood and the soil we emptied out of seventy-five grow pots on the hill just outside our kitchen window. While waiting to come back to Willits, we planted out first seeds in 4-inch pots: pumpkin, artichokes and arugula and finally transplanted them in the garden bed. The pumpkin has a blossom, but I don’t think there is enough heat left in the year to make a fruit. I planted a peach pit in a shotglass full of dirt, left it in the window, and a month later, it sprouted. We planted the sprout on the corner of the hill next to the two hoop houses. I counted 612 grow pots under two shear-white canvassed garden ramadas: the future home of Arty Chokey Farm. Since artichoke plants grow wider than cannabis, we’ll make some adjustments once the operation is in full swing.
For now, the season is also right for poppies. I’ve patiently held onto the can of California poppy seeds since May. I laid down weed cloth on the spiral path (which leads to a future fire pit) that we had created with the soil from sixty grow pots that were over the leech field (where the sewer system leeches into the earth). Clearly, this is not an ideal place for food, but perhaps good for flowers – especially if we are careful about the products we send down the drain. Sustainability is close at hand here in the Hollows.
I raked and hauled ten wheelbarrows of fallen leaves of oak, madrone, and bay, plus needles of Redwood and Douglas fir from the old lumber road and placed the leaves on the spiral path. Felt funny to rake the forest floor, but there was plenty of leaves and more to come! Some day we might get a chipper so we can make our own woodchips, which will be an easier upkeep on the spiral path as the mulch composts. Joey also wants a back hoe tractor, dump trailer, quad and a few other things. I want another water storage for more pressure in a bathhouse made of strawbale with a view of the 18,000 acres of forest. We both want an outdoor woodburning oven.
I am in love with my sweet kitchen garden, with a rose geranium cutting that has blossomed huge leaves perfect for the recipe from The Wicca Herbal. The calendula is strong, but clearly not getting enough sun. I have no idea why the leaves are spotty, but there are so many helpful herbalists in Mendocino County that I’m sure I’ll get the answer. The chamomile was getting squished and so moved to a new location and is thriving next to a new basil plant and a cutting from an aloe vera that I planted with Kobe’s placenta underneath it for nourishment twenty-three years ago.
Joey cleared a mountain of poison oak and “bucked up” the dead oak tree that had fallen into the bay tree. We gathered the bay leaves and along with some rosemary, put them in a soup that was deliriously delicious. He’s terraforming the earth around the house for defensible space in case of fire, preparation for mud slides from winter rains, and potentially building a strawbale living room. The wood beams would come from the two fir trees, whom I have named Freddie and Fannie, that are leaning 40-80 feet above the house and need to be repurposed and harvested for safety. I made a throne from a manzanita bush.
I met a new friend at the farmers market, then we went to organic brewery. I celebrated the New Moon with four new Magickal women toasting with rose petal whiskey, absinthe, potluck dinner and a hot tub. We went to the pankcake breakfast at the grange, hung Connie’s Grey Wolf picture and hosted family, including brother Tony who helped install the new heater. We walked through redwood forest on the property where blue lines on trees mark the trees for logging that we’ve saved. We visited our new favorite way to spend an afternoon at Artevino Wines. The ocean took my breath away. I got a reading from the infamous Ma Sherry Glaser with the big question – how do I stay playful when the message of Bloody Day in Brawley Lake, my murder mystery dinner play, is so important to me. The book signing at Gallery Bookshop was amazing, as was the dinner afterward with the authors from the event.
The big question is always, when we will move. I say, “When I learn to operate a chain saw so I can handle fallen trees in the road.” Joey says when he retires, which could be next summer. Only time will tell. For now, we visit about a week a month. I know I’ll be running for this Mendocino Forest more often than my servant-leader of a man who can work overtime at CalTrans plowing snow if it’s a big winter. I have spent one night alone here and it’s so quiet and still, I love it. I am ready.
