Gratitude for Freddy the Fallen Tree

The Mendocino Forest flanks the two miles of dirt road from the highway down to our sweet cottage in the hollows. When the rain drenches the soil, the earth loosens and slides, exposing roots of the Madrone, Douglas Fir and Oak trees that eventually lose their foundation and topple over. After a heavy rain, the trees fall across the road so frequently that we travel with a chainsaw.

I watch with awe and fear as Joey expertly trims the branches that I pull off the road and throw down the steep incline. Then he “bucks up” the trunk into logs, which we stack on the side of the road so he can come back later with Hank the tractor. We’ll repurpose the logs as either posts for the garden beds in front of the cottage or firewood.

Last winter, we noticed that a huge 115-foot Douglas Fir tree was leaning over our house in the hollows. The magnificent tree, my favorite Christmas tree mind you, was growing nearly sideways on the hill behind our cottage. The angle was such that nearly seventy percent of its full trunk would crash into the length of our home. If the tree fell, it would kill us.

It rains a lot in Mendocino. The sound of rain lulls me to sleep. Unless you imagine the rain pulling the soil downhill and a tree killing you. The vision prompts the question, are you ready to die? Will you ignore what scares you and live with your head in the sand like an ostrich? These are good questions to ponder in the quiet of the forest.

Joey could barely sleep. He wants to live to be 104. Me? I want a few good decades of peace, prosperity, health, love, and dancing. In time as more trees fell, I realized we would have to “take” the Douglas Fir tree. From my teachings and natural knowing, I would need to ask the tree permission before calling in the menfolk and their chainsaws.

I affectionately named this tree Freddy the Fir. I think of Freddy Mercury and how this tree could be Frederick or Frederica, so it’s androgynous and spicy. Plus, aside from the Mother Tree in a Redwood Fairy Ring, I don’t experience the gender of most trees. I hugged Freddy, and promised that even though we were going to take their life, their spirit would live on and be lovingly turned handcrafted furniture. I let Freddy know about the coming transition. I waited. I wanted to give Freddy time for whatever final business a tree has after living 200-300 years. I asked for permission and forgiveness. I saw the true conscious spirit of Freddy and felt extreme gratitude, and still do!

A couple of weeks ago, Joey came to the hollows with his best friend Billy and his 15-year-old son Wyatt, and Tom, an 80-year-old bowl-legged cowboy who walks and talks like Yosemite Sam to cut down Freddy.  We figured the tree was 80 feet, but it turned out that Freddy was 115-feet tall. What a magnificent life!

When I returned to the hollows on this last visit, Freddy was on the ground. I went to the trunk and placed my hands on the crystal bubbles of sap. I sang and thanked Freddy. What a gift, what a blessing.

Then I got to work collecting Freddy’s needle-covered branches that were now a fire hazard. We clipped the thin branches and made a slash pile to burn. We saved thicker branches to make fences. When Freddy fell, the trunk broke into pieces.

Joey milled a chunk of the trunk that was five-feet long into six slabs, two-inches thick. The rounded top and bottom will be made into stairs for the terraced garden. The middle slabs may become a live edge table or window trim or maybe even the beginning of a new deck. I want to be help in the building but I’m afraid of the chainsaw.

I asked Joey to teach me to operate the chainsaw. However, I have not pushed for lessons. I went to ER when I was fourteen after about ten of us flew out of the truck bed. Banking a corner too fast, the truck got the speed wobbles and flipped. Ten teenagers scattered on the road between Peralta Junior High School and Sears at the Orange Mall. One guy was pinned between the curb and the truck. My friend Melissa Martinez chipped her front tooth off. My knee was bleeding from a tiny cut no bigger than a thumbnail. It felt like the angels, or the ancestors, caught me midflight, but that’s for another story.

I was taken to ER anyway. In the bed across from me, a black-haired Latino screamed in anguish. He gripped his leg from behind the knee. The jeans of his thighs were ripped open and the bloody gash revealed that it had been a chainsaw accident.

The chainsaw takes and creates, providing an interesting metaphor for dealing with power. You wield power with confidence, thorough safety check, focus, and a fair amount of humility for the kick back. Sounds a lot like teh chainsaw and Witchcraft.

There are many trees on these 45 acres where we are blessed to live that have a blue line spraypainted on its trunk by logging companies. We have saved these trees from being forested. When others fall, we look for ways to repurpose the wood, to extend the life of our breathing buddies, the trees. We take daily forest bathing walks to help lower our stress and rediscover an easy cadence.

I have been thinking of how I want to repurpose the Freddy as the Stump. I’m leaning towards a seat, like a throne or just a place to sit and ponder about how good it feels to be in sync with nature.

soundtracks of our love in the hollows

He prefers the silence. I prefer music in the home. We take turns with these soundtracks of our lives in the hollows., but we always begin with the quiet of the forest.

We enter our homestead through a heavy-duty green gate placed as an ominous protection for the former cannabis farm operations that took place in sections of the 260 acres beyond. We’re taking down the hoop houses and creating gardens for artichokes, plant allies, and food. We are learning from the sun, soil, and life that lives here year-round.

It takes a four-wheel drive and confidence to maneuver the two miles and 400-foot drop in elevation to the trim house built by two generations of pot farmers, and now turned into a sweet cottage for me and my beloved. After passing the site of an 1850s homestead with shards of ceramic cups and plates, an iron sink, and their fruit trees as evidence, we travel through a high grass meadow with blackberries and raspberries growing alongside the road. I am in love with the view of 18,000 acres of protected forest of green conical and rounded tops. Really, truly in love with this home for Redwood, Madrone, Oaks, Firs, Manzanita, Horsetail, and so many varieties of mushrooms I have yet to discover.

The road dips and curves as it spirals downward like the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland with sudden turns around blind corners. We don’t see the abdominal snowman or sasquatch but there are sheer drop offs 100 feet long. Redwood fairy circles covered in shamrock green shaggy moss could stop your fall, or the fiery orange glossy Madrone trunks, Douglas Fir, Tan Oak or even more orchards of fig, apple, pear and olive trees. We’ve seen quail, deer, turkey, bear, mountain lion use the road and other trails in the tall grass and mud. The road takes a final dip then a quick ascent up a hill canopied by an olive tree and a series of madrone trees and we arrive at the now transformed and magickal cottage.

Solar-powered Edison bulb lanterns alight our path while we unpack clothes, food and the latest supplies to make our off-grid life a little easier, more comfortable: a home we are creating together. I brought all our fridge magnets, more face towels, and butter. I always bring butter. We brought our battery one-hundred percent charged because the late fall sun’s daily arc is so low on the horizon that it only occasionally peaks through the densely packed trees or over the top of the old lumber road. During the day we can place the solar panel to catch the merest of light, and when that fades, we are challenged to conserve and spend no more than 10 watts a day, including power tools and daily usage. I’m writing by candles and filtered sunlight while listening to music from my phone, which I’ll charge in the truck when we go into town for a post hole remover and to mail a Box of Magick giveaway to contest winner.

Upon each arrival, Joey turns on the access to well water, which is pumped at the top of the property and sent to us through a series of pipes and storage containers. Next, he turnson  the propane for the fridge and the stove, then he gets on the floor to light the fridge’s pilot light. I monitor the temperature of the house that we haven’t visited in 4-10 weeks by either opening windows or lighting the propane stove and candles, then unpack the groceries and stock everything we brought.

We are here in late November waiting for the arrival of the tractor so Joey can fix the road by widening the dangerous spots, securing hillsides that could erode, repurposing trees that have fallen or will fall with the next heavy rain in our garden, digging out French drains, placing culverts, creating garden terraces and walkways, and a myriad of other Tonka truck abilities. We have worked harder on the property than any visit in a very long time.

We completely dismantled one hoop house. We recycled plastic pipes and irrigation, bagged trash and dumped enough perlite soil to create one hundred square feet of garden for rows of corn, artichokes, chamomile, calendula, nettles – mass production space. Another hoop house is still intact alongside but we are dumping the bags and clearing the debris to create two sitting areas and a greenhouse to catch the sun as it moves.

Joey and I have stayed snuggled in the hollows for three days – working our bodies to their limits, clearing the slate so we can create a comfortable off grid, fully sustained life. I don’t know if this land will be our forever home, or simply a canvas that we work with in harmony to have food, medicine, and water for a time. We are learning from nature how to live with the seasons.  We balance the survival skills with comfort, like a soaking tub, surrounded by sweet smelling flowers and a view of a beloved forest with the full moon alighting the top of a tree.

Nature is Homesteading

Nature Herself oversaw homesteading in the hollows these past few months. After ten weeks’ absence, we returned to the hollows in late September for a booksigning tour for A Box of Magick, to find nine plump pumpkins (Cinderella species in between the 40-50 artichoke plants and Jack o’Lantern pumpkins in the corners of the garlic bed) and four juicy watermelons. We harvested these beautiful gourds and left the vines and leaves to compost where they fell. I transplanted the opulent rose geranium, which was thriving wherever I put her. This plant of self-love has always been an ally. Joey began building the fourth flower bed and cut out the poison oak choking the century-old olive, fig and apples trees around the property.

Now it’s early November and we are back at the hollows. The olive trees are producing like crazy. I need to find the secret recipe one of our AirBnB guests gave us for salt instead of lye to process the fruit. I’m getting used to having a refrigerator versus living out of a cooler and the meals are improving. Rosemary, oregano, thyme, lavender, and comfrey survived our long absence; borage and basil did not. It seems that the artichoke will continually grow, even though the fruit won’t be ready for a year, and its purple flower continues to bloom.

Halloween is the time to plant garlic, so I cleared away the decaying pumpkin leaves and vines and filled an entire bed with garlic cloves with the exception of a robust thyme and two strawberry plants, which are protected from the deer by the stink of garlic and the wire fencing.

We brought a frame for the bed and box springs – no more sleeping on a mattress on the floor.  New solar lights on the covered porch allow us to enjoy the forest at night and see each other and the glasses filled to the brim with delicious wines we bought from our favorite Mendo winery, Artevino Wines.

A true blessing this visit was meeting new friends Brett, Missy and Ceila, who can trade with us: Brett will show us the edible mushrooms and will help us extract and mill a 100-year-old fallen redwood tree to make a dining room table. Joey and our friend Dave hunted a few of the 40-50 destructive wild boar on their property, which they will turn into food for their dogs – among other things. Apparently wild boars are too active to create the fat needed for bacon – so that’s sad. Missy is selling my books her store, Re-Evolution in downtown Willits, and together we made Witches’ Torches. Ceiba, their 10-year-old daughter, is an aerial acrobat and an artist who has inspired the main character of my next book.

Last winter, the heavy rains caused the hillside to collapse into the road, which then dropped ten feet. Thankfully, our neighbor fixed the road, but that’s not entirely feasible to depend on others. So, on the way home, we drove to Bend, Oregon, to check out a tractor. It’s our ten-year anniversary present to each other, which makes me laugh at the irony of a former OC girl ecstatic about joys of homesteading the gardens we will plant in this beautiful forest.

Nature and Me

I believe I’ve struck a bargain with the birds. This is the second year they built a nest on top of the porch light. A bit of cardboard and the wood deck is saved from their excrement. That’s an easy compromise compared to abandoning the porch altogether when the chicks chirp their hunger with such frenetic energy that as I mother, I understand exactly that offspring is saying. My heart races and I scoot.

In the fall, I placed a Faeries Happen sign on the light, hoping to discourage the birds from building a nest because of the discomfort I figured we caused the birds. My plan worked through spring, until we arrived a few days ago. The baby birds were so tiny in their nest on Saturday. On Monday, we saw two chicks bursting either side of their home, and a couple days later, I notice there were three chicks in the nest. They are very quiet birds until they are hungry and then they are absolutely insistent. I mean, the energy is downright frenetic. Their parents swoop around the deck, but don’t dare deliver the food until we leave our beautiful shaded porch to play in the forest or go inside and close the door.

Sometimes Joey grumbles that I insist we abide the babies’ random schedule, but it’s familiar to me, and I feel sympathy for the parent birds. I also won’t allow him to weed whack the terrace where we building new garden beds and preparing for rows of grapes, until I have harvested the dandelion, which I clearly cannot do until all the bees have had their fill. But he’s the best at transporting seedlings into the earth. His tender, confident touch pulls in the dirt around their tender shoots, creates a well and then waters our plants deeply. We love living in harmony with nature.

While we gone, the rain and fog waters our herbal allies and food. It’s amazing, but the plants flourish, even during our long absences. Then they bloom in greeting when we arrive. The feeling of connection with my garden is transcendental. The rose geranium has become a bush from a sprig. The calendula opens for every single visit. Garlic stalks are over two feet. The artichokes are growing strong, safely protected by deer resistant flowers, chicken wire and flashing CDs. This week we transplanted two kinds of pumpkins and watermelon seedlings. Fingers crossed. We planted many starts too, including strawberries, thyme, basil, oregano, comfrey, and borage. Joey built another garden, fixed the road that got washed away this winter, mowed miles of road, and cleared the fallen trees.

I tend the garden and read many books preparing for a new career as a narrator and some clever videos to promote my next book, A Box of Magick. I’m careful about the hours that I am under the sun because it can be blistering, sweaty hot. The shower has questionable water pressure, more than a dribble, but nothing raucous. This is where I draw the line in homesteading.

So, while the birds fetch, deliver, and consume worms, I am inside with the walkie talkie while Joey goes to the wellhead at the top of the property two miles uphill – at an elevation gain of 400 feet. In order to water the cannabis plants, the previous owners laid ¾-inch pipe to fill water tanks next to three grow operations of thousands of potted cannabis plants.

Joey turns on the well to release water through pipes that run from the top of the property to the bottom, where the little house is located in the hollows. When the water in the water tank, about 100 yards from our house, overflows I alert him through the walkie talkie. It took half an hour to fill the tank and four minutes for it to travel from the top of the property to the bottom of the hollows.

The plan is to double the width of the pipe and set up a second water tank at the halfway point to the house to create more pressure because of gravity.

“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
― Aldo Leopold

The babies are quiet now. It’s time to go outside and sit on my lovely porch watching butterflies dance fly around golden poppies, bright yellow dandelions and calendulas blossoms that look like the sun itself. The afternoon breeze will rustle the bay leaves. And if the babies get hungry again, as they are wont to be, I will take a walk through the forest.

Within a few days, the biggest of two birds flew away without our notice. The smallest bird stayed in the nest for a full day. The mama bird chirped and called to her chick, but s/he didn’t want to go. I understand. Just wanted a little space, a moment to breath before launching yourself into thin air. Plus, this really is a cozy home in the hollows for generations of birds. Then, I looked up and the baby chick was gone. Time to fly.

Spring on the homestead

Three feet of the road crumbled under the torrent of water rushing down the hillside. Several trees, included a beautiful cinnamon colored, 40-foot tall madrone were ripped from their roots and lay prone sideways. Joey recharged several batteries on the chainsaw to clear a path for us to drive the truck to the bottom of the hollows.

I want to learn how to operate a chainsaw and cut up the fallen madrone into chairs or rounds for serving homemade food from our gardens. The culverts await on the side of the road because you can’t bring in heavy equipment when the road is still wet and mushy. I am learning a lot about road maintenance and how it can work well with permaculture, like building French drains and water bars that move the water so it won’t disintegrate the road, gardens or the root systems of trees you want to save.

I admit, I do like feeling close to the land in a way that I can measure my take or use of power. I watch the percentage of energy drop on the solar powered battery when I charge my phone or Bose speaker, run the toaster or the camp lights. When the battery runs low, we carry the solar panel outside. We don’t have cell service so we listen to downloaded podcasts, do puzzles, work on the house or deck, or I read to him or myself. We just settle into life, listen to birds, watch the flowers grow, and tend the garden. We emptied the perlite soil of two hundred grow bags into the garden because we plan to grow the artichokes in the ground. The new wire is working great to keep out the deer. The garlic are growing and I cannot wait to try them!

My beloved sexy man and I were in the quiet of our sacred homestead over Beltane, my most favorite pagan holiday in late April. This sabbat celebrates the unbridled joy of living. It is a time to celebrate the end of winter by jumping over a bonfire, which we built in the middle of a spiral that will one day be filled with wildflowers. When we left Crowley Lake for our homestead in the hollows, the snow tunnel to the wood shed was still eight foot tall on either side. We had shoveled countless hours as the world became a blizzarding white monochrome for five months. Now, we were submersed in nature’s green bounty.

The Wheel of the Year had turned and spring had sprung in Willits. I rejoiced when I saw the poppies, iris, red clover, plantain, pennyroyal, horsetail, olive fruits, blossoms of apple, pear and fig. Even the gorgeous black trumpet mushrooms didn’t escape our watchful eye. I felt immense joy at the return of life… this separation and reconnection cannot be experience until you have lived the pain of a colorless world. Spring is such a metaphor and guide in our lives.

What are you welcoming back into your life with a profusion of life, color and strength?

Wintering

Compassion is needed most in winter - especially if your are snowed in for days on end. A record snow year has made travel dicey and the workload for CalTrans “plow jockeys” heavy. We Eastern Sierra locals joke that all this shoveling has been a free gym workout, but I’m pretty tired of carving tunnels through snow to get to the wood shed for kindling.

I long for the green hills of our homestead and the smell of the redwood forest and blossoms on the new peach trees. It’s still amazing to me that we have 44 acres to protect and live peacefully with all of life that exists here. I just can’t say the words that we own the land, even though that is the American legal term. We work with this land and relish in the latest adventures of Homesteading the Hollows.

Joey visited our place over President’s weekend while I attended a writer’s conference in San Diego. The heavy rains created a multitude of obstacles from landslides to a 40ft Douglas fir tree that fell across the road. He called upon our neighbor Mike who brought his brother to clear the roads. I love that we have found another community where neighbors help neighbors. It really makes me wonder how we think we can thrive without each other. The wisest among us know that we are meant to lean in towards each other and lean on each other to share the load.

Joey bought and planted two peach trees and two nectarine trees in the existing orchard among a smattering of century-old pear, apple, olive, and fig trees. I am so excited to visit my new trees and be there for the harvest of the trees that have been growing on this land since the 1800s. On another adventure of mushroom hunting, Joey found edible black trumpet mushrooms and the water bottle I had abandoned along the trail we traveled through the redwood forest three months ago.

The pictures of the herb garden and spiral to the firepit almost break my heart with longing for my herbal allies. The garlic in the raised beds that Joey and Kobe made are sprouting. The poppies lining the spiral walk are coming up. Maybe when I next drive down into the Hollows, the poppies will be a field of brightest orange over the leach lines, aka our sewer system.

I miss the hollows because being off grid reinforces my connection and awareness to the web of life. We have a battery storage that shows us how much energy we use. The toaster takes an amazing amount of power - a lot more than charging the phone. If the clouds cover is heavy and the sun can’t power our solar panels, then we conserve our energy and light the candles instead of turning on the string of overhead lights. I like being conscious of and responsible with the energy I take for my daily life.

Buffered by the suburban life in pleasant southern California climate for most of my life, I never knew of my true footprint on the environment or nature’s potential impact upon me. That disconnect never sat well with me. Unfortunately, I have harshly judged the arrogance in thinking we can beat or make nature submissive; obedient to human progress.

I live my life by the adage from the Course in Miracles: “The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.” I crave going to the Hollows because it grounds me, injects compassion for “not knowing” and teaches me how to drop into a deeper, ever evolving connection to all of life. Meanwhile, my SoulCollage cards told me I could calm my heart by chanting “Namo Guan Shi Yin Pusa” meaning “Everyone is born with a pure heart.” I am learning how to be patient with others who are not striving to be sustainable or are blatantly toxic to Mother Earth. I am still learning. We all are.

Mushroom Hunting

We found my favorite mushrooms tucked into the redwood duff on our walk through the property this Winter Solstice. These bright yellow inedible mushies are called Witches Hat. Of course, they are my favorite. Although, I really like this brown guy growing in the middle of our dirt road.

Joey and I are new to mushroom hunting or picking so of course we consult the books and don’t eat anything that isn’t obviously safe to eat. We hiked overland, exploring parts of our 44 acres that I hadn’t seen before. I was totally lost in my own backyard. Forest bathing, breathing with trees and fog. Joey has been trekking all over the property, whereas I’ve stuck mostly to the pre-existing logging roads or a few game trails - meaning paths that bigger animals like deer, bear and cougar push through the tall grass or on the dirt that wends through the redwood, madrone, black oak and fir trees.

Today, we are deep in the forest and I lost my read on the cardinal points. I didn’t know where north was. Finally I surrender to being lost and that’s when the fun really starts and the forest spirit unveils its majesty. We mostly find fungi that intrigues us but haven’t dared to eat - except for the clearly obvious oyster mushrooms.

Just when I was getting a little freaked out about where we were and how far I was from resting, I recognized a fairy ring I had seen before. Even the Mendo loggers call the circle of redwood trees a fairy ring. You cannot deny the spirit of the redwood.
It’s just not a thing.

I gasped, “This is where the bear was denning.” In summer, we had found this fair ring old old growth redwood trees. I thought it could be a special meditation site for me until Joey noted the bear-sized impression in the duff of the hollowed-out redwood stump and the steaming pile of bear scat.

I had left the place alone until this moment.

Joey scurried up the redwood duff to the center of the ring where fifteen foot wide tree stumps gave evidence to the massive logging of of Mendocino redwood forests after the 1906 San Francisco fire. He looked around the stand of impressive trees and their remains and nodded nonchalantly, “Yup.” He waited out for my yelp and then added with a mountain man’s slow confidence, “The bear is gone.” He laughed as I audibly sighed. We both knew that bears roam and don’t always stay in the same den through the year. It had been six months since we had seen fresh bear scat.

I love getting to know this land and all of its inhabitants.

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.

Tabla Rasa Casita: Our House

"Life used to be so hard but everything is easy cuz of you." That was the line from the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Our House song that had me running out the front door to hug my Joey as he made me a huge garden bed of redwood, madrone and oak tree trunks and branches. I made him dance with me as the song played out. "I'll light the fire. You place the flowers in the vase That you bought today." Except I was getting two raised garden beds equivalent of sixty by ten feet, a side garden and spiral for wildflowers. (The picture on the left is what the yard used to look like).

Only a few songs are downloaded onto my phone and one that repeats often and fits the sweetness that I feel in our homestead. Tabla Rasa means blank slate and that is the suitable name for our little house, the grandness of the untouched acreage around us and the brand new community welcoming us so warmly.

I gave a Ritual Herbalism with Cannabis workshop for Self-Care Saturday, an Plant Shop event organized by my friend Rita where I met and connected with Talia, a fellow massage therapist. After visiting family, Joey and I took the long route home along the coast. We stopped off at Maple Creek Winery and ran into a couple who graduated same year from same school. We also became members - three hours of drinking later. Back at home, we repurposed crates as cabinets. I love the ingenuity and intimacy of these small homemaking acts.

“Staring at the fire
For hours and hours while I listen to you
Play your love songs all night long for me
Only for me

Come to me now (Come to me now)
And rest your head for just five minutes
Everything is done
Such a cozy room (Such a cozy room)
The windows are illuminated
By the evening sunshine through them
Fiery gems for you, only for you”

The blackberries had just begun to ripen. This year the bears will get most of them as we won’t be returning until after Labor Day. I still need to figure out what the periwinkle star flowers are, but when Mori Natura, a symposium sister, came to visit, she identified the pennyroyal growing everywhere. After snacking, she interviewed me for Positive Fantastic podcast and invited me warmly into the “Mendo coven.” Be still my witchy heart.

Joey and I visited our only neighbors, Mike and Liz, who shared an organic bottle of Frey Wine, which is owned by Mori's family - such serendipity, such Magick! Ann, my friend from the Waldorf days and whose house I moved into when I first began divorce proceedings in 2008 came to visit. We caught up on weeks of our lives and then listened in awe to the falling of Madrone leaves. We went to the Willits Farmer’s Market where I bought a Baba Yaga bowl. The next morning, Joey found two hollowed eggs. The Goddess wanted the dried calendula leaves and the joint too. On our last night, Talia and a few other symposium sisters showed up a party we were invited to by Kay, our real estate agent.

Today, my sister Megan sent ladies in our familia the message that we are in the Lion’s Gate Portal. I love that we share these things together. Now is the time for manifesting. Think of the things that you want. Say them aloud three times. Make your dreams come true! You are the Magick!

Making Gardens

I love to plunge my hands into the dirt - especially in summer. Every morning I wake in Willits, I drink a leisurely cup of coffee listening to the forest birds singing. I pour the water and leftover grounds onto the garden and greet each new leaf or flower with deep affection. Each trip to the Hollows brings a new adventure. This time we tried out a new battery storage, hung out with Kobe and created gardens.

On Father’s Day, it was sweet to watch Joey and Kobe tetra a burned-out redwood bark to create a terrace for the small garden that I salute every morning. Joey had cleared away a huge patch of poison oak so that we could grow lavender around the cottage to keep the ticks at bay. We’ll see if it works! So far we are growing rosemary, holly, lavender, calendula, chamomile, and rose geranium. I’ve asked Mama Earth to stay wet in this shaded spot while we are gone and made sure to welcome the multitude of elementals and faeries to this garden!

We removed irrigation and weeded sixty more grow pots. The soil is still in most of the pots because we need to terrace hill for the vegetable patch and herb garden. My menfolk gathered fallen trunks of Douglas fir, Madrone and Oak and made a raised bed. Oh how I ached to put in some plants but since our plan is to visit for a week every month, and this garden is in full sun, I decided to wait. The plan is to make five more boxes here from what the forest provides.

Our new power station is a game changer with two 110V plugs and two chargers. This Yeti by Goal Zero only lost 25% of its charging capacity in five days with three people using it. Loved it. Now we have energy for longer stays.

We froze water in a stock pot at home and transported in a cooler to keep the food cold in the icebox. Unfortunately, the water hadn’t frozen solid so we had to buy ice blocks again. But the road has to be fixed by winter so that’s where we will invest next - culverts and rocks before a propane refrigerator. Sigh. Homesteading requires such patience. I’m certain its good for me.

There is a beautiful spring on the property that I thought I would bless with crystals, statues and prayers. Then Joey put up a trail camera and we discovered that the bear, mountain lion, and deer visit this place daily. This water is already made sacred by Mother Earth’s children.

Kobe and I spent Summer Solstice in Fort Bragg - just 45 minute drive through the redwood forest. We have the best conversations, especially under the trees. We found connection, healing and laughter on the longest day of the year. I delivered signed copies of my books to eclectic shops and independent bookstores in Mendocino and the following day as we visited Ukiah. We hung out in the cannabis lounge at the Plant Shop where I will be teaching my Ritual Herbalism class for their Wellness Day on July 30. On the final night of our stay, Kobe stepped up to sing and play guitar for five original songs he wrote at open mike night at Shanachie Pub in Willits.

Happy Summer!

My Happy Place

“Why did you come to Willits?” asks the bartender at Diggers, a bar named thusly because the owners also own the Willits cemetery.

“I am a forest witch and I want to eat fresh fruit, attend festivals and hang out with my people.”

“You’ve come to the right place,” the bartender smiles and slides me a frothy IPA. I clink beers with my man and then he proceeds to win four pool games in a row, but how we laughed made it all worthwhile.

I am in my happy place when I am snuggled into the Hollows. Life feels closer, more real. Our home is 800 square feet on 44 acres with a coastal breeze and a southeastern view of 20,000 acres of privately own forest. We watched a bear from our kitchen window while drinking coffee one morning. Later in the afternoon, we found the bear den in a burned-out redwood tree. I thought the Fairy Ring of ten or so redwood trees could be my ritual spot, but the place is already holy ground.

In this visit we have tackled an amazing amount of projects:

1.       We removed plastic nets and the dowels, held by eye-hooks from the ceiling that the former owners used to dry Cannabis. This 400sf back room is now our bedroom/living room. Joey put in two windows that look out onto a fern grotto because our first two visits felt like we were sleeping in a gambrel-styled container, except for the bad drywall job that I have covered with tapestries. You could not see your hand in front of your face and had to trust the motion detector light to go on before you ran into the wooden beam in the middle of the room. (I’ve covered the beam with a scarf to soften the blow in case of the accidental collision). Next is a sliding glass door onto a deck. I am so excited about this! 

2.       Our sweet cottage is at the end of a two-mile dirt and gravel timber road that Joey is repairing with the wisdom of 25 years at CalTrans. We have whacked the weeds growing in the middle and sides of the road before they become brush, a dangerous fire hazard to drive over in summer.  He piled the big rocks over the potholes filled with rainwater, then the little rocks on top so the water drains better. I did the same thing to create a step off the front porch. Joey improved the old timber road for nearly quarter of a mile with French drains, ditch lines, and rock bridges. I never knew road maintenance could be so sexy until I watched my man haul the tenth wheel barrel of dirt and rocks, all glistening. 

3.       Over the last three trips, we unplugged the irrigation, removed t-bars, pulled weeds, and turned over the soil from 60 grow pots. This trip, I shoveled dirt from the majority of the pots which we raked into mounds for a garden of wildflowers and formed a spiral path to the center where we will make a stone-built firepit.

4.       We discovered that it takes about a gallon of frozen water per day to keep the icebox cold. Joey is going to create a container that perfectly fits the shelf for ice because one large block holds it temperature longer than one-gallon jugs.

5.       We painted the door turquoise and created a sweet garden right off the porch that I can easily tend and feed the morning’s coffee grounds. Last visit, we planted rosemary, calendula, lavender and chamomile. I was thrilled to see that had all grown in our two-week absence. We added holly, rose geranium and red clover to the garden and they all got a good raining so I am hopeful they will do well. The plan to plant lavender all over the house to keep the ticks away.  I’ll transform the hill I look out upon from kitchen window or porch from grow pots into a vegetable and herb garden. I will forest bathe every day.

I returned to our cottage one afternoon after weed whacking a path in the tall grass to my chair where I get one bar for morning texts. I sat down on the deck and a tick fell onto my writing desk. Joey said we had to kill the tick or it would jump on us and he described the whole bloody mess. He told me how to roll my thumbnail over the bug until I heard a pop. I couldn’t do it at first, but then I thought of a Waldorf mom who had gotten Lyme disease and was afraid to go outside afterwards. So, I rolled my nail over the tick and literally screamed when I heard the loud pop of the bug’s protective shell cracking. Then we laughed.
My happy place is always where love and laughter live.

Living off grid

Living off grid is an invitation to truly understand the impact of our choices. I hesitate to use that word “understand” because there is a definite feeling that this word still carries it’s original use of the late Middle English (around the 15th century) to mean to stand under. In today’s climate of revolutionary individualism, there is little that is more abhorrent and outdated than “power over” suggestions.

However, when you live offgrid without the convenience of power or electricity, understanding my smallness, the impact of my footprint and use of natural resources becomes of utmost importance. I am now intimately aware of how much power I use, rather than waiting 30 days for the bill. I ask myself what is more needed: charging my phone when I don’t even get reception or the string of LED lights that will illuminate the dark house at night. Do I turn on the propane heater or put on a sweater? Do I carry the battery operated tea light to the bathroom in the middle of the night or trust the motion detector light to turn on before tripping in the absolute darkness? Do I start collecting candles? Will four gallons of frozen water jugs in the icebox really keep our food cool for an entire week? What is the most earth-friendly way to reuse the pearlite soil in the grow pots?

We brought a generator to charge up power tools to cut a new window into the 400 square foot trim room so we can get light and air. It was nicer to use the generator to pump air into our camping mattress, but so loud in the silence of these woods. The extra power will run the weedwhacker to cut down the Russian thistle that could be fire fuel this summer. I would prefer to have goats on the property and have begun to ask around with fingers crossed.

We fill the well’s water tank at the top of the property so there is plenty of pressure for the shower in our little cottage (which is nestled in the hollows 400 feet lower than the well). We turn off the water at the house when we go back to the Eastern Sierra, in case of a flood. For the first time in my life, I understand how the septic system works: waste and water drain into a large tank, bugs eat the poop, and the rest drips into underground leech lines (cement pipes perforated with several holes). I have weeded and dumped the soil of thirteen grow pots onto the leech field. There are fifty more pots to go in this section alone. We cannot park on the leech field nor plant food. But we can seed California poppies.

Does it distress you, as it bothers me, when people offer apathetic, arrogant responses, such as “the earth has been on fire and froze in cycles, no different than now.” We are speeding up climate change through our convenient distance - not everyone has this option. It’s not easy to live without the comforts or to keep trying when there are so many people who would rather never know what happens to human waste, water theft, or plastic bags in the ocean. I used to believe that my positivity and example of “doing good” could awaken others. The speed of consciousness is slower than I hoped and curtailed by the powers that be and corporate-sponsored media that changed the connotation of “awakened” to mean something completely the opposite of what we light workers were aiming for when we first embraced personal transformation attuned with nature. And yet, I will never stop trying to awaken my deepest spiritual self within this human existence to live in more equality with all of life each day.

Words are alive and have power to create.

Our choices do matter.

Be stronger than your excuses.

Setting Up a Homestead

This cottage at the bottom of our property is a complete blank canvas. I am living a dream that is unfolding into whatever we make from it. The first threshold of happiness is accepting your magick can create anything you choose. You really do hold the paintbrushes to the canvas of your life and it’s best, at least for me, when there’s a bit of elbow grease involved.

I don’t like cleaning but I love organizing. A little cannabis high enhances the creative process of putting things together, making order, creating beauty and pursuing the possibilities that arise. A madrone branch becomes my jewelry holder. I grind eggshells into a powder, which is called cascarillas, a magickal protection agent that I add to soapy water to clean the deck while singing Goddess songs. Altars are made for my gratitude for this joyful opportunity, including the new shower curtain and cushy rugs on the floor. Writing ideas bubble to the surface while I clean and organize that would elude me if I was to stare at the blank page and wait for Muse to arrive. Instead, I see miracles and marvel at our blessings.

Joey’s mother gave us her childhood wooden dresser and an old ice box that we will attempt to use for refrigeration instead of coolers when we come for 7-14 day stretches to work on the property and cottage. His brother Tony gave us propane cans for the heater because nights are so chilly your breath is misty. Cindy gave her patio furniture. We brought my dad’s burl table and plan to affix burnt orange branches as legs from the fallen madrone tree. We sleep on the queen mattress pad and frame from Aunt Elaine. Tapestries have been repurposed. The 400-square foot room where the former owners dried the cannabis has no windows or doors, nor floor insultation so that’s next on the list. Let the sun shine in.

At night, I would love to have power to just flick the switch for the canned recess lighting. But I don’t want to deal with the noise of a generator, so until we can buy the quiet generator or a solar power system, I move around the camping solar panel to charge up a battery that we plug in our cell phones and camping lights for illumination at night. We can also charge phones while driving into town or while eating lunch and catching up on emails at the Brickhouse coffeehouse. I love that all day long all I hear is birds and the sounds of my beloved making a homestead with me, but town is just ten minutes away.

Joey and our friend Brennan took down about fifty metal 8-foot t-bars and together we unplugged the irrigation for the cannabis planted over the leech field, a new term that I recently discovered having lived in cities or suburbs most of my life. I dumped 13 soil pots for the start of a wildflower garden, since we won’t be eating those and the roots won’t damage the septic system. Joey weed whacked the poison oak, berry bushes (don’t worry berries are everywhere) and ferns to create defensible space around our house, firefighting skills coming in handy, plus he made a path to the water tank on a hill above the cottage and fixed puddles in the road from wisdom gained in two-plus decades at CalTrans. Culverts and French drains are also on the list.

We cleared the dirt away from the foundation of the cottage, which rests on stilts, so the wood wouldn’t rot. I dumped one pot of soil to create a small herb garden of two rosemary, an English lavender, calendula and chamomile. We have hundreds of grow pots so shared some with Brennan along with the t-bars used for stringing line to help the cannabis grow. On the hill outside my kitchen window, we’ll plant a terraced garden of herbs and vegetables and in two tarped hoop houses at the hollows we’ll plant artichokes and other veggies for the farmers market when we move permanently to Willits.

The plan is in 2-5 years, we will build either a log or cob house at the top flat spot which is right next to the gate at the beginning of our property. This gate is one mile from Highway 20 uphill and one mile downhill to the hollows. There is sun at the top spot all day, the view is pretty, and the road is good. In all honesty, the middle flat spot just above my chakra meditation chair, has the best view, but the road to it is far too steep to make it the “forever home.” There’s another hoop house here that has been taken over by Russian thistle. We will employ goats (I hope) to eat the weeds, then I plan on building a solar powered hot tub made from cob and a spa garden with roses, lavender, rosemary, red clover and other herbs good for bathing.

I could get a cell booster and probably make a call from the kitchen, but my 200 paces walk up a dirt road to get a single bar on my telephone is good for my soul. I placed a sturdy metal chair next to my new tree buddy for a place to rest and take in the beauty of nature. Before I check my phone, I do a chakra meditation, imagining each rainbow light illuminating at its energy center along my kundalini. I give thanks for this dream come true.

Homesteading the Hollows

It all starts with an idea… living off grid, happy and self-sufficient with my beloved.

My honey Joey and I starting looking for a community to invest in this January. We brought out the map of California. I still believe whole-heartedly in maps. As I drew my finger over highways that meandered the forests of Northern California, I asked the Universe for a town with an independent bookstore, brewery and coffeehouse. I imagined an old main street that would be close by where I could find a farmers’ markets, small movie theaters, festivals and pancake breakfasts. But I always saw myself tucked away, deep in the woods - yes, a Witch in the Woods with my man was my plan.

We had an agent’s number but didn’t know where to tell him to start looking, so we scoped out a swath of communities via Zillow from Potter’s Valley in Lake County to Boonville, home of Anderson Brewery and a place that had my vote, to a sweet craftsman house in downtown Willits but next door to a school and church. We drove through other neighborhoods and I felt boxed in. I worried that living in rural Eastern Sierra town of Crowley Lake, California (pop 980), had ruined me for such proximity of so many people.

Then, on what I thought was a whim, we drove to a 44-acre property on the Highway 20, just six miles from Willits and 25 miles to the coastal towns of Mendocino (wine) and Fort Bragg (sailors) along a rode that wove between towering redwood trees. It had been an old pot farm with four leveled out places where three brothers had grown cannabis in four huge hoop houses, plus another 200 plants in grow pots with irrigation in front of an 800 square-foot trim house. We had the well tested and the water came out clean. We went back and forth, but with Joey just over a year away from retiring, he needs a new hobby and I need more hippies. Plus every time we thought of this property, a smile of happiness reached across both of our faces. We can do this, we told ourselves. We can reach for our happiness. He will plant artichokes and arugula and sell his produce at a farmer’s market (behind the old Rex-All in Willits every Thursday.) I can write and be near so many of my Northern California Herbal Symposium gals and other friends I’ve known for years. And we can visit the coast.

So, we scrambled together a cash deal and on April 27, 2022, Joey and I (with a little help from sister Cindy) became the new owners of this amazing 44 acre off-grid property with about twenty-five century-old fruit trees of fig, pear, apple and olive. I’ve found red clover, poppies, nettles, plantain, and so much more. There are bay trees - good medicine for the poison oak that follows the waters next to berry patches. Young redwood trees that surround the cut down old growth trees that were harvested after the 1906 San Francisco fire. Sprawling oak trees look like pretty awesome places for tree forts. We are southeast facing a 18,000 privately owned timber forest that will not be cut because the trees have not yet come of age.

The land spirits and Fae folk are powerful here. A sweet fawn came by to say hello on first day, a very large bear has made several appearances leaving huge scat and paw prints behind. The wild Turkey that flew over my head was a symbol of my abundance. Although Joey says that’s dinner - but last week 444 copies sold of The Book of Spells and that’s a very Witchy number and really made me feel like the universe has got my back. In fact, all three businesses that I hoped to find in my new hometown are on the same city block - in the old school part of Willits-gateway to the redwoods in Mendocino County. The Book Juggler bought two copies of The Book of Spells (I carry them around) and put the book on the front page of their website. We went to Northspur Brewing Co. twice but the second time met up with Joey’s CalTrans’ buddies (who don’t known it yet but will help us get gravel and pipes to fix the roads on the property) and Brickhouse Coffee features local artwork that blows my mind and their breakfast sandwiches are calling my name for a long morning write.

As per request from my dear friend Helena Pasquarella I am starting this new blog about the adventures of learning how to be a homesteader making medicine, jams, magick, festivals and a home. We have spent two days on the property, cleaning the outside (only six bags of trash off to our new dump), and scrubbing and blessing inside our new little cottage. We’re making lists of what we need or want.. a cell phone booster, fruit tree expert, off grid solar system, fridge, cob benches on the best views, poppyseeds, solar pathway lights, new shower curtain, more seeds and trees. We need to fix the road, figure our most efficient energy system and what we’re going to plant in these hoop houses. For now there’s a sweet cottage for us to doll up. Eventually we’ll build a cob house and a bath house with a garden just for herbs to soak in.

The reason this blog is called Homesteading the Hollows is because the cottage where we are making a home is at the bottom of the property, two miles from the highway and 400 feet in elevation down into the woods. This land is filled with meadows and forests, but for now our heart and home will be in the hollows. Our next trip back to Willits will be after Mother’s Day, when we’re bringing in furniture and home décor - I am so excited!