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.

Arty Chokey Farm

Magick swirls around me as I walk through the forest of redwood, madrone, fir and oak trees. I seek out the redwoods to find the mama trees and just breathe. The nearness of nature makes me feel like a child. The way the garden is responding to Joey and I feels like making love to the earth.

Our friend Samantha says that we are practicing dry farming - a style in which you saturate plants and then leave them be for long stretches of time. It’s our practice because the hallows to the mountains is an eight hour drive and with “gas prices these days” we only go once a month. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Joey’s plan is to create Arty Chokey Farms, farm delivery of the finest artichokes. It’s the retirement plan from CalTrans to earth tender and artichoke friend.

Meanwhile I am tending to the medicinal herbs and flowers and getting to know them. I like to sprinkle yarrow, rose geranium, and chamomile flowers in one of my ceramic bowls for a delightful facial steam. My garden is small for now because my plan is to get to know my herbal allies intimately before I decide who gets a lot of room in the raised beds and what kind of sunshine they prefer. I want to have retreats for spiritual feral women to help me build solar cob hot tub, flower beds and an outhouse. Then we’ll luxuriate under the stars and share our wisdom with each other.

We water from the well that is 400 feet above the hollows that travels from the pump through pipes to our sweet home with its garden. There is so much to learn about working with the land. I’m dreaming of taking Starhawk’s permaculture course. For now, I’m launching my tenth book A Box of Magick and so turn to my herbal allies and tree buddies to sustain me through our friendship, whether I am in Willits, Crowley Lake or on the road.