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.

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.

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.