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.

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.

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!

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.