Fresh From the Farm This Week: Early July Edition

This last week, I've been on break and had a little more time than usual to go spend on my knees in the dirt.  Mostly it was weeding and then more weeding and then after that, a little more weeding, but yesterday, I finally decided to make harvesting a priority.

First up were the blueberries.  I had to shoo the crows away, but in about twenty minutes, I was able to fill my two little buckets.  There weren't too many Rainiers this year although the birds were still making a go of it higher up in the branches.  I didn't do more than pick some of the low-hanging fruit, but I felt very grateful that every year, despite almost total neglect, these blueberry bushes and cherry trees produce again and again.  Miracles all around us, and grace upon grace.  

This year's garlic has been proceeding quite nicely despite a super late harvest last year that produced garlic bulbs that had already split and were therefore not storable for long.  The hardnecks kept a little better, so that's what got planted, with the lucky by-product being garlic scapes in the early summer before harvest.  I got a huge basket of them, and then proceeded to shear the mesclun that's grown back again from their first cut a few weeks ago.  Finally, I picked the last of my English peas, which I need to remember to plant more of next year since the fresh peas are a hundred times better tasting fresh than the ones that come frozen.

The cilantro has also bolted into a lovely field of white flowers that will keep reseeding itself.  I always find myself needing just a little bit of it to make salsa or whatnot, but inevitably, it's bolted or in the seed stage when I get around to wanting to make it.  

I haven't been too inspired to document what's been growing in these last few seasons, maybe because most of what I'm growing is nothing new.  Also,  the amount of weeds and the time and effort needed to dig out the beds this year was especially laborious, so snapping photos took a backseat to getting more urgent things done.  But this year, it seemed we've had an especially cold year and everything seemed to be two to four weeks later in showing up than usual and I found myself scrolling through some of the posts from years back to check whether it was just a feeling or were things indeed later than usual? (They were.  By about 2 weeks it seems.)  It was also a good reminder that despite the effort, remembering is important and especially for a memory like mine, documenting is crucial.

I've been thinking about just how hard it is these days for me to get something written or read or done with the seemingly infinite ways that I can be distracted.  It's now been months since I first wrote this post, but something, often mindless Internet browsing, takes precedence.  This passive decompression is necessary at times, but because it's so easy, I find myself absent-mindedly losing big chunks of time to it and really needing an act of will to stop.  I used to think that being a writer or an artist or some kind of a maker of things was a matter of talent, but even more so, one has to just write or draw or make or do whatever it is that you say you want to do.  Period.  Just do it, as the slogan goes.  So, here we go again.  You have to start somewhere, right? 

Remember by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember. 

Fresh From the Farm Round Up

I've certainly gotten behind on the gardening updates again, but this year I did have some pretty fun first time successes in the garden.  One was "the watermelon" (yes, I use "the" since only one survived due to the sporadic watering during an usually dry summer--an ongoing issue that I will attempt to ameliorate next year!) and also the Ronde de Nice French zucchinis that my friend Linda claimed were the best tasting zukes she's eaten.  (We had resurrected a garden plot that hadn't been planted in for over a year so the soil was quite fertile, making for some happy squashes, cucumbers, and deer since it wasn't fenced in.  However, given the abundance of production, we were ok with sharing a little this year.)  Not pictured: the many traditional zucchinis that tried to take over the world, whose appearances were preceded by exclamations of "Oh, shoot!  We missed another one!" and "Quick!  Pick it before it grows any bigger!"

An a-ha! moment came when I realized that the gorgeous poppies growing in the cutting garden were where the poppyseeds that I loved in my muffins and pastries came from.  These beauties did not do well as cut flowers but their pods--either still green or dried--were a favorite for bouquets, and the structure within was just amazing.  I spent some time laboriously harvesting the poppyseed and now I've got a little jar stored to make some muffins or cake with sometime soon.

Also new this year was braiding, garlic that is.  We planted two varieties this year as in years past, a soft neck version as well as a hard neck.  Last year during harvest time, we just threw them willy nilly into some crates, dried them, and I gave away some of the nicest ones, leaving us with some pretty scrawny guys to plant for this year.  Well, live and learn.  This time around, we separated and set aside the biggest ones first for seed for the coming year, and then I practiced braiding all the soft neck garlic into these big fishtails, which was quite fun.

Some new flowers came up in the cutting garden this year as well.  First was the echinacea that I had planted from seed the year before.  Out of the half dozen or so that I planted, only two actually matured to full plants and only one made it to this year, putting out some gorgeous pink blooms that make me think I might want to try planting from seed again.  I also planted some Bells of Ireland this year and though they came in sort of short, the colors and shape were still lovely and they should come back stronger and taller next year.  I was also happy to see that the scabiosa, which came from pods that I foraged in California, were establishing itself.  I'm pretty sure I weeded out a bunch of their starts in the spring when I was trying to get ahead of the weeds, not recognizing them as flowers that I wanted, but they are tough little guys and still several managed to survive.

Last year I had pretty good luck with larkspur and sweet peas but this year, perhaps due to the dry weather, almost none of them came up.  However, the rudbeckia and coreopsis went gangbusters and the zinnias, sunflowers, and marigolds were also pretty happy as well as all the usual suspects from the Grandmother's Cutting Garden mix I planted three years ago--bachelor's buttons, love-in-a-mist, cosmos, Sweet William.

As late summer hit, it was finally tomato season.  This year I had started my tomatoes from seed around mid-April, trying some varieties that I'd never planted before: Japanese slicing Mandarin Cross, Red Oxhart, Cherokee Purple, and Black.  Of course neither my father nor I could resist getting at least a few more varieties each at the store.  I also got several volunteers of Sungolds and Sweet Millions from the plants I had planted the year before.  I'd say overall, the tomatoes fared okay but we didn't stake them well and I think the plot where I planted many of them was just tired and in need of a refresh in the soil.  Nonetheless, we managed to harvest quite a few still throughout the summer and come fall, tons of green tomatoes which I eventually made into a pretty decent salsa.

Like anything else, gardening seems to be about adjusting and following principles rather than rules.  On websites that give advice about growing tomatoes, it always seem to be about treating them very particularly but I find that most tomatoes seem pretty hearty.  In fact, the Roma tomato seeds that I put into my worm bin seem to always start germinating as soon as they get sun.  And even though I've finally trained my father to not start plunking tomatoes into the ground before the soil temperature starts getting above 50 degrees, most do survive without too much damage just as tomatoes planted somewhat later than usual also seem to do just fine in the end.  We try things out, see what works or doesn't, adjust and hope that the weather cooperates, and enjoy the fruit of our labor.

In closing then, a poem about learning, from books, from experience, and the realization that so much remains a mystery that defies categorization.

Learning the Trees by Howard Nemerov

Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn   

The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,   

Out of a book, which now you think of it   

Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,   

You might be in a foreign land of terms

Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,   

Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.

But best of all are the words that shape the leaves—

Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform—

And their venation—palmate and parallel—

And tips—acute, truncate, auriculate.

Sufficiently provided, you may now

Go forth to the forests and the shady streets   

To see how the chaos of experience

Answers to catalogue and category.

Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree

May differ among themselves more than they do   

From other species, so you have to find,

All blandly says the book, “an average leaf.”

Example, the catalpa in the book

Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three   

Around the stem; the one in front of you   

But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;

Maybe it’s not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.   

It may be weeks before you see an elm   

Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,   

A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.

Still, pedetemtim as Lucretius says,

Little by little, you do start to learn;

And learn as well, maybe, what language does   

And how it does it, cutting across the world

Not always at the joints, competing with   

Experience while cooperating with   

Experience, and keeping an obstinate   

Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.

Think finally about the secret will   

Pretending obedience to Nature, but   

Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,   

Dividing up the world to conquer it,

And think also how funny knowledge is:   

You may succeed in learning many trees   

And calling off their names as you go by,

But their comprehensive silence stays the same.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness by Mary Oliver

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that

it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don't say
it's easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world

be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

Bucket List

President Obama, during his stand-up routine at the 2015 White House Correspondents' Dinner, said that after the mid-term elections, he was asked by his advisers if he had a bucket list for the things that he wanted to accomplish during his second term.  Obama replied that he had something that rhymed with "bucket list."

I'm taking a page out of Obama's playbook right now as I wait and wait and wait and then wait some more for my paperwork to leave the country.  When I first started the process, I was mostly worried about what my work over in Turkey would entail: would I be able to competently teach the classes I was given since they weren't my usual bread and butter comp courses, what was the academic calendar like, how proficient would my students' English levels be, what materials would they have access to, what was the access to technology going to be like, etc.  I got some of the questions answered by my contact person there at the university and the embassy but not all and not to the degree of detail that I was used to here.  It was stressful and confusing.

Then I went to Washington DC for a pre-departure orientation and met people who worked and lived in Turkey.  I met some American teachers who had taught there, and accepted that I would just have to relinquish control over how I thought things were supposed to run or what I thought I should know by this time before moving to a foreign country.  Some of them told me that they got there and negotiated their classes so that they ended up teaching something more aligned with their interests.  That sounded good, I thought.  Someone else told me that schedules were negotiated with instructors and teachers during the first week of class or so.  I didn't understand how this happens but I also recognized that there's a different system going on there and it worked for them so just accept it and move on.  I put a bunch of things on my bucket list: understand what I'm doing/teaching beforehand? Bucket.  Know when school starts and understand how the system worked?  Bucket.  Have a departure date?  Bucket!  And for the most part, I think I was able to do it pretty well.  Rather than feeling frustrated and stressed, I was easing into acceptance and I wasn't even in-country yet!  I felt better mentally about my preparation for life abroad.  This was back at the end of August.

Now that it's November and a good 5 months since I started the paperwork for my position and almost two months since my contracted date of employment began, I'm edging towards stressed and frustrated again.  Since I really have no idea what is holding up my paperwork, I won't conjecture on what is possibly going on but let's just say that it seemed unimaginable to me 5 months ago that I'd still be waiting right now to leave and yet here I am.  Will I ever leave?  Should I start unpacking?  What will I do when I get there since school started back in September?  Should I start making a Plan B?  My friend KN is also in the same boat as I am; she's waiting for a visa as well and joked around that we should start a blog for people who were supposed to be in country already and aren't.  I told her I had several posts in mind already:

Post 1: “What do you do all day?”
Post 2: “Are you still here?” and other unanswerable questions
Post 3: Moonlighting while waiting to move on
Post 4: “Why won’t they let me leave the country?!”

I think I need to start putting things back onto that Bucket List and get into a different mental space.  It's hard because to unpack and to think about rsvp'ing for things implies that I don't think I'll be going anymore, which I neither think is true nor want to believe; however, to be in a continued state of neither here nor there is really grueling.  I know I should be grateful for the time to really do pretty much nothing (and I'm quite good at it starting with sleeping something like 9 hours a day) and I am.  I wanted a break where I didn't have to teach composition and now I'm getting a true sabbatical where I can learn new things related to my field of study, review my past scholarly interests, and not have to teach at all.  All while living at home and getting free room and board so I don't even have to worry about meals.  This sort of thing just normally doesn't happen in adult life so I appreciate this time with my parents and them putting up with me as I continue to wait.  However, with the days getting wetter, colder, and darker and so much unstructured time, I'm experiencing some existential angst.

Side note: When I told a friend of mine that I was going to work in Turkey for a year, she said that I was going through a mid-life crisis.  I asked my co-worker if he thought that was true, and he said that although some people could construe renting out one's condo and moving to Turkey as a mid-life crisis, crisis implies an acute condition and I had more of a lingering ennui.  I think that's pretty much spot-on.

So in an effort to curb that existential angst, here goes my new bucket list:

Knowing what tomorrow and the future holds: bucket
Basing my value and identity off my work: bucket
Being productive and useful in the "usual" ways: bucket
Being independent and doing my own thing in my own space: bucket
Being able to plan my time: bucket
Making plans for the holidays: bucket

Whew!  I can see more clearly now why all the angst!  All of those things are pretty big areas of my life to cede control over.  When all of those things are removed, what is left?  That is the question that seems left to be answered....

I recently found this poem by Wendell Berry that I had bookmarked back in May that seems appropriate:

Teach me work that honors Thy work

the true economies of goods and words

to make my arts compatible

with the songs of the local birds

Teach me patience beyond work

and, beyond patience, the blest

Sabbath of Thy unresting love

which lights all things and gives rest.

Enough deep thoughts for one days.  In the meanwhile, at least I've been able to run regularly and enjoy the fall here in the beautiful PNW.  I'll conclude with some of the beauty that I would've missed had I left already:

Larch Madness at Heather Pass

Lake Ann in her fall splendor

Fall color at Maple Pass

Stuart Lake and more larch madness

Snoqualmie Falls

Granite Mountain

The perfect spot for my Compartes S'mores bar!

Matsutaki hunting

Chateau St. Michelle

Juanita Bay Park

Juanita Bay Park

Let There Be Flowers

I don't have too much to say in this post, but just wanted to share some of the beauty that's been in the garden.  A friend of mine asked if I could plant something that I haven't before, what would it be?  And I said, more flowers.  Big flowers like dahlias, peonies, and roses.  But that's for another season.

The roses are from my dad's yard, but everything else has been coming up gloriously at the farm.  Perennials from Grandmother's cutting garden are still going strong and this year, I've tried some rudbeckia as well as Bells of Ireland.  I continue to adore zinnias for their natural ombre.

Put "flower farmer" on the list of things I want to be when I grow up.


Saint Francis and the Sow
By Galway Kinnell

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;   

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;   

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch   

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow   

began remembering all down her thick length,   

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,   

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine   

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering   

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.