Tag Archives: dwell

around the farm

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between living vicariously through real farmers, and holding my future farming intentions very much at the forefront of my attention right now, hoping to attract all kinds of power from the universe, i am sticking with the title “around the farm” for my sporadic thursday garden tours (i began doing this, inspired by farmama, and have kept on going even though there is not always a weekly post there to link to, but wanted to give credit where it’s due!)

one of the fun surprises built into my permaculture-organic-compost-lovin’ style of gardening is volunteers. i know that squashes who volunteer do not always bear good fruit, but this time i seem to have gotten lucky! our giant volunteer is far more vigorous than the one squash plant we cultivated on purpose, and has many mini yellow squashes starting to form. i can’t wait to find out what kind they are!

our avocado tree started out life as a volunteer as well… it can be seen in the window over yonder, behind the boy who fell asleep, pantsless, on the footrest. this picture kind of says it all about where he and i are at with our mama-son relationship right now: exhausted. i sure do love this guy, and celebrate his unique self-assuredness and self-knowledge and self-direction and boy is it hard not to label it defiance sometimes…. the thing is, i decided a long time ago, i do celebrate his vibrant agenda (that doesn’t always coincide with mine, oddly enough when you put two human beings with free will together) and i do celebrate that his will is super duper intact. and saying hello to that 24/7 right now is wearing me out!

but i digress… well, not really. so much of this gardeny farmy thing with me has to do with him. look at his cherub face, checking on his first ripe yellow pear cherry tomato.

instead of taking a nap on the foot stool, what i want to do with the energy i encounter pouring out from him every day, is instead of feeling it like an onslaught, and acting like i have to head butt with him, i want to absorb that energy and transform it into my own power source, into me having the same self-awareness and self-assuredness and ability to put forward my agenda to the universe that he has… and maybe actually make some forward movement with all these ideas i have. turn ideas into plans…

community garden; chioggia beet

growing food is so empowering, and yet so often i encumber myself (not the same as cucumbering myself, which i haven’t been successful at yet- next year maybe?) and put off taking steps towards accomplishing my goals. i bog down in the everyday stuff, and dissociate whenever it comes time to roll up my sleeves and… dial a phone number. yeah, that’s my big hangup, making phone calls. i know, for someone who can drive a tractor, operate a jack hammer, run a chainsaw, wire an electrical outlet, fix a sewing machine, adjust the tension on a serger, and grow food, you’d think that itty bitty little box with a screen and numbers written on little buttons wouldn’t be so intimidating. but there it is.

scarlet emperor beans are big!

so that’s why i’m here today, sharing my garden but also dwelling in my own power, making myself look at what i can do, and mustering up the guts to take one more little baby step involving speaking my truth to another human being and letting the unknown of what they might have to say in return not paralyze me with fear.

i grew black cherry, chadwick red, and pink pearly cherry tomatoes, i wonder which kind this is? (i've ruled out yellow pear and gold currant)

acting like i actually believe about myself what i believe about my son, that my acceptability does not rest in someone else’s hands, it shines outward from within me. i am okay.

 

 

layers

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the familiar summer (gasp! did i dare say that?) refrain which you will  no doubt be bored of hearing soon: “we went to the beach on sunday!”

we had another rockin’ low tide at a nice leisurely 10 am time slot. this lesser-known beach is a favorite for weekends in warmer months, when more people are out on the more popular beaches. i mean, i like people… and… sometimes we need wide open spaces. and when the ocean rolls back to reveal so many layers of depth and color and life, this place feels especially wide open.

shortly after we arrived, quinn realized he was chilly, so i let him wear my hat. it was fun to get to see it so much- i have had it practically cemented to my skull for the last 8 months since i bought it from a fellow farmer’s market vendor. i realized why it jumped off the rack at me as i watched quinn and my hat blend in with the layered landscape surrounding us.

are you with me? i promise, i did not make him pose for one single shot.

dark green fucus ~ bright green ulva ~ yellow ochre kelp (laminaria- that’s for you liz) ~ brown bedrock  ~ burgundy coralline red algae ~ purple sea star ~ green eel grass green ocean green sea anemone ~ blue mussels blue water blue sky

or how about

dark green shore pine ~  bright green beach pea ~ yellow ochre brown burgundy sand dune cliff ~ green willows junipers beach grass ~ blue sky

i’m sure there is some way i could round out the post with a metaphor about the layers of life, and how thick and deep and intense they sometimes seem… but i think the pictures say it better today than my words could hope to.

~dwell~ interdependence

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oh life, what a funny dance. you may have noticed a certain lack of ~dwell~ posts, the ones i did post having been dedicated to the idea of dwelling in the intention of researching (and ending up on) a live aboard boat. i did a fair amount of leg work researching the idea, including consulting the seasoned liveaboard mama cindy at zach aboard, checking listings, researching docking expenses, walking said docks looking for our new home. on the homefront, i commenced an organization/cleaning/downsizing effort that has had delightful results, including that we like our living space more and more, the deeper i delve in this endeavor. the whole exercise has ultimately helped me shape the ideas of what i do (and don’t) want in a living space.

it turns out, a boat isn’t going to work so well for us at this point in our lives. i’m not only ok with that, i’m thrilled at all the extra “work” i’ve gotten done as a result of dwelling in that space of really overturning each stone of that idea~inspiration~thing as it emerged.

i’ve mentioned during the course of the dwell series, that i have my longer term sights set on permaculture. the whole package, not just the kickin’ gardening. the closing of so many leaky cycles, which goes so much deeper than just growing food. the more i get to know myself, the less i can abide waste and chronic excess, and while i’ve been pretty true to those beliefs (and truer all the time) i know that i am not going to rest until i am fully immersed in a life where there are no more blatant geysers of waste pouring forth simply due to the fact of my mere existence. this isn’t everyone’s calling, i want to be clear here. it’s something that is true for me though, and the voice telling me so gets louder all the time.

as for dwelling in those intentions (the permaculture ones), i surprised myself a little and reached out to get to know a woman who said the p word at a local foods meeting quinn and i recently attended. actually i emailed her out of the blue, after said meeting, because she mentioned that she has a weekly open-food-forest-demo site at her property. the best part is that she warmly welcomed quinn, assuring me in her response to my email that her gardening adventures have always included children. i just get the sense that this woman has so much goodness that i can’t help but want to be around her, and she seems very motivated to share her knowledge freely. we showed up yesterday in a rain/wind storm to her house, and immediately got down to work digging potatoes from what looked to be a small, unassuming mound of weeds from last season that some wild strawberry plants were enjoying growing on. 50 potatoes later, i was sold- new method of growing potatoes- check!

there was so much more… quinn’s “best part” (a game we often play as we talk over how our day went) was “drinking water! and playing on the big blue ball!” because after we washed potatoes in rainwater collected by her wheelbarrow, toured the backyard compost scene (trench composting… again, i’m sold. no plastic!) and planted some new onion starts in one of the raised beds, she welcomed us into her beautiful home to show us exactly how to prepare some of our potatoes (which she generously gave us to bring home, along with a few “extra” onion starts that somehow i suspect she could have found room for…) one thing led to another, she offered quinn water to drink, and soon she and quinn were discussing center of gravity as he attempted balancing on her yoga ball. (he kept saying “it’s inside the ball! my center of  gravity is inside the ball!”)

and can i just rave about soil for a moment? the bed we planted the onions in was a bed she started right on top of the grass turf that was there, in place, when she moved in (not that long ago). and it was drop dead gorgeous soil. absolutely teeming with worms, and you could literally sink your arm down into it without need for a tool. it was just. so. fertile-fluffy-nice-even-in-a-rainstorm. sheet mulching, baby. i tucked away a few tips for getting started and again, i’m sold.

but back on the reaching out to new people thing- i am keenly feeling my singleness these days, and my vulnerability. downsizing our belongings and reorganizing our household has had me contemplating my driving forces. why is it that i am suddenly really interested in living without furniture? i know that a portion of that drive is a desire to be completely self sufficient. while self sufficiency is a worthy goal from many angles, that is perhaps not the ideal angle… it’s okay to ask a friend to lift the other end of your futon when you need to move it. or so i am trying to convince myself… i haven’t had a backyard furniture bonfire. yet….

so, interdependence. i am trying to find the balance between complete and total i-am-an-island independence, and codependence (tried that out for a while and it’s really not for me!) and slowly, slowly, slowly realizing that there is a healthy middle ground. i’m still looking for it, but hey, at least i’m paying attention to that intention. dwelling in it, shall we say?

our host yesterday noted that part of the permaculture dance involves rethinking the concepts of boundaries and fencelines. she told me how she has had to navigate a tricky relationship with a neighbor whose dryer exhaust was killing her blueberry bushes. i believe she used the lovely wording “cultivating relationships.” let’s just say that it was a bit more than a composting and gardening lesson…

~dwell~

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wow it’s been a long time since i clipped this comic (or someone else did, on my behalf- it’s been so long, i don’t remember who to give credit to!) at the time, i was a schooner deckhand, which i only know because the clipping lives in my journal from that era. there is another one in the same journal which depicts two sailors in their bunks writing letters home, one asking the other, “how many apostrophes in fo’c’s’le?” (hehe- my spell check has no suggestions, but it’s pretty sure i’ve spelled it wrong.)

anyway, i was in love with the way housekeeping was done on the boats i lived on, and this 1950 housewife hosing down her year-2000 living room was a good analogy. you just lashed stuff down, turned on the pump, and let loose with the firehose. clean!

keeping my current house clean is an impossibility. it is too much space for just two of us. i have to take a walk to get the broom… it decreases my likelihood of sweeping, in some sort of non-linear manner.

but i’m definitely struggling with how everything could fit. this one seems a nice size, and built back in the time before they knew how little fiberglass they could get away with- very solid. i don’t think it’s for sale, in spite of the nice gentlemen on the docks who assured me, “every boat is for sale,” and that the two happiest days in a boat-owners life are the day he or she buys the boat, and the day they sell it. but on this boat- they have new halyards- they must be planning to take this thing out sailing soon… quinn really liked this one’s bright orange dockline. it’s the little things in life. we also really love the charm of this moorage up the river because, look at those awesome huge wooden cleats! they’d be fun to tie up to. they’re fun to balance on, too, if you’re almost four. (looking at how grown he is lately- oh man. words can’t describe the love in a mama’s heart at watching this young man grow…)

so i would say we are definitely still very much in the idea stage of this process… how about you?

~dwell~ is a project devoted to dwelling in my intentions- giving them energy and watching them take shape!

~dwell~

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what a whirlwind week! i have been insanely busy with my job, and we have been sidetracked by a week long gift of nice weather… and so not having much to report on a project seems well justified. i did finish touring the two marinas in town looking for boats. the cloud nine II looked “affordable”. a dream boat from an earlier era. listing to both port and starboard (i know that sounds impossible, but trust me) and slumping slowly into the sea. nautical compost heap.

live aboard? not so much. i doubt the rats even want to, at this point…

i have other places upriver to check out… and of course, further reflecting to do on space and timing and choices.

“r” is for reflection… can you see his capital r (which according to him is for pirates)? arrr.

i’ve been plowing through a book that mama-om recommended (anatomy of the spirit by caroline myss) and though i am still reflecting on that as well, i imagine i will post more on that topic of storing emotions in my body. it’s pretty amazing how many things are jumping off the page at me. i am realizing that a lot of my storage of stuff has to do with the need for self expression, the ability to bring my creative self to life, space to speak my truth, that sort of thing. it’s an area where i’ve learned to just clench my jaw tighter rather than spit out what i need to say. or accommodate the storyline of those around me, rather than make room for my storyline to unfold. so now i’m unlearning that (unschooling is for big people, too) and starting to listen for my voice among the rest of the chatter.  i think this blog is really a good, good thing for me, that it’s so important for me to come here, because it’s for me, even if i don’t say much of anything at all to you, it’s the intention of it that matters.

since we’re dwelling on our intentions here and all…

i can’t believe how much courage it takes just to live our lives and be ourselves. know what i’m saying?

~dwell~

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…on the positive. remember how i said last week that i wouldn’t be disappointed if the whole boat thing doesn’t pan out? well, i realized i could express that better (and more positively): no matter how this turns out and where we physically dwell 😉 at the end of the day, i am going to be content with myself for putting legwork into this, and proud of the decision we make. finally, why in the world would “disappointed” cross my mind at all, if we end up on land instead… the universe works in funny ways, and i can’t say much more about that right now other than i’m starting to wonder if the universe has heard my intention of “land/permaculture” more loudly than my one about “boat”.

either way, i am feeling sooo connected right now.

in boat news, i have now toured the other marina, with quinn’s hand in mine. there had been some sort of oil or gas leak and the water looked nasty. funny, because this was the expensive marina, and we were really just looking to see if any boats were for sale in our price range. it made me sad to see the water looking so abused, and i tucked that image away in my mind… i don’t want to cause further pollution to the marine environment, it is something i rage against! so that is going to be a big consideration in choosing a boat (and an engine!)

note to self: look up whether diesel boat engines have been converted to veggie oil yet…

look at this cool hobbit boat we saw:

how cool is that heart-shaped door?!

quinn notices such subtleties about boats. it is fun to see the things he picks up on, to notice which boats have “that special something” for him.  they do not always match the ones i choose (he likes the little platform on the back of some of the speedracer plastic boats, for example), but then i am old and set in my wooden ship ways. we do both like some of the old cabin cruisers we’ve seen. but i tend to be drawn to the (way out of reach, in terms of $) ketches with wooden spars and such.

some of the boats i have lived on in the past:

that’s the schooner californian, which i sailed on after my stint on the schooner harvey gamage, the boat whose main boom is in the foreground (and on whose deck i was standing when i took the picture). here’s the bosun of the gamage ca. 2000:

it being crabbing season right now, quinn is quite consumed with checking out the amateur crab trap gear stacked by many of the yachts we walked by. “that one doesn’t have a bait box, mama!” loving the little observer boy.

how was your week of dwelling in your intentions?

~dwell~ is a project devoted to dwelling in my intentions- giving them energy and watching them take shape!

~dwell~

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i couldn’t agree more with lisa at visionary mom that once we have formed an intention, the way to bring it to life is to dwell in it. simple as that- you live it, breathe it and talk about it, give it energy. so very law of attraction, i think! i love her idea so much about making a project out of your intention, that i am going to do it! so, with regard to the boaty liveaboard idea i posted the other day, i am going to do a weekly dwell-in-my-intention update on things, what i’ve been up to in research mode, and maybe even pepper it with some photos and candid thoughts on the whole boat scheme like,

“i wonder what baby kitty will think of living on a boat?” (isn’t she cute with all three afghans piled on her? she and quinn have a wonderful relationship of “doting” and “tolerating”. hehe.)

and “gosh wouldn’t it be awkward if my landlords were reading my blog?” and “thank goodness we love co-sleeping! that sure saves space!” and “we can eat crab for dinner every night if we want to.” you know, stuff like that.

let’s call it ~dwell~ and i will aim for thursdays, since today is one of those. if you’ve got similar intentional projects going on and want to do the same type of thing, please post a comment so we can all cheer each other on! for the record, right now my intention is to research this bad boy, and i will not judge myself harshly if this whole boat thing does not pan out- if that’s the case i will know it is for the best, that the choices i eventually make have been made in an intentional way and that i’ve done my work.

as for this past week, i’ve taken one research-oriented walking tour of the marina i have my eye on, and looked up and down piers C, D and E, for boats for sale- quite a few, not surprisingly, given the economy. nothing that caught my eye as “the” boat for us, but still a promising visit. it’s been soggy weather and walking hasn’t seemed appealing on my last few lunch breaks but i will start to make a habit of it on nice january days. ones that look like this:

~dwell~ is a project devoted to dwelling in my intentions- giving them energy and watching them take shape!