growing curious

hope

This is a batch of salsa I made from the tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and onions we grew. These harvest season projects always cause me to take stock and plan for next year.

I was up until 3am last night making giardiniera to share with customers at the Market.  I don't like staying up that late.  I'm toast today and am not sure how I'll cook dinner and help homework happen and all.

This year has been a whirlwind at the Market.  I'm grateful to be there.  My customers are loyal.  I feel loyal to them and often create recipes to suit their preferences.  I love their response to my sauerkraut and pickles.  I'm excited about developing new recipes for next year and getting a better head start on production before the Market begins next May.  I just had no idea what the demand would be like this year, and I feel like I've been scrambling to catch up since March, when I was invited to join the Market.

It's a wonder that I've been able to keep up with the laundry here.  Everything else is in disarray.  The house and garden have never been neglected like this.

Logically, I understand that creating a new business is bound to be consuming.  We started the farm in January 2010, and we started the pickling business this year.  To have come this far -- a successful year at the Market, loyal customers, and growing so much of the produce needed for the pickles ourselves (despite neglecting the garden) -- is amazing.  I will pat myself on the back, and I am eternally grateful for D and E's encouragement, help and patience.

I spent a wonderful twenty minutes in the garden yesterday morning, and it made me realize that I'm not going to be able to continue on with this business unless I'm able to streamline things so that I get time out in the garden.  I need it for nourishment and inspiration.

 

sad/happy

I've had a hard week.  Members of my extended family aren't doing well on different levels.  The Curious Farm business has been exciting and challenging and has squeezed me to the limit, as most new business ventures will do.  It's been frustrating to feel viscerally how our family dynamics need to change in order to accomodate this business.  Is it worth it?  I'm not sure yet, actually.  My computer is seriously broken so I'm unable to communicate easily on my websites or on twitter.  Friends are busy and are as stretched as I am in different ways.

But.  I try to keep my focus on the present and on the positive so here are some things that have made me happy this week:

--There are snow peas on the vines.  A few.  They are there.  It's midsummer's eve.  Okay, I'll take it.

--Though the front landscaping is shot to pieces because I haven't been able to tend it at all this year, the vegetable garden has begun to produce, and -- though it's a shadow of last year's glory -- I'm thrilled.

--I sold out of the first tonic kraut I brought to the Beaverton Farmers Market.  I was worried about how it would turn out because I didn't know if therapeutic amounts of turmeric would turn bitter during fermentation, but I loved how it tasted and other people did, too.  I can't wait to make a more high-powered version tomorrow (which will be ready in August!).  There's a bit more left from the first batch that I'll bring to the Market this Saturday, in case you're interested.

--I managed to clean thoroughly two bathrooms this week.  A miracle.

--D's aunt sent me a letter and said she was proud of me.

--I know that it's all going to be okay.  Nothing will be perfect, but I can depend on finding joy in simple things.

 

 

 

on to something...

There have been hundreds of frustrations.  My friend P calls the disintegration of the landscaping out front as a "start-up cost."  The shower has needed cleaning for a long time, and D is learning to cook, but...

I am happy.

I have worked 12 - 16 hours every day for more than three months (except for three days during that time when I just felt too broken to continue).    I have pages and pages of to-do lists that eventually get checked off.  D has been a saint in helping me with his clear thinking and engineering background.

This is working.  Sort of.  I mean...  there are customers, and they come back for more.  And they are nice, and it's fun to talk to them, and by the end of a Saturday, I feel exhausted and hopeful.

Mostly, though, I'm thinking right now about the hard production end of this experiment.

So far, I have worked through almost 1000 pounds of produce in order to create my products.  Most of that is fermenting right now because customers have been frustrated with me for selling out so I've been trying to increase production.

But 1000 pounds of produce...  I have worked through that since March, when I was accepted into the Beaverton Farmers Market.  I am so tired.  The sauerkraut takes two months to ferment, and the kimchi takes two weeks.  Those fermentation times complicate production right now because everything is new, and I have no idea what people will like.

But I am happy.  As much as I dread making a 30 pound batch of sauerkraut when my feet hurt and there are a hundred other things to do, I love the cabbage.  It makes me happy.  I cut pieces of the cabbage and think, "Wow...  that there is going to crunch just right." 

The vegetables *still* make me happy.  They recharge me.  I still love doing this even though I recognize I need more breaks and rest.  I love celebrating the vegetables in this way.

first market day

Yesterday was not as life-changing as marrying D or birthing E, but -- after those two important days -- it was hands-down the third most intense day of my life. 

After years of study, work, experimentation, licensing, and a trial-run last year of selling my pickled products and fresh vegetables/herbs in a limited way from our home/small farm, I (Curious Farm) got to "come out" into the sunlight yesterday and share my passion with the whole wide world  -- or at least the part of the whole wide world that came to the Beaverton Farmers Market on opening day.

It was a great day.  It was scary.  It was hard.  It was uplifting.  I felt affirmed.  Folks were happy about what we're offering.  They seem ready for these kinds of products and interested in exploring them.

D was there with me today, and I was very glad for that.  He watched our system while I interacted with customers, and we learned a ton today.  We will streamline a lot of our process by next week and even more in coming weeks.  If you visited the Curious Farm booth today, thank you!  Thank you mostly for your patience and warmth while we work through a few kinks in our system.

I loved being there.  My neighbor vendors are great, and I look forward to getting to know them. I felt excited to be surrounded by so many people who are passionate about fresh vegetables, healthy food, and pickles.  It was very affirming for me to be able to talk to many, many pickle lovers.  Curious Farm is a business, but it's a business driven in part by my own particular passions, and I was ready today -- achingly ready -- to connect with others who share those passions.

And if all this exposure wasn't enough for a shy lady who has worked freelance (sometimes never meeting her clients who live thousands of miles away) or just with plants for many years, two articles about Curious Farm were published on Saturday:

--The Oregonian (Cedar Mill's Curious Farm debuts at Beaverton Farmers Market with pickles, herbs and vegetables, by Emily Smith)

--The Cedar Mill News (Curious Farm, by Virginia Bruce)

I am too tired and sore from yesterday to sleep, but I am happy and grateful.  Thank you to everyone who has has been encouraging or constructively cautious about this venture.  Today was quite a milestone, and now I will get to work!

 

menu posted!

Opening day of the Beaverton Farmers Market is this Saturday, May 7th.  I just posted the menu of what we'll offer this week on the curious farm website.  Hope to see some of you on Saturday!

bittersweet update

Maybe you would believe how busy I've been?  It's been just a month since I found out that Curious Farm was accepted into the Beaverton Farmers Market, and one month from today I will have survived my first Saturday there.

Overall, we're ahead of the schedule I mapped out a couple of weeks ago.  Engineer D has been a huge help -- solving all sorts of spatial, storage (at different temperatures), fermenting, business and logistical problems.  There is no way I could do this without him.  And it's not like he doesn't have a hundred other things to do that are important, too.

I was doing pretty okay keeping my nose to the grindstone about it all until I looked online and found out my booth space at the Market.  When I was able to visualize where I'll be, it all became much too real.  As I've said a few times, I wish I had three months to prepare instead of two.

We've been figuring out the booth, getting tables and a canopy, finding eco-friendly containers that won't leak, making signage and other collateral, remodeling our house, figuring out new ways to ferment vegetables in larger quantities, marketing the booth and talking to media folks, mapping out production schedules, building relationships with other farms that can grow vegetables for us, product testing, connecting with new customers, integrating new hens into our flock, and planting up our garden.

I already have begun producing sauerkraut for the Market because it takes two months to ferment.  The pickle lab is working very well, by the way.  Right now more than a hundred pounds   (ahem...  all shredded by hand...  have you ever heard of "cabbage elbow?") of vegetables are fermenting in the pickle lab.  I'm excited by how these long ferments are turning out, and I can't wait until a week or so from now when I can begin working on some spicier products that take less time to ferment.

I've been trying to get nonsense and details done so that I can feel more relaxed as I make the products.  That was my goal with the schedule I hammered out two or three weeks ago, and it seems to be working well.  We've accomplished *so* much, and -- as I turn more to production -- I feel more centered because I know how the product will stay safe and vital all the way from sourcing it from our farm and other farms to handing it to our customers.

But it's been hard, too.  I haven't slept very much.  Neither has D, and that's way worse for everyone.

For me, though, the hardest thing I've had to do in this process is what I did today:  clean out the pickle fridge.  This is where we put most of the jars of pickles that I made last year, organized carefully by batches.  I don't know... it's complicated...  The refrigerator of jars represents failure on some levels.  I didn't sell those pickles last year. 

The refrigerator of pickles represents opportunity, too, because I identified the problem with my business down to the *jar* and found another way to sell my pickles.  I'm proud of that.  It's the right way for curious farm.

However, one of the reasons I lost confidence in selling my pickles in refrigerated glass jars is that twice I found jars with issues.  Other jars in the same batches were fine so I couldn't pin the problems on anything specific, but it made me really worried.  And I knew that the longer I held the pickles locked up in the jars, more textural problems might surface.

Last week I sold my last jar, from a dependable batch.

Today I cleared out the fridge of all jars, from all batches.  I opened up every single jar of pickles, filtered and saved the brine, and then threw away the pickles.

But I tasted a bit of pickle from every jar.  6 - 4 months later, they are amazing pickles.  Only two pickles in all of the jars were structurally unsound, and I understand that now as a problem in the cucumber's development on the vine.

I'm thrilled that my pickles could handle being locked up in glass jars for six months and still taste great.

I'm thrilled that I figured out that I hate having pickles locked up in glass jars so much that I wanted to figure out another way to sell them.

I'm thrilled that my "other way to sell them" turned into this.

But I just put 70 pounds of still-fantastic pickles (all homegrown) in the garbage because it's time to get ready for what's to come.

Bring it on, Universe! 

--cathy, covered in sour-cucumber-fermenty-spicy-summery wonder right now, dreaming about what's to come.

 

 

 

 

 

curious farm pickle lab

Above is the before photo from Friday.

Below is the after photo from today.

The Curious Farm Pickle Lab is now in operation.

yay!

I have been holding my breath since the beginning of January.  Ahhh...  finally exhaling...

I found out this weekend that Curious Farm will be at the Beaverton Farmers Market this year.  This is the largest all-agricultural market in the state, and it receives 15,000 - 20,000 visitors every week -- from May through October.

At my booth I will sell old-fashioned brined pickles (in season only), live sauerkrauts (yes, plural...), sauerruben, seasonal kimchi, beet kvass, and an ever-changing assortment of vinegar-brined pickles like rosemary green beans, delicate Japanese pickled turnips, pickled snow peas, giardiniera, juniper-infused pickled onions, Indian-spiced carrots.  I also will bring a limited array of just-picked specialty vegetables and herbs from our farm.

What makes my booth unusual is that I'll be selling the pickled items by the pound/pint/quart so that people feel freedom to experiment.  Many people have never tasted real, live-cultured sauerkraut, for instance, and might hestitate to buy a 32 oz jar of it.  Also, many people fear they won't like kimchi but come to crave it after trying it. 

My offerings will change weekly -- guided by the seasons and what's fresh right now from my farm and other local farms.  I'll grow as much of the produce I use in the pickles as possible, and I'll source additional ingredients from other smart organic, sustainably-minded farmers in the area.

I am a pickle anthropologist and evangelist.  I want the Curious Farm booth to be a resource for people in the area to learn about pickling techniques from all over the world.  I also want to provide probiotic-rich, health-giving, live-cultured pickles to the community because the real stuff is hard to find.  

I'm excited.  I'm overwhelmed.  I can't wait!  I'm nervous.  I hope people like my pickles.

 

 

I don't make sense?

Did you feel the shift in the space-time continuum yesterday?  Yeah, it was me.  I cleaned the windows in the living room and vacuumed up the cobwebs.  (Wow.  Two words with two u's in them in one short paragraph.)

There is talk of getting the tree sometime this weekend. The tree makes me claustrophobic because it's covered in sparkly, fragile things that may burn the house down or that may break if you breathe on them the wrong way because they're as old as I am (and I may break if you breathe on me the wrong way, too, come to think of it).  So I "deal" with my anxiety by deep-cleaning the house.  If the cobwebs are gone, then at least I'll be able to hit my head against a clean wall.  If the windows are clean, then I will be able to look outside and imagine fresh air and freedom instead of feeling trapped in a house with a tree that might catch on fire.

I know.  It doesn't make sense.

Since I returned from NYC (Yeah...  I didn't tell you I went...  Do you want to hear about the trip?  Or shall we just sweep it under the rug again?), I have been trying to re-do the Curious Farm website.  This has been challenging for me because it's the first site we're running on WordPress.  For something that is supposed to empower a user, WordPress takes away a lot of the control I'm used to.  In the end, I decided to keep the "theme" we've been using for another six months and just clean up the site quite a bit.  Why six months?  Well, maybe we'll keep it after then, too, but I very much hope to have some big business decisions made by June 2011.  When those decisions are made, the farm may need a different kind of website.

The Curious Farm website retains the same look-and-feel, but I re-organized it and took away a lot of text.  The blog is still there that tells the story of what we're trying to accomplish with the farm, but I realized there was no need to keep talking about what we're trying to accomplish because we've already accomplished it.  Now the farm is running.  We grow things.  We have customers.  I make legal pickles.  A year later (the farm is almost a year old!), the farm is not just a reality, it is in motion.

It has been tremendously affirming to recognize how far we've come this year.  It hasn't been easy, and I still want to cry from frustration sometimes, but -- you know -- we made a working farm and a pickle business in a year.  It's amazing what a woman can accomplish when her child goes to full-day kindergarten.

Next time I'll let you know before I vacuum the ceiling again so that you can hang on to something.  Sorry about that.

certifying the kitchen #7

Just in case you're reading this because you hope to certify your own kitchen, I'd like to share some advice:  Be really careful when you buy your legal-for-trade scale.

I bought a scale (online) that was too sensitive for my needs because I was overwhelmed by the options available.  However, sensitive scales need to be recalibrated more frequently.    Having a licensed scale repair shop recalibrate your scale costs money.

My scale inspector (if you certify your kitchen in Oregon, you too will have a scale inspector) came by in late October to test my scale.  I had only used it a few times, but he found that it was weighing in error at 100th of an ounce so he couldn't pass me.  Helpfully, he told me if my scale were less sensitive, he would have been able to pass me.

So I had to take the scale down to a very nice certified scale repair shop, and I only had a limited time to do this or else I would have to pay a fine to the Department of Agriculture.  (In order to produce legal food, it must be weighed legally, too.)

The repair bill was almost half of what I paid for the scale.  I thought about what might happen as I jostled it in and out of the car, and I just felt ill.  I can't afford to pay $100 every time someone sneezes within 30 yards of the scale.  So I asked the very nice scale people if they would accept my scale in trade for a less sensitive one. 

They agreed.  And they handled the paperwork with the Department of Agriculture.

If you ever need help choosing a scale, buying a scale or repairing a scale, visit A-1 Scale in NW Portland.  Very nice people. 

 

gloomy day

 
The contrast in these photos has been tweaked so that you can see the gloom I worked in this afternoon.  It was hazy, misty, and eerily dark out in the garden, and the photos I took were too dark to include here as they were.

Do you ever procrastinate on a chore that you know will make you feel better if you do it?  I've been avoiding the garden recently.  I just didn't want to take down the bean bridge and towers.  I wasn't ready to let go of this intense season.

But clear away and take down I did today.  I even broadforked a bed and will plant red clover there tomorrow.  I ripped out spent broccoli and lots of weeds, uncovered some onions, raked leaves, noticed the garlic pushing up already.

Here is one patch of nasturtiums that I didn't have the heart to tear down:

I apologize for the dark photo, but this patch of nasturtiums climbs taller than me and is still vibrant.  I've never had nasturtiums last this long.  They always sacrifice themselves to the aphids by August. 

D's mother took D and E to Disneyland so they've been gone for a few days.  I was moderately productive while they were gone with cleaning, organizing, and gardening.   I seeded the last of the chili peppers on Friday night and severely burned my hands from the capsaicin.  Two days later, they still hurt.  I barely slept on Friday night from the throbbing pain, and then I got a rare migraine on Saturday morning that I think must have been from how wigged out my nerves were from the pepper burns.

But here are the beautiful chili peppers before processing:

 

And here they are all now as they ferment into a special chili sauce that Curious Farm will have available soon.

 

the garden keeps giving...

 
Mother Earth, I am blessed.  Here it is almost November and our vines have delivered another 18 pounds of perfect pickling cucumbers.  This batch of pickles may be the last for the year, and then I will decide if I want to import from California to make batches of pickles during the next couple of months.

Here is a photo of our vines, taken today during a break in the storm:

You can see that the vines still look pretty lively for this late in the season.  This is one of our new beds that gets southern exposure and heat radiated from the house on the north side.  It's such a sweet, productive spot, and we'll be planting winter crops in these beds soon, too.

And that's probably why the hens have gathered nearby here this afternoon to soak up the sheltered sun.  There's been no sign of molting yet, and they're still laying well. (especially since we discovered that they were laying eggs in the tomato bed and so have changed their ranging schedule to encourage use of the nest boxes.  ahem.) 

I am just beginning to recover from my illness.  Today I have done more than any day since 10/8.   I had to force myself out to pick the cucumbers, and I'm taking a break now before I put them into crocks because I'm tired.

But it was great to be out in the garden.  I'm just stunned by all that's still growing out there.  I haven't planted the garlic yet (hopefully will do that this week when E is in school), but there are carrots, beans, pretty summer squashes, chili peppers, eggplants, parsley, winter squashes, onions, leeks, chard and broccoli.  All of this is from plantings we did in the spring and early summer.  We haven't had "farm hours" here at Curious Farm in a month or so, but I'll send email to a couple of customers to let them know about crops I know they enjoy.

Now I just need to get my energy back so that I can plant the garlic and winter crops.  We have never had such bounty here, and I can't wait to see what we're able to grow next year.

 

toot toot!

O frabjous day!

Legal pickles...  yip, yip...  legal and safe and tested and jarred and labeled pickles just before heading to the Curious Farm fridge.  (...but you heard it here first because you are you, and this is my special place for saying yippie! and ow! and wow!  today is a yay day!)

 

certifying the kitchen #2

Why am I showing you the cabinet under my kitchen sink?  Because the kitchen inspector is coming tomorrow, and she's going to look here, too.

Another rule for domestic kitchen licensing is that cleaning supplies need to be removed.  Right now, the cabinet holds just the garbage and a fire extinguisher.  I'll let you know if this turns out to be kosher.

I am very tired. 

Even though it has been hard work to re-organize the kitchen and other storage areas in the house, it hasn't been difficult.  I actually enjoyed separating my professional supplies (including spices and other ingredients) from household supplies.  Sometimes it has seemed as though I've been working toward this kitchen certification all along.  Everything has its own place now, and it all fits just fine.

Tomorrow the inspector is just coming to give me a consultation.  Wanting to use her time in the best way and to challenge myself, I've tried to follow the regulations as fully as I understand them.  We'll have a more productive conversation this way.

I'm not nervous.  I feel tired and a bit wound up, but not nervous.  As I told D and my old friend P, there's an aspect of this process that soothes my anxiety.  It has given me a way to use my native hypervigilance in a more concrete and productive way.  I'm glad for this opportunity to move forward professionally.  I relish (fun pun!) the chance to make and sell my preserves soon.

If you ever have wanted to eat off a kitchen floor, come to my house tomorrow at 9am.

---

sadly, the inspection has been posponed because of an emergency in the inspector's family.  in a couple of weeks we'll try this again...

---

taking stock

Fiona over at the Cottage Smallholder posted a lovely reflection on her last year of healing.  She's had to reorganize her life entirely, do more with less, and figure out new ways to support herself.  I hope you'll visit her blog and get to know her.

I draw great strength from Fiona's journey because -- even though our circumstances are different and we live half a world apart -- our priorities and solutions are similar.  I especially appreciate that she can see that she's living a deeper, more satisfying life now that everything has been pared down to essentials.

That is true for me, also.  I really love getting to know my husband now that he's free of the evil empire.  I'll gladly face storms of financial, geographic, and professional uncertainty to watch him settle into himself.  I appreciate having a clearer idea of who our real friends are.  I'm grateful that we're getting so grounded that we're literally dirty from our work on the Farm.

The Farm...

I've been in a funk about the farm.  I work so hard out there but can't see appreciate our progress so this weekend, much like Fiona, I've been trying to acknowledge the deeper progress we've made in these last six months:

• We came up with the plan for the farm in January.
• We built the farm's website in January.
• We re-organized our entire garden into mounded, raised beds.
• We ordered seeds and planned crops differently than we ever have before.
• David designed and built the coop.
• We got the chickens and learned to care for them.
• Our garden grew.
• We dealt with the record-breaking cold and wet spring.
• I've kept up with the weeding.
• We sold a few vegetables. (thank you!)
• Pickling classes are coming up later this summer.  (There's room for you, too!  Contact me.) 
• First eggs are due any day now, and we have customers waiting for them already. 
• We're meeting a lot of wonderful neighbors.
• I'm figuring out how to license the kitchen so that I can make and sell preserves and pickles legally.
• I am making unusual pickles and preserves and learning a lot in that realm.
• We are feeding ourselves from the garden. (At the grocery store, I skip the produce section 90% of the time -- mostly just buy mushrooms or a few lemons sometimes.)

That is an awful lot in six months. 

I know from my experience with this garden over this last few years that we'll see rewards two- or three-fold next year.  We won't have to truck in compost anymore.  The beds are organized well enough now that rotation will be easier and weeding reduced.  I've learned so much about succession planting and yields this year that next year I'll have a better idea of how to market crops in advance.

I need to be patient.  A year from now, we'll face different challenges, but it will feel easier (hopefully) to sell what we grow.

Not small potatoes for six months of hard work.  Even I can see that.

certifying the kitchen #1

When I am not picking snow peas (it's the middle of July!), pickling them (good results!), watering, weeding, helping bean vines find their twine supports (have you ever found the patience to coax a vine toward a support?  it's my meditation practice), or feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, I am cleaning my kitchen, garage, closets, and cabinets.

I am doing this because I want to get our home kitchen certified so that I can produce jams and pickles here and sell them legally.

I have been trying to wrap my mind around this for a couple of years, but the requirements are daunting.

The worst requirement for us is that no animal is ever allowed in the same building where the kitchen is.  We are dog people, and that has been a deal-breaker for me as I've tried to approach this goal in the past.  Sadly, though, we had to find another home for our dog earlier this year for unrelated reasons.  For months, I refused to consider the possibility of moving forward with the domestic kitchen licensing because this requirement kills the joy for me completely.  But now that my professional plans have gotten much bigger, it's absolutely clear that this domestic kitchen situation is a temporary one.  I can deal with a pet-free home for a couple of years.  The chickens have their own nice digs outside, and they are lovely companions, too. 

There are other requirements about storing ingredients and supplies separately from family supplies.  For my purposes, this requires a second refrigerator.  We already have that second fridge for the farm, and I'm waiting to hear from the inspector if that new one will suffice for the farm and the preserving.  We'll see.

Also, no medicines can be stored in the certified kitchen.  This makes absolute sense, but it requires considerable juggling around of our closet space here.  You know how when you re-organize one closet, you have to re-organize a few more for things to make sense again?  Well, that's where I am right now...

The house is a mess -- with things willy-nilly -- as I try to achieve new organizational sanity here.  I refuse to do the deep cleaning of the bathrooms and elsewhere that has needed to get done for weeks until this stuff is dealt with.  Do we need it?  Should we save it?  Should we donate it?  I won't vacuum until the pile of stuff is gone from the middle of the room.

Also, I'm going through my kitchen tools, wondering which ones I can give over to the business and which ones I need to keep for family use.  Do I need two of every favorite tool?

I also feel afraid to open my home to the scrutiny I imagine is to come.  There will be scheduled and unscheduled inspections.  Truthfully, I'm less afraid of the unscheduled inspections because once I learn the rules I must follow, I will be dogged about that.  I worry more about the first inspections when I'll be trying so hard to do it all right and then feel slammed when I'm told that I'll need to make a costly adjustment.

But I do feel determined.  My preserves -- jams, relishes, chutneys, and fermented pickles -- are made with care and are good enough to be able to be sold legally.  This is my passion:  I like to grow the vegetables and fruits, and I like to preserve their wonderful energy. 

I debated a long time about whether or not to post about this journey toward a certified domestic kitchen.  It's embarrassing to figure out how to turn your private space into a state-certified production kitchen.  But, you know, I would really appreciate reading about someone else's professional journey in this direction.  It would be great to connect with others who are doing something like this, and I never will unless I share about it.  (Thanks, Sarah Gilbert, for that clear insight.) 

So, hi!  My name is cathy, and I'm trying to get my kitchen licensed! 

it begins...

 

a big, weird blessing?

I haven't been sitting around spinning my belly button lint.    We've been busy while we wait for the sun to show up.

My daughter now reads comic books in bed:

She also talks nonstop from sunrise to sunset.  It's wonderful, creative, and it's making me a little crazy.  I can't believe that she soon will be in school from 8-something-am until prettymuch-3pm every single week day for the next 13 years.

I pray that the universe and the economy work with me so that I can make good progress for our family while she is busy at school.  I continue to explore how to certify our domestic kitchen so that I can make and sell pickles and preserves.  Aside from the catastrophic weather-related problems most farmers are experiencing in our region right now, Curious Farm is making quite a bit of progress all around.  Crops might not be growing properly, but we are working through a massive heap of kinks that aren't related to the weather.  So maybe this spooky weather is a big, weird blessing? 

making lemonade outta of the endless rain

Let's see how to frame this in a positive way...

Here is a picture of my cleaned-up, worked-on, painted garage:

You don't need to see the "before" picture.  Just imagine chaos, dirt, no visible floor, ancient stuff stacked up to be dealt with someday. 

So, during the endless rain, I dealt with it all -- except for a line of things behind that chalkboard (above) which David assures me he will move.  His cooperation is his "rent payment" because the tractor is also behind the chalkboard, and I'm cool with that being in the garage until we figure out something else (plan #3b).

These shelves used to be covered in icky, sticky stuff and an endless assortment of things that needed to go elsewhere.  Now they're full of seeds, supplies, and reference books I use when I'm muddy and need to plant something.  Since the garage has been "done" (not hardly, but you know what I mean), I find it very usable.  It's wonderful to come in with my muddy boots and consult a reference book.  It's also nice to keep a cup of hot coffee here out of the rain.  To have this space -- however humble -- in which to work and think is very freeing to me.

We're going to be putting a refrigerator in the space to the left of the picture above so that I can keep greens and eggs fresh for folks.

Whenever I make a big change to the house (especially something for me), I try to make a space for E.  This time, I made her an office in the back of the garage.  She has two desks to swivel between, and she can look over the half-wall you can see in the first picture to supervise me while I work -- which is what she told me she will be doing from her office when she's not twirling.

Why am I showing you this?

Because I feel icky and sticky and yucky and immobile because of the endless rain, and I'm trying to remind myself that we actually have accomplished a few things since our lives changed in December.

The rain here in Oregon, zone 8, has made the soil *too* wet to weed properly.  Can you imagine?  I used to love to weed in the rain.  But now the soil is a slurry, and when I pull up a weed, the roots stay in the ground while I pull up soggy tops.  It's almost June!

However, the garden still grows (slowly), and the chickens are fine...

And there's a sign up at the front of our garden that says "Curious Farm: coming soon! "  Today I planted flowers out there that I hope will bloom soon.

I keep trying to be optimistic, you see.  It's been challenging.  Sometimes I think we all will float away in the sludge and rain.

I think we're doing a good job.  I think we're making progress.  But the garden itself is stalled in this rain, and -- after six months of soul-searching and incredibly challenging work -- I could use a little sunshine and affirmation.
 

  

paying attention in new ways...

 

 Ready for an all-over-the-map post?

I have been cleaning and painting part of the garage so that it can be a good, clean place to prep vegetables and have transactions with customers someday. 

You say, "Why are you doing this now when there are so many important things you haven't done?"

The thing I know from the garden before it became a "farm" is that sometimes a vegetable bounty can come upon us suddenly, and we need to be ready.  I want to be ready to sell extra peas, herbs, and greens soon so I'm getting my systems in order.

Also, I'm painting the garage because moon/biodynamic calendars tell me that these last few days have not been optimal planting days.  I'm not ready to go full-on biodynamic yet, but I'm easing into it, I guess.  Mostly, I'm tired of things not germinating well so I want to optimize conditions on every level possible.  Right now that means that I need to pay attention to the moon as much as I can.

What else?

I haven't painted in a few years, and it's hard to tell I have white paint in my hair because the paint blends in with my gray hair.

Painting uses different muscles than digging does, and I am sore.  However, I have retained my focus and have accomplished a lot (while parenting a 5-year-old and cooking and doing laundry) during the last two days. 

I looked at the front berm today and thought, "My god!  I just weeded that mound!  How dare it..."  Then I looked at the weeds that are going berserk and discovered that they're mostly wild lettuce.  Do you know about wild lettuce?  It helps cranky people.  Do you know any cranky people?  And why might this plant be growing all over that cranky person's property?

That's what the goddess/god does, friends.  She puts the problems and the solutions right in front of our faces, and it's up to us to connect the dots.  I am grateful that I know enough about the universe now that I don't automatically kill or remove weeds and other things that seem hard or undesireable.  I look at it all pretty closely these days for deeper information on moving forward with more heart.

I think my wild lettuce/motherwort infusion is ready.  Hopefully it will put me to sleep.  The day has been challenging, and I'm tired.

life on the farm...

Nothing about Curious Farm has been easy, but I do feel delighted in how naturally the farm develops.  I take one step; D takes another... Then the vegetables, fruit, and chickens follow their own rhythms. We shepherd.  We do the next right thing.  We rest.  Then we go outside the next morning and witness changes that are beyond us.

After all of those years playing politics in publishing, media, and high-tech companies, D and I are experiencing something very sweet right now:  the farm responds to our care.  If we're thoughtful about our own work, we are rewarded with more than we put in.

This is grace, I think.

Our goals aren't lofty, and we don't have cotton candy between our ears.  We've had plenty of garden failures in the past.  We kick rocks, learn what we can so that we can try new tricks next time, and move on.  Like our friend (and hero) Charlie Brown, we're really experienced in failure.

We might not make a cent from this adventure for the next couple of years (or ever), but at least we eat well and grow healthy through our efforts.

done!

Psst...  I finished the garden beds.  What's three months of my life, anyway?  The digging is done.  Done.  

I finished them just before it began to pour, and it's supposed to keep raining until the weekend.  I feel giddy.  I feel triumphant!

They're crooked and a little funky around the edges, but hopefully no one will notice that once things start growing.

chickens and flaky stuff

The PDXBackyardChix mailing list came to my rescue this week.

It's rare for me to lurk on a mailing list, but I did.  By the time I had something to squawk about, we were in the desperate place, and I just wanted some experienced chicken keeper to come over and give us some advice (or shoot us).

24-hours after my first posting, this is exactly what happened.  I got a ton of great advice, but even more:  I got to meet the neighbor down the street who has all the nice chickens I've been watching with interest for more than a year.

After watching our chickens interact for an hour, she came up with a suggestion that hadn't occurred to me:  move the 4 older Australorps and the bossy Buckeyes to the coop and let the others (slower, wounded, smaller) stay in the brooder until they heal or are big enough to defend themselves.

And that is what we did, and we have had a trouble-free 24 hours.  All of the chicks got extra treats.  The brooder group has been resting like they're over-wrung toddlers who finally have realized that energy runs out sometimes.  Shocked to be in a new space, the coop group huddled together most of the night.  Today, they've been all over the coop and seem happy.

I have to say that being around chickens is kinda weird for me.  I wonder if anyone else with chicken experience might respond to me about this...

When I have felt tension over my dogs in the past, that tension has settled in my middle (solar plexus).  The emotions about the difficulty have been more "human" and understandable to me.  

With the chickens, I feel tension in my heart and shoulders.  I feel discombobulated, wiry in the mind.

When things were going right with the dog, I felt comforted.

When things are going right with the chickens, I feel lifted.

The burdens and worries are different.  The rewards and connections are different.  I'm still new to this and am just noticing new feelings.

And now you know why I didn't put this update on the curiousfarm blog.  Okay?  Yes. 

chicken angst

Not that we thought everything would go smoothly with the chicks, but man...  it's been intense over here.

One of the chicks became sick -- with coccidiosis, we think -- which meant that we had to begin treating all of the chicks because they'd all been exposed.  This particular chick is the smallest of the group, one of the Black Barred Rocks.  The other chicks were very aware that this one wasn't feeling well, and they huddled with it and began to get pretty stressed out themselves (or were feeling sick but were stronger and so were displaying the illness differently).  A couple of the chickens started pecking at two of the other Black Barred Rocks (all of whom are the smallest in the flock).

We were just trying to respond to the sick chick and figure out what to do, and then we had two more chicks that were wounded...  all while we're new at this chicken stuff...

In a way, it was a blessing that there were three chicks that needed tender care.  We separated these three into their own brooder, and they huddled together.  The two with wounds responded well to antibiotic cream and seemed very happy to be in a calmer space.  The other chicks calmed down in the main brooder.

Then we kept working with the sick chick to help her drink the new medicated water.  She had stopped drinking and eating and was just breathing very heavily -- very weak.  It's been heartbreaking.

I don't think we're out of the woods yet, but this one chick is eating more on her own, and she's more cooperative when I force her to drink.  I still haven't seen her drink on her own, but she may be doing that.  Her feathers seem to be more fluffy again, and it's clear that she has an appetite when I fill up the food dish in the "hospital brooder."

The other two birds seem fine, are eating and drinking well, and the redness on their backs has disappeared.  New feathers are growing back already.

I don't want to "count our chickens before they're hatched," but I'm hopeful that all of the chickens will be healthy and well soon.  We'll be moving them out into the coop today or tomorrow, and they'll have a lot more room and more outside time.

farmer tan...

...would you believe I'm already getting a farmer tan?  Okay...  it's subtle, but it's there.

I worry that I wasted today because I didn't dig.  But I dug yesterday, and I will dig again tomorrow.

Today I made breakfast, cleaned up, had friends over, made lunch, cleaned up, mowed for an hour, spent 30 minutes trying to get the chickens into a tub to bring them out into the yard, brought them out into the yard for 90 minutes (all of them this time), began prepping wood to make farm sign, spent 45 minutes trying to get the chicks back in the tub to go back to the brooder, went back outside to clean up, had to clean myself up then so that I could make dinner, picked first asparagus to cook for D and E (I had the first kale raab so I ain't complainin'), made dinner, cleaned up from dinner, went back outside to clean up more stuff (construction stuff, toys and stuff, the radio I left out from earlier), emptied compost, talked to D about chicken run design and compost pile locations, came inside and put the chickens to bed, ran a couple loads of laundry and sat my bottom down and felt cranky.  D said, "So are you going to be alone in your office tonight?"  And I just thought, "Wow...  yes...  I want to be alone for awhile...  I don't know if it will be all night, but I need to find my own skin again."

I should have taken photos of the chickens outside on the freshly mowed grass.  They looked pretty.  I cleaned a couple of chick bottoms and find it interesting that somehow I have become the designated chicken butt wiper since I take care of all the bottoms around here.

Our friends P and S came to visit today, and there was discussion all around about wanting fish but of figuring out how to take care of such pets and clean up after them.  I wondered if P and S could figure out if S was ready for fish if she could keep something else clean for awhile?

8-year-old S said,"I'll keep our dog cared for, but I won't clean up his poop."

P said, "But fish poop, too.  Do you know where they poop?  In the water...  so you have to keep the water clean."

Then E piped up, "Or you could get a cleaning snail like my friend K has!"

So, dear S, your fish tanks may have felt their ears burning today.  :)

I am tired.  My muscles hurt.  I have two loads of laundry to fold up before I can sleep. 

I find the birds overwhelming.  I am used to dogs, and I know how to care for dogs.  Birds are different.  "Duh," you might say, but really... it's just huge to shift from a dog to 16 birds.  (And we still really miss A and hope he is well.)

But everyone seems healthy, and I feel like we're doing the right things for them.  We're holding them.  They're eating and drinking well. When I finally catch a bird to move it somewhere (outside or inside), I feel her relax against me, and I like that feeling of a fragile, winged-creature at my breast.  There is some freedom and release in this chicken adventure.  I don't understand it all yet, but I know I'm in line for a few important lessons of the spirit.