One Year Ago

One Year Ago Today

Dare I say, I think that today is worth comparing to a year ago.
Today I woke up early, put on my Lucy pants and clogs and drove to work watching a sunrise.
A year ago, I slept in late, woke up foggy and had no particular place to go.
I took the day off to escape from my every day and vowed not to think about work, or my problems.
Today I chopped vegetables, baked pita crisps, laughed, joked around and made ponzu sauce all well before noon.
A year ago, I drank champagne and ate pastries in Jax's back yard, all before noon. This was good stuff. How I felt at the time was not. Hard to appreciate so many blessings when my view was clouded with entitlement and big bad stories and disproportionate expectations.
Today I worked for peanuts, almost, but enjoyed it. I made dressing and fruit salad and an eight-pound bowl of berries. I made a few people laugh and one sad person happier. I rocked. 
A year ago I shed tears over a gimlet and some bad hummus and waxed reflective and wished that I could play with vegetables for a living. Not sure that was even possible, or plausible.
Today, I got my fervent wish. I played with vegetables. Tomorrow, I will go and see them growing, as fresh as ever possible and feed some bad ones to the chickens.
A year ago I could hardly imagine fearlessly following my gut in such a literal way.
Gratefully, there was a food revolution.
Thankfully, it was MY food revolution.
Viva, Vegetable Revolution.

Fun with Vegetables



Garden Stories

Grant had always said that success was 90% confidence and 10% competence. That was all well and good in middle management, but today he really hoped that it was actually true.

Garden Stories

Tyrese had become a vegan for many reasons -- cardiovascular health, reducing his environmental footprint, gaining more energy for his daily activities, even ethical and social considerations. But although he had grown to love his clean and green lifestyle, he would still occasionally wax nostalgic for the carnivorous pleasures of a tricera chop, or a steg sandwich.

Garden Stories

The scent of death had led Alexis to this place, but she was unprepared for the extent of the terrible carnage that she saw. The rain of frozen meteors felled every tree in this part of the forest and had crushed the unlucky flock of chicks as well. She was saddened for a moment at the immensity of the decimation, but also knew that she had hungry mouths to feed and these small frozen chicken nuggets were surely better than another day of starvation.    

Natural Disaster

There are moments as a micro-farmer that provide me some small insight into the enormous challenges that real farmers face every day. Not that nurturing a backyard lettuce crop is evenly remotely comparable to stewarding 10 or 20 or 100 acres of commercial produce … but there is a similarity nonetheless in the connection between farmer and plant, between woman and nature.

After months of 100+ degree days, weeks upon weeks without rain, and innumerable hours spent building, planting and tending my Patio Farm, I experienced an event that humbled me as a farmer. Heavy clouds rolled across the desert yesterday. It was a beautiful cool day and such a welcome end to a long sweltering summer. In the late afternoon I returned home in time to experience the unpredictable fury of a desert hail storm. The clouds and thunder blew in quickly and hail began pelting my house, increasing intensity to the point where I wondered whether the windows would really hold up much longer, or collapse inward with a horizontal rush of ice pellets. I watched in awe as my patio farm was torn apart leaf by leaf by nature herself and reduced to a tangle of broken leaves and sticks and hail.

Now, part of me was reveling in the excitement of weather – real weather! -- as I am always lusting after rain in the Valley of the Sun. But the rest of me was heartbroken watching the tiny plants that I have worked so hard to cultivate get torn to shreds in only moments, and I was absolutely powerless to protect them in any way. Imagine then how a farmer feels when an entire crop is threatened or destroyed. You put all of your faith and energy and time into the unpredictable magic of growing food, trusting that the plants will thrive, the rain will come, the sun will shine.

Really, growing food is one of the biggest gambles there is. As a farmer, you are pretty much all-in on every hand with no choice about whether to draw or stand. And in one uncontrollable moment, everything can be destroyed in front of you. No wonder so many people have left farming for the safer and more predictable world of business or service or manufacturing. After all, a hail storm only keeps customers away from your store for a few hours. A flood only shuts down a factory for as long as it takes to mop up and repair. A freezing blizzard can keep people away from your office for a few days but it does not put you out of business. But with farming, everything that you work for can easily and instantly vanish. What will you eat this winter? What will you sell to pay the bills? How can you repair the damage done when the damage is complete destruction and the season is past for repair? Only a brave or foolish person would make that gamble year after year. Or one who has soil and sweat and seeds ingrained too deeply in their soul to turn away to more predictable ventures.

My personal natural disaster reminded me how tenuous our food system really is. We are so accustomed to walking into the grocery store, debit card and canvas bag in hand, and buying lemons, flour, artichokes, or chicken regardless of the season or weather or location. But, at some very basic level, our food depends on the luck and work of a farmer somewhere creating the raw materials out of earth and faith and knowledge. Why then do we expect food to be so cheap? And so abundant? If most of us no longer have the ability to grow our own food, let alone cook it well, then why do we undervalue the professional efforts of those who do? These are questions much bigger than my own back yard, but I think they are truly worth asking. Especially in the face of an abrupt reminder that nature not only feeds, us, but destroys our crops as well.

Garden Stories

With six kids to raise as a single mom, sometimes Betsy was so worn out that she just felt like a fat old sow.  But then she would catch a glimpse of Maggie's curly tail or Milo's eager upturned snout and she would remember that is was all worthwhile, if only to avoid sending them all to daycare at nearby Hillshire Farms.    

Cat Grass

Naturally, our cats are an important part of our household and deserve to benefit from my new garden. We planted some cat grass seeds in some smaller pots and let them grow to a few inches tall. One lazy afternoon I brought a pot of cat grass inside for Nina and Casey and let them go to town. They knew instantly what it was and ran over and started chewing. This is one of the rare occasions on which they have actually peaceably shared something edible. You can hear their contented gnawing on the video. Of course, Nina threw up shortly after eating her fill. Just a regular weekend afternoon at our house.

Garden Stories

Akima and Haku had searched for many days and nights for the mythic Orachi, an elusive serpent with magical powers. Now, deep in Retasu Forest, they felt confident their prey was within reach, and danger must surely be far behind them now ...