The garden of drunken master

Well, it's finally in. . . mostly.

We finished off the last of the beds in the garden yesterday. It was nearly 90 degrees. Still no rain! i have no idea what on earth is going on, needless to say climate change is my number one suspect. The rows, as usual, are a bit. . .well. . .unique. Not so straight if you will.

We are a little under fifty percent planted. Today the kids are going to get a Ag/Science class as we plant the rest of the garden. We didn't till in the "new" beds for the mellons, so they will just have to be planted in the "old" garden plot. i had to rework the layout last night, and minus having room for a second planting of corn i am pretty pleased with it.

OOOOOH, yeah!! We also got one of the water tanks up and filled (mostly). We have been borrowing water from the river. The other tank is across the street at the neighbors. He has more corn in than we do, and we have already discussed swapping come the harvest. i love the spring/summer/autumn. i just hope we get some rain soon!!

The Pharm is taking shape

It seems so late in the season. It's only May and i keep thinking that it's already July. It hasn't been too warm, but there has been no rain. i am more and more happy that we bought those containers for collecting rain water and snow. Well, that sentence looks funny to me. . . but it isn't meant to sound sarcastic. We figured that since we bought them so late that we would bucket brigade water from the river this year. So, since we have had no rain i am happy that we have them and that we will have water (even if it is river water) for the garden.
Even without the rain, we can't put off things like the garden or we will be sorry come autumn. In fact as i am looking around i am feeling like we are behind. i hear stories of other who already have their gardens in place! We have many of our veggies started but we are just now starting to put plants in the ground.

Here on the pharm everybody works. Our family has a rule that anybody who wants to eat meat has to participate in the whole process of meat food production from raising to butchering to cleaning to packaging to cooking and eating. . . We of course wait until the kids are old enough lest we traumatize them for life! (That is considering before the evil of the industrial revolution kids as young and younger than ours had to do it. . . but that was before outfits like DHS//CPS legislated that all of our kids be a bunch of wimps!)
Anywho, Chris has instituted the thought that those who want to eat out of the garden will work in the garden. Another good rule. It brings us all back into fellowship with our food so to speak.
It also encourages one of the philosophies of community that several of us have come to really love and appreciate - everybody contributes. There are jobs for everyone from the little folks to the old. In a society that fails to teach it's young people strong work ethics (read your National Geographic and see what two year olds in other cultures are expected to do!), and discards it's old people and confines them in raisin ranches because they are too much a burden, we want to be different. We really hope that as we grow every member of the community will feel a strong sense of belonging and self worth! From the wisdom coming from the mouths of babes to the wisdom from the experience of our elders (No i am not calling our adult folks geezers. . .yet!) everyone has a place, and when everyone contributes, everyone grows - including the veggies!!!!!
10 rows left to build in the garden. . . and the turkeys are just about outside!!!!!! Yummy, yummy!

Ho-hum

i think that there must be no boredom as painful as being uninspired. There must be a million things to do here. A plethora of reading material, some journaling to do, heaven knows that there is work to be done. . . and i just have no drive to do any of it. my mind is off in a million other places, working on a million other thoughts, but no interest or drive in what is in front of me.

Its moments like this that i would really wish for omnipresence. Not that i understand it at all, but i would think that having the ability to be everywhere at once, i could spend my time more focused on projects that have my attention, and come back to the areas where there is no drive later.

This is the one time that i feel really uncomfortable in my own skin. My mind has other places to be, but my body is stuck here.

 

The harvest waits for no man. . . or woman!

This year we co-rented a tiller with our neighbors across the street. i like this tradition and i like that it fits in with something a friend recently told me about technology -

"It's not technology that is bad. It's how we use the technology that makes it bad. If the things we have are used to bring us into community then they are good. If we use them for isolation then they are bad."

We use the tiller for our separate gardens, but we have to interact to swap it out and pay and stuff. i love the amount of time together recent economic conditions have brought us! Yes, it's mostly business at this point, but things are deepening.

So yes, the garden is tilled. Most of it was tilled in the rain, but when you rent by the day and there are others waiting on it. . . the season is short and the harvest isn't going to reschedule itself. Tomorrow we start the forced slave child labor and put in the rows and get the broccoli, peas, and sunflowers started. In the meantime the prehistoric rhubarb plant from Amy's family has already gone to seed. . .yes SEED! It's MAY people. Tell me climate change isn't messing with us! We cut the seed sprouts today and hopefully it will continue to grow.

In the meantime the women have taken up a new "cottage industry". They are sewing clothes. Actually they are doing it right now behind me. It's so cool. We were talking earlier about how cool it will be when they are talented enough to start sewing all of our own clothes! That will be *sew* cool!!!!

Just another day in Bellvale

One of my favorite times of the year. We try to visit some of our dearest friends in Bellvale at least twice a year. It is a good time to connect, to work, to be inspired, and to kind of bring our world back into perspective. One of the coolest parts of the trip was that we got to go down not as a family, but as a community this time. It brought a whole new perspective to our trip.

The weekend was chock a block of connecting with nature! Day one we "accidentally" found a festive little morrell patch near the home of our really good friends! We discovered that weekend (and of course it is all in jest) that in the community of believers that we share everything. . . except of course the secret location of the hidden mushroom patch. OK, yes pretty much everyone knows where it is at! They can figure out distribution later.


On a walk around the lake we saw a family of swans with seven signets, a female oriole building a nest and a bald eagle circling the lake and being harassed by a crow.

The conversations around the campfire were great! i had an opportunity to talk with Christoph Arnold a bit about living in community and then we sat around the fire with the gang from the Camden house in New Jersey. Chris Haw used an analogy about communities cross pollinating. i really dig the idea. It allows different fellowships to maintain their own identities while sharing ideas in unity! Now if only we can share this thinking with all the churches, making the church once again one!

Another perk. . . we finally got a picture of the whole Weeman road community together! Its about time.

Because EVERY Russell is punk rock!

Goin' south

One of my favorite times of the year happens twice. . . at totally different times of the year. It is our spring trip to Bellvale just days away. We will get to see Georg and Maida and Daniel, and Clem and Sara and Richard and Caroline and the Mercers, and the whole gang!! It is always a great and refreshing time. This year it will be extra special because this year we are not going as a family, but as a community! The Hogans will be joining us and that is to me going to be one of the best parts!

Alas it never fails. . . our trip always comes just after we have planted the starts and started the new spring chicks. Only now, to compound things we have an extra dog in the house, and our usual "babysitter" is about to get married and unavailable. What the heck. Fortunately Al has stepped in to save the day.

All of the seeds are in, except for the pepper seeds that we will get from the super market the next time we buy our peppers. A lot of the slower seeds have been started - the snake gourds, the luffa, the okra, and so on. Some of the seeds wont go in until we get back and get the garden planted, but the ones that have been started are in such a fragile place. i would hate to see them not make it. Perhaps this is God helping me to work on my control issues. Things will work out as they are meant to when left in God's hands in faith. But now there are so many more mouths to feed. . .