2010

In Baltimore, I re-watched the 6th Harry Potter movie with my cousins. In the movie there's this magic hourglass that changes depending on the level of conversation. If a conversation is more interesting the sand slows down, but if it gets boring it speeds up. Unfortunately for me, right now I feel like my life is moving like that magic hourglass' evil twin. The New Year is quickly approaching and in less days than I can fathom I am moving away to Full Belly. Everything is moving in high gear (hence the sporadic blog entries). In these few moments of quiet that I have just before I go to bed I wonder what change the new year will bring and hope that 2010 will be full of interesting discoveries. Here's to the next chapter in life!

Travels

In terms of people watching, airports have got to be up there on the list of ideal locations. There's something freeing knowing that the person you spend a whole flight next to you may never see again. I know people who like to go on planes and put on a completely different persona just for fun. I have to say I've never gone quite so far but I can definitely see the appeal. If I were into theater I'm sure that would probably consist of most of my training.

Well, even though I didn't pretend to be someone else, I did end up befriending a few unlikely characters en route to Baltimore...

First, while standing in line we met a very friendly man who engineered satellites and told stories of his great aunt who had been a slave in the South. My mom ended up sitting next to him and I don't believe there was a single moment when they weren't talking. The two then proceeded to make friends with the man in the third seat, a young Indian man from Punjab who was on his way to a three-day wedding in New York.

With their incessant chatting going on across the aisle, I was in the meantime squashed between two other guys. The old man to my right ate his way through an entire bag of Hershey's kisses while reading "Seduce Me At Sunrise" for the entire duration of our five hour flight. 

On my left, the young guy who had been sleeping with his head against the window before I sat down woke up and was startled to find me there. After groggily rubbing his eyes a few times he introduced himself as Chris, the son of a retired Navy officer. I surprised myself by not being as judgmental of him as I would have expected. Normally if someone were to tell me they were in the army or that they just got inked and spent 700 dollars on the tatt, I would be more hesitant. But in this case, curiosity got the better of me. We spent the next three hours exchanging life stories and I learned about his home in Annapolis and his school in Monterey. He showed me how to write sentences in Arabic and told me the ins and outs of life on the base.

Then, on a bathroom break I met a So-Cal college football player whose neck must have been about four times as thick as mine. We talked about school and mostly about him: he spent twenty minutes talking about his model girlfriends, his football career, and his job at Vans. After being overdosed with information from this guy Gerard, I went back to my seat and spent the rest of the flight talking with Chris and the old man.

Finally in Baltimore we piled in the car with our luggage and drove through the city. All around cop cars had their lights on as snow began to fall and they collected the homeless to bring to shelters.

In one day, I got quite the spectrum.

Jellyfish

A few weeks ago at a jazz club I was at, a pianist told the story of a song he wrote called Jellyfish. He explained that in his mind, the lines of music wove together like tentacles. I guess that's the same image I get every time I think about that book I haven't stopped blabbing about, Farm City. Everything Novella brings up in her book keeps on finding its way into my life these days. 

1) The first tentacle, if you will, is quite straight forward. In the early months of the fall, I spent a lot of my time working at City Slicker Farms in Oakland. More than a few times, City Slickers is mentioned in the book and I can only help but picture myself weeding at the Ralph Bunche Nursery or composting at the Herb Farm every time I read about it.

2) The second tentacle is my dad's ex student. Mentioned in the book mostly as the rabbit lady and also as Novella's friend, she is one of the people who is responsible for my interest in agriculture and food sustainability.

3) The third tentacle takes a bit of background...

Mostly it's because I think Sacramento is an underrated street. It connects everything in a secret way. Grounded in the cute Monterey Market neighborhood it runs (four-lanes wide) across Dwight, Ashby, Alcatraz and even Adeline. More importantly, it swings right above my mom's house. From there, the freeway is a quick minute to the West and the rest is just a few blocks East. The possibilities are endless. 

Besides its convenient location, it also houses various interesting spectacles. On any given day, anyone passing down Sacramento can see any range of businesses: from the eccentric birdhouse crafter to the various nursing homes in the more timid Berkeley side, the street then ploughs through a tougher neighborhood where a handful of questionable cafés have sprung up,  and a produce stand is set up in the middle of all the gunshots. Further along are various sketchy jewelry stores, a jiu jitsu studio, and the ever crowded gas station which seems to sell more beer than gas.

Driving down Sacramento, this corner has always been very central. There's a stoplight and I guess something about the way the lights are timed, you always have to stop there no matter what. I really don't think I've ever gotten to that intersection with a green light. But no matter, waiting for the light to change gives you time to look around, to watch the old guys sitting on plastic beach chairs at the station conversing, the clunker cars tricked out with spinners filling up on gas.

Lately though, there hasn't been much action there. Ever since the gas station became Berkeley's BioFuel Oasis, I don't see people hanging out around there. Ever.

Well, as Patrick (the intern at City Slickers, refer to tentacle #1) told me, it's Novella's newest project. I would be critical and say that her project kinda took out the the life of the party but having now finished her book I've learned a thing or two about her. Even though she can be irritatingly full of herself sometimes, I can say with confidence that she is trying, and working hard at it. From what she's written, her projects always seem to work themselves out in some way or another. And at least she's someone doing something in this GhostTown anyway.

november november banana fana fo fember me my mo member, november!

Well in all honesty, November was a rather dull month. Crops dwindled and temperatures dropped, I spent a lot of time indoors reflecting (not that there's anything wrong with inwardness, it is just easy to get caught up in). December is already starting to prove quite different. Unlike sluggish November things are moving along very quickly. Old friends are returning and already my plane ticket to Baltimore seems to be approaching rapidly. Then when I come back I will have less than a week before I move to Full Belly. I find it hard it hard to picture myself there in less than a month (!). Nonetheless, I am excited for yet another change of pace and will try to take it in stride.

Now as I look back, all the time I spent in November wishing December would hurry up seems silly...How quickly things can change!

Peacocks in Berkeley

To update a bit on the reading front I can tell you this morning I curled up on the couch and made a considerable dent in Farm City. Which is, by the way, getting much more exciting now. I have finally reached the part of the book in which Novella purchases two new piglets for her urban farm. 

This is really exciting news for me since I've always been into having strange animals. As a kid I constantly begged for more pets but of course all my pleas went unanswered. After much frustration, I ended up finding that the only way I could acquire animals was by saving them. Over the years we nursed several baby squirrels and birds back to health. The problem with this plan was that the patients never stayed around for long because as soon as they healed, they left. Not even the kitten we rescued from the park was welcome after it had regained its strength. Yes folks, that's how cold my parents' hearts are, not even a kitten can melt them.

My first real pet-breakthrough was also unplanned. It came in the form of a gift from a scientist neighbor: a little white lab mouse. (I'm sure my parents must've been thrilled) I named her Lily Belini and at the time she was probably one of the most loved mice in all the world. She sat next to me as I did my homework or else kept my parents awake by running on her wheel all night. But in true mouse fashion, her era came and went rather quickly. After Lily, we lived for a few years without pets until my constant begging must have hit a nerve, one Christmas I opened a shaking box to find a baby bunny. I was in ecstasy.

I think that must've gotten us on a roll because then we somehow got two chicks. And at the same time as the chickens came another bunny, a few dozen goldfish and later, my puppy. (The dog definitely took the most work -- years and years of begging until she finally materialized -- but it was totally worth it.) Needless to say, after a few years of hard work on my part, our house did get pretty crowded. It became known as the Teletubby house to all the kids that walked past because they likened the bunnies grazing on our grassy hill to their favorite TV show.

I now remember having criticized Farm City after the first few pages but I have to say, it's growing on me. And at the very least it really did tickle my imagination. It got me dreaming and thinking about all sorts of untraditional pets: little piglets running around an Oakland garden, the ostrich that lives in Point Reyes, two weasels I once saw on a leash in Norway, the legendary peacocks that used to roam the streets of Berkeley... 

Food Inc.

Anger can be a very destructive thing. But I think a lot an be said for how much anger can also change things positively. Last night I watched Food Inc., and it sure did get me angry! Luckily I'm quite certain this boiling of the blood is a good thing. I was disgusted to find that there are only 13 slaughterhouses in the entire U.S. that process our meat. That means that one burger patty contains thousands of cattle. Gag me now! I guess it does make sense if you think about it. I mean how else do you think McDonalds could make their burgers taste exactly the same around the country? (Everybody say yay for uniformity...) But on top of that, all those millions of pounds of meat are basically controlled by only three or four companies. Capitalism at it's best, right? Well, needless to say I sure did relish my trip to the farmer's market this morning!!

But even more interesting than the raw numbers and facts that the film shocked me with were the characters. All the people that were interviewed are generally from the same "side" of the argument because the corporations all declined to be interviewed. But even among them, none of them were really on the same page. It was interesting to see those who were purists in comparison to those who believed there was no winning without concessions. The film shows an organic expo in California where all the so-called "good guys" are showing off their products. It's not until the viewer gets a tour of the companies that their true nature is revealed. The camera scans the booths and we pass the holistic looking Kashi Cereals only to be told that it's just been bought by Kellogs. Tom's toothpaste is now owned by Colgate. Pepsi bought Naked Juice.

In the end, it's hard to see all the views and decide where you yourself come down. Obviously I would like a world where all the food was local and organic, where the workers were treated with respect and the animals were cared for lovingly. But looking at the utter monstrosity that we have helped create makes me realize that you can't just change from one to the other overnight. Somewhere along the way there have to be stepping stones. And yet again I am caught, who wants to be a sell-out after all? I guess I'll just have to go work on some more small-scale farms and focus on doing my little part as best I can for the time being.

The Box.

I should probably have my pants on fire and be hanging by the telephone wire right about now...I lied, I didn't completely finish my planter box project yesterday. I finished the actual box but today was the official installation and closing ceremony. We have decided it looks like either a small coffin or a very large window box that is not on a window. But as I mentioned before, all I have to do is wait for plants to grow and all the attention will be distracted from that minor observation. The tough part today was figuring out what to plant in the box since we didn't really have many choices. I think the only seeds we had were some spring flowers. Luckily, a few weeks ago I brought home garlic from Pie Ranch but never got around to planting it. So the planter box is now christened with garlic. It's perfect, just the thing I need to keep away those bad boys like Edward Cullen...

Bob the builder, can he build it?

So I had initially approximated my stint in construction to last a few long and painful weeks but pleasantly surprised myself by finishing (almost) all on Day 1. Here's a rough outline of what my schedule looked like today:

8:00am Wake up to buy materials

10:30 Come home, spend way longer than necessary making calculations.

11:00 Take a break before venturing into power tool situation.

11:15 Measure everything, everything, everything!!

11:30 Cut everything. (In the process, inhale a forest's worth of sawdust.)

12:00 Realize our drill is missing, walk down to campus to pick one up.

1:00 Grub

1:30 Realize we don't have the right drill bit but decide to carry on anyway.

1:32-2:30 Assemble everything and get frustrated when things don't fit where they should.

3:00 Struggle getting it all in the car before taking it to the jardin de ma mère!!

Or if you would like to hear in greater detail the struggles of my day, proceed:

After trying numerous hardware stores and nearly being coaxed into buying wood that was $$$, finally got redirected to Truitt and White by my ever so faithful father. I swear there's some sort of magic spell cast over the property because as soon I drove into the yard, my car immediately shrunk about three sizes. After narrowly escaping some forklifts I managed to park between two pick-up trucks that must've been like twice my height.

Anyway, it's not until you actually walk in to the store that you realize all the calculations and plans that you've been hatching in your head up until that point aren't really that important. With the help of a few large old men with beards you get pretty much every suggestion and opinion on anything you need. I swear, even with the neat list I had written up before walking in, I changed my mind about what I wanted to buy at least ten times. In the end, the answer came to me by wandering through the yard until I talked to enough people that told me what I really needed was rough redwood. Bought two 12' planks and got half of a broken one for free! Sweet deal. (...or so I thought. Until I found out as I was assembling everything that the board was warped)

All in all, a pretty interesting experience. Though I must say, going in to that place is some serious time warp. 20 minutes in there ended up being an hour in real life...

Back at home I got everything laid out and geared up for the occasion. Then, for the sake of all the old people that like to walk down the path I tried my best to lay low because I'm pretty sure if they had seen me they would have been very, very frightened. I mean, with grunge clothes on, a mask on my face and a skilsaw in my hand I might have just as well been a deranged murderer for all they knew. Or a bandit construction worker. ('Cause we all know how many of those there are around these parts of town.)

Aaanyway, after a few hours of doing all the screwing by hand and finally (finally!) finishing, I came away knowing that.......... I like building things! (And I like working with power tools too) FOR THE MOST PART. Let's just say that I learned one thing: Carpentry is sort of annoying in that it's like dominoes or math problems. If you mess something up at the beginning, it normally shows up to haunt you at the end.

Rookie mistakes aside, I'm still pretty confident nobody will really notice those few boards that stick out a little further than they should or the occasional gap unless they look closely. And as soon as we get some green going, it'll be like it never even happened.

yum

I have the urge (and perhaps responsibility?) to let the virtual world know that at this very moment I am sitting on my couch while hard cider is making itself in the kitchen. Just in case we all die from ingesting it, at least someone will know how we ended up the way we did!

It pretty much consists of a fermentation process created by attaching an assortment of tubes to a jug of apple cider. Think what you want to think, I guess it's either really sketchy or really delicious. On second thought, it's probably both. :) Skål!

And so it begins.

The first few weeks of not being on the farm were certainly welcome, a little break from sore muscles and getting up early was nice. Now after being sick for a few days in a row, that has all changed. Outside the world is autumnal and beautiful, and meanwhile I'm stuck inside trying to speed my recovery so I can go out and enjoy what I'm missing. When I'm not sleeping, I drink tea, or I look outside, or I put on another pair of socks, or I read Farm City (a book I just got about an urban farmer).

Farm City. I'm only about 100 pages in but to be honest, I'm not too impressed. I can't really put my finger on it, it just doesn't grab me the way I wish it would. That in mind, I must definitely give Novella Carpenter credit for having roused me from my sickly stupor enough to inspire me to do something. I believe that in itself is reason enough for me to praise this book royally.

I've been wanting to build planter boxes for a while, but it wasn't really until I opened up Novella's book and fell into her urban farm that I realized I too could have my little sanctuary. (The petting zoo may not go over so well with my mother, but the vegetables are definitely manageable.)

So, with that begins my quest. I will build a planter box for my mother's garden.

I have exactly 16 days until I fly back east to visit family. Doubtful that I will finish in time. But in any case, the race begins.

No more pie: Part II

It's strange, in some ways it's harder to say goodbye to animals than it is to say goodbye to people. I guess it's because animals are harder to talk to on the phone.

Be thankful for grimy walls

Following my pre-Turkey Day disappointment in humanity, I remembered one of my favorite works of public art. It lives on the Berkeley campus, on a slab of gray just by the square of grass across from Café Strada, where my dog likes to go crazy. There is usually construction there, which of course means lots of cement and blah. It was it's usual boring until one day I noticed the wall had changed. Tiny creatures and flowers were now etched into the grime. And although not really my artistic style, the cartoon-like figures made me smile. As though silently mocking, they stood there showing that public art didn't necessarily have to be a "destructive" thing. 

Note to self: next time you see a graffiti artist being told off, remind them to use a powerhose instead of a spray can.

Wait...you're supposed to be thankful at this time of year, right?

Today I lived in a cloud of flour all day. Made two pumpkin pies, two pumpkin breads (with winter luxury pumpkins from Pie Ranch!) and will soon finish a few batches of cookies. It was the perfect day: clear blue skies, falling leaves, warm, crisp, beautiful.

Alas half way through my baking craze I ran out of flour and oil so I ran to the store....On my way in I saw a man writing with chalk on the cement side of a planter box, the owner of the store stood above him, talking about how it was illegal to write on private property. I didn't think much of it except that I thought it was silly since it was just chalk he was writing with.

On my way out, the drawing man was gone but the owner remained, scrubbing away at what I now saw was an "I love you Brooke" sign. WHAT. A. GRINCH. Some people just have no heart sometimes.

No more pie: Part I

Last day at Pie Ranch was today. Celebrated really well by spending the day working and then going to the barn dance. Excited to move on to other things but it will be sad not going back. And I will miss driving the stretch of Route 1 between San Fran and Davenport every week...

Death and all his friends

This morning, woke up and went to check gopher traps. 2 down, 130498329 million more to go. It's hard, you feel bad jabbing traps down their holes and into their living rooms but at the same time it feels like the battle against them is never ending. These days I feel bad for them, winter is coming and they must be having to work harder for food, it's sad seeing their cute faces squeezed between those big metal clamps. But thinking back a few months I can remember cursing them over and over while having to fix endless leaks in the strawberry irrigation... Can you really justify killing an animal only at certain times of the year? Yes yes, november through march you are allowed to live but watch out, the rest of the year I'll be out to get you!

Being around large groups of chickens they become dirty and seem stupid, they all act as a single unit. But passing the coop of 90 chickens this morning we found four broken eggs in the bushes; a renegade chicken had decided to flee the coop and start her own nest nearby (then an animal had found the loot). My faith in the individuality of chickens was restored!

A somewhat unfortunate realization for me since just a few hours later we found out that we had to kill chickens for a visiting group... (Heidi and I then spent a rather humorous twenty minutes chasing chickens in circles to try and snatch three of them.)

With three chickens stuffed into a cat carrier we walked up to Caleb's to do the slaughtering. It was these few hundred yards that felt the most uncomfortable and wrong. Not the slitting of the throat or the cutting of the head, the walking. I had chosen these three unlucky hens to be killed and with every step was bringing them closer and closer to their doom.

The station was all set up: three metal cones, a bucket for blood, a pot of water (150 degrees), knives, a plucker. I even wore my rattiest t-shirt, anticipating a bloodbath. Surprisingly the whole process was cleaner than I had expected. A bit of warm blood on my hand was in fact the dirtiest I got.

That was a weird moment, having to hold on to the soft head so that the body didn't flop in the cone as the blood drained. A moment of connection, of understanding. But as soon as it fell limp, I changed. I pulled it out by its feet and held it hanging in the air, it no longer felt so much like my pet. I guess in my head it had already begun the transition from cute animal to tomorrow's soup. That was the most shocking to me, the speed at which the process happened. Within seconds the birds went from soft warm hens to slimy carcasses, a science experiment.

Without heads, feet, and feathers, the bodies became something to dissect, the actual moment of death was forgotten.

My favorite part was in the dissection, finding eggs of all sizes inside. One large white egg that was never laid, lots of smaller yolks clumped together, the possibility of life in death.

Found a fallen star in the icy grass and held it in my hand.

Spent all day yesterday getting excited about the Leonid Meteor Shower. Drove up to the hills at eleven with friends, was seriously disappointed to see only one or two (that very possibly might have just been my eyes tricking me). Ended up stiff with cold and suffering from neck pain. However did find a glow-in-the-dark ball which is now my little meteor! Will keep it as a souvenir of all the meteors that I know were out there but I didn't get to see.

Totland mural

The North side of the mural

A flower-breathing dragon

I started going to the young artists workspace (YAWS) at a pretty young age with my best friend, Zoe. In the beginning, it was pretty much just an excuse to see her on a regular basis after we changed to different schools. But as time passed we formed a tight community with the teacher, Jen, and a few of the other core students. We outgrew the kid-sized chairs but we kept coming every week because we enjoyed it so much.
Though I no longer take classes there, I've been working on restoring the mural on the outside of the building for the past month.
Last week we had a 10 year anniversary celebration in the park with face painting, print making and side-walk chalk.
My dog, Luna, decided to lie in the kolam chalk designs... Then we turned her into a rainbow.

Put your hoes down!

October: Harvest festival at Full Belly.

My first time contra dancing, so fun I couldn't stop. I'm pretty sure that's the longest I've ever danced in my life, from 4 in the afternoon until past midnight....

Catching up

I've always toyed with the idea of starting my own blog but somehow it's always seemed too daunting. Inspired by another "gap year girl", I have finally decided to bite the bullet and start my own. I guess I have just been waiting all this time to find a good excuse to write one and all of a sudden I have one!

But first I'll have to do some catching up.....

It's been a few months since I started working at Pie Ranch and a LOT has happened.

September: Splitting my time between Pescadero and home, Berkeley. When I'm not at Pie Ranch I'm working with City Slicker Farms in Oakland/Emeryville and working as an assistant at the Young Artists Workspace (YAWS) in Totland Park, Berkeley.

October: Spent two weeks at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, preparing for the Hoes Down Harvest Festival then back to Pie Ranch. Working with Oakland-based artist Sita Rupe in her cozy studio.

November: Things are winding down at Pie Ranch now... Lots of cover crop planted and many pies to be made!