A Year in Farming

 My brother, Jim, reminds me often that he cannot believe that I bought a farm. We grew up on a farm, outside of Boise, Idaho, and being 8 years older than me, his experience of the farm was hard work and unrelenting obligations. My own experience was having 42 acres of playground that I shared with my sister, Cyndy. Only 20 months separate us sisters, so we always had a ready playmate in each other.

Shirley Girl came later, just as we were leaving our childhood farm.

But here we are, Dambara and me, despite Jim's misgivings, living on 5 acres of mostly cleared land on Camano Island, and over the past 10 months, we became flower farmers.

Being bordered by Ananda Farm Camano Island, we easily melded into the larger picture of cooperative farmers, sending all of our produce and flowers to market through the Farm, sharing our largess, receiving theirs. It's been a fabulous year, filled with challenges and victories, risk-taking and lesson-learning, moments of despair and days filled with joy.

One of the farm directors, Zach, gave us our assignment soon after we arrived, long before we had soil capable of growing anything beyond pasture, so we had plenty of time to prepare. Our assignment was flowers, onions, lettuce, and bell peppers. Easy peasy.

We spent the first year on the new property making our house habitable. I've already told that story, so you can look back at earlier posts if you're intrigued.

Friends from afar came to help.

Brilliant creativity sparkled along the way.

Many hands made many miracles.

Hot water was a turning point.

We walk on prayers every day.

The farm logo goes up.

Brother Jim made a huge difference.

Professional help from a dear friend.

Finishing touches.

We spent our second year creating planting beds, irrigation systems, a greenhouse, and a plan. That's the story that I'll be telling over the next several blogs.

And now, we're finishing up our first year as flower farmers. The weather is changing; the winds are picking up; the rains are beginning; the temperatures are falling. The time of rest and reflection are upon us, and we welcome the quiet season with a sense of accomplishment and contentedness. And preparation for spring, launching our second year wiser and better prepared. We'll take you there, if you'd like to ride along on this farming adventure.

Finishing Touches

Years ago, Dambara and I spent 4 weeks in India, on a pilgrimage led by Asha Nayaswami, David Praver, and Durga and Vidura Smallen. About 35 pilgrims traveled around northern India, visiting places mentioned in the Autobiography of a Yogi, central to our spiritual path. We stayed in very nice hotels because it helped all of us recharge at the end of each day to come back to comfortable rooms, fabulous food, and hot showers.

Many of the hotels were luxurious; some were modest. All of them had one common aspect: neglected edges.

One hotel in particular stands out in my memory. We stayed in Badrinath, at the very northern tip of India, a stone's throw from Tibet, for two nights. It was a bone-rattling journey to and from, in jeeps that clattered along a breath-depriving, narrow, dirt road that was vaguely scratched out along the treacherous steepness of the Himalayan mountain sides. We arrived, drained from hours of terror, and checked into our rooms.

The hotel was very high end, with en suite rooms, tall windows, expansive dining room, and beautiful, marble slabs lining all of the walls, everywhere. But the hotel felt neglected to me, unfinished, untidy. It took me a while to realize that it was because all of the edges were unfinished.

Along the hallways, banquet rooms, dining hall, the beautiful marble flowed down the walls to meet the beautiful marble of the expansive floors. The jagged edges of the walls met the jagged edges of the floors, and those jagged junctions were dusted with bits of rubble, grit, and dust. It felt as though the hotel was still under construction, but it had been in operation for two years. It was finished.

Spring blooms, check!

Years earlier, traveling with a friend through Greece, again and again we had to pick our way past rubble scraped up against the side of enormous buildings; banks, office buildings, apartment buildings. Again, it felt like a construction zone, and yet on closer examination, it was obvious that the rubble had lain there for months, perhaps years. The ornate buildings were opulent, gorgeous feats of architecture, with high-end businesses and residences, but the attention to detail ended before it considered the unfinished edges. There they persisted, neglected and ignored.

Baseboards, check!

Edges are an important part of finishing touches. The renovation at Haven West doesn't feel complete until the edges are complete. The beauty and magnetism of the rooms blossom into being with the finishing touches that occur to one or the other of us.

Toast and bread counter, check!

And as the work spaces become more useful, we come across things in drawers or out of boxes that would make that spot prettier or easier to use. It's a work in progress, a creative process.

Outlet plates, check!

 We continue to surprise each other with creativity and thoughtfulness. Form and function cooperate to transform every corner of the house into spaces that we enjoy using, spending time in, sharing friendship and laughter.

It is a wonderful world.

Spice shelves, check!

Nested Horizons

An artist in Aptos, CA, fills her studio with fabric art. She took her love of fabric and her husband's love of flying small planes and created a plethora of landscapes created with softly colored fabric, layered to portray the view from a small plane. Small planes fly at a lower altitude, so you see more details of the landscape below you. Lower altitudes also are rich in the phenomenon of nested horizons, the vista of a series of receding mountain ridges, colorful and detailed in the foreground, dimming in color and detail as they fade into the distance.

I fell in love with nested horizons in her Aptos studio and experienced them myself when I flew small planes, decades ago. You can also see them driving through the Central Valley of California and from many vista points along highways and hiking trails. Nested horizons speak to the soul of soaring like a bird, freely floating across the landscape, an immersion into something far larger than yourself. Nested horizons can evoke a spiritual experience that soothes your soul and expands your consciousness.

I dabbled with nested horizons a bit when I was doing a lot of watercolor. But I was never transported by the landscapes I was able to create with my limited knowledge and experience with watercolor. The paint dried too fast. The detail was hard to capture. The crispness of the ridge lines was hard to maintain with successive layers of paint. It became tedious rather than transformative.

As it turns out, all that needed to happen was a change in medium. As it turns out, wall paint works wonderfully well.

Nested horizons

In the kitchen at Haven West, we keep our small appliances on a butcher block table, all of them set up and ready to use. The wall behind the butcher block is quite high, perhaps 11 feet. It's a big, blank expanse of wall, or a big, blank canvas, depending on how you look at it. It was waiting for something of interest to display. I was looking for something creative to lift my spirits.

Enter nested horizons.

We had plenty of paint left over from our kitchen-cabinet project, plus some tan and blue left from painting the bathroom. All of the colors were enamel, so they had a soft sheen to them, setting them apart from the flat peach of the kitchen wall.

The colors went up in order of increasing vibrancy, enhancing the visual of receding into the background. The household voted for jagged ridge lines, since the Cascade and Olympic ranges visible from Camano Island are dramatically jagged. It was easy to sketch out and easy to paint, because I could concentrate on the crisp edges without worrying about the paint drying before I could fill in the middle.

Even though it cost me a week in bed with muscle spasms from my craning neck, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was so much fun and turned out so pretty.

Second coat for the tangerine range

Everyone in the household helped out. Dambara installed the remaining shelves for the wall. Celeste Sophia pulled three, unused cable boxes out from the wall. Vihaan installed baseboards and patched and painted the empty cable-box holes. Celeste Sophia added under-the-shelf lighting and a painted edging for the shelf, shielding our eyes from the lighting and helping the shelf to blend into the nested horizons. She also painted the cord for the lighting and the brackets for the shelf, helping them blend into the background, too. Celeste Sophia and Vihaan tackled the dangling electrical cords from all of the appliances and brought them into coherency and invisibility.  As a final touch, Dambara added Waldo.

We all oohed and awed as the various elements fell into place.

And now we have a beautiful work station for juicing and mixing and baking and chopping. A perfect project for a drizzly week.

Find Waldo

Time for Color

Back in the beginning of March, before the world changed, our friend Tom came up to visit, bringing along with him his expertise as a professional house painter. He had agreed to help us paint our kitchen cabinets.

The cabinets were actually in great shape, the one, undamaged feature of the house when we bought it last summer, as is. But they were brown. After decades of bland walls and drab kitchens in house after house after house, it was time for color.

Brown and Drab

We painted the walls last summer, a delicate peachy blush, and the open pantry took on a rich coral, a slice of watermelon in the corner of our kitchen. We had always planned to paint the cabinets; now was the time.

So, Tom arrived on a Sunday afternoon, fresh from his train ride up from Portland, and we strategized a plan, rolled up our sleeves, and started prepping.

Prep, prep, prep

We decided to take off all of the cabinet doors, remove all the hardware, prep all the surfaces, and have everything ready to go, for an early start, first thing Monday morning. The kitchen is quite large, and after setting up a long, folding table, we had enough room to lay out all of the cabinet doors, arranged by their finish color.



Because, it's time for color, and we householders had picked out three, vibrant colors, colors that shocked the Ace Hardware staff, colors that jumped out at us, colors that all of us fell in love with.

We all had a vote, and we came to unanimous decisions for each block of cabinetry. We had paint, brushes, drop cloths, stir sticks, rags, high spirits at the ready, and Tom as our ringleader. Nothing could stop us.

Except, of course, the wallpaper in the half bath that decided to succumb to gravity and stealthily peeled itself off the wall during the dark silence of night. It was that new-fangled, self-adhesive, vinyl stuff that seems to be all the rage nowadays. The trend has shifted toward wallpaper that is easy to get off the wall, and sure enough, the compromise is that it's reluctant to stay on the wall.

So Dambara and I spent a half hour or so unraveling the wadded wallpaper, since it exuberantly sticks to itself, then finessing it back up onto its assigned wall space. Stay.

Meanwhile, Tom's clicking tongue got us scurrying onto our real project for the day, priming the cabinets and doors.

Easy peasy.

Actually, it was wonderfully easy.

Except the primer insisted it needed 24 hours to dry. Two sides to each door; 24 plus 24 added up to too many days, since Tom was heading home on Thursday morning. We only had 3 days. So, we flipped the doors at the end of the day and primed the underside of all the doors, giving both sides overnight to dry.

The priming turned out great.

We had three separate colors for the cabinets. A minty green for the upper cabinets, a bright cantaloupe for the island, and a rich tangerine for the lower cabinets. We set to work, painting the first side of every door, then while that coat dried, painting the cabinets themselves, the kick plates, and the island. At the end of the day, we flipped the doors, put a first coat on the second side of each door, cleaned up our brushes, and called it a day.

Manisha, the helper

Tom, the craftsman

Dambara, the apprentice

It took two coats for the green and tangerine cabinets; four coats for the bright cantaloupe. Who would have thought? Those three days were long days. The camaraderie was cheerful and fun. The colors were amazing. The transformation was. . . awesome.

We all loved it.

Time for color

Bright cantaloupe of the island

Tom packed up his slippers and his paintbrush, waved goodbye from his window seat on the train back to Portland, and had a restful trip home. He left behind happy friends and a world filled with color.

After two months of living in our bright, cheerful kitchen, we can all say, "Thank you, Tom! This is the most beautiful kitchen, ever!"

Doing, Doing, Doing, Done!

We had a great spot on our kitchen wall, a little too big for most, actually any, of our artwork, and we both love the Ananda Farm logo, so we decided we'd paint the logo up on the wall.

Dambara got a projector for our Macs, and the plan was to project a high resolution image of the logo onto the wall, and then we'd just trace it with the left over coral paint from when we painted the interior of the pantry. Zach and Hailey sent us the high res image, and project it we did.

However, the projector held nothing but disdain for high resolution. It was quite content with low resolution, visible pixels, blurry blurs.

Low resolution projector

The dent

So, the projected image shifted from template to merely a place holder, and the project switched from tracing to free-hand . . . detailed copying. After the first session, with help from the renowned Parkle Lee and ever-enthusiastic Dambara, we made a dent.

The second, third, and fourth sessions got us a bit further. 

 

It was a long process.

Years ago, years and years ago, I made two stained glass windows for a house that my brother was building. It took him two years to build his house. It took me, coincidentally, two years to make the first stained glass window.

They were big windows; 117 pieces of cut glass went into each window. They were designed to flank his front door, so were about six feet tall and two feet wide. They were a big undertaking for my budding talent as a stained-glass artist, but still . . . two years?

The second window came along, and I felt a greater sense of urgency to get it made. So, I tricked myself. I set a goal to go out to the garage every night and cut five pieces of glass. That was an extraordinarily reachable goal.

The second window took one month to build.

So, when it came to painting the farm logo on the wall and having it turn into a much bigger project than anticipated, I tricked myself again. I always fall for these tricks, no matter how many times I play them on myself. Instead of telling myself to get the logo painted, I casually suggested to myself that I do a little painting, only a few minutes. Inevitably, the few minutes would stretch into an hour or so, and low and behold, the logo got painted.

Doing, doing, doing, done.

Doing, doing, doing, 

Done!

Hurray!!!

Farm Logo

I've always loved our farm logo. Zach's dad designed it, and it's on all of our product labels, we have tee shirts, and it's scattered around the farm in various renditions. Zach's dad took the concept of an exploding seed ball. You make seed balls by taking all of your left over seeds and mixing them together with some clay and other stuff (I've not made any myself; thus the vagueness), then rolling the mess into marble-sized balls, and letting them dry thoroughly.

The thing about seed balls is that they contain the entire universe inside them. The mixture of seeds promises abundant, varied life, which gives shelter and sustenance to animals on the ground, in the air, and in the soil. Seed balls can change the planet or your back yard, whichever you happen to be working on.

Once you have a stash, you can throw them, scatter them, drop them from airplanes, spread them around. Since they're in a tight ball, no one will eat them over the winter, and come spring, all of those packed-together seeds will be ready to sprout and grow up together, an instant community of life.

So our farm logo shows that exploding energy, liberated from a seed ball. I find it enchanting.

We had decided, weeks and weeks ago, that we would paint the farm logo on the big, empty wall of our kitchen. We've been inching toward tackling the project, and even set up the projector to splash the logo up onto the wall, deciding where, how big, how high, getting it centered and level. But then my strained neck muscles took me out of the game, and the fact that we could only work on it at night, when the projected image was most visible, has delayed us for an entire week.

Last night, as the sun went down, I wondered whether my neck would allow me to start painting the logo. I decided that I wanted to give it another day of rest, and hopefully then I would be up to starting. But Dambara Tom Sawyered me. He set up the projector, busied himself with centering and leveling, and I got sucked in. I found the paint brushes, shook the paint can, and poured out a little container of bright coral paint.

Then we began. About ten minutes into the project, Parkle dropped by. He was out walking Barley and stopped to say hi. So we Tom Sawyered him. He happily picked up a brush, poured himself a little container of coral, and joined in our shadow game.

Transferring the logo

We talked about this and that, family news, travel plans, all the while dabbling away at the logo. Then it was time for Parkle to retrieve Barley and wander back home. Dambara and I dabbled a bit longer, and then called it a day.

There's plenty more to do, but we've started. Activation energy has been achieved, and we are on our way. What fun to add the explosion of a seed ball to our wall, with its immense potential for life and abundance. And what fun to invite others in, sharing creative time and telling stories together.

A beginning

What a wonderful world.

A blessing

Good Morning, Babaji!

One of my morning routines is to open the window shades, which brings a connection with the greater world. One of the windows faces a small hillside, just across the driveway from the house. The hillside is forested, with weeds and brambles filling in the empty spaces, and if you look closely, you can see that, like the house itself, there is plentiful evidence of neglect and abandonment. Because, there are remnants of a lovely garden there, all along the drive.

I'm looking forward to being able to restore the old garden, uncover the structures and perennials that someone lovingly placed. This coming spring promises to be a time of discovery and renewal for this once-was garden.

One of the treasures we've already discovered is a series of large, natural-stone steps that lead up to a narrow ridge at the base of a large cedar. And low and behold, there's a stone slab right where the cedar's trunk buries itself into the leaf litter, a stone slab that might have been a bench at one time, a stone slab that might make a perfect altar.

So, of course, we put Babaji there.

Good morning, Babaji!

In case you haven't heard of Babaji before, he is the deathless saint who lives in the Himalayas and is in charge of the spiritual life of the East, just as Jesus is in charge of the spiritual life of the West. It was Babaji who set in motion a series of events that brought Paramhansa Yogananda to the United States in 1920, nurturing along the timely vision of bringing Eastern philosophy to the Western world. So, actually, every Ananda site exists not only because of Swami Kriyananda and Paramhansa Yoganada; they exist also because of Babaji.

Blessing and guiding us

So, every morning when I open the window shades, I connect with the greater world, and I connect with Babaji. Not the vague image of a deathless saint living on the other side of the planet, but Babaji who is here, gazing serenely, blessing continuously, guiding joyously.

It's a nice way to start a morning.

Gratitude

Moving into Thanksgiving week, let's focus on those things in our world for which we are grateful. Here's a list of things that come to mind. . .

I'm grateful for where we live, the island, the community, the farm, the house.

I'm grateful for the friends that surround us daily and who come to visit from afar. Connections with other people are threads that give our lives meaning.

I'm grateful for the happiness and joy that flood our lives.

I'm grateful for the spiritual path that sustains me, gives me a blueprint for a meaningful life, and helps me make sense of the world.

I'm grateful for Dambara, my ever-supportive, ever-kind, ever joyful partner in life.

I'm grateful for the animals that enrich my days, reminding me of a wider reality than what lives inside my own head.

I'm grateful for increasing health and replenishing energy.

I'm grateful for the unfolding vision of Ananda Farm Camano Island.

I'm grateful for the rhythm of the seasons and the opportunity to be affected by them and in tune with them.

I'm grateful for the beauty that surrounds us, the beauty of nature, the beauty of this blossoming household, the beauty of the energy that permeates ever nook.

I'm grateful for creativity and imagination and the means to pursue them.

I'm grateful for the tapestry of creation and the threads we travel along.

I am grateful.

Herb Shop Work Party, Day 2

Drywall, Part 2

The Herb Shop is galloping toward completion.

The welcoming facade

An expansive room

A second day of hanging drywall did the trick. The saving grace is that sheets of drywall are quite large, so they cover a lot of area, one by one by one.

Precision artists

But every sheet that goes up on the wall needs detail work, for electrical outlets, windows, door frames. . . And these workers are precision artists. Every cutout is precise and fits snuggly. Very satisfying to peer at the fine workmanship.

By lunchtime, the large pieces were in place on the walls, the ceiling was complete, and there was a light at the end of the drywall tunnel.

Sharing a well-earned, hot lunch

We were stretched a bit thin today, with a boisterous gift fair that gobbled up Hailey and Peony, then Zach, William, and Paean, and with Glenda and Manisha putting lunch together, but we conquered the dry wall.

Holiday gift fair

Next up: taping, mudding, sanding, painting, and all forms of dusting. We can do this. With joy.

The Herb Shop

Our current, big project on the farm is upgrading the Herb Shop. The Herb Shop has been housed in the detached, two-car garage that is part of Haven House, so it's been around for quite some time, several years. This is where we make medicinal-herb products, candles, and soap, and dehydrate herbs and flowers. It's the product center for the farm.

Hailey, Paean, Niranjana, probably others, have been immersed in planning the upgrade for at least a year. The upgrade, basically, will turn the Herb Shop into a commercial kitchen. With a commercial kitchen, we'll be able to increase the number of products we offer at farmers' markets, and start officially to advertise farm suppers and offer food at farm events.

Wheelbarrows and strength

As with all projects, it starts with the basics. After finalizing the floor plan for equipment and work surfaces, tradesmen stepped in to install a new septic system, plumbing, and electrical. And, as with all projects, the preparatory steps leading up to the arrival of the tradesmen were extensive, including digging trenches for new water lines, cutting out channels from the existing cement floor, taking down plastic sheeting and insulation, all to make room for the new plumbing and electrical.

Now, deep breath, the tradesmen have packed up their tools and heavy equipment, moving on to their next job. A cement truck stopped by and, with wheelbarrows and impressive upper-body strength, we filled in the excavated channels in the cement floor and smoothed the new cement carefully, repeatedly, so it blends in wonderfully with the old cement.

Patience and perfection

The farmers have been putting back the insulation and plastic sheeting on ceilings and walls, all in preparation for a work party, yesterday and today. Friends dropped by to hoist drywall onto walls and ceiling, carefully cutting precise rectangles for electrical outlets and switches, then nailing the drywall in place.

Many hands

Have you ever worked with drywall? It's HEAVY! And its little corners are delicate, so you can't bump it against anything. But, many hands make a miracle, and at the end of the day yesterday, half the drywall was installed. Today, the project continues. At the end of today, we'll do whatever is next on the list, with mudding and taping being top contenders for Next. Then, there's sanding, painting, and cleaning, then moving in the equipment and work surfaces, then bringing in all of the supplies and inventory that have been crowding into the corners of Haven House and the Farmhouse for the past year.

We expect to have the new Herb Shop up and running by the first part of December.

Thus, our slow season on the farm continues, with building projects, mulching, holiday gift fairs, and study groups all nestling in, cheek by jowl.

Nighttime veranda

What a wonderful world.