Another post, heavy on the pictures. Now with less yammering!

I don't really have a ton to share. The farm work progresses apace. We harvest, we plant, we weed, and we market. I think we've all really fallen into our stride. I raked up a mess of beds the other day before we mulched the display garden, and it was as natural as if I've done it my whole life. Still hard work, and more time-consuming than you'd think, but the steps need to accomplish the goal come naturally to me now, and not once did Kelly stop me to show me what I was doing wrong. That was immensely satisfying, I must say.

To start with, I went back up to Lake Angeles, two weekends ago. It was a gorgeous gray PacNorWe day, and it satisfied all the things I go up on the mountain for.

Banana Slugs and Fungi, Wildflowers, gray hazy trees, and mountain top lakes:






I just finished writing a really cool short story, a fairytale of sorts, inspired by this second trip up to the lake.

Last weekend I went hiking with Maggie and Ari, a very cool young man with whom Maggie resides, he has a disdain for shoes, which I found contagious. This led to me wandering through the woods without sneakers on. It was oddly pleasant, at least when we were walking off trail. It was a good hike. We saw the biggest ribbon snake I've ever seen; not large at all by east-coast or tropical standards, but for the maritime northwest this guy was a giant.

Baking bread: many-seeded rye, my first loaf of gluten-free sandwich bread, roasted garlic and shallot sourdough, Miguel's Zucchini fritters with Feta:






Some shots from around the farm. the display garden, freshly mulched:

Ms. Floriana Redflint(That's a name screaming for a story, eh?):

Melons:



The pumpkin patch:

Long pie pumpkin blossoms:
Spaghetti Squash:


Winter squash, shaping up nicely:


Pickles, waiting to happen:


Tomatoes, flax, wheat:


Elephant garlic flower:

My volunteer harvest from my Sunday morning farm constitutional, all of this fruit was on the ground, begging to be eaten despite the fact that some of it isn't yet ripe:


And in closing, a correction to the addendum to the answers to our trivia questions...or something like that, these:

Are not in fact Indian pipes, but a relative of sorts, pinedrops, these are the same ones I first pictured, but a week older. Thank you Maggie for your plant nerdiness, without which we would all remain ignorant...

So, how am I doing? I'm well. Most days, I'm really well, and on the days when I'm not, all it takes is for me to step back, look around at where I am, and I'm immediately reminded how lucky I am to be here. It's interesting to me how easy it is for people who've spent their entire lives here, to take the magnificence of this place for granted.

Went up to Hurricane Ridge to watch the perseids last week, that was a late night, followed by a long day of farm work; it was awesome.

This morning I was bitten by a pony. The lesson learned from this, quite painful, experience? Don't feed a barnyard animal unless you know the proper protocol.

I hope everyone is doing well. Those of you who'll be at Rachel's wedding next month, I'm really looking forward to seeing you all. I really miss you guys, and even though I can now say without any doubt that I won't be coming back to Georgia to live, I find myself missing parts of it, too. Not sure what the future holds. This is causing me a little bit of apprehension, but I'm self-aware enough to know it's also contributing to the excitement each day holds. Love y'all.