It's been a while, hasn't it?

I know you've all come to expect blog entries on Sundays, but, oddly enough, as the farm work has slowed, I've found myself busier and busier in my spare time. Which is all well and good, but does mean that I have less time to document my activities. Much is going on, people are leaving, and the farm is in a state of constant flux. We had a killing frost this past Monday, which means no more zucchini, cukes are dead, all the winter squash vines are no more, the beans were obliterated, and the tomatoes which were planted outside are gone too. All of this is to be expected, and although the rain has begun, the sun lasted much longer than we had any business expecting. Not to mention the fact that with the end of the cucumbers came the opportunity for Aaron to make several massive batches of pickles, which I hadn't the chance to do yet this summer. it was several days of mind dissolving labor, but I'm sure teh end results will make it all worth it.

There is a new puppy on the farm, a black lab this time, who goes by Patch. Pics whenever I manage to get some.

So what have I been up to? Well, on the farm we've been preparing ground for cover crops, and readying the beds where the zucchini and cucumbers were for planting next year's garlic crop. Worked market in Sequim on Saturday. All by myself, like a big boy. It was actually really awesome. If the market hadn't been closed early due to inclement weather(wind like you would not have believed) I think I could have had an even more successful day than I managed to. Maybe next time.

In my spare time I've been having all sorts of adventures. I went out gleaning for apples with Maggie and her friends and co-workers, to obtain fruit for AppleFest, a yearly celebration, which mainly entails drinking and pressing apples for cider. It rained, in proper PacNorWe spirit, and much fun was had by all. I think I might have actually had more fun going gleaning than at the party, but I'm weird that way, I suppose. It was fun, we all climbed into the van, and drove around looking for trees that still had fruit on them, and once we spotted a potential harvest, we, and by we, I mean Randall, knocked, and asked if we could help ourselves. I was amazed at how many people were perfectly happy to let us take their fruits off their hands.

I went and saw an evening of storytelling, and went over to Port Townsend to see Here's To the Ladies . I've been going to Yoga at the Y every week, and boy I've really got to say, there is no better way to round out a day of farm work, than to do some yoga, and then have a fantastic meal with people you care about. I went to the Sol Duc hot springs, on Monday last week, since I was gifted with a two day weekend. I was dubious of a day spent in hot sulfurous water, followed by diving into a pool of substantially colder water, but it turned out to be a fantastic way to spend an afternoon. Afterward I got to spend some time at the Lake Crescent Lodge, sitting in an adirondack chair watching the sun set over the mountains, reading a library book, and in a fit of weirdness, sketching in my notebook.

A few, miscellaneous pics from the farm, a shot of some baby golden beets:
The wheat, you would not have believed what the sky was like, on the day I took this picture, it was dark grey, and sunny, and totally otherworldly, and there was a double rainbow:

Some kale and chard chips from the pumpkin party we had at Maggie's house, the other night:

There was a pumpkin potluck, and pumpkin bocce, and pumpkin carving, of course. It was a whole lot of fun.

As I've said so many times before, I'll endeavor to take more pictures, and keep the blog coming on a more regular basis, but I make no promises, things are busy, and they show no sign of slowing. The job search continues, in earnest, and I have a few promising leads, about which more, when one or more of them have become a reality. The writing progresses as well; I recently wrote a short story I rather enjoyed. Theoretically there are some pictures of AppleFest floating around, and if I manage to get a a hold of some I'll do a quick post to share them with you.

I love you guys; miss you.

Also I'm learning to knit.

What?

Don't judge me. It's fun.

Did you miss me?

I missed you. I was busy on Sunday. It was the most relaxing day I've had in recent memory, and I'll not apologize for the lateness of this update. I have been incredibly busy since last we talked, both on the farm and off.

I attended a young farmer's mixer on Vashon island. It was a lot of fun, but it was a long drive, and early start on the farm the next day, but it was my first chance to take a Washington state ferry. There was great local beer, and a pair of spit roasted suckling pigs, and plenty of delicious fresh produce. It was a good chance to get to meet other farm folk, and to hear how the season has gone in different parts of the state. There might have also been some square dancing.

There was another contra dance, and I was slightly less awkward this time. I brought cookies, because that's what I do. It's fun, and I didn't hurt myself quite so badly this time. It's funny how sometimes you have an opportunity to learn something you'd never know. For example, when Contra dancing you might find yourself realizing that some men, are much better, i.e. more fun to dance with, than others(I am not one of them, alas).

I've been going to see some films at Peninsula College in PA, they're running a series of foreign pictures on Friday evenings, and it's been fun so far. The movies are from the GlobalLens series, and are a good excuse to get off the farm.

This past Sunday Maggie and I went to see the two dams on the Elwha river, since they are going to be demolished in the near future. We also checked out Westwind, one of the other local farms, and went for a hike, which was especially nice since it had been several weeks since I'd had a chance to go hiking. I also got a short story idea out of it, but I just started writing it today, so it won't be ready for a while yet.

I'm writing this post from the Blackbird, my coffee shop, where my barista of choice is about to embark on a mission to Nepal. Adventures for everybody, no?

Some pictures to round out my ramblings.

Produce, from around the farm, and from the market this past Saturday, which was my first market alone(although Christie helped me get set up, and broken down):


Pumpkins and other winter squash:


Black Kabuli Chickpeas, waiting to be turned into hummus, and sprouted mung beans, waiting to be stir-fried:


'Maters:


Cereal Rye, cover crop on the ground where we grew potatoes, and it might not look like much now, but we're all really excited about it. We're getting the ground ready for the winter, and that is a good thing:


And another exciting development, one we've been a little worried about, but the weather cooperated for long enough to get the harvest done without major incidents. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...Wheat!:

There was something about this harvest that was satisfying in a way that picking zucchini just isn't. Some sort of connection going back to antiquity, a knowledge that though the tools might change(I'm fairly certain they didn't use hedge trimmers) civilization itself is based on the idea of a group of people banding together to harvest and process the grain. Very cool.

Bread, Roasted Chanterelle Ciabatta al Funghi and Mini Cinnamon Raisin Bites and Oregano Olive:


Pics from the woods:


Ain't that something else? Love ya.

In which there is a reunion, between man and machine...

It's funny how as soon as you give something up for lost, it will show up again. Thank you to Kay for finding my camera, and returning it safely to me; I hadn't realized how twitchy it's loss had made me, until it was returned.

I'm doing well, although the lack of a job is starting to become a concern. All I really need is something to get me through the winter, and once the spring rolls around again, finding something to do, shouldn't be a problem, it's figuring out what to do until then, that is proving to be a challenge. That being said, I'm curiously unstressed by the fact of my pending unemployment. Part of it must be that so many of the people I'm surrounded by are doing jobs of a similarly seasonal nature, and we're all in the same boat, right now. The park season ends this coming Thursday, and this will leave essentially everyone I know, who isn't farm folk, unemployed.

It's a fascinating dichotomy in this part of the world. There are park folk, who are here because of the park, and they are liberal, progressive twenty-first century people, MY people, and there are the locals, conservative old-fashioned people, and oddly enough, they are MY people, too. It's weird because to them the park is nothing special, it's the background of their world, but to those of us who came here because of, or have chosen to stay for the park, it's the center. Enough pontificating...my thoughts on the subject haven't gelled yet, but they keep circling around my brain, and there's something there, although I don't know what it is yet.

I've written a couple of short stories I really like, lately, and I've got a couple of cool ideas in my head, waiting for characters to give voice to them. I think one of them might be a novel, but I can't say for sure, yet.

I went to my first Country(pronounced Contra) dance last weekend. I was assured over and again by the girls that it wasn't a square dance, but there was spinning around, and changing partners, and a man giving instructions(not to mention several square dances), which I would say qualifies. It was, and I still can't really believe I'm saying this, a lot of fun. Some days I wonder what has happened to me, and others, most of them, really, I'm just enjoying it.

As for life on the farm, it's good. There are still many crops to be harvested, and although the hot-weather crops aren't really performing to expectations, there isn't really much we can do to change the weather. The age old lot of the farmer. It has been gray and rainy for most of the last week, with only a day or two of even partial sunshine in the forecast, which I love from an aesthetic point of view, but from the perspective of a farmer just hoping for the tomatoes to ripen, it's not so nice.

We started going to the farmer's market in Sequim this week, in addition to the one in PA, and we're all excited about that. It's great to have another chance to sell some of the produce we've all worked so hard to grow. We harvested our first brussel sprouts this week, and we've been picking apples and pears for a while now. It's autumn, there's no more denying it. The leaves are changing, and combined with the misty atmosphere it allows for moments of peacefulness, anytime I pause, and look around me.

Now for the picture posting portion of our post(You like that alliteration? Pretty good, huh?), I'll start with a couple of shots from my last trip up Storm King. I really love that hike, and it presents surefire proof that a summer of working on the farm has left me more fit than I began. I almost made it to the top of the mountain this time, but realize when I got about three quarters of the way up, that I was free climbing in my sneakers, without a buddy, and without anyone having any idea where I was, and prudence won out over the desire to say I did that.

The view from the lower peak:

A view of the upper peak, from the lower peak(see if you can figure out how high I made it based on the pictures from where I stopped climbing):


A view taken while hanging onto a rope on the trail(well, techinically after the end of the sanctioned trail, but there's a rope, so it's a trail of sorts):


Le Sage, from across Lake Crescent:


The chicken coop, which we spent a day cleaning around this week, and extended the fence to give our ladies more room:


Our pigs have a new home, which I've been calling the Sty-stead('cause I'm a nerd), pretty snazzy, huh?:

Flowering parsnips:

Canadian thistle(our weed nemesis), and another, altogether more pleasant thistle(did you know artichoke blossoms smell fantastic? Me either, until now.):



Weird looking mushrooms:



Some views of the farm in the gray:






Pickles - onions and watermelon rind:

Harvested lunch yesterday:

I think that will cover me for now. I'm going to go bake some bread, get some grub, and take a hike. I probably won't do another post until after I get back from Rachel's wedding, so I'll probably see most of you before I write another one of these. I can't wait...

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.