I Heart Farms

Wordle, and an Awakening to Organic

Pictured here: my visit to "Wordle.net" produced this themed art of my own words about loving farms. Go try it out. You can enter a URL for your weblog, or any text you want. I used custom colors and a friendly font. Experimental play is the key. Make your own.

And now for something harvested after planting the seed, in a hostile climate, many years ago. It gives me hope for my (or your) relatives who think everything we do is crazy, expensive, or "too California."

Some time back, we shared a holiday meal with Some Family Members. While these people are good and funny and fun, they are essentially afraid of real food. My offering one Thanksgiving of an organic turkey with an herb crust and shiitake mushroom stuffing was greeted with skepticism: the turkey skin was discarded (to the dogs) from some plates, and few would even try the suspicious gravy or stuffing with the shiitakes. 

UCSC Farm Apprentices Urgently Need Help

Pictured here: one of the new greenhouses at the UCSC Farm, recently finished. This photo was taken when they were empty. "People who live in glass houses should get dressed in the basement."

This post should have been made a few days ago, but I've been involved in The Wedding of the Century, as photographer, best friend, mother of a bridesmaid. All on a weekend where Bob had to be out of town and childcare was kind of spotty.

I'm publishing this letter as it went out to the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden. The upshot is that the "Seconds" (second-year apprentices who live, work, teach, mentor, and cook on the farm) abruptly lost their housing on the farm, in a great old barn, and they need help.

Since this program is one of the strongest in the country, and this class in particular has been pronounced "one of the best ever to go through, in forty years" (not to belittle earlier classes! Sometimes things just gel), I really would love people to find a way to help, however small. Read on for an explanation and ways to participate.

What I've seen: the Seconds are a handful of young people who've been chosen for their tireless energy, their ability to collaborate with and support each other, and because they are somehow carry the golden gene or whatever it is to fit into a system where nothing is ever done, and yet can persevere each day with strength and gratitude. I'll try to get up there soon and show you some of their faces. You might want to adopt them, except they're too old. To be adopted. But not to run a complex farm with more facets than a disco ball.

NEVER Buy Glacéau Water, or "My $1000 Paperweight"

A few weeks ago, it was perishing hot: this was on the day the big fire started in Bonny Doon. I was with my daughter at the downtown farmers market, and a friend asked me to pick up a bottle of cold water for her. Since the heat was staggering, and my own refillable bottle was empty, I got myself a bottle, too.

I hesitated when picking out a bottle of Glacéau Stupid Smart Water, but it was the coldest one on the shelf, and that's what I sought. The hestitation came from an earlier incident, when I put a closed bottle of their water in my giant tote, and the top slid open just enough to leak water. My make-up bag got wet, and some receipts, but it was nothing fatal.

I drank about half the bottle as we walked up the Pacific Garden Mall, and made sure the cap was "closed" before I slipped it, in an upright position, into my bag. Twenty minutes later, I felt something cold dripping on my leg, and my heart sank.

The Farmer de Ville Chronicles

Pictured here: a late November night when I went to get something outside. It was grab-the-camera time, but a good writer could paint the picture for you without an image.

There is something about the glowing moon, haloed by the climbing clouds, and the pagan orange-red windows that speak of hearth and warmth under a winter sky. A hill, a tree behind the house that looks like a crewcut, and the half-lit porch, as small as a telephone booth, with its railings that still might beckon you in.

Electrical wires? Meet starry sky. Nothing wrong there.

I Heart Farms

Pictured here: some of the artwork produced by Teresa Kurtak when she was still a farmer here in Soquel.

This is just the quickest of notes to say that ANYONE who has my blog listed as a link on theirs as "Small Farms" or "I Love Farms": it's "I Heart Farms."

As in "www.iheartfarms.com."

If you could please update your links to reflect that, since I have my new domain set up, I'd appreciate it.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY (apropos of nothing): "Your wrinkles either show that you're nasty, cranky, and senile, or that you're always smiling." —Carlos Santana

Thanks for visiting.

Honest Meat: Ruminate on this

Pictured here: a new face to the world of weblogs, my friend, Rebecca Thistlethwaite.

She has just launched her new weblog, HonestMeat.com, and I think she is going go be a fabulous addition to the blogosphere—because the blog is basically about the good, the bad, and the ugly of raising livestock. She knows the right questions to ask, and she knows the answers to all your questions about raising meat: both humanely and inhumanely. And she hopes to get lots of comments, but none of the "non-anonymous pinhead" sort.

Rebecca and her husband, Jim Dunlop, run TLC (Tastes Like Chicken) Ranch out in Las Lomas, California, just a little past Watsonville. For several years, she was working with a non-profit, ALBA, for six years. Now she is going to be consulting, as well as taking time to garden with their little girl, Fiona, whose photo is below.

I had the pleasure of spending several days in Rebecca's company: we sat at opposite ends of my big dining table, working on our laptops. I designed her banner (we love it, because it's all about the grass), and helped her with some technical stuff.

Page Load Error: Grumble, Grumble, Grumble

Hey, everybody: a quick note.

I transferred my domain from Hostway.com (NEVER use this service, EVER, details to follow) to Aplus.net, and now "www.iheartfarms.com" is in limbo. I'm setting up what's called "Domain Mapping" with Aplus.net, which means that soon, when it's complete, you will see "www.iheartfarms.com" in your browser Location window (the actual URL) instead of "smallfarms.typepad.com." But it takes a day or two for that to happen, so meanwhile, if you go to "www.iheartfarms.com", you will get an error message.

Hang in there with me, please. I'm paddling as fast as I can.

Following: a short rant about why not to use Hostway.com followed by something completely wonderful and wonderful that I've been watching a few times a day ever since someone sent me the link.

Found a Peanut

Okay, this is not a post about a farm, but maybe a farmer can solve an ongoing mystery for my family.

We live on the central coast of California, where peanuts are not likely to have been planted, as they need conditions that don't really exist here. I know that they ripen and grow underground, as well. And that a peanut has to be attached to a plant to grow, just as any legume would.

I have asked some of the smartest people I know in two different forums (Readerville.com and MouthfulsFood.com) to come up with an explanation, and none have been able to answer the question I am about to ask you all.

Time's Running Out: Raw Milk ACTION ALERT!

SHORT AND TO THE POINT:

Make 17 phone calls to save raw milk in California, please.

LINK.

These are some of Jean and Bob's cows out in Watsonville at the very beautiful Deep Roots Ranch.

News from the Vanilla Queen, Patricia Rain

Patricia Rain, summer 2005, at a farmers market.

I heard from Patricia two days before my birthday, and promised I would publish the letter she sent out to friends and family, in its entirety.

Dear Beloved Friends,

Although it drives me a little crazy to send a group letter rather than to write individual notes or phone each of you, time and energy in our crazy, hectic world seems to often be in short supply. Also, some of you have heard various parts of this note already and I apologize for boring you twice. But frankly, I didn't get holiday notes out this year between holiday business demands and the loss of four friends between Thanksgiving and the second week of February, so I'm writing a "one size fits all" note. So, Happy New Year, Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day Easter, Passover, Mother's Day, Memorial Day and Father's Day. :-) Hopefully I can pick upo again by the Fourth of July.

Getting through the holidays was difficult as I spent many days in hospitals and at memorial services. There were some wonderful special moments with Theo and Zane, especially Christmas morning when they walked into the living room and couldn't believe that Santa had not only come but that he knew they would like a big boy bicycle and tricked-out tricycle even before they knew they wanted them. The looks of amazement and joy were a huge antidote to the difficult hours of helping friends through their transition from life to death. By January I was pretty burned out.

Blessedly, I had a magnificent trip to look forward to, one that I had initially booked through the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce. However, due to my contacts throughout the world, the next thing I knew was that I was having a two-in-one journey to China! The first part was the tour, and the second was eight days with a research scientist on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. As often happens when I travel, nothing was firm about the second part of the trip until days before I left, but it all came together into one remarkable adventure.