Coming back

I've had itchy fingers for a while now.  I've had lots of time to think, and I've found bits of narrative floating through my brain, just begging to be written down.  A few weeks ago, I listened to the audiobook version of David Sedaris's  When You are Engulfed in Flames, which he narrates in his delightfully dry, nasal voice.  That week David Sedaris narrated my thoughts.  It was awesome.

But I haven't written a post since last June, and, though these fingers have been itching since at least January, it's taken me until now to take the plunge.  To be honest, I've struggled the most with the question of honesty and audience.  I am so eager to share what I'm doing and thinking, but at the same time, I'm scared to death of just that.  My written self is way more revealing than my spoken self; it's scary to think about how much I'm exposing through these posts.  On the other hand, I love having an audience,  and I think that, however uncomfortable, the vulnerability I feel because of what I share with "the world" is ultimately a good thing.

And while I also struggle do decide who I want to write for (for me? or for you?  Both, I think, but who more?), I know that I often feel very, very far away from many of the most important people in my life, and I want so badly for them to know about my life on the other side of the country.

So my (growing) season resolution will be to sit down and write, every now and again.  I'm not going to fuss with finding the perfect words, or the perfect photo to fit the post, because those details, I find, have more often kept me away from the keyboard.  I will sit, I will write, I will click the "Publish" button, and I will share my stories with whoever wants to read them.  Starting now.

There is SO much to tell, and I just can't let it pile up anymore!  One month ago, Eric and I moved from "The Ranch" where we had lived for eleven months (first in tents, then, starting in December, in a room in "The Duplex" with the rest of the farm staff), to the Hurley Farm, or more precisely, "The Farm on Hurley Way."  This is the one and a half-acre backyard farm that the founders of Soil Born Farms took over twelve years ago and slowly transformed into a Garden of Eden in the middle of a sprawly, shopping plaza-filled neighborhood.  Eric and I have been given the amazing opportunity to farm this little jewel for Soil Born as contractors through a farmer training grant from the USDA.  After learning the ropes last season on the ranch, this year we will attempt to apply what we've learned and see what it's like to be new farmers, with the bonus support of our mentors at Soil Born.   We live on-site at the Hurley Farm, and have a significant amount of autonomy, which is both liberating and scary.

So far, things are going really well.  Winter has skipped the Central Valley this season, and instead of the rain cloud that usually camps out over Sacramento from November through February, we've had nothing but blue skies and mild weather.  Which means that instead of starting planting in early March (this week), we started back in January, and have been shaping garden beds and readying the farm for the season ever since.  We're going to grow a range of produce this season, which we'll sell to Soil Born for the CSA and farm stand, as well as to a few restaurants in Sacramento, including my new employer, OneSpeed Pizza, which makes ridiculously delicious pizzas out of high-quality, responsibly-sourced ingredients.  I started serving there two nights a week in January, which has been a great complement to the farm bubble.


One of the exciting projects we're taking on this year is raising ducks!  We now have twelve hilarious Indian Runner ducks, most of which are much bigger than they were in this photo, and happily living outside in their own little house, spending their days running around in a cluster and munching on grass.  We will move them around on some of our garden beds when they get a little bigger, eating up the slugs and aphids and weeds, and will lay yummy eggs for us to eat and maybe sell.  We also snagged a bunch of hens from the Ranch, so we are poultry farmers now, doing morning "animal chores" and deriving entertainment from watching these little ones and wrangling chickens when they get out of their "paddock."  (I've got to get Eric tackling a chicken on video one of these days, it's hilarious!).

Much more to tell, but I'm spent! Also satisfied to be at it again.  Thanks for reading!  It feels good to be back.