Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Road Trip Edition: Sweet Virginia

One of the greatest rock songs of all time starts out something like this:

"Wading through the waste stormy winter and there's not a friend to help you through. Trying to stop the waves behind your eyeballs. Drop your reds, drop your greens and blues."

Whether Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote this song about a woman or the state I can't say. I'm definitely leaning towards the latter, mostly because I cannot believe the lack of songs written about Virginia. I don't think I'm alone in this feeling of being kept in the dark. Maybe Virginia, with its majestic autumn colors, Shenandoah Valley, its old friendly towns and artisan bacon is just one of the better kept secrets the East coast keeps from the West.

Supposedly the drive down I-81 from Asheville to Johnson City, Tennessee is stunning. It was a little past 9pm when we did it and Marisa and I couldn’t see a thing. We were planning on pushing through to a rest stop just outside Roanoke,VA. My good friend Dan grew up in Marion, VA so we stopped to fill up the tank there and take the opportunity to get a glimpse into his childhood. We must have taken the wrong exit to this small town because the only thing we glimpsed through the dense fog was the county jail. The most extraordinary aspect of the beginning of our journey into Virginia was the rain stopping immediately after we crossed the border. We pulled into the rest stop after midnight and fell asleep within seconds.

The next morning I woke up, used the rest stop bathroom and let the mutt out to stretch her legs. By the time Marisa woke up we were pulling into Roanoke in search of a decent breakfast and a much needed cup of coffee. Our original plan hadn’t gotten past us getting out of North Carolina's rain. Marisa was flipping through the road atlas and I assumed she was probably just looking for a National Forest we could pitch a tent in for the night. Then I noticed her measuring out the distance on the country map with her finger tips.

"New York isn’t very far from the northern part of Virginia" She said.

"Oh yeah......I guess everything is closer on the east coast, especially compared to Texas." I wasn’t really sure if Marisa was suggesting something or if she was just being informative.

"We could visit Devin," she said, her voice half joking, half quite serious.

Devin is a close friend of ours from Portland. He had been farming in the Hudson Valley of New York all summer. Originally I had my doubts about driving to New York, but then I compared it to our current plan which didn’t get us past the end of the week. I glanced at the clock and picked up our cell phone.

"Devin! Hey man, did I wake you?"

"No, no, I needed to get up anyway. What's going on? Where are you guys?"

"Virginia. What are you up to this weekend?"

"Nothing, come on up."

"Yeah?" I said.

"Yeah man, come on up."

"All right We'll call you when we get closer."

I shut the phone off and turned towards Marisa.

“He said come on up,” I said.

“Really? Just like that,” Marisa said with a smile.

“Yeah, pretty much, just like that. Devin's great....so yeah, I think this will be good. We’ll visit Devin, hit the outer banks on our way back and then buckle down and get jobs in North Carolina.”

Marisa was still looking at the atlas. “You know, it looks like Portland, Maine is just up the road from New York. We could go see what Audrey’s up to.” This time she had a lot more humor in her voice.

“Yeah, right, and Wisconsin is just another day to the west. We could visit my brother and meet his new wife.”

We stopped at a wonderful farmer’s market and picked up some sausage biscuits and blueberries. This market looked like the same famers had been coming to this exact spot for fifty years. We briefly discussed moving to Roanoke after we get back from New York. The Subaru was 1500 miles overdue for an oil change and more miles than I care to say overdue for a tire rotation .We took the car into a local place to prepare for our journey. The attendant mentioned that we are in desperate need of new tires. I pretend not to hear this for now.

It wasn’t until we pulled onto the Blue Ridge Parkway that Virginia showed up on our radar. The mountain views have so many layers. The first layer is filled with all the reds and yellows of Appalachian fall. The furthest layer is covered in a oceanic blue haze. Everything in between blends gracefully from focused to blurry. Just as were falling in love with Virginia, the car began acting a little strange. It had a lack of power going up the hills. We chalked this up as the car being tired from the long drive out East. Luckily, there were plenty of places to pull off and let any driver that wanted to go more than 20 get by.

We stumbled across a little dirt road. There were old farmhouses on the side of the road and deep pine forests. We were exploring camping options when I noticed a trailhead sign. We decided to stretch our legs and let Maggie run around. The sign was labeled with the legendary AT symbol. We had come across the Appalachian Trail which for me was kind of like going to Mecca. I’ve done trail work before and Marisa and I have been talking about hiking the AT in its entirety for years. I can’t even express the feeling of walking on a trail that goes all the way from Georgia to Maine. Comprehending that distance on foot is truly mind blowing. The trail is part of the reason we’ve traveled to the Southeast. We walked up and down the trail a bit and it was nothing short of gorgeous. I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods of the Rockies, Cascades and the great Northwest but this forest had a totally different appeal. I dunked my head in a cool stream and we went back to the car fully rejuvenated.

As Marisa started her driving shift, things seemed to get much worse with our car quirks. The tachometer was all over the place and the steeper the hill, the more we began to think, “we’re not gonna make it…” The Subaru was struggling, sometimes at less than 5 miles per hour. I was constantly checking for a pulloff, possible places to spend an indeterminate amount of time. We checked the atlas and found a rest stop on I-64, just outside of Charlottesville. The only reason we decided that this was our best option is that it seemed to be the only sure route anywhere that was primarily downhill. I took over as driver and forced our poor car the extra 6 miles to the I-64 on ramp. We coasted to the rest area. I have to say this was the most beautiful interstate rest stop I had ever seen. We even saw a Peregrine Falcon while we were walking Maggie. I popped the hood and pretended to know something about mechanics. Everything looked alright, so I shut her down. Originally the game plan was to hang out at the rest stop until Monday morning and then coast into Charlottesville and find an honest mechanic. The problem was it was 4pm on a Saturday when we made it to the rest stop. We had a stove and plenty of pasta, but after we noticed the security guard giving us funny looks while we were preparing dinner, we started to get the feeling it might be a long 40 hours. We informed Devin of our dilemma via cell phone and had Marisa’s parents, Warren and Peggy, do some research on the Car Talk website for us. After dinner we played a game of cribbage and crawled into our sleeping bags shortly past sundown.

The next morning it was painfully obvious that we couldn’t live at the rest stop much longer. I scrapped plan A and immediately decided to coast to Charlottesville. Marisa wasn’t ready to be awake when I headed for town, but I hadn’t gone a morning without a cup of coffee in 2 and ½ years and didn’t want to find out how strong my caffeine addiction had really gotten. Charlottesville is an amazing small city. Brickwork covers everything and Main Street is covered with thriving, locally owned businesses. We ate breakfast at a little cafĂ© that reminded us of Portland, Oregon. I ordered the special and I still think about it to this day. It was an egg in the hole with farm fresh pulled pork covering the top of it. The pork was from Polyface Farms, featured in Michael Pollan’s book, ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’. We explored the pedestrian mall downtown and discovered the visitor’s center. Marisa grabbed a bunch of maps of the area and the nice man behind the counter let us know about a KOA campground just outside of town. He also confirmed that the mechanic Peggy and Warren had found for us was great and his own mechanic as well. After checking out the restaurants and markets we were pleased to discover that this part of the Shenandoah Valley has a solid local food movement. If you go to the Chipotle mexican restaurant (the fast food chain) all the pork comes from Polyface farms, some of the best meat in the country, and even the peppers and onions are often sourced from local organic farms. There were a number of other restaurants and stores we passed that proudly listed the local farmers they bought from in their windows.

In a matter of hours we had accidentally fallen in love with Virginia and we owed it all to our broken down vehicle. Being a child of the west, I was swept away by the area's history. The Shenandoah Valley was pivotal in the Civil War. There are battlefields everywhere. Thomas Jefferson’s house, Monticello, is just outside Charlottesville. We walked Maggie for hours in what we later began to refer to as the “Maggie Mae Pees Across America” tour and then caught a movie downtown to kill the hours before dark. The car managed the 7 miles to the KOA campground. It was mostly downhill through rolling farmland. The Charlottesville KOA is truly beautiful, despite their blatant misspellings of Kabin, Kampground, Kamping and Kamp which nearly drove Marisa insane. At the KOA there is a small trail that leads to a pond and a variety of mushrooms peek their heads up through the leaf litter that covers every campsite and the forest floor.



Marisa called the mechanic the next morning to see if he worked on Subarus.

“Subarus? Yeah, we work on Subarus all day.” Yet another reason that Charlottesville feels so much like home. I thought we weren’t going to make it up 4 or 5 of the hills on the way to town, but luckily we did, although I’m sure we made a dozen people late for work in the process. The guy behind the counter was a real character. He was decked out in brand new Washington Redskins gear. He at least had the hat and jersey and may have been wearing the pants too, it was hard to tell. We gave him the keys and then carried on with the “Maggie Mae Pees Across America” tour. We explored Charlottesville some more while we waited for the damage report. We were downtown when we got the call. “Your clutch……it’s bad. You got a bad clutch.” Just like that. The way he said it was hilarious, which was great, because the $700 it would take to fix it wasn’t funny at all. We were issued an old blue Volvo to borrow for the night. The thing had 294,000 miles on it and it felt like it took a full 10 seconds to cross an intersection. It did manage to get us back to the KOA in one piece, and that was the important part. After eating some veggie bratwursts, we fell asleep in our tent.

We spent the next morning checking out the surrounding area. At the time we were convinced that we wanted to live in Charlottesville. The countryside was phenomenal, especially with all the fall colors. Thick woods, small farms, old red barns, the whole place felt so timeless. For a brief moment we thought about giving up the New York trip and staying there, but since all our stuff was (and still is) in Therin’s crawl space in North Carolina we figured Virginia would still be there when we inevitably came to claim our possessions. We grabbed some tasty Thai food and our newly functioning Subaru and headed north to New York.

Road Trip Edition: On the Road Again


Marisa and I hit the open road towards the middle of September. Farming in the Texas hill country has taken its toll in more ways than one. Working outside for the summer with more than 70 days in a row over 100 degrees definitely wasn't a highlight. Texas hill country hadn't seen such a brutal summer since 1929. Lucky us. Neither of us were particularly heart broken to find our selves untethered. It wouldn't be polite to get too far into it. However, I will say this, the farm we were employed by has become far uglier in reality than it appears in photographs. We loaded our poor 95 Subaru legacy to the brim with everything we own. A sewing machine, 3 re-curve bows and arrows, half a dozen finished and unfinished art projects, our little cattle dog Maggie Mae, a big box of fabric, boxes and boxes of books, cookware, bags and bags of clothes and camping gear. First stop was my good friend Mikal's in Austin for a couple days to pay our respect to an amazing city and say goodbye to some friends. We partook in some authentic Mexican food and imbibed a few Lone Stars for old times sake.

The car handled like a tank with all the extra weight. We spent most of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama listening to old "This American life'' episodes and trying our hardest to ignore the random grinding, popping and clunking sounds coming from the front wheel on the passenger side. It sounded worse in the early hours of the trip. I glanced at Marisa to see if it woke her up, then told myself that if it wasn't loud enough to wake some one up it probably wasn't bad enough to worry about too much. By the time we got past Atlanta and into South Carolina the noise was unmistakably something that had to be addressed. We were on our way to Iron Station outside Charlotte, North Carolina, where Marisa's friend Therin has been living. The basic game plan at this point is to move somewhere in North Carolina but the details are still to be determined. Neither one of us had ever been to the Southeast and all we know is the farming is good, the Appalachians are amazing, the outer banks are awesome and Asheville is a nice place for people like us to hang out.

Twenty-seven hours after we leave Austin, we roll into Therin's driveway, relieved that the car didn't break down in the middle of our journey. It feels great to straighten our backs again and get outside of the car. I'm amazed that our wheel didn't fly into a ditch in Georgia with everything else close behind it. Therin takes us out for dinner in Charolette. We do laundry for the next 2 days while watching 'Top Chef" marathons and commencing a general regrouping. Things we need to do:

a) Get the car fixed
b) Locate a town to live in and a house in that town to occupy
c)Get jobs

Sounds simple enough. We figure we have a couple hundred miles left on the axle before the sound manifests itself into a roadside tragedy. The decision is made to go check out the scene in Asheville and get the car fixed there. We unload everything into Therin's crawl space. The idea is to get settled in somewhere then promptly return for our stuff. We bring enough cooking and camping supplies to spend a couple nights around Asheville. At the last moment we grab our social security cards in case some one feels obliged to hire us immediately and some contact info for an honest mechanic we looked up on the car talk web site.

The drive through the mountains is gorgeous. The trees are just beginning to change into their fall colors and even the interstate rest stop is breathtaking. We pull into Asheville and it's a lot bigger than it was in my head. I was expecting old timers playing banjos on unpainted wooden porches on every corner. For lunch we found an all you can eat Indian buffet. It was delicious. The characters downtown and in the restaurant seemed all to familiar; like people we'd met in Austin or Portland. The couple dining next to us even asked if I was the guy that had moved next door to them a couple weeks earlier. I guess I looked familiar too. Where are the accents the boiled peanuts and shirtless overall wearers? Ashville is what some of our friends refer to as a circuit town, meaning a city that attracts people that are drifting from state to state. Places where misfits fit in and it's completely acceptable to have face tattoos and ask for spare change outside any locally owned coffee shop in town. For example: Austin, Athens, Arcata, Boulder, Madison, Eugene, Portland etc...Asheville is fun and beautiful, but we were feeling like we had been on the circuit a little too long. It is nice to not be the only long hair in sight, but this just wasn't what we were searching for. Problem is, we didn't know where we were looking for.

We explore the surrounding landscape and settle into a state park outside Brevard for the night. Falling in love with Appalachia is easy. I saw 20 different kinds of wild mushrooms in the first day. It was so nice to get out from underneath the cruel Texas sun. This little corner of North Carolina seemed fitting for us on a scenic level. Marisa really appreciated the change of atmosphere and being back in proper woods. The air felt like it had more oxygen in it, like being back in the North West.

After a night in the woods, we headed back to Asheville to suck it up and deal with our car problem and spend another day walking Maggie around downtown. The nice lady at the front desk refers to customers like us as gypsies. The people that don't have an address to write down on the form or a work phone number. She didn't seem too surprised by our predicament. We weren't the first drifters to break down on this part of the circuit. There were a few hours to kill while the car got worked on. Our first stop was the local library to take a glance at Craigslist, just to make sure there weren't any amazing job opportunities in the area we should jump on. Next, we searched the area for a slice of pizza and a couple locally made beers. Fortunately, we found a brew pub that had an 'all you can eat slices' deal. Asheville seems to be the home of the killer lunch buffet. Who knew? The waitress called us out on being out of towners. Maybe it was how long it took us to select our I.P.A' s.... She offered us her back yard if we wanted to pitch a tent until we found a place. She also gave us some tips about a national forest nearby where we could camp for free.

Dark clouds filled the sky as our cell phone rang. Our car was ready, thankfully. It was five o'clock on a Friday and I'm not sure what we would have done if hadn't gotten fixed before the shop closed for the weekend. It cost us around 800 bucks to silence the Subaru and ensure our own safety. The credit card took its first major blow since we got it, but at least we were racking up frequent flier miles! As we where heading south to our new potential home in the woods, the sky grew darker and darker and the rain came along with it. We cautiously cruised down the forest roads that were more mud than dirt at that point. I cursed the crappy windshield wipers and made another mental note to replace them soon. It was nice not to worry about the wheel falling off out on those country roads. Marisa and I discussed the possibility of setting up camp for a couple weeks while we figured out what we wanted to do. The camping was free so maybe we could cut our losses from the mechanic bill. Finally we found an open campsite about 10 miles down the road. It was perfect except for one thing; it was downpouring so hard we couldn't imagine putting up a tent.

The sun set and the rain started to come down in buckets. We busted out our battery powered lantern, a deck of cards and the cribbage board. The rain let up a little bit around the time Marisa beat me for the second time. I made my move quickly, setting up the tent, putting on the rain fly and getting our thermarests and sleeping bags in, all seconds before the rain came back in full force. It was trampling down on me by the time I got back to the driver's seat. I could tell by Marisa's expression that she was having her doubts about our new living arrangements. Even Maggie had a look of discontent in her eyes and on her muzzle. I reached into the back seat and grabbed a newspaper off of the stack of free press we had been accumulating to start camp fires. I was in the midst of explaining my new idea to Marisa when I reached the weather section.

''I was thinking since we don't know exactly where we want to live in North Carolina anyway, maybe we should explore the rest of the state. Maybe find somes town where it's not raining like this."

I think she could tell by my face when I looked at the paper that the news was bleak.

''Well?'' she said.

''Well, paper says heavy rains all across the state until Tuesday and it looks worse on the coast than it does here." Imagining losing a hundred more cribbage games while being a prisoner of this car for 4 days didn't sound great. Not to mention most of our food has to be cooked and Marisa will never let me use the stove in the car.

''What about Virginia?" I asked

"Paper says it's not raining in Virginia."

We looked at each other, nodded ever so slightly, raced into the pouring rain to take down the tent and then hit the road for Virginia.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

North Carolina!

Hello friends,

Well, a bit has changed in the last 2 weeks.  We had planned on staying on the farm through the fall season, but were informed while we were on vacation that the farm budget was not large enough to keep us on staff.  As we no longer had a job and consequently a place to live (that's the problem with living where you work...if you don't have a job, you don't have a home), we decided to pack up and move to North Carolina.  When we first decided to move away from Portland, our original plan was to go to NC, so it seemed like a logical place to go after being unexpectedly and unceremoniously let go.  After a few days in Austin hanging out with friends and saying our goodbyes, we drove our fully loaded subaru 1200 miles in two days across the south to the lovely east coast.  Having never been to the south outside of an airport I was excited for the drive.  Louisiana and Alabama were both much prettier than I expected.  Mississippi went by in complete darkness, so I can't really comment on the landscape.  Georgia and South Carolina both went by quickly and had a surprising amount of trash on the highways.  Then, we reached NC.  We came in through the bottom, western corner right into the Appalachians and they are gorgeous!  Our last few days have been spent in Iron Station, with my good friend Therin.  Tomorrow we take off for a couple week trip to explore the state and figure out where we want to live.  Chances are we'll end up in Asheville, but we figure a little exploration is in order, just to make sure we end up in the most awesome place possible!  We'll certainly keep ya'll updated on our whereabouts and life plans as we figure them out.   

Oh, as an addition to our 'Organic farming just got a little more dangerous' post, our friend Adam's hospital bill came to $16,000!  Each bag of anti-venom cost $3,000 and he had to have four bags.  His ER bill alone was $4,000.  The scary thing is, his snake bite was supposedly a mild one.  Wow.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Two weeks

It's 5:30am and David and Melody drove off a little over an hour ago for a 2 week vacation, leaving the farm in Mark's and my capable hands. I'm excited and a little nervous. I can't sleep, so I figured I would take this pre-dawn hour before I need to go cut flowers and transplant and water and direct seed, etc, etc, etc, to write a short blog entry. As I was walking from our house to the barn I happened to glance up and noticed that the stars are brilliant before the sun comes up. I should probably get up early more often. There are a million little things that are going through my head right now about what needs to get done on the farm, questions we should have asked before David and Melody left, lots of 'what-ifs', but ultimately Mark and I have been here for almost six months and we know what needs to happen to keep this place running. And as long as we remember to water them, the crops will keep on growing! Ok, it's time to go drink some coffee and start the day. I expect that my afternoon plans will involve a nap, but until then, it's go time.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Organic farming gets a little more dangerous....


Before I get too far into the events of the day the farm got more dangerous it's about time I introduced some of the characters we have been sharing this experience with over the season. Adam, the main character in this story, is soon to be 27. He comes in on Monday and Tuesday to give us a hand. He worked for the farm last season, so he has insight into the details of cultivating our specific piece of land. On top of that he has an amazing sense of humor and great taste in music. I learned recently that Adam is very stoic and can take a joke, even when the situation doesn't warrant laughter.

The day started off pretty typically. Marisa and Melody (our farm manager and friend) were a little more tired than usual. The clouds hung a little thicker than we're used to, but other than that, a normal morning. We all met in the barn at 7am and divided the harvest duties needed to fill our CSA bags, due to be dropped off that afternoon. Marisa, Adam and I teamed up to harvest the summer squash. It's a task that can take three hours singlehandedly, so it's nice to have the company. Adam and I were working down the same block, lifting runners and peeking under enormous, spiky leaves. We were tediously clipping and collecting every baby patty pan, gentry, magda and yellow zucchini we could find. We were almost an hour into our day, discussing Adam's experiences at previous Gwar concerts and complaining about the endlessness of squash season, when minor tragedy struck!

I saw Adam leap back in a very animated manner. I didn't think anything of it at first glance. I have worked alongside Adam for quite a few harvests and the guy could be the poster child for making unnecessary contact with bull nettle (see our previous post). Originally he had the same perception of the event that I had. I'd like to say that I heard the rattle over his cursing, but I didn't. Adam was about 6ft away from me when we realized that he had just been bit by a rattlesnake! Initially the situation was a little surreal, mostly because Adam wasn't reacting in any way I would have thought. He was still very much alive and wasn't foaming at the mouth even a little bit. I am admittedly no snake bite expert, but I expected more. I sprinted to the barn to grab a bag of ice to hopefully slow the venom. I heard this trick from Crazy Rick down in Costa Rica. He is the only other person I know to have been struck by a deadly snake. I blazed past Melody as I attempted to calmly ask her to google rattlesnake bite on her iPhone. Her reaction to the situation was a little more drastic, as it should have been.

I placed the 15 pound bag of ice on Adam's shin, who was now sitting next to Marisa's and my former residence, an airstream trailer on the edge of the squash row. He was lying down and had on an icepack. Other than sucking venom out of the top of his foot, my snakebite knowledge was exhausted. Adam was very determined to not have any mouth against his dirty foot. He was also very set on not going to the emergency room. This was a problem because Melody had dialed 911 to get a game plan. Instead of a game plan, the operator ordered an ambulance and the only free advice we got was "Get help immediately and stay away from the animal". He didn't want help at all, initially stating that his foot didn't hurt very badly and he wasn't sure the venom even got in. I can't blame him. I hate doctors too, or at least doctor bills. Melody called off the ambulance. Adam now stated that it felt like an anvil got dropped on his foot. Not a good sign. So a compromise was made after some cell phone research confirming that no cheap clinic has anti-venom and without it the effects of the venom will spread up his body as soon as he starts moving again. Melody borrowed our Subaru and shuttled Adam down the road to San Marcos, 20 minutes away.

I jumped at the opportunity to use my McLeod, a tool that looks like a massive hoe on one side and a thick metal rake on the other. Marisa got it for me for my birthday to satisfy my nostalgia of working on trail crew, the only job these things are used for besides fighting wildfires and now...REVENGE. I am firmly against hunting a predator. I feel that it goes against the food chain and the natural order of things to use technology to take the life of something that would otherwise murder me. I, however, have realized two exceptions to my rule: 1. protecting my friends and family and 2. revenge. Like Dwight Schrute says, "Sometimes a farmer has to do what city folk can't." I am a farmer and as much as I wanted to hold up the headless body of that snake so that we could all gather squash with a sense of comfort, I didn't find it. I went back to the barn simultaneously relieved and deflated when I ran into Amilcar. Amilcar is from Guatemala and he doesn't speak much English, or he likes to watch me struggle with my Spanish. I told him what was going down in Spanglish mixed with a lot of sound effects and graphic hand gestures. Over the last 5 months my Espanol has gone from infant to caveman; a milestone, but when I really need to use Spanish, I have trouble pulling it off. Thankfully, I have patient teachers. Imelda, his wife, works in the fields with us, so he took the situation very seriously. He asked me where the snake was and my Spanish wasn't good enough to do anything other than walk the 1/4 mile to the spot and say, "Aqui."

I grabbed my trusty McLeod and Amilcar, being the superhero he is, grabbed a small 2ft stake labeling the ayote (that's Spanish for squash, most of our farm signage is bilingual). We patrolled the block of squash, all 5 rows of it, and the tomatoes and eggplant next door as well. Very carefully we grazed our weapons against the weeds and crops in attempts to flush the snake out. Hunting the hunter. Our dialogue was mostly "mira, mira, ayote, serpiente, serpiente." At one point I tried to use some Spanish vocab on Amilcar. I said "El serpiente es peligroso." Meaning, "The snake is dangerous." However, I accidentally inserted a question mark. "The snake is dangerous?" Amilcar looked at me very concerned as if to say, "What is this gringo doing? Adam is hospitalized, we have been searching for this creature for 45 minutes and he doesn't know it's dangerous?" I realized my mistake, but didn't have the vocabulary to take it back.

While Amilcar and I were calling it quits on the serpent crusade, Melody was catching up on 'The View' and the happenings of last January, according to Time magazine, in the waiting room. The nurses were monitoring the swelling by tracing the creeping bulge coming up Adam's ankle with a sharpie every 30 minutes. They had to make sure that the bag of anti-venom that he was receiving intravenously through an IV was sufficient. Anti-venom is very expensive and dangerous if one receives too much. From my understanding, Adam also received some lectures from the staff at San Marcos Hospital for farming in flip-flops. The lessons I have learned from all this: 1. Rattlesnake bites are a serious deal and no matter how tough you are you should never attempt to walk it off. 2. Ice slows down the venom flow in your blood, however, unless you plan to sit on your butt with a bag of ice on your leg for 3 weeks, you should probably just go to the ER. 3. Don't ever cut into someones leg to suck the venom out. It's gross and doesn't actually work. Never has. 4. Getting bit by a poisonous snake is painful and very expensive and although it's a cool story, it's probably cheaper and easier to go to Thailand for a month.

Adam came back at 2:30 in the afternoon, 6 hours after he had left for the hospital. He was in good spirits when I last talked to him although he did say that it hurt to walk and putting on a shoe was excruciating. When I asked Adam if he was going to wear shoes from now on, he just shook his head sadly and said, "No...I don't think so, it's just too hot."

Miss Mae's Duck Addiction


As a preface to this blog post, I would like to introduce our dog, Maggie Mae. For those of you who aren't acquainted with Maggie, she is our 9 year old border collie, black lab, pomeranian mix. We adopted her about a year and half ago from a rescue organization in Portland called The Pixie Project. If you are looking to adopt a dog or cat in the Portland-Metro area, I highly recommend them. The first month that Maggie lived with us, she spent 95% of her time hiding in a cardboard box in our living room. The other 5% was spent eating and going for walks. Little by little she came out of her shell and we were able to discard the cardboard box as she eventually opted to sleep on some blankets next to our bed. Maggie was a pretty good city dog. She was mindful of cars, got excited about but didn't chase squirrels and was great at running next to a bike without a leash. Maggie was a good city dog, but what we learned after moving to the farm, is that she is an awesome country dog. And a duck addict.

One of my favorite parts of the day happens between 9 and 9:30 in the morning....Duck Time! Letting the ducks out of the duck house is hilarious. They have been cooped up in their house for 12-13 hours and they are ready to be out. As soon as they hear me yell, "Get the ducks, Mae", the quacking starts. Maggie and I make our way into the duck yard and I walk up the ramp to the duck house. At this point, the quacking has become deafening. I yell a loud, "Good Morning" to the ducks and throw open the large, metal door. The stampede begins. It's duck insanity for 30 seconds as they pour out of the duck house. Feathers flying, ducks barreling over each other, ducks flying into the metal guardrail, ducks crash landing on the grass...and then it's quiet again. The ducks settle into their morning routine of chowing on bugs, taking a dip in the pond, waddling about and ruffling their feathers and I can begin the egg hunt. We have approximately 50 ducks and on any given day I will collect between 8 and 35 eggs. Each nesting box is checked by hand, sometimes revealing one egg, sometimes seven eggs and sometimes all I come out with is a handful of duck poop. Ducks are some of the dirtiest creatures I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. More than once, I have seen a duck jump into the feed box, poop, jump back out and then turn around and eat it. Same goes for their watering troughs. Poop doesn't phase ducks one bit. After my morning egg collection and feeding of the ducks is over, I'm done with them for the day, except for occasionally yelling, "Get the ducks", to Maggie and watching her sprint frantically towards the duck yard and then stare, crazy-eyed, through the fence until we call her off or something more exciting, like a cat, walks onto the scene.

Sunset brings another round of duck action. Maggie barrels out ahead of me as I head towards our duck friends. She sprints the fenceline as she waits for me to open the gate. Once the gate is open she runs inside and begins herding the ducks. I go about my business of re-filling the water and food and doing one last egg check. Then, it's Maggie's time to shine. I step out of the duck house and watch as she does her very best to herd the ducks up the ramp so I can close them in for the night. 20% of the time she does it all by herself. The other 80% I am obliged to jump down and assist her by running around, flapping my arms and yelling various, helpful, phrases to entice the ducks to hurry up and get into their house so I can go back to mine. And then they're in! Depending on how quickly and easily they were put up I either slam the lock shut and yell "Lock Down!" or I sing them a little song, much like I used to sing to my chicken, Bernadette. Maggie and I bid the ducks a good night and head for home, already anticipating the fun to be had when we start all over again tomorrow.

Friday, July 17, 2009

The Taste of Tejas (Part 1)

Taste of Tejas quiz:

1. What is queso (other than the Spanish word for cheese)? Be specific.

2. True or false: Over the last decade small businesses have realized just how horrible styrofoam is for the environment and thankfully the product is a thing of the past.

3. True or false: The best Mexican restaurant in town is rarely found under the same roof as a corporate gas station.

4. How far must one travel to get the "Best BBQ in Texas"?

5. How many varieties of tea are commonly found while dining in a restaurant in Texas?

6. What is the most common thing to order for breakfast in Texas, especially while on the go?

7. How many languages must one know in order to order migas in Austin, Texas? Sub-question, What are migas?

8. What can commonly be found in the meat case at Fiesta Mart?
A) A whole, skinned cow head, eyeballs intact
B) Pigs legs with the hooves still attached
C) Foot-long cow tongues
D) All of the above

An ounce of queso has 300 calories. At least the queso found at Mikal's work. Queso is very popular in Texas. If you are reading this from north of the Mason-Dixon line, I should probably tell you that queso is really just nacho cheese, similar to what you would find at the 7-11, only taken much more seriously. I would like to dedicate this blog entry to the experience of dining in central Texas.

Before I get too far into it, I would like to take a step back to the previous entry 'Death, Destruction and Diatomaceous Earth'. I participated in the slaughter and preparation of six ducks a couple months ago. I decided to go with the Beatles 'White Album'. My only logical explanation for this is that it is two discs and de-feathering a single duck takes well over an hour, at least for a first timer. Anyway, back on track to "The Taste of Tejas!"

Styrofoam is a thing of the past, right? I mean, it will be in the landfill and on ocean beaches for well over the next 1.5million years, but no one in their right mind is still using it, right? Fair warning: if you order take-out in Texas, from Chinese to fine dining, expect a styrofoam clamshell style box, usually three-times the size of your meal. What's worse is you can even expect to get styrofoam when you order for here, especially ice tea. It seems odd to me to be in a place that takes so much pride in its landbase, sipping from a styrofoam cup. I'll find myself eating a hamburger under a massive Texas flag, staring at the eye sockets of a longhorn skull looking back at me. The waitress brings me the state beverage. Three cups of tea and six cups of ice, all mixed together with ample amounts of sugar in a 64oz thick, white, styrofoam cup. Sometimes I want to say, "This is the wild west, yo, can't I drink out of a rusted tin can or at least something made out of glass?" Marisa usually has the foresight to bring a quart or half-gallon jar for her restaurant beverages. As for me, maybe I'll start building a fishing vessel of some sort with all of these durable, otherwise useless, containers. Usually I just wait to get my afternoon caffeine fix after lunch. The upside is you can take your gigantic cup into almost any restaurant in town and get a free refill, because every one's to-go cup is exactly the same. The Nalgene of the south and it comes with a thousand lifetime guarantee.

As far as restaurant culture is concerned, there are three main aspects represented in Texas, Barbecue, Mexican and Tex-Mex. Finding the "Best BBQ in Texas" is easy. There is usually one restaurant in every small town that boasts the title and at least four or five in every city. The best BBQ I've had in Texas was in a little town called Lockehart. This place is timeless. I don't think a picture has been put up or taken off the wall since 1950. The fire they cook on is close enough to the cash register one could accidentally fall into it if they are not careful. They sell their fully cooked links, ribs and brisket by the pound, plus you have your choice of fat brisket or lean. The lean is actually quite fatty. They also offer a few slices of Wonderbread with every order and/or a half a packet of Saltines with the white plastic still on. The meat is served on two pieces of brown wax paper. The dining hall is made up of 8, enormous, cafeteria style tables. Pickles and jalapenos are complimentary and for a couple extra quarters you can purchase a whole avocado or a chunk of cheddar cheese from the nice ladies in the dining area. The sauce is served cold and a poster that shows all the old courthouses of Texas is framed neatly in the center of the wall, covered in dust. Even the prices seem to be timeless. We got three meals out of our order and paid less than seven dollars. It would seem the only way to get away from styrofoam in central Texas is to go somewhere that hasn't changed its business plan since the invention of plastics.

Stay tuned for part two.....

Friday, July 10, 2009

The hot, hot, heat.

Hi friends. Many of you probably know this, but for those of you who don't, or who aren't aware of the excessiveness, I'm gonna let you in on something; Texas is hot. I'm not talking about dry heat, either. I am talking about hot, humid, blazing sun, drink 3 gallons of water a day and never go pee because it has all exited through your pores, type of heat. Yesterday the high was 107. The low was 82. I have never felt so dependent on air conditioning for survival. The problem with AC, however, is that your body never really adjusts to the heat and every time you step outside it's like walking into an oven and then being wrapped in a slightly damp, hot towel. Ick. A few weeks ago, when it was only in the 90's, I decided to become Zen about the whole blazing heat thing and just take it in stride. I accomplished my goal for about 3 weeks and the heat didn't bother me all that much. Then the mercury began creeping up into the 100's and my Zen attitude evaporated, much like all of the water we put out into our fields....This week I hit the wall and my positive attitude crumbled. While working the Farmer's Market on Wednesday from 2-6 (the hottest part of the day), any customer or CSA member foolish enough to greet me with a "How ya' doing" or a "hot enough for ya?" was met with a look of dismayed contempt, with just a hint of desperation buried underneath. Needless to say, my customer service was not at an all time high, but I did the best I could under the circumstances. Everyone assures me that this is an unusually hot summer and Texas isn't generally this hot until August. A fat lot of good that does for me now! But, enough complaining about the heat. It's not going anywhere until at least mid-September, so there's not much point in dwelling on it. At least that's what I try to remind myself every time I start on the downward spiral of despair over the temperature!

Let's talk about patriotism. Nothing says patriotic like a 4th of July parade. We were fortunate enough to participate in our town's parade last weekend and it was amazing. This may not surprise anyone, but small town Texas is way into America's birthday. Our farm entered a float in the parade and by my biased judgement, out of the 60 entries, we were definitely in the top 3. We managed to wow the crowd not only by having an awesome float, but also by throwing vegetables into the crowd. The sugar addled kids were generally either unenthusiastic or just plain confused by the vegetables, but the parents were way into it, often instructing their children to "go get another onion" or "grab some more peppers." Mark made the mistake of handing a melon to someone when we were stopped and all of a sudden our float was enveloped in a crowd of folks clamoring for melons. All in all, it was a blast and I think we generated a lot of community interest about the farm and hopefully attracted new customers. Cross your fingers.

Many times throughout the parade I had the almost overwhelming urge to jump off the float and snap some pictures. Turns out, our town is very patriotic. There were, of course, the obligatory American flag themed camping chairs and the older women sporting red, white and blue visors. Some people, however, went above and beyond. On one section of the parade route there was a crew of over 30 people sporting t-shirts that said 'Freedom isn't Free' on the front and 'Freedom estb. 1776' on the back. Each of them was waving at least one American flag and some of the more ambitious ones were waving two. My absolute favorite show of patriotism was a miniature poodle sporting a sequined red, white and blue tank top and a headband that had two sequined stars at the end of spiraled wires, causing the stars to shake every time the dog moved. It was awesome. I haven't felt so patriotic in a long time, possibly ever. Living in Portland for so many years made me forget that most of my fellow Americans take great pride in this country and its policies and influence over the rest of the World. I talked with my Mom on the 4th and she mentioned that for the first time in 8 years she had decided to put out the American flag for the 4th of July. She said that this was the first time in a long time she has felt our country is headed in a positive direction. Let's hope her feelings are right.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Death, Destruction and Diatomaceous Earth

After we first arrived on the farm I tried to capture the feel as much as possible. We briefly left 85% of our music library on the back burner and listened to mostly country and bluegrass for the first month. At one point, both Marisa and I could recite all the words to John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy". Today is 4 months to the day that we started working here and now I listen mostly to Wilco, Spoon and an hilarious podcast called 'Jordan, Jesse, Go!', unless of course, the workload calls for something a bit heavier.

One of the biggest surprises I faced when becoming an organic farmer were the amount of hands on killing one has to do in order to save the crops from weeds and insects without the use of toxic pesticides and herbicides. One of these insects is the harlequin beetle which in the south is referred to as a stinkbug. They are reminiscent of a lady bug, but about four times bigger, with larger spots and a flatter back. Harlequins have a taste for braising greens. My first week on the farm I was instructed to strap on a backpack tank full of propane and connected to a blowtorch and torch an entire 300 ft row of infested kale. This sounded like a fun enough job. However, I had never attempted to burn a living vegetable before. It took an excessively long time. The kale immediately changed colors when the heat hit it. It looked surreal, cooked, yet still in the ground. The beetles jumped off the kale and crackled in the air. After 5 minutes of direct heat, the kale finally began to burn and I could move on to the next one. Kale being one of Marisa's favorite vegetables, she was horrified. It was a little difficult for me to have to do this in front of her. After all the romantic idolizing I did over the beauty of organic farming, I never thought once about mowing, weed whacking, spreading deadly earth based insect irritants and most of all, torching kale and a beetle of which I had never even heard. Luckily, I'm flexible. After the first 30 minutes I decided I needed to change the mood, so I reached down deep in my pocket and began scrolling the I-pod for something more appropriate than bluegrass compilations. I started with Jay Z's Black Album, then moved on to some random songs by Tupac. Nothing seems to epitomize the merciless annihilation of a beetle population, coupled with destroying perfectly good vegetables, than some gangster rap.

A couple of weeks later I was "asked" to spend 18 hours a week on a weed whacker. The whining roar of a two stroke engine and the thrashing of biomass just begs for headphones with the volume cranked up. When it comes to slaying just over half of the plants on the farm, I enjoy a little 'Appetite for Destruction' by Guns n' Roses. When I have to chop down an amaranth plant taller than myself, it feels appropriate to hear Axl Rose scream, "Welcome to the jungle baby, now you're gonna die!" I also find the intensity of Slash's guitar solos cover up the obnoxious ruckus of the task at hand quite nicely.

If you are looking for a chance to feel like the bad farmer in the animated classic, The Rats of Nimh, I recommend cruising between the rows on our lawn mower. When crushing habitats that the local rodents and lagomorphs have created in the few weeks since someone last mowed, I suggest either Merle Haggard or AC/DC. You may even have the opportunity to watch field mice and little bunnies run for their lives after the triple blade action transforms their residences into mulch. When I'm sabotaging fire ant holes with molasses and orange oil, I listen to 'This American Life'. It takes a great podcast to alleviate the long and boring job. I am also not entirely convinced that anything kills fire ants, so I don't need music to set the mood. Plus, I hate them and could probably slaughter a million of them while rocking out to Cat Stevens. More on fire ants in later posts.

The one action I do on a regular basis that I have not been able to find a fitting soundtrack for is spreading diatomaceous earth. Diatomaceous earth (referred to as DE in our field) has the consistency of talcum powder. DE is made out of tiny fossilized water plants. To insects, it is a lethal dust with microscopic razor sharp edges. These edges cut through the insects protective covering, drying it out and killing them when they are dusted. If they ingest the DE, it will shred their insides. Sick? Yes. Brutal? Definitely. Effective? The jury's still out. The softness of DE and its flower white color make me feel more like a baker than a farmer. It gets all over my hands, arms and face. When it's over 100 degrees and I am inevitably sweating out of every pore, it doesn't take long before I am covered from head to toe, like an Aboriginal holy man engaging in a ritual involving other realms of consciousness. This seems appropriate, being that at the moment I am a harbinger of death to thousands. I play the part with a constant sidestepping and squatting from plant to plant, while simultaneously shaking a magic powder in circles around eggplants and squash. Perhaps the missing piece in our music collection is something more indigenous.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Let's talk about....Bull Nettle


Hello friends. Please allow us to introduce one of the most beautiful, most unpleasant plants Texas hill country has to offer: Bull Nettle. Bull nettle is gorgeous. It is a vibrant green, reminiscent of that certain shade of moss found in the Cascades and is almost as neon as a Goodwill clearance price tag. It produces soft, crisp, white flowers that resemble the texture of a brand new, ultra-firm pillow. It also produces nasty, translucent spikes filled with poison. If you so much as brush up against one you will have an itchy welt for days and days. First, bull nettle stings. Then it burns. Then it itches like crazy! Quite frankly, bull nettle is the jerkstore of the plant kingdom. If bull nettle were personified, it would be that dude that goes to the bar just to start a fight. Whether alive or dead, its thorns get under your skin and stay there for days, leaving you with an itching, throbbing welt that makes every action painful. Bull nettle also grows rampantly across hill country. A good day for us is managing not to brush up against it before 8:30am. Tying 65 bunches of beets together under the hot Texas sunrise is hard enough without having to take the time to curse out a weed. Bull nettle has a way of vanishing in the undergrowth and jumping under your hand, just as you grasp and pull out a leek, like a deadly, miniature ninja hiding in the shadow of the squash plant.
Bull nettle also has an amazingly thick, complex, deep root system. When you pull it out, it just grows right back in a matter of days. The only way to get rid of it is to dig out the entire root system of every plant...an impossibility when you're also trying to run a working farm. This is just one of nature's many ways of punishing organic farmers. Coming soon.......fire ants, sunscreen and the best and worst aspects of living and working on a farm.









Thursday, June 18, 2009

Bienvenidos


Welcome to our blog. We hope you find it entertaining and at least slightly informative. The title came from the subject line of the first e-mail that my step-mom, Deb, sent us after we arrived at the farm. We thought it was quite fitting. Deb has encouraged me to write a blog for years and so I dedicate the first entry of this blog to her. At this point Marisa and I have been farming hill country Texas for just under 4 months. It's late June and the daily high has been hovering around 100 degrees for the last couple weeks and the daily low has not gone below 75 for at least three weeks. It is discouraging to learn that the peak of summer is close to 8 weeks away... However, I cannot even begin to describe how beautiful this place is and how boldly this experience has re-shaped our bodies and our perception of farming. I now find it very funny that so many people I meet think that our job couldn't be more relaxing. Although the setting out here amongst the live oaks and gentle breezes fits the perception, the work load does not! We are never entirely done with anything because there is always something to do. It would seem that nothing is really ever finished on a farm except for maybe the season. Our muscles are tired and sore and we fall asleep exhausted. Countless insects take nips of our flesh as we labor underneath the blazing sun. The heat causes delirium. Occasionally in the heat of the day it feels as if I step outside of my body and watch it as it continues to hoe and weed. Summer in Texas creates a lot of blank stares on peoples' faces and no matter how much water I drink it is never enough. The weeds never stop and on top of that we have ants from South America whose bite feels like a bee sting. But all and all, I think we can both say that it's the best gig of our lives.

Hi Everyone, it's Marisa. To be quite eloquent, ditto to everything Mark wrote. I never thought that I would be one to have a blog, but we've had enough people asking us if we have one or have ever thought of writing one that it seemed like we probably should. One thing I have learned down here is that Texans and Texas are two very different things. Texans are incredibly friendly and hospitable and all of them say "oil" and "soil" in a way that I love, but have not managed to replicate. Texas, on the other hand, is a beautiful yet cruel place. There are droughts, floods, hail, blazing sun, lightning strikes, fire ants, bull nettle, weeds with thorns that stick in your fingers for days, the kind of wind that makes a person feel crazy.....and yet, I still love it here. It's not the state that we plan on living in forever, but I feel lucky to be spending time here now. Another thing I have learned in the last 3.5 months is the incredible misconception I had about farming. I had this romantic idea that we would spend approximately six hours a day in the fields, 4-5 days a week and then I would have tons of time left over (and an excessive amount of energy) to continue all the hobbies I had in Portland and pick up new ones. This is incredibly false. On average we work 9 hour days, 5-6 and sometimes 7 days a week. And that excessive amount of energy I would have for all those hobbies? Nope. It's all I can do to eat the dinner that Mark makes and then watch a movie or some Office episodes. I did manage to sew my mother an apron for her birthday, so that was quite the accomplishment. I have also signed up to volunteer at the local Domestic Violence shelter and I also attended my first sign language class on Monday, so I'm doing things besides farming. All in all, I wouldn't trade what we're doing now for anything.