Just Arrived!

Mother Earth News's "111 Modern Homesteading Articles" on CD ROM. As soon as this powerful, moving, and overwhelming national conference is over (I worked 14 hours yesterday through moving speeches, tears, and laughter) I am going to devour every 111th article.

Moving day is tomorrow. Soon we will post pictures of the land in all of it's beauty. My two major concerns are the supposed locust infestation (we'll see just to what extent the locusts have damaged plants and what different people mean by infestation) and a red fungus on the cottonwood trees, which will be a really big bummer to chainsaw down. My immediate remedy? TEAS! Chamomile, comfrey, and nettles brewed into a medium to light-strengthed tea sprayed on flora can cure many ills. This is my favorite journey so far...

Community Mesquite Bean Milling

i am so inspired by they way community comes together in tucson, especially around rainwater harvest and mesquite bean milling and use. i was talking to a friend at the farmer's market saturday who is also interested in somehow cooperatively purchasing a hammermill so we can grind and use all of the nutritious and delicious mesquite beans that go to waste every year in our city. check out the hammermill page to see what the community in Tuscon is doing with their cooperatively owned hammermill! we can grind, make and sell flour, and have a community mesquite pancake breakfast! who else might be interested? check out www.desertharvesters.org for ideas, and let's purchase our own hammermill!

New Book on the Way

just ordered based on recommendation from tiny farm.

Ms. Widow Transplanted

look who we accidentally transported. i felt really terrible uprooting her from her beautiful Gila Wilderness home, but somehow she moved into our pots and pans and wound up spinning her trademark web in our kitchen sink. my tendency is to simply work around them, but david saw her while i was out of the house, took pictures of her, and then gently moved her to the grapevine in the backyard. i am looking forward to seeing who else we run into in the days ahead. last night we sat in the backyard with friends brainstorming (still) the coming weeks - how we are going to "plot" the land for planting, positioning, what to do with the mines (i want to go spelunking) where to place the greenhouse. finally, grace is home and i will post more about her with a fresh picture later today! for the love of pachamama...

thought for the day

you cannot plant the seeds until you plant the water. i will save seed planting for very last to ensure great soil, sufficient compost, and sufficient support from all of the elements including all of my friends. thank you...

master of ceremonies?

i would not consider myself the obvious choice, but i found my name in the final program. that's right, you heard it here first. no warning, no pleading, just print. black and white. the program can be found at http://malcs.nmsu.edu then clicking on the 'institute schedule' on the left hand colum. in addition to my talk on saturday afernoon, i was chosen to MC the "noche de cultura" on friday night. this will be the first time, and maybe the last, i ever stand before a crowd of 300+ in an auditorium and attempt funny and articulate with fear pulsing my veins. as the boxes pile up around us and the sorting and packing continue, anticipating grace's arrival home on friday and working hard on the city council campaign, i am stunned and flabergasted... did any of this make sense?

all things beautiful

my overjoyed brother and his beautiful bride after they read their vows.





her amazing silver work. the peruvian turquoise bracelet she made me.

Stone "rusting" (or night-time thievery)

there is an underground, black-market, illicit stone trade. according to the Stone Wall Initiative, one must take great care in getting fresh stone and understanding where these stones originate because, and i quote, "some quarries are really yards where strip-mined stone is gathered, sorted, and sold." but while i was chuckling to myself about the seedy side of gathering rocks, i ran across a website, The Stone Foundation, in Santa Fe that i thought was really cool. because there are old mine shafts yet unexplored on the property, i am interested in experimenting with different decorative yet useful stone walls around the different sections of the farm. this will be a very nice 'extension' of the mountain and i wonder how it might help keep the fox, rattlers, deer and other wildlife on the other side of it while helping to retain moisture inside - yes, i am dreaming and designing and really hoping someone volunteers to help on this one!

Panty Hose, Hot Peppers, and Tea Bags....

with my 'alternative' mind-set i normally try to avoid popular or mainstream publications that i always feel leave out options, variations, diversity, etc. etc. BUT, because we rely on hulu.com and netflix for our viewing entertainment, meaning no television, we are sometimes left with the need to hit the local video store - in this case, hastings. so yesterday, i just sort of wandered the store, something i rarely do as it's usually a get-in-and-get-out operation, and what did i stumble across? well, just a strange book after my own heart. (another note, i never buy brand-new books because COAS is so spectacular). can i use old phone books in my garden? why yes, and here is how... what do you do with a bungee cord and two plastic one gallon jugs? why, here's an idea... Got an old box fan that's beyond repair? Well, do we have a suggestion for you...

i am not one easily impressed by "1,000 Ways to Do Things" lists of any sort, but i must say, this book was written for me. the one who says, 'surely this can be used for something...' i also feel awkward in the presence of the word 'yankee' so technically this book should not have caught my eye, but i cannot put it down, and now i will know exactly, precisely how to use all of the old 'junk' laying around on the land to make my farming life way more enjoyable. lesson: yes. it's about judgment. ha!

Everybody Eats

http://www.yesmagazine.org/store/images/Poster_EverybodyEats_large.jpg

hungry for piñones

she told him about how
she used to sit beneath the piñon trees
throwing pieces of pottery
as common as rocks and there for us kids to find

how she did her first chew
with Shannon's Indian dad
by the truck on Indian land
on the other side of the acequia and barbed wire fence

about her loin-cloth
spear and war-paint games
on subconcious knowledge
of the savage land that created her

how she climbed the mesas
and ran with the overflowing arroyos
tracking prints and arrowheads as free as rain
peddling old bikes down dirt roads to secret destinations

she told him how she grew up
and now she misses her wild side
remembering the last time she howled like wolf
swooped and sailed like red tail hawk

eating piñones like careless exploration, shell and all

i'm feeling a bit nostalgic - i wrote this poem about my childhood growing up nestled in the Nambe reservation in northern new mexico. my grandfather's rosary was beautiful, packed with family and old friends, a wonderful time capsule video of his life, and everyone cheered and clapped at the end. my eyes stung from crying. family i hadn't seen in twenty years held my face. this morning we go back for the burial, to put my grandfather, my papi memo, in the ground. it's sprinkling outside and the mourning dove call. today i miss all of my friends.

Food Independence Day

Food Independence Day

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