Mid-Summer

 There is something nostalgic and a little sad about particularly cool August mornings. For a moment it feels like it's suddenly September or October and luckily gives one a moment before it warms up to reflect on what needs to be done before the season's over and the days run short.

   I haven't canned enough. An early morning car retrival sent me into a brief panic over the blackberries drying on the cane. So far I've only made 2/3rds of a jar of fridge jam and its half gone already; and while blackberries are a summer treat, there's little nicer than a thick goop of spiced goodness on a piece of fresh toast on a rainy winter day.
     Green bricks of zuchini and green beans sit in my fridge. I've promised I'd freeze than (Edit: green beans have been frozen!) or remember to buy chocolate chips at the store for zucchini bread but I've been to busy and tired to follow through. I've pinky sworn to take care of them all this weekend. For one person and everyone I can pawn them off on, two zucchini plants are too many.

 While visiting a friend I've realized I don't even know where my swim suit is. It was packed up after a dreamy summer in the Sierra foothills with evening and weekends spent in the bubbling, crystal clear waters of the American River. And now, almost a year later still sit there, tucked away and never unpacked. Luckily the azure waters of Lake Crescent are about at the warmest so there is time yet for to soak for a time yet.

  Despite all that I'm lagging behind in (why did I think I could have an online shop opened by now?), and working 60-70 hours a week I have managed to snag some summer days and go out adventuring. Proud and still sore I hiked almost 10 miles round trip this past weekend to Tull Canyon- up, up, up past Tubal Cain Trail, the mine and past the hollowed and scavenged remains of a B-17 from the last century into hillsides of wild flowers, scree and stunted trees standing proud under a cloudless sky. There was a bear sighting on Hurricane Ridge while my parents visited after a rainy night camped out on Second beach. There have been day trips to Seattle and Port Townsend and in a few short weeks I'll be spending the weekend in San Francisco/ Meadow Vista for some much needed R&R.
 

     Summer has gone by fast and I"ve struggled to keep up with my plants-- there's been no lettuce at the farmers market for me the last two weeks, and won't be for another few weeks. Lesson learned. Next year I will certainly be laying down drip irrigation- I can't afford to have a whole succession bolt on me because I missed a watering. But the winter crops have been seeded and planted-- a mixed succession of gold and red beets as well as cold hardy radicchio who I have been spoiling with water every day. I've saved seeds from calendula, tulsi and moldavian balm and have plans for next year for better yields. The tulsi and balm were both amazingly tasty, but didn't produce quite enough for me to share. 

      Last week I bottled two new oils-- St. John's Wort (who will be featured in a future post- it is one of my favorites) and the second a blend of SJW, yarrow, sagewort, calendula, lavender, mint, comfrey and more for general pains, sprains, bumps and bruises. It's been helping my neck tension a lot and I'm glad to finally have it at market.

      I'll be at the Bainbridge Island Farmers Market tomorrow, with salves, lip balms, and oils. Fingers crossed for lettuce in the next couple of weeks, and a restocking of mint salves and new calendula-clover oil. Later I'll be vending at the Friends of the Friends Harvest Fair, with even more new goodies and possibly a small farm poetry zine.

   

 

Marsh mallow

Evening primrose

Midnight whispers and

Will o’ the whisp murmers.

Ankle deep in chilled grey waters

Meandering the sodden cattails

And iris stems.

2014

  
    
  
     

Solstice

 

     I had my fingers crossed all day yesterday for a clear evening to sit and bask in the full solstice moon but no luck. I basked in the glow of half-hidden mountains while harvesting linden flowers so I can never complain too much. The lovely, ambrosial scented blooms have been bringing out honeybees during the day-- I've been worried all spring having only seen a handful total. Like the bumblebees, it seems their populations took a hit this last winter. My farming mentors and a few other believe that hobby bee keepers are playing a role by not offering supplemental food in the winter, so not only do they introduce awful molds into the grapes on the vineyards trying to get at a source of fall sugar, they starve in the winter. Anyone who spends winter underground this winter certainly stood a chance of drowning, but there are many possible reasons yet, and that is a discussion for another day, for I should be discussing linden flowers!

     A wonderful member of the basswood family, these trees are a fantastic source of heart and soul healing. I had two growing at the house I grew up in and their scent was always a source of joy in the early summer-- a mark of school ending and countless hours watching bees and hummingbirds flit around the backyard. I have plans for a winter mood-lifting elixir pairing it with rose, lavender, calendula, monkey-flower and local honey; as well as a mead concoction that should happen in the next couple of weeks.

   

     Lately it feels like all I've had time to do is work (farm & regular), sleep and eat. In college I learned the importance of movie days once a month or so as an effective means of relaxing, so I gave myself last Sunday off. Otherwise here I am, 10:30pm after work and then designing my new business cards, writing about farming and life in the Salish Sea. It has it's perks though. Every day I get to eat delicious food, see bald eagles (above my freshly-hoed bed in the photo to the right-- look in the upper left corner), and grow fun crops like Hungarian Blue Poppies to flavor winter quick breads and cakes.

     Weeds certainly are job security. In my herb/misc beds I regret ever direct seeding anything. Only the already "weedy" California poppies are doing well. The dill is floundering (actually bough more seed to try transplanting my next succession), and the valerian/feverfew/leftover lemon balms/ whatever seeds all got lost in a tangle of bindweed and some solanaceous plant I don't care to let flower to more readily identify. I hoe my long bed once a week to keep it clean, but this other area needs to be combed through two or three times a week just to keep my little plants afloat.  

     In exciting news though not only are my luffa and futsu squash perking up, the first calendula are budding and I'm expecting a lot of flowers. Any recommendations on good herbal soap recipes? If there are too many for salves and lip balms and other delicious but non-sellable items I'd like to delve into soap-making as another way to gain some profit from these plants I've put so much time into (Waste not, eh?)

 

Predawn birdsong

forest

misty eyes, cloudy ears

blooming trills &

sweeping songs akin

to branches in wind

6/16

After Five Months

 Tulsi transplant  // Newly potted Jiaogulan // Selecting Black Fitsu to save seed from

 

     Now that the weather is consistently warming up time has sped up. I can still get away with weeding my lettuce/roots/bean bed once a week but my small herb garden space will be requiring two or three weedings a week to keep the sprouts down around the direct-seeded valerian and Californian poppies, and to continuously battle the morning glory vines with their hydra tenacity. Continually experimenting and learning-- right now the lesson is patience and accepting painfully repetitious work.

Hand watering lettuces before work

     While my little farm is mostly growing in a very literal sense, my plans for it are growing and branching out seemingly without end. While I still have a large end-goal of growing and crafting herbal tea blends, the legal aspects of this are proving to be beyond what I can do at this point-- not only do you need to have a commercial kitchen (this I was expecting), labels need to be approved and the product needs to be tested for safety. Essentially I need product ready to go just to begin the steps of having it approved to sell. I don't have the funds for this so I've found branching out in other creative ways helpful to pass the time and keep expanding my shop lines. This has been the first month selling my salves, lip balms and now produce at the Bainbridge Island Farmers Market.

First market on Bainbridge Island

 

     With my regular job repairing fly rods is about to shift into over time (oh the pain but also oh the savings) I do expect progress to be slow. My spare time is spent looking for wild plants to harvest, begging my direst-seeded herbs to germinate already come-on-its-been-three-weeks-where-are-you, formulating blends for yummy salves and lip balms and trying to find connections. It is a lot of work but I have herbs on my side (huge shout out to gotu kola and nettles!) and passion tempered by knowledge of my physical limits (huger shout out to college!).

 

 

Heath flowers for a personal elixir // Flower essence in the Pinot Noir //  Wonderful nettle blend

 

     Oh if I only had a way to share this formula with others. Inspired by the abundance of strength-building stinging nettles that grow like a mad biting jungle with a heart of gold; the sweet essence of elderflowers that stand in testament to the vitality they protect; and the ability of tigers eye to maintain a strong sense of Self amidst the seas of work and Calling I crafted two bottles sweetened with North Kitsap honey for a myself and a dear friend who is very involved with the Seattle food system to build strength and pervert burnout. They taste like Green and Growing and leave a warm energetic lively buzz in my heart-center.
     Last summer through a workshop with Sylvia Linsteadt I was introduced to, and fell madly in love with flower and plant essences. Their subtle but profound effect has moved me this last year and helped give a large area of focus I want to have Sun & Bee to have that fits in beautifully with my Long Term Goals. This past fall I felt called to work with stones-- to move beyond just collecting and to collaborate with them for healing. The formula I described was the result of a winter of extensive study and my first experiment combining herb, flower and stone medicines. As someone who has always balanced adoration for fact-based sciences and emotion fueled arts, this kind of work is incredibly satisfying and grounding for me, a way of bringing all these different aspects of myself together to Create and Heal.

All that remains of the cane burning

       Cane Burning // Traditionally in the early spring all of the vineyard canes that have been pruned from their trunks are gathered together and burned in a ritual to let go of the old year and welcome the new growing season. Standing with my heart to the blaze I realeased my fears and quiet-spoken doubts that tell me "You will fail" I poured all my anger and frustrations from the last year into a single grape cane and threw it onto the pile to be destroyed in a magical community event at the farm I am lucky enough to both live and work on. Fifty or sixty others did the same and the event was joyous. All that remains are the ashes, and eventually they will be plowed and tilled into the rich soil to grow a future harvest.

From Shine Tidelands // Saw my first orca

 



snowy chandelier and

forests of fern cradle

a wren's ocean serenade 

-Shine Tidelands, 5/29
 

 Your farmer//resident weed-witch, Sabrina
Sun & Bee Farm
 

     Fun Finds

• This nature journal made during a trek in the Sierra Nevada
• "Method" a poem by Tess Taylor
• "Landspeak" by Robert McFarlane in Orion Magazine