I Love Muley

Apple Pie for my Last Day of Work in the Field

I cut out a paper tree and birds to use as a stencil for the cinnamon.
Yum!!! Came out of the oven even prettier than it went in (but no photo to prove it).

Sleep Well, Garden Bed

Lettuce carrot to the beet of peas
I've bean corny so long
I squashed the tomatoes and peppered the potatoes
Bean out in the garden too long

An organic grown is coming from a watermelon
See what my honeydew
She parsleys with a parsnip and turns into a turnip
I never know what she's into

There's eyes and ears and heads in these beds
Don't radish the celery
I got plum peachy with a pear of boysenberries
And brussels sprouted the broccoli

~The Barefoot Farmer

Rewired

Well, since our house became rewired to the internet a few weeks ago, I guess I don't have so many excuses not to keep up with myself here. And since a real writer should be able to write about the mundane, and not only while adventuring, I really don't have ANY excuses not to write.

This week I came down to Los Angeles to visit one of my brothers. LA is a real zap out of my normal reality. Here are a few key things I've noticed so far.

1. space
2. space
3. real homeless people
4. fancy shiny people

And in more depth:

1. SPACE FOR THINGS:
Okay, my first concern is space. Incredibly, in places like this where there are so many buildings forever, country things must be put inside of city spaces. For example, I am used to gas stations and service centers being on the edges of town.

Where I grew up, gas stations were never in the thick of the city, and service centers were usually somewhere next to a corn field or an intersection or behind somebody's barn next to a pile of tires. Well, here, if you put the gas stations all on the outside, you'd never be able to get to them in time when you needed them. It would take far too long. So things like gas stations, service stations, and even things like grocery stores and pet supply stores are all mixed up in one mad jumble.

Because there's no space to give them their own space.

City streets aren't just for restaurants and bike shops and bookstores, I guess. I had forgotten. My God! In the parking garage where I parked yesterday, a Trader Joe's appeared to be connected to the very parking levels! It was very beautiful for me, because I was so hungry and I could buy a fresh apple right away.

And my second concern: space.

2: SPACE FOR PEOPLE
My second space concern is space as it relates to people and their explorations. This is how it happened. I was having lunch with Chris and his friend and I suddenly thought: "I wonder where Chris's power tools are? I wonder if Chris gets to build anything here? He's so good at building things, what if he forgets how?"

And then I had lots of memory images brush forefont: Chris building his house, working on his car, making the barn apartment, roofing and siding our house, cutting up firewood with the chainsaw, and so on. And then I thought... but there's no space!!! Where would he do any of that, let alone store things like chainsaws or carpentry tools in a place where space rents for tens of dollars per square foot?

Of course my first worries were that Chris might not be using some of his great skills, and I felt sad at the thought he wasn't measuring things and installing windows and so on, because he's so clever at such things. But then I also thought about how he gets to fool around every weekend hang-gliding and surfing and camping and hiking and rock climbing. And he does seem very happy. It is understandable to me that people might prefer hang-gliding to nailing down asphalt singles.

But I kept thinking about it. I think he and many other people work all day and then they get to fool around at night and on the weekends. I began thinking "why don't I get to fool around?" and I decided it was because I have a mule and garden and two jobs at living-wage pay.

Why do I have a garden? I asked myself. And I know why. Besides all of the beauty and joy and fascination... I like to have something to invest in. My ultimate goal, really, is to have my own house so I can spend my time planting fruit trees and shearing sheep.

And I can see that living here in LA, where space is awfully limited, investing in the space around you might not come as naturally. Because where does one have room to make anything for herself? Or himself?

And so it's an interesting thought that there might be this huge workforce (and I imagine them all to be single and 30 and living in rentals) that goes to work each day to help complete somebody else's project, and then gets off work and spends the rest of their time playing. Work and play. Work and play.

It seems like a happy leisurely thing for the short-term, but I would grow nervous with it in the long term, not having time to invest in my personal surroundings... building and planting, you know (geez, I'm such an agrarian). I suppose I see my current life as "work for them, work for me, work for them, work for me" or "their projects, my projects..." rather than work/play. And that's my own choice, for all my whining about being too busy.

But here's the ridiculous part... for all my talk of INVESTING -- which in my case means a vegetable garden and some mason jars -- I have no money saved, but my brother does. Which means he'll own his own home on some tropical island and be cutting his own firewood again (for fun) while I'll still be in some rental wondering whether to use my last garden bed for potatoes or garlic.

#3 and #4: REAL HOMELESS PEOPLE AND FANCY SHINY PEOPLE
The homeless people here are very different from the homeless people in Corvallis.

The ones here keep their belongings in carts, beg for money and food, have cardboard signs, and have sensible cardboard sleeping shelters.

The homeless people in Corvallis have sleeping bags and sometimes tents, often bicycles, don't beg (because they have more money than I do?), and party in central park and the church parking lot ALL DAY LONG with endless bags of booze and cigarettes.

It's like people who are homeless for a living versus people who are homeless for the hell of it. Our homeless people have much more fun than the ones here in LA, who look a little stressed out and unhappy (except for the ones I saw dancing on the beach).

Fancy shiny people also live here in LA, and there are many more of them than homeless people. The fancy shiny people have fancy shiny clothes, cars, and hair. They are more fun to watch than the homeless people because they seem happier and have more energy. Also, they have more gadgetry that I don't understand. They often come in pairs or in small pods, like whales. Only they aren't like whales at all. They're more like jingling butterflies. Are they even human? They are so otherworldly. But sure enough, below the wings, they still have an insect body.

Ha ha. They'll never transcend the rest of us completely.

~April

Canning Season!

Ah, I'm back in Corvallis after a lovely 10-day trip back to Pennsylvania to visit my family. What greeted me back in Oregon but a big patch of HUGE green beans! Hey! Most of them were too big to use, but I stripped the vines and was still able to put up several batches of very delicious pickled beans for those wet dark days of the Pacific Northwest winter.

This morning, on a whim (and with two free hours) I decided to run to the edge of town to buy a box of peaches. They were so ripe and perfect that they ended up in the pressure canner before they even knew what was happening. If those won't cheer me up in December, nothing will. Beautiful jars of sweet yellow peaches!

Nothing like the delight of harvest season. And the blackberries are just beginning! Back in Pennsylvania, blackberries never seemed like a very worthwhile fruit. But just try the blackberries out here -- sweet and enormous and dark and wonderful.

Well, that's about as much rejoicing as I have time for now. I've got an appointment at 5:30 sharp!

Finally time for a new post, I guess... it's been quite a while. In brief, I'm still in Corvallis, still lovin' up Honeychild, and still dreaming of adventure.

The winter was a dark and wet one -- I suppose that's the typical deal here in the Pacific Northwest. Now that the sun is returning to the land once again and the daffodils have popped up, all is forgiven. And the daffodils -- I'm not kidding! I've seen more varieties here than in my entire life. You can't travel a hundred feet it seems, in town or country, without coming across a patch of them. Downtown Corvallis seems like an endless bed of them, in fact, at least compared to any other city I've lived in.

And what do I do besides gape at daffodils? I'm still working at the same little bookstore (Grass Roots) as when I first arrived here in Corvallis last September. You can check out our website to see what I'm reading (click on "staff picks"). I get to do a lot of reading (though still not as much as I'd like) and also enjoy getting to peruse gallies (pre-published drafts publishing houses send us to help generate hype and reviews). I also get to do some writing, mostly for our weekly newsletter and other little things like that.

Right now we are in the midst of National Poetry Month so my job has actually become even better than usual. Each day I get to send a poem out to our mailing list with some commentary. We also post the poems on our website. It's been a blast choosing poems for the month (the other girls I work with have been helping with this, too) --- it's like getting to compile my own anthology. We even started receiving submissions from local poets! I've been loving the entire project because it forces me to immerse myself in poetry for at least an hour or so each day. I wanted to avoid printing too many poets that folks were already familiar with, so it's been great finding new sources, too. My favorite recent find is Al Zolynas -- a brilliant contemporary poet who lives and teaches in California. Oh -- and I get to set up some poetry readings, too. Tragedy of tragedies, one of my favorite local poets is out of town for the month...

And you may be curious about Honeychild. She's become quite a favorite out at the stable for her verbosity and begging skills. Ooooh she loves her oats! Folks can't even walk past her stall without her nickering and grunting and smooching out her lips in classic "give me a treat and scratch my ears" body language. That said, she's actually fairly distrustful of most people beside me. I really wish I had some folks who could hang out with her a little to help socialize her. I rode her a few days ago afer a winter off and she was terrific - we even went on a little trail ride. I've been ground driving her, too, and she always seems eager to please. She's finally gotten to move back outside again recently and is totally full of herself... ah, spring.



What else? I've been making lots of sourdough bread and sourdough pancakes with the starter I was given back in Montana last summer. I made a rye starter, too, which is proving itself to be quite tasty. I've been getting fresh cow's milk from some folks outside of town so I've bene making butter, too, and tonight I made my first cheese (a very easy soft variety -- it's resting now and should be ready in a few hours). I'm really looking forward to a summer of gardening and harvesting and putting up food...

In the next few weeks I'll start working part time at a small seed company that operates out of Gathering Together Farm, a CSA/restaurant that is located in the next town over (Philomath). I've got a good garden going at my house (right in downtown Corvallis) which I started last fall -- I've been eating lots of greens and even turnips out of it for the past month or so, and have lots of other goodies on the way. My housemates and I have accumulated the materials for a chicken coop and are planning on getting that built in the next week or so so we can keep two little hens in the back yard.

Well, I suppose that's all for now. I know this post was mostly newsy but I felt like I had to get everybody caught up a little bit. I'll get some stories up here soon.

Love to all.

P.S. For my birthday a few weeks ago I took a trip out to the coast and into the Drift Creek Wilderness area. The photos are from that trip...

Papercuts, Under the Stars

April and Honeychild to Collaborate in Papercut Venture

Keep your eyes open and your ears pricked for the new line of papercut stationary from April and Honeychild. What better team than a mulish muse and a girl who likes knives? Coming soon: stargazing ducks and Muley's interpretation of spring.