The Life and Times of the Plume

This was a growing season the bards will write ballads about! They will sing about it in roadside taverns as they swill malted brews, strum mandolins, and rattle tambourines!

I picked a peck of raspberries in the third week of October! Can you even imagine? In the early morning, on October 23rd, mother nature finally offered up a killing frost that zapped my dahlias and I considered my growing season over when those beauties bloomed their last blooms. I still had rows and rows of carrots, beets, bokchoys, and salad greens that survived the frost. In point of fact, I didn’t officially close my garden down until November 7th when I had a girlfriend here who helped me do the last of my root vegetable digging. It’s good to finally be done with it though I have five large crates of carrots and beets in the garage that need to be dealt with in the next couple of days. I’ll do some pickling, some fermenting, and I’ll stuff whatever I can in the fridge. What a terrific growing year. I had my hands in the soil for nearly nine months this year. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

We moved our garlic plot to a different corner of the farm this summer and after prepping soil, we planted 8700 future garlics with the help of friends. This is five times what we harvested this year on the farm and we’re excited to see how this crop turns out.

While we had our friends here to help us out with garlic planting, we procured a farm feast of various vegetables to serve alongside a whole roasted piglet. Some of you get really upset with us for raising our own pigs for meat and lard so allow me to explain what happened here. Stan was born in June, as some of you might recall. When we set out to castrate the two male piglets in the litter, we discovered Stan had a testicular hernia (you find out AFTER you make the incision) and when we castrated him his intestines popped out of the incision and it was a real pickle of a situation. Testicular hernias are an occasional issue with male piglets and most farmers simply put the piglet down because at some point the hernia will rupture. Male piglets must be castrated if they are not intended to become breeding boars because their hormones will taint their meat (this is called “boar taint”). We put him back together and stitched him up and raised him as we raised our other piglets — free ranging on pasture and orchard fall.

Well, Stan had a grand and frolicsome summer and he grew big, like a zucchini on a drip system! A few days before we planted the garlic, Stan was clearly feeling unwell. Upon closer inspection, we could see his hernia had opened and he was extremely uncomfortable. We made the decision to put him down. Robert had the idea to roast him whole and share the meal with our garlic planting friends and so we did and it was an incredible meal. Some of you might judge us for this and I’m alright with hearing your opinion on the matter of how we procure our food here. I will say this, there is a reason why I treat my livestock like the kings and queens they are. They are given the best of everything and it makes a difference for them, and for us, when we prepare to add them to our larder. We remain deeply grateful to be practicing food sovereignty to this degree in this modern age when most things are easy, at our fingertips, one click away. This work takes daily choosing. Every meal is a feast of remembrance.

I do want to regale you with a quick pig story from the summer months. I walked out to my herb garden one day to find that the pigs had managed to infiltrate the 30×30 foot space and dig up most of my herbs and flowers with their snouts. It looked like a war zone. My entire drip system had been torn up and was geysering water in every direction, flooding low spots which the pigs then used as wallows. It was a disaster. I felt a righteous anger that burned with the fire of a thousand suns. I had been tending this space for three years and beautiful swaths of mature perennial herbs and flowers grew with absolute magnificence alongside the raspberry patch and asparagus rows. I was heartbroken for days until I changed my perspective. My pigs destroyed the winsome beauty of that little garden (and it truly was winsome, people often asked me if the fairies lived there) but they also converted all that beauty into muscle and fat. In the end, I decided fair is fair — the pigs ate the herb garden and I plan to eat the pigs.

The other thing that has helped me emotionally recover from the herb garden massacre is that we dreamed we might use this specific garden space as a future greenhouse space. The future has arrived! A few days ago we measured and staked out our rough building idea with our friend who is helping us with the design and build and we’ll begin the process in February. This is a huge expansion for us, it’s a big greenhouse at 30×16 feet (these are the dimensions in this moment, we might have to trim it down). It will not be a hoop house, either. I want to clarify that we are building a wood and glass structure that will be plumbed and powered. Adjacent to the greenhouse will be an earthen root cellar dug into a sidehill. I’m actually really nervous about it, about spending money on building something like this…it’s perfectly practical but I tend to be trigger shy on big investments like this.

This fall we have had unlikely visitors at the farm! Blue Jays, approximately five of them, have been living with us and feasting on the five hundred sunflowers I planted in the garden. These are an eastern bird and while I have looked at many migratory maps online I do believe we are on the very very very edge of their range and what lured them to our property is all the beautiful forage I planted in the early spring. Nothing delights me more than to see the way my green thumb provides for more than my own household. We have spent hours beholding the jaunty antics of these birds and when they move on, we’ll feel their absence.

The world feels on the brink of collapse these days, chaos compounds chaos, and one reality, one truth that gives me a sense of stability and calm is having my roots wound down deep into this volcanic soil in this river canyon. I have turned my sight from far away things and have locked my eyes and heart on my immediate geographical location — where my voice counts and is heard, where my charity has an effect, where people know my name. I have planted my roots down deeper in the wispy and wild thing they call a community and it feels good. I’m here to share with you the beauty of life. I’m here to love you. I’m here to bring some light.

I hope you are all well. I always find myself wishing I could stuff you all into this little house and cook you a farm feast.