last friday A bought a car from a friend of his and named it bikey junior. (bikey senior is, of course, his bike. bikey junior is quite a few years older than bikey senior. details, details.) on tuesday afternoon we drove bikey junior to the oakland airport to pick up a woman named tori, and then we drove across the richmond–san rafael bridge and through the woods in marin county. found the unmarked turn to bolinas and arrived at commonweal gardens just a few minutes before the last light of the day disappeared. A stayed for dinner and then we reverse-engineered the directions we used so he could find his way home to berkeley again.
i live here now. i am one of eight work-traders (a.k.a. farm homies) who will be living, learning, and working here until the end of the august. i have been here for three days. they have been PACKED. my brain is full. i imagine that soon my muscles will be sore. i am not sure where to begin and i am TIRED, so here are some small bites of the big meal i’ve been cooking and eating (and soon, growing).
* goats will mistake their reflection in the side of cars for other goats and headbutt them. haven’t witnessed this, but penny’s car i guess is a little banged up. we have to make sure the goats stay on the other side of the fence.
* kyle knows lots about wild and native edibles, so every once in awhile he’ll hand us pieces of plants and we’ll stick them in our mouths and then ask, “so what was that?”
* owls hoot and frogs sing all night.
* we are totally off the grid as far as water goes. we are also at the top of our watershed—or near the top, and above us is all national park land. this land is leased from the national park system, in fact. anyway, we’ve been shown the springbox and the filters and the tanks and the piping and the shut-off valves. later in my time here we’ll be running pipe from a pond in the next valley over to the east in order to make water a little less tight at the end of the dry season.
* the other day we walked from the farm through pasture and along the stream to the ravine where it drops down to the ocean—the other end of the watershed. we walked along the foggy cliffs above the sea. i found a piece of raccoon jaw.
more more MORE soon. and i’m going to start taking photos.
