I’ve been living up on the farm now for over two weeks – after St. Louis I
took a week in SF, and 2 very brief visits to Eugene and Portland.
This is the first time I've had my own space in 8 months, and I'm living in a trailer by myself, surrounded by ferns and blackberries. On the farm there are six other adults and six little girls, ranging from 4 months to thirteen years old. We’ve been doing work on a new cabin that is almost totally complete and the nicest structure on all the property – after one month of hard work and less than $5000 on materials and pay for the resident expert. A LOT of work was done on salvaged materials.
My friend Matt, who owns Feral Farm and is an encyclopedia on wild
edibles, turns out like myself, has a fondness for abandoned structures.
So about a week ago we took a day to venture out to Shannon Lake (fo’real) and pick a salad, which was in the end just violet flowers. Along the shore sat our monolith temple “the Concrete Factory.” It’s quite like other monstrous abandoned factories I’ve explored, but more mossy and “Devil’s Tower,” as the locals refer to the highest indoor point, has a view over Shannon Lake of a line of cascades, humbled my Mt. Baker towering in the middle. We picnicked there on our flowers and bread
and oysters.
Yesterday we traveled back to Shannon Lake to canoe around all day at a pace of like .5 miles per hour... woke up totally sore. We stopped at all the different soil types we came across and I had my first experience with quick sand, I almost lost my boot... Instead i pulled it out and wore it all muddy and uncomfortable. But it was a beautiful and exhausting day.
Life here has been great so far. Last Monday's potluck brought out Matt
and a few regualrs from Feral Farm, the whole Finney Farm group, guitars, banjos, dancing (belly dancing lessons, even), sauna, mead, Franzia, and the Ramen Noodle of
Rural Life: NETTLES. Man I could never eat nettles again.
So I'm happy, settled down for a minute to give all you worriers a break from worrying about me. I'll post pictures soon, you've got to see how ugly my trailer is. Man oh man.
