Bleeding Berries

They are here; a corporeal translation of sunshine. They drink it up and grow dark and fat to the point where they burst open and bleed their insides down the vines. I try to save them all, but then it is me who starts to bleed. Like blood brothers we stand in this thorny clubhouse sharing our secrets and then eating them up. I crush and mash and juice and jam these jewels in the scorching heat of summer, hoping that when I taste them again in the cold winter mornings I will feel this heat and the sun making me sweat.
The logans are the first to come ripe. They are big, matte, burgundy berries that carry a luxurious reputation around here. People clamor to buy up our supply, and I get excited about the new positive cash flow. Next come our ever bearing raspberries that we just let Gus and Freja have at and fill their bellies whenever they are in the garden, call it keeping the natives happy. Next come the Cascadeberries, my favorite tasting berry, but also my toughest berry to pick and sell. Each berry is like a jewel, black, shiny, multifaceted, and thorny as hell. They have this tiny window of ripeness, pick them too soon and they are tart tart tart, as a friend said: "only a true berry lover would dare eat these", pick them too late and they melt in your hand Macbeth style. These berries do not look as glamorous as the logans or as familiar as the raspberries, and maybe part of why I like them so much is their underdog status. I love the look on peoples' faces once they have tasted a perfectly ripe berry, preferably still warm from the sun. They marvel at the complexity of the taste, the way the memory of the berry lingers well after it is gone. I get terribly defensive when people turn down buying the cascades and opt instead for the familiar, the predictable. But when I do find someone willing to step up and taste, buy, and come back for more cascades I find they are the kind of people I love to be around.
We seek out reflections of ourselves in friendship. It is easy to find the sweetness, conviviality, and classic good traits in a friend. But you know that someone really loves you when they risk the thorns and embrace you completely. I love what we are growing and making here on our little farm. I love our friends old and new. And I love berries.

Plowing into Summer

We blink, and here we are growing into Summer. In just a few days we will be permanently planted at the farm. The remodel is almost done, and we are so anxious to be farming and living in the same spot that we bought, and erected, an 18 foot ti pi in our field so we may start living on the farm before the paint is even dry on the walls.

We were blindsided by the amount of work it would take to orchestrate the remodel of the farmhouse while simultaneously pushing forward with our plans to double the size of our garden and convert the entire farm to biodynamic. We struggled to keep up with both weeds and potlucks, school recitals and unforeseen downpours on tender plants. Finally we learned to give in, but not necessarily give up, and nourish the parts of our lives we want to root and grow, and let the other parts grow feral.

As I spend hours, days, weeks, pulling weeds, rotating crops, and answering questions of sub-contractors I am reminded of the struggles Toby and I went through when we became parents. We thought we were prepared after watching my belly swell over the better part of a year, reading multiple books on the topic, and asking everyone we knew lots of "probing questions". Yet, when first Gus, and then Freja arrived on the scene they seemed to repeatedly remind us that we knew little or nothing about parenting or even ourselves. Something happens to you when you become a parent, I do not care who you are, or how balanced and centered you think you are before hand. Parenting is an all or nothing affair; intense and refocusing.

Since becoming parents Toby and I learned that we had to let go of who we thought we were before and not try to label who we are now or hope to be. We had to let go of control, and hang on for the ride. It took us a few years as a family to figure that out, and perhaps not by coincidence, when we finally started to realize what it took to be a solid, happy family we bought this little farm out here on Vashon. This past year we watched ourselves be reborn yet again, as Toby lost a job, Amy went back to a job, Gus and Freja carved out their own educational and social paths, and we all learned a little about what it takes to farm.

So here we are, on the precipice yet again of an exciting, intense, and exhausting adventure. There is little time to sit around, the weeds are always growing and the berries are coming ripe. Peas are picked daily, and the kids are turning green from eating so many vegetables; or maybe just from lack of baths. Toby is settling in to his "new" job as VP who gets to ride a motorcycle to work each day. And I am still scratching my head trying to figure out the best way to grow a peach, the fastest way to bake a good loaf of bread, and the most fun way to teach ornery teens trigonometry. We love this life for all of its ups and downs, and remind ourselves that a life worth living has both.

Tick Tock

My apologies upfront for the lack of postings this last month. Those of you with gardens, and or farms, are probably nodding along with me when I tell you that May is planting month around here. We rushed to fill every spare minute with a seed in a hole, trough, hill, flat, and sometimes just threw thing out and wished them good luck. We almost got everything into an appropriate place, but I still have a few pounds of Ozette potatoes and a handful of winter squash seeds that need to be tucked under some soil pronto.

Our big deal right now, besides finishing up building the farmhouse and moving in this month, is that we had a major crop failure in the orchard. Pollination went great for pears, peaches, plums, and cherries, but the apples did not do well. We ended up with crazy weather right around the time of apple bloom and almost no blossoms were turned into fruitlets and what did emerge was munched by a sudden attack of leafroller caterpillers.

So please pardon me while I juggle yet another ball, finish up the teaching/school year, rescue our orchard, plan our summer crops, throw out my chin and say glad out and give you all a proper posting in a few more days. In the meantime please give thanks for what you eat and those of us who grew it!

The Place We Want to Be...

We are now, officially, in the weeds. This was a term I was familiarized with when I waited tables more than a decade ago. We would say someone was in the weeds if they had more than five tables ordering the same course at the same time, and probably had other tables that needed some special attention and a long line of hungry customers waiting for a table. If it was a good day in the restaurant everyone pitched in to pull you out of the weeds, filling up water glasses that were dreadfully low, delivering a dish to the proper table when it was hot out of the kitchen, and generally just helping to maintain the flow of the place. If it was a bad day, you found yourself in the weeds and when you looked around for help everyone else was in the weeds too. Those days went incredibly slow, earned ridiculously little in the way of tips, and usually ended up in a crazy nightmare reliving the whole sorry day at two in the morning. Fast forward fifteen years...

The remodel of the farmhouse is in full swing. So far the demolition, plumbing, concrete floors with hydronic heat, and the framing are done. Electrical will be done by next Tuesday and insulation should get done by the end of the week. Things are humming, but there is always more. I started consulting at the local private school three days a week, and Toby has finally turned consulting work into a full-time gig. These two things added into the remodel/living in a rental and trying to grow a farm just put us over the edge. The rental house is in total chaos with growing chicks in one of the bathrooms, seedlings growing on the kitchen table, dust bunnies so big they scare the cats, and a kitchen counter hidden somewhere under cookbooks and empty jars from the winter stores of pickles, jams and preserves. The farm itself if very forgiving, and we are grateful for the perennial berries coming back along with the rhubarb, and the orchard waking up and beginning to bloom. There is no way we can keep up with everything these days, but somehow our friends and family feel the vibe and are all pitching in to pull us out of the "weeds".

From building berry trellises to selling us plant starts, to feeding us dinner, we feel supported and uplifted. Just when we feel like we want to throw in the towel and cry, someone drives up the driveway for a visit and an encouraging hug. Others remind us that they want to buy produce and eggs from us when we are fully operational, and that alone is motivational. Bees have been gifted to us by wonderful neighbors, and sage advice has saved our skin more than once. This community, this time in our lives, is seeing a lot of uncertainty. We all struggle, stumble, worry. We all have strengths, passions, abilities. What seems to keep us sane, what keeps the weeds at bay, and what keeps us going are the neighbors we find ourselves among right here.

The Art Of Being A Neighbor

As heard on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, April 12, 2009.

I used to believe in the American dream that meant a job, a mortgage, cable, credit, warrantees, success. I wanted it and worked toward it like everyone else, all of us separately chasing the same thing.

One year, through a series of unhappy events, it all fell apart. I found myself homeless and alone. I had my truck and $56.

I scoured the countryside for someplace I could rent for the cheapest possible amount. I came upon a shack in an isolated hollow four miles up a winding mountain road over the Potomac River in West Virginia.

It was abandoned, full of broken glass and rubbish. When I pried off the plywood over a window and climbed in, I found something I could put my hands to. I hadn't been alone for twenty-five years. I was scared, but hoped the hard work would distract and heal me.

I found the owner and rented the place for $50 a month. I took a bedroll, broom, rope, a gun, and cooking gear, and cleared a corner to camp in while I worked.

The locals knew nothing about me. But slowly, they started teaching me the art of being a neighbor. They dropped off blankets, candles, tools, and canned deer meat, and they began sticking around to chat. They asked if I wanted to meet cousin Albie or go fishing, maybe get drunk some night. They started to teach me a belief in a different American dream—not the one of individual achievement but of neighborliness.

Men would stop by with wild berries, ice cream, truck parts, and bullets to see if I was up for courting. I wasn't, but they were civil anyway. The women on that mountain worked harder than any I'd ever met. They taught me the value of a whetstone to sharpen my knives, how to store food in the creek and keep it cold and safe. I learned to keep enough for an extra plate for company.

What I had believed in, all those things I thought were the necessary accoutrements for a civilized life, were non-existent in this place. Up on the mountain, my most valuable possessions were my relationships with my neighbors.

After four years in that hollow, I moved back into town. I saw that a lot of people were having a really hard time, losing their jobs and homes. With the help of a real estate broker I chatted up at the grocery story, I managed to rent a big enough house to take in a handful of people.

It's four of us now, but over time I've had nine come in and move on to other places from here. We'd all be in shelters if we hadn't banded together.

The American dream I believe in now is a shared one. It's not so much about what I can get for myself; it's about how we can all get by together.


Eve Birch is a librarian in Martinsburg, W.Va., where she also runs a small remodeling business that provides day work for needy neighbors. Two stories Birch wrote about her life in the shack are featured in the anthology, The Green Rolling Hills.

Home Construction

Picture of the house with the south wall opened. Mud all around. Let's get to work.


It all starts with a big mud pile. Three weeks of rain doesn't help.


Bobby Roggenbuck arrives with big equipment to make mud into tight corners.

Other pictures

Left Field Chapter 2: Breakage and Loss

The last posting could have gone on and on, so I decided to tackle the collection of balls that landed in left field on a "ball by ball" basis. Last posting ended up focusing on the crazy snow patterns we experienced this winter (it is NOW Spring and I refuse to accept any more snow) and this entry was intended to focus on breakage. The breakage I had in mind was the crazy two weeks in which our car broke, our bus broke, our refrigerator broke, our washing machine broke, and only a few of the heaters in the rental house we currently inhabit felt like working. I planned on regaling the comical way we tip-toed around afraid of breaking yet another thing, and how slowly but surely one thing after another was either replaced or repaired. Instead I am going to swing the bat and write about the breaking of my heart when I returned to the farm this afternoon to find the neighbor dog feasting on our small flock of chickens.

Now those of you who are loyal readers of the blog may recall that we lost a few girls to an aerial predator a few months ago, and while that was upsetting and unnerving it does not even come close to what went down today. I arrived at the gate enjoying the first real sun we were granted all week. Toby arrived home a bit early and was playing with the kids back at the rental. I was planning on doing some evening chores and a little work in the orchard to make up for a week spent inside with the rain. However, as soon as I saw the neighbor's dog in our yard I knew there was something wrong. The dog immediately bounded up to me looking proud at what he accomplished but also in a panic. Apparently as he wolfed down (that meaning rings so true right now) one of the girls her bone got lodged in his mouth and he was in some pain. I rushed him back to his home and into the arms of his stunned and saddened owner and then returned to assess the carnage.

Two girls, Fondo and Cherry-Egger, were the only ones recognizable and pretty much in one piece. Their soft feathery bodies were still quite warm and although the color had all but drained from their combs, earlobes and waddles I hesitated to pick them up for fear of hurting them more. I briefly considered cleaning and eating them in a sort of macabre memoriam, but Toby nixed that almost immediately when I offered it. Instead, I tucked them into an apple crate and stashed them away for a proper funeral the next day with the whole family. I then walked the entire property, and the three adjacent properties to see if I could find any other girls. Sobbing and unsure what to do I fell back on my purpose for coming to the farm this evening, and proceeded down to the orchard to start observing the trees for bud development.

Three trees into my observations I heard a wonderfully familiar sound and raced back up to the coop to find that one of the girls Rose had reappeared at the coop. She was loudly proclaiming her survival, and probably her sadness over what had transpired and when she saw me running toward the coop she ran just as fast toward me. All our chickens have imprinted on me as their mom and I can only imagine what was going through her little mind as I scooped her up and held onto her for at least ten minutes.

Feeling a little revived I put Rose in her coop and made one last walk around the property before the sun was totally gone. It was that end of the day when the birds and frogs sing out to welcome the night, and when the diurnal creatures high-five the nocturnal animals as they tuck in for the night. I was dumbstruck to see eight deer in the neighboring field; just standing their watching me look for a lost chicken, reminding me that things come and go. It was almost as if they were all saying they were sorry, and it was not my fault for letting my girls stretch their legs and wander around searching for the perfect grub. They too were taking their chances standing in such numbers in a wide open field. Life is for the living.

When I walked back to the coop to close the door and say goodnight to Rose, Mildred another one of the girls showed up and quickly ran into the coop as well. With two chickens now present and accounted for, I breathed in and tried to be thankful. They on the other hand settled in to what they do, scratching around, looking for that perfect grub. I really hope they find it tonight, they have earned it.

Wait for it...It's coming from somewhere in left field!

It seems as though we are holding our breath around the farm until we turn blue in the face, hoping someone will let us have our way. Something has got to give. We are emerging from our winter havens a little like the groundhog looking for our shadow and trying to decide if it is nice enough to plant our peas yet.

In case you have not noticed, the blog has been on hiatus for the last month. "Why?" you ask? I will offer you two options: the short version immediately below, or the long, compelling, crazy, Booker prize-quality version following the short.

Snow. Car breaks, bus breaks, motorcycle breaks, washing machine breaks, fridge and freezer break. Fix everything. Amy starts to teach in a classroom again after many years of teaching every minute of everyday not in a classroom. Play musical cars to entertain ourselves while we sell the bus and buy a "station-wagon Volvo". Started a massive remodel on the farmhouse. Receive seeds for the garden, and dodge snow storms to plant them in the ground.

Let's take it from the top; snow. I am from the Chicago area originally, and have a great number of experiences with snow. I remember trudging through the stuff, my feet wrapped in old bread bags and secured with rubber bands around my calves, because my boots were never going to keep out all that white stuff even if their name implied it. I remember learning to drive in the snow pre-anti lock breaks. I remember packing snow on our front stairs and turning them into a mini luge track that lasted for weeks before melting away. And I remember how I felt when I moved up here to the Pacific Northwest; secretly happy to be leaving the Winters of guaranteed snow. Sure we get snow in the Northwest, but it is more like an old friend surprising you and showing up at your doorstep for a few days. You make accommodations, eat steaming bowls of goodness, sleep in because no one is going anywhere, and then tell yourself, "that was fun" when it all melts away to nothing. This year though, signals got crossed, my best friend from high school did not show up, instead it was the Mormons, followed by Jehovah's witness. It was someone from Sierra club, kids selling magazine subscriptions, and an acquaintance of my second college roommate who is on out of cash and hoping that they could just stay for a couple days until they figure out their next move. I was getting tired and scared of answering the door.

Yesterday was the Ides of March, and Brutus came knocking on the door with a sloppy wet snowball to throw in my face. Yes, it snowed, yet again. Just after I chew out one of the seed companies to hurry up and send me my asparagus crowns and seed potatoes, because even if they think it is not time to plant them, I, the expert farmer, know my zone and need to plant. All I know now is that I must be living in wonderland. However, today looks promising, no snow, just rain so far...

To Everything, Burn, Burn, Burn

We are "dreaming" in Winter around the farm. The first seed order is in and most of it arrived weeks ago save the live asparagus crowns which will arrive closer to planting time in March. Thirty six cardoon plants and twenty artichoke plants are inching their way out of dirt-filled peat pots and reaching toward the light of an artificial sun; hopefully they will be big enough when it is time to put them out into the chill to harden them off. We doubled the size of the vegetable garden which you can see at the end of this posting. And we are clearing away all the plants growing around the farmhouse to make room for the heavy equipment to roll in any day now and start reworking the home into our dream.

Through all this land clearing and tilling, and all the pruning that needed to happen in and around the orchard we built up quite the burn pile. Our original plan was to have a solstice pyre welcoming back the light, but it snowed so hard then we would have needed at least a gallon of accelerant to melt off the icy frosting alone. So, we continued to add to the pile, and we continued to wait for a better day to burn. Finally, as we turned the corner into preparing to remodel the farmhouse and preparing the gardens for Spring the burn pile grew to inexorable size and we agreed to split the job of burning over a couple of days to purge us and make room for what is to come.

Last Thursday I had a full day on the farm while Toby was in town working and the kids were in school. This was the perfect day for burning, partly sunny, very little wind, and it had not rained in several days. Even with these great conditions it took all the fuel in one lighter, a good two or three cups of diesel, and a whole lot of crouching on all fours and blowing like I was back in school on the bassoon playing the Marriage of Figaro to finally light the first pile on fire. And once it was burning I realized that my plans of working in the garden while every once in a while adding an armful of pruned branches was a pipe dream. I needed to stay and feed the flames pretty much all day, and at first I was frustrated by this realization, but after I found the rhythm of the fire I transcended the pull of earthen tasks like weeds and seeds and turned my eyes and mind to the heavens.

I watched as hydrangea branches, pruned away to make room for our eminent house remodel, bloomed in the fire unfurling perfect bright green leaves seconds before completely burning up. I watched our Christmas tree, that we cut on the island, start on the pile as a pillar of smoke and sizzle and then suddenly explode like a firework with the crack and pop I heard the week before in Chinatown. Apple wood, branches pruned from the orchard, burned clean and smelled a little sweet. Blackberry vines smoked for a while before finally catching on fire and disappearing a second later. And a broken fence post provided slow burning fuel to light up old wrapping paper from a pair of new sleds received at Christmas.

By the time I needed to leave the farm and pick up the kids from school I smelled smokey, my cheeks were rosy, and my heart was warm and a little lighter. Tending the burn pile was a secondary observation, forcing me to look at things again even after I thought I was done with them. When we still lived in Seattle these items that found their way into the burn pile would have been carted off on a regular schedule by the trash men. I would have never stopped, months later to rethink my actions in my backyard and where I was going to next. It is here, farming, that things are slowed down and we are forced to be deliberate in our actions, because we are the ones making the mess, and the only ones to clean it up. We are being nudged by this land to live more simply, more stripped down, more connected, and I love it.

New Year's Eve

Tonight we returned home to our "temporary" abode after two long days working on the farm. Yesterday we rented the uber-rototiller and went to town preparing for Spring and beyond. Originally when I walked into our island hardware store to rent a tiller I was thinking something along the lines of what you may see on an infomercial, but when the man at the rental counter showed me the hydraulic tiller supreme with reverse tine action and disengageable wheels for easing moving while powered-down I just saw my farm chores in the palm of my hand.

We put the word out to friends and by the grace of something larger than us, our friend who used to run a large equipment/earth moving company said he would be happy to babysit the tiller ALL DAY. So there we were, Christian our friend with the tiller, Toby with the tractor, kids with the smiles, and me with the finger pointed to where to dig, till, dump, and plant. In just the first day we doubled the size of the garden to around 80 feet by 40 feet, and tilled some empty places in the orchard where we intend to put in a few more trees to eventually bring us up to a cool 100 total. The second day of work we battled with the evidence of a rat in the apple stores, snow flying, and a lack of power tools. Even still we were able to reposition lots of berry plants, hopefully doubling the growing capacity of our tastiest cash crop and tucking them in for the next few cold weeks with compost and a layer of straw.

Before tucking the kids in to bed tonight we stopped to wish each other a happy new year, because tomorrow is the start of the new "lunar" year. We love observing the lunar new year as a true turning point in our lives every year. We like it because it tends to be a bit separate from the cluster of holidays in December, and rather than following a date on the calendar it follows the cycle of the moon. The moon, we are learning on the farm, is really the Mother of Nature. It's pull is felt by the plants, and depending on where the planets are in the night sky the moon can work some magic on what we offer up to grow in our soil. We also love the lunar new year, because it is so ancient and tied to Asian culture, something we are very passionate about. Although we visit our international district way more than the average "white" family, we always feel out of place. When we take the kids into a Chinese medicine shop we are often ignored as the shop owner probably assumes we are lost or tourist from some far away place. It is only after we make the effort to engage in conversation or ask if they have sichuan peppercorns, or cloud ear mushrooms that the ice is broken and we are welcomed as if we are family. But during the lunar new year you see people of all colors and backgrounds mingling without reservation in a neighborhood that for just one week is loud, delicious, grandiose, and especially beautiful. This week we eat Asian food every day, oranges for luck, long noodles for long life, and dim sum and bubble tea as we watch the dragon dances. We light firecrackers to scare away bad spirits and bad luck and share our riches with our children so that they may do the same with their children some day. We love this week maybe in someways more than any other holiday, because no one in our immediate circle of friends and family have any expectations of us. We are both anonymous in our celebrations and very open and public in our love of all the ancient traditions. And each year we reach out to others to join in our complete joy revolving around this turning of the moon, the first new one of the year.

We look forward to this new year, the year of the Ox, with anticipation of our own oxen abilities. We push tillers, hoe rows, pull weeds, and work out in the open under the elements. We eat and drink well, sleep a little, and breathe in the fresh air. We are hopeful for a great harvest, but take each day as it comes. We do the jobs that need to be done every day and marvel at how they add up to more than their sum. And most of all we thank our lucky stars....and moon.

Go Away Snow!

When I was younger I loved snow. I prayed for snow days. I loved to sled. I would build sledding runs down our front steps just to give me another place to throw down the sled between home and the park. Alas, I no longer love snow. We have endured a remarkable amount of snow at the farm. The first few days of the real snow we remained at our rental home, trapped at the bottom of a steep and slippery driveway. But after the second day, Toby brought out the tire chains before things got worse, and they did, and we crept our way to the farm. We figured that if we lost power at the rental house, were everything runs on electric, we would spend our days cold and miserable. But at the farm, although it is tight living quarters, the previous owners left us with a great generator that plugs right into the home’s power box and can pretty much run anything we need. Plus, we are one of the lucky few on the island who have natural gas as our heat, hot water, and cook stove, which is a big bonus when you have no power.



Now, for those of you readers who our new to our blog, or do not remember the set up at the farm let me bring you up to speed:

We have one room in the upstairs of the farmhouse. It serves as the primary, and only finished out living space for the farm. It is a fabulous, cozy spot with a sumptuous view; very romantic. However, for a family of four plus a lovely dog the space seems pretty small. And it was small. After eight days sharing this one-room sanctuary we all needed a bit more elbow room. By then we were able to cast off the chains and slip our way back to the rental to catch up on sleep and stare at the Christmas tree that ended up getting ignored this year.

The other reason for staying at the farm in the midst of all the snow, was to keep a closer eye on all of our “investments”. Daily we walked the rows in the orchard to make sure the snow and ice were not weighing to heavily on the branches. We were constantly digging out the garden to keep the hoops elevated over the slow-growing Winter garden, and thawing out the chickens’ drinking water once or twice a day until the temperature crept back up to above freezing. All of these things we embraced heartily and were thankful that nothing got too damaged, and we did not completely lose anything. We filled our bellies for a good week with the salvaged garden greens and roots, patting ourselves on the back for our fortitude. Since then we have dealt with more snow, power-outages, wind, and lots of rain. None of it is fun, and at least once a day I roll my eyes at the latest must-do that skips ahead of everything else on our long list of farm chores. I realize now, more than ever, that we pay too little for our food. We too easily forget the countless cold, dark, wet hours put into any crop before it even sees the light of Spring. So now we sit down to pour over seed catalogs, search out organic sprays and mulches for the orchard, and comb the aisles of our island thrift store for some gadget that can help us get things done. We clutch our checkbook in our hands and check our funds in the bank. We wonder how have so many farmers before us done it, and how many of us can continue to carry on the great tradition? Thanks to all who provide, and most of all to the Earth.