In praise of darkness

About 12 years ago i woke at 3:00 one morning to climb a mountain with a group of friends. I was working at a camp in NH for the summer and we wanted to climb Mt. Monadnock to see the sun rise. This was a climb I had done every year since I was about 6 or 7. We arrived at the bottom of the mountain, 5 of us, 2 flashlights. We trudged forward 2 beams to show us where to put our feet, and by sunrise we were at the top. As we watched the sunrise, my one friend, recovering from mono said, "katie, I never would have made it if I would have seen what was ahead of me, because of the dark and that one beam of light which showed me where to place my foot, I made it to the top."

The memory of this morning, the dark, all of our fears as we started to trudge up the mountain, the sunrise at the top, it replays in my mind. I find myself now in a similar place. I have a mountain to climb. And if I do it in daylight with my eyes wide open, I will be too afraid to continue. The tasks ahead will overwhelm me. The fear of exhaustion and failure would make it impossible to continue. So I praise the dark. I realize that right now I need just a beam of light. I cannot look up. The monsters in the woods would terrify me and are mostly of my own making.

On monday I met with my spiritual director, a sister of st. joseph, who is kind and the best listener I have yet to encounter. We talked about the challenges ahead. The steps forward and all she said was do not lift the light beyond your feet. Walk forward and trust the path. Trust the path.

I have always been afraid of the dark but it seems, that now, in the midst of a huge life change darkness is what I need. Sometimes ignorance can be the gift which moves us forward. I praise the dark, as we enter this season of light.

"That commitment..."

"That commitment may grow slowly, sprouting from the rich compost of experience accumulated deep within us."

I was just reading over some old blogs. It was good to read what I felt was important to share. And then I found this. When I shared it, I focused on the second part..."the rich compost of experience" but this time, I read these words and was struck by something entirely different. "That Commitment may grow slowly..."

It is commitment which comes from that rich compost of experience. Commitment. This struck me. This year I have been unable to commit to anything. I want to farm. I want to be in community. I want to have direction, but can't seem to take a leap. I left a farm with rich, rich experience and have landed in Baltimore. This good, good city which may not be where I belong.

"Committment may grow slowly"...well I always seem to master the slowly part. I think it may be why I like growing food, it is slow. The seeds take their time, they really do not like being rushed. but it is time. A new growing season will be upon us. We are in advent a time for hope.

I've given notice on my apartment. I need to be out by February 1rst. I do not yet know exactly where I am going, but I am leaving this transitional space, i need to say yes to something. So I am choosing. I say yes to farming, yes to bees, yes to rural life. I mourn that i will loose the friendships this city provides easy access to. I mourn that rural life makes community harder, but I must say yes to farming.

So may this "commitment grow slowly, sprouting from the rich compost of experience accumulated deep within me."

To bed it goes

my piece of land in college park has gone to sleep. All has been removed besides the perennial herbs and the lovely clover cover crop. Oh clover is stunning. there should be a movement to make all yards clover. what a beautiful world it would be.

and as I lay to bed this wee piece of land there has been movement around land in baltimore. hope is in the air. i have found organic matter and high nutrients in baltimore vacant lots. they are spaces screaming to be farmed on. i think urban farming is stirring in my blood.

this poem has become a prayer for me. speaking to the place I am in. I want to share it with you all.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.
—Rilke’s Book of Hours, I, 59

May Friends

I am sometimes overwhelmned by the good people in my life. And these two have become my May friends, coming to me last year in May, my first visitors in a long line of visitors during a challenging year. And again, in May we reunite with a smaller one to join. How grateful I am for good, good, souls.

Rach at Lake Montebello

Rita, Rach and Lucia

Lucia with the sweet smelling Multi-Flora Rose

Rita and Lucia

Lucia

A piece of land

This is the piece of land getting my energy right now. Its in College Park Md behind a catering business. You can't tell that is has been tilled twice and needs to be tilled again. It is a modest 1/4 acre, which I wonder if it is capable of growing anything. We can only hope.

this is Eric. He came to work with his mother for take your child to work day and spent it with us. What a hard worker. Here is is holding down the tarp on our leaf compost.

He said, "what a perfect way to spend Earth Day" I didn't even know it was earth day.

Teresa and Eric, fabulous helpers.

A day of work done. 2 beds were dug. and leaf compost and manure were spread. It seems like so little but we will continue.

Bees

Bee Facts:

1. Honey Bees are not native to the US. Europeans brought them with them to fertilize their crops.

2. 30% of all food we eat needs to be fertilized by the Honey Bee.

3. Honey contains every vitamin and mineral our body needs.

4. If you buy honey in large grocery stores it has none of these vitamins and minerals because it has been heated to 120 degrees to keep it from crystalizing on the shelf.

5. Honey will cure wounds and burns.

6. Honey is twice as sweet as honey but contains the same calories...and all the added nutrients, if you buy from a small honey producer.

7. Bees are Amazing!

Honey At The Table

It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers, it becomes
a trickle sharp as a hair that you follow
from the honey pot over the table

and out the door and over the ground,
and all the while it thickens,

grows deeper and wilder, edged
with pine boughs and wet boulders,
pawprints of bobcat and bear, until

deep in the forest you
shuffle up some tree, you rip the bark,

you float into and swallow the dripping combs,
bits of the tree, crushed bees - - - a taste
composed of everything lost, in which everything lost is found.

~ Mary Oliver~

Maximum Capacity

The Industrial Age revisited

Tractors. Machines. All things with loud motors I do not like. Oh I definately use my car with pleasure. And I do love getting on an airplane and trains are one of the most fabulous ways to get about. And they all have loud motors. But somehow they do not bother me the way weed wackers , rototillers, tractors and other annoying motors do. But yesterday I had a change of heart.

Yesterday I began working on tilling a piece of land in College Park Md. I am going to be growing tomatoes and basil for a catering company there. It is a small piece of land, just a 1/4 acre in a suburban neighborhood. But I am excited about trying out my knowledge. So step one, till the land. Turn in the sod. Allow the grass and roots to decompose so we can plant in this little piece of earth. So we got a Rototiller. A big one and it was horrible. After 4 hours of tilling only 1/8 of the land was done...and my body hurt like it has never hurt before. I dreamed of the tractor. How a tractor in about 10 mins could have tilled up that soil. I thought of how it doesn't hurt your body at all. It doesn't shake and pull and make your forearms feel like they are going to explode. You just get on and drive.

Suddenly I got it. I get why people love tractors. I get why they are so wonderful. Basically because rototillers are not.

In the end we got a walk behind tractor. Also fabulous.

I have enter a new age and discovered that it was only because of my ignorance that I hated tractors. A horse and a plow would be best but the tractor isn't as bad as I once thought.

Sustainability in the city

I love Baltimore but as the air warms and flowers bloom I hear the call to be growing. so I am attempting...in the small ways I can. My living room/kitchen space has now turned into a "growing room" too. Accept on warm days when the plants reach up to the sky...finding a sunny spot on my roof. I am learning that where there is a will there is a way. The plants need light...so I must find it. But living sustainably came very easily on the farm. Here in the city I must try a bit harder. So this is what I have done. Slowly I will find a life here. And in the meantime my plants are sprouting and there is the promise of tomatoes and peppers and all other delightful vegetables.

The Wonder Wash. My new favorite toy washes my clothes with just a little arm power.

My community garden plot. Beginning to be planted with potatoes and onions and greens.

the onions are coming up! (see the little purple)

Worms. My composting friends.

Apple Cider Glazed Pizza

I was up in Gettysburg for the last 2 days helping to bottle wine with my sister and her boyfriend. It was nice to be out of the city. Though I don't think wine is actually on my lists of passions...but that is good to know.

But we had a refrigerator full of produce from the farmers market and an abundance of apples and cider from the orchard and Anna and I created a pizza which we found fantastic so I am going to share it. Also I don't want to forget it...

Make the pizza dough.

Then bring about 1-2 cups apple cider to a boil and let simmer until significantly decreased in amount. (we were trying to make a reduction with it...aparently the only things to trully be made into reductions are vinegars and wines...but this worked smashingly for out purposes)

Spread olive oil and freshly crushed garlic onto the flattened out dough.

Use a brush to brush on reduced cider-it should be at least reduced by half and once cooled for a few minutes should be a little thicker and much sweeter. (Save about half of it for later)

Thinly slice apples-we used pink ladies...and hard tart apple...which is fabulous at this time of year.

Then crumble sausage which we had cooked in some apple cider.

Thinkly slice onions and mushrooms.

Cover with Arugula.

And grate lots of Swiss Cheese...or experiment with your own.

Lastly trickle the remaining cider over the top...

Ah...Remember to Salt and Pepper the pizza.

Cook at 350 for about 10 minutes....

and enjoy...

Anna and I were shocked by the outcome of this...it may not be the most practical pizza for people who do not have a large supply of apples and apple cider...but I believe it is worth trying.

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow!

The roads are starting to clear after our 2 storms. 79 inches in all for the Baltimore area this winter. Here are some scenes from our city.

Harford Rd. after storm 2

my new street

my house-the third floor windows

me, next to drifting snow

St. Dominic's who has housed my car during these storms

my back porch

a view of the city from my window

Jeannie and I walking through the beginning storm

Baltimore as Winterwonderland

Silence

I spent a weekend at a 1920's Jesuit Novitiate in Silence...what a gift...I only wish it could have lasted a little longer.

my loving friend Hannah made me these mittens which embraced me in warmth as I journeyed through deep snow on long walks

Baltimore

I've been back a month now. Still living a transitional lifestyle. A housesitter, a squatter...one of the people of this world with out a home. And yet lucky to have loving people who take me in and provide sanctuaries for me. I left the farm this year determined to find land. I was sure my body and spirit were being called to the countryside, to live amongst the insects, the quiet solitude. But I am here in this blessed city and I don't want to leave. I love this city. I love that people here ask me to be their daughter and others offer me 300,000 dollars to start a farm. I love that when I go to rent an apt. the landlord is willing to lower the rent because "you feel like a good person". It is strange. I feel that in this city I understand the language being spoken. I know how to be a person here, I know how to relate and interact. I love humanity, I love humanity and I love growing food. So the farm may have to wait...for now I may settle back into this crazy city, where gunshots go off on New Years eve, and the street I live on was not plowed once during the snow storms. But I want to grow food here, here for the people I love. I want to go deeper in relationship with this city. I want to know the land and feed the people who live here.