Earth Day

Have you ever heard someone talk about "listening to the land" or "listen to what the earth is saying"? That is something that I have heard a few times from various people and depending on what mood I'm in, I either really try to hear, or I'll scoff and right them off as too hippy-feely for me! I always thought of listening to the land as paying attention to the sounds of the birds and of the buzzing bees and wind blowing through the branches of the trees (made myself a little poem there) but Tuesday out on the farm I experienced a new sound, a sound from underneath the surface of the ground, emanating from below the grass.

We arrived late in the morning and were going to get to work fast because it was supposed to start raining again in the afternoon. It has pretty much been raining almost every day so there are puddles everywhere out there, I'm happy the car didn't get stuck. I had to get from the car to the horse trailer, where we keep our tools and work boots, by walking up through the vegetables to avoid all the huge puddles. As I was walking I heard this trickling sound that seemed to be coming from all around me. I stopped and listened closely, but it faded away. I began walking and there it was again, that trickling or bubbling, so I stopped and listened, but again it faded away. The next time I heard it I bent down to the ground right away and sure enough it was coming from ground all around me. I called out to my partner to come over and listen to this with me (partly to make sure I wasn't crazy). Of course he instantly knew what it was. Apparently when the ground is saturated with water, especially with clay heavy soil, air bubbles get trapped close to the surface and walking on the ground shakes the soil enough to release the bubbles and then water trickles down as the bubbles pop at the surface (He asked me to double check on the interwebs in case his facts were wrong but I couldn't find anything about it, so I'll just take his word for now). I have never had so much fun jumping up and down! It was as though the ground was acting like a big rain stick :) It puts a new meaning to "listening to the land".

After that fun adventure we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon working on my garden. We put up trellises and planted a bunch of goodies. I had just finished listening to the first lecture in the permaculture series on design, so we made spinach spirals and key holes and used the trellises for shading the partial sun plants. I can't wait to see it all grown up!

It doesn't look like much now, but just wait until all my little seeds start growing :) It wasn't until today that I realized that Tuesday was Earth Day, and what a way to celebrate!

Trailer Living

Getting used to being a presence on the internet is going to be a challenge for me, I can tell. I'm more likely to avoid spending too much time on the internet because I like being active more than I like working on a computer, but I am determined to make this blog work! And of course this all happens right when my 'backspace' key decides to quit on me. So whenever I misspell something or make any mistake, instead of just backspacing, I have to highlight it and replace it with something else... and trust me, I misspell just about every other word when typing. It's not even that I'm bad at spelling, it's just that I can't get my fingers to hit the right keys.

Anyway, on to my adventuresome life: As I mentioned in my previous post, I am going to be moving out of my current apartment and living on the farm this summer. I am so excited to be spending all that time down there with all the other farmers! To add to that experience I have decided to live in a camper trailer with no electricity or running water, but to do that I first had to find a trailer. Ideally it would be cheap, I'd like to actually save money by doing this. Well, I found one! And boy is it a uh... beauty? Someone who works next to the farm had one that they may end up just tearing apart but were willing to let me make use of it for a few months.

As you can see... there's not exactly a floor... There was so much water damage in the kitchen from a leaky roof that the floor had rotted away to a pile of mush. This was taken after we had taken up the carpet and the linoleum underneath. The plan right now is to clear away as much of the bad wood as possible without taking out the entire kitchen, then lay a couple new support beams and just put some plywood on top so that we can walk on it. I wont worry about nailing it all down since it's not going to be moved while we're there and it is extremely temporary. The rotten wood that we wont be able to take out is going to be bleached within an inch of its life so that all the mold goes away at least and the space will be livable.

The rest of the trailer is in pretty great shape, besides being dirty... and having a yellow jacket nest somewhere... but those are easily fixed with a little elbow grease :)  It even comes with old school Yahtzee and Scrabble! What more could I ask for? 

I'll keep you updated on our progress in making this trailer a summer living paradise! 

Elizabeth's Forrest

Today marks the day of my first real blog post, and I am very excited! I've been putting this off for a couple weeks because I didn't know how to begin. How do I start a blog when I'm not even sure what I want it to be about? So I thought I would start by telling you why I even want a blog in the first place.

I want to blog for a couple of reasons, the first being that I am about to go through some big life changes and want a way to keep track of my experiences and share them with people who share my passions. This summer I am interning at a farm (I interned there last summer too) but this time, I am living out there with no electricity or running water, trying to make the most of everything I've got. There is a town near by so I can go charge my phone and use the internet (for blogging!) when I need to, but I'm going to be hand washing all my dishes and clothes, hauling my own water, storing food without a fridge and a million other things. And I am so excited! This will be a true test of my ability to kick my laziness in the butt and I can't wait! I have never had an experience like this one before and have spent the last four years living in Seattle, which is a tiny bit different from the farm life... There are so many things that I want to try when I'm out there and (hopefully) this blog will keep me accountable to try everything I would like and serve as a way to reflect on what works, what doesn't and how someone else (maybe you!) could do it better.

 Another reason for this blog is school. I am in the last stretch of college getting ever closer to graduating with a degree in Environmental Studies and moving into the "real world". Talk about scary! All I have left to do is finish an independent study course for which I am taking a free online permaculture design course, and a capstone project which will include my time spend working on the farm this summer. I am going to use this blog to tell you all the fascinating things that I am learning about permaculture, sustainability, farming and anything else that comes up.

So that is a pretty long winded way to tell you that I am going to blog about permaculture, growing food, eating and cooking food, sustainable lifestyles, and all kinds of diy stuff that will hopefully all be sustainable too :)

On a different note: I have the wonderful privilege of being sisters with Jane from The Pursuit of Poppiness who has been blogging for three years now. She has been very supportive of my new blog in many ways and I am so thankful for her! So in celebration of my first blog, she has invited me to her April Giveaway!

Katie | Rhea | Megan | Alex | Katherine

Ricci | Fran | Mallory | Kristen | Karen

Elizabeth | Hayley | Paige | Amanda | Jane

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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