Farmer-in-Training
I’m almost all packed. I told my friend I was taking the chickens when I leave Spirit Hill on Sunday. I came to visit for a week because my friend Carolyn, the proprietress of Spirit Hill, wanted me to finally see the place she’d been telling me about for years, and I was going to […]
“There’s something about this place,” a guest said to me. “It’s the energy.” She took a deep breath and sighed. I smiled. I have heard this before, often. It’s why I’m here. You can’t stay in your tightly-wound-up stressed mind while you are here because Spirit Hill calls to you. It says, Slow down. Be […]
Spirit Hill is located by the intersection of three streets. Where the three streets connect, a pair of black sneakers dangle from the telephone wires. The sneakers have been there, seemingly, forever. They move in the breeze. They bug me. I have tried to think of how to get them down. Get a gun and […]
As farmer-in-training at Spirit Hill, I have learned that whatever I plant is as much the birds’ and the animals’—deer, turkeys, chickens, moles, gophers, birds, insects, for example—as it is mine. Growing things at Spirit Hill is a good exercise in non-attachment. Hello, three sunflower plants I bought at Harmony and love so much. Hello, […]
When I wrote “small kindness” as a title I thought, Hmmm, that’s not exactly it. Small is so…small. Can something be small and massive at the same time? The acorn comes to mind. And so does the package we, at Spirit Hill, got in the mail. It was…small. And in it was a small card […]
One time my sister-in-law told me about how she snuck some fancy chickens into their spring order. My brother and his family live on a farm in Maine, and my sister-in-law makes sure they have all sorts of animals to tend to including a bearded dragon lizard and three goats that think they live in […]
A year ago, I didn’t know I’d be living at Spirit Hill Farm. I was visiting from Boston because Carolyn had invited me to fly out and stay in the guest house for a week so I could finally see her beloved property after hearing about it for years. A week away from Boston winter […]
This morning the chickens looked, well, morose. Maybe it’s all the social distancing. Maybe it was the frost. Maybe they are still incredulous over the fact that they molt and look bald just as it starts to freeze outside. Maybe they miss laying eggs during this molting season. Maybe they are still in shock over […]
According to the vegetable garden, summer’s over. The squash plants look like they got cooked, and the parsley looks like it fell asleep. Secretly, the frosting and subsequent toppling over of the garden is a big relief to me. I worked hard all spring and summer figuring out how to get plants to grow. (As […]
You need to be careful what magazines you look at when you’re a farmer-in-training. If you look at magazines that have recipes, for example, this could end up being a lot of work for you and mayhem for your poor, unsuspecting already-established plants. I was reading the Spring 2020 issue of Edible: Marin & Wine […]