Our New Home

We arrived at Spikenard Farm safe, sound and, well really, sad to say goodbye to my dad. We'd been staying with him off and on for the past couple months and it had really been a pleasure. He'd made us feel so comfy in his place with a massive inflatable bed that you really couldn't tell was inflatable and with tons of good, healthy food. Leaving his place and going to meet a completely new experience like, eh hem, becoming farmers was intimidating.

The past week and a half, though, has been solidly good. We're starting to feel more comfortable with our roles here and ourselves, and starting to settle in. We have a log cabin and, yes, it is idyllic. It feels very nice to have a place that we know we'll be in for a while, so we have pictures of family and friends tacked up to our bedroom walls, postcards from Europe taped to the rafter in the loft, our books on a bookstand that Bhads built!, the piece of fabric Molly brought me back from Ghana on the table, little knick-knacks we picked up on our travels like the little plastic elephant we found on the streets of Krakow and the nesting doll one of my students gave me, my Baby Jane doll, lots of my mom's stuff that she so sweetly donated. With time, it will feel like home.

So let me introduce a few of our fellow farmers. This is Emily. She's staying with us in the other bedroom for a bit while her yurt is getting a stove. We all love those stoves. She's really good at starting fire in our stove, here. We're doing the market garden apprenticeships, while she's doing the beekeeping apprenticeship. So she'll be here through November, too. She's a sweet gal and interesting to talk to. I'm really starting to admire what the bees do for us. And she's excellent at cooking veggies!


Alex (left) and Bobbi (under) are the other younger couple on the farm, who we found out are also pregnant too! It's pretty sweet having someone to talk to about the joys and the woes and the weirdnesses of being with child. And they both have great senses of humor, so we end up with deep belly laughs when we're around them. We've been helping them with the wood chipper this past week. Well, actually, Bhads has been doing the chipping and I've mostly been hauling limbs and sticks. Yes, a glorified "picking up sticks." Good thing I had so much practice when I was younger.














Sheila is a dog. She lives with Bobbi and Alex and is hilarious. When she greets you, it's with a mix of spazzy energy and meekness. She gets obsessed easily, loves to be squirted in the mouth with a water hose, kills all kinds of small rodents and then leaves them all over the farm, and is in love with Booster. At the moment, she's in heat, and also Booster is without his naughty bits, he still has something in him for Sheila. It's pretty funny to watch them try to figure that one out. But they are the best of friends already and are quickly forming the farm's first pack.

I don't have any pictures yet of Vivian and Gunther, the creators of the farm. The two of them live in the cabin next to ours, and are just lovely people. Vivian is thoughtful and cheery and is so supportive of us already. Just so warm. We actually haven't seen Gunther very much since he's been away. But from the impression we got when we visited here in February, he's very much like his wife in those ways.

We're doing very well. I just had a dinner of peanut butter toast on homemade whole wheat bread with the best honey I've ever had. Bhads is sitting by the fire studying up on knots. He's getting really good at them and has been rigging up all sorts of stuff all over the farm. Booster is on the bed, curled up on a blanket (go figure). And I think I'm about to go up in the loft and read a bit before bed. It's been a good day.

Goodnight!