I Heart Farms

Well, Jennifer Started It!

Pictured here: some of the pigs at TLC Ranch, taken in March. Yes, there is an explanation about its deliberate appearance.

Yes, another two weeks go by, and here I am, bedridden with one of the ghastly colds that is being shared by a broad userbase in Santa Cruz county. So between downing cups of tea and Vitamin C tablets the size of bricks, I have been scanning some blogs. I don't have the energy to catch up on reading all of my favorites—one of which I am currently 47 posts behind on!—because it's just too strenuous. You know, the contests, the solicitation of our thoughts on certain topics, and so on. Things I enjoy when I'm feeling great, but not when half the air is out of the tires in my brain. Too demanding.

There are a handful of blogs that I scope out first, and will always click in if I see a new post has been added. A couple of days ago, I saw that my friend, the beautiful and über-creative Jennifer Jeffrey had added a new post to Jennifer Jeffrey: Writer/Editor. (She's selling herself short: her design skills are fabulous, too.) At the top of the post is a photograph so brimming with life that my mouth dropped open. And true to herself as ever, she finds something to inspire on an otherwise miserably hot day in the city.

You would not think that the statuesque and lovely Ms. Jeffrey and I share a host of addictions, what with her doing yoga and all, but under the skin, we share an insatiable craving for at least four things: cheese, typefaces, the election of Barack Obama in this year's presidential election, and playing around with images. (Read my comment on her post, if you like, to see where we're going here.)

How to Spend a Perfect Birthday

A call for help from outgoing president of the Board of Directors for the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden, Jeffrey Caspary, come to my in-box last week. He needed people on Wednesday to help cook for the class of student apprentices that had arrived in late April at the farm. So I thought, "That can't be a bad way to spend part of my birthday."

I had promised a 2:00-6:00 shift, but when I checked in yesterday at 11:00 in the morning, I found that I was needed sooner than later. So I loaded up my Indian spices, my new mortar and pestle*, and several ingredients of promise, into the car, and arrived at the farm at noon.

Walking to the kitchen was a joy: a hillside of bright orange California poppies were blooming under fruit trees, surrounded by tall red clover, also in bloom. (No pictures except one, below: I was too busy and time was tight.)

"Many hands, light work." Is that a Shaker or a Quaker saying? I don't know, but it's one of my favorites, and Jeffrey himself said it as we started to shell some of the seventeen thousand pounds of fava beans he ambitiously had blanched. He then busied himself with other tasks as Edna, also on the board, tried to master the art of shelling favas. She admitted defeat early on, saying, "Never has a vegetable gotten the best of me so quickly," which left me to shell them for the next two hours, until my neck and shoulders could take no more.

* Both Jeffrey and Edna wanted to order one after working with this wonderful kitchen tool.