Happy Winter Solstice from Eleven Acre Farm!
Sara, Stone, Sol and I wish you a very happy Winter Solstice from Eleven Acre Farm. The entire place looks like a construction zone, but Nature is sitting with me and tells me it sees past all that because it has on its Vision Hat and Future Glasses. All will be looking something quite different this time next year.
Our beloved Sara has taken Dad and Mom to Portland for an important appointment, so I took a break from working on the year-end taxes and Stone, Sol, Nature and I put our boots on and walked the perimeter of the property. All of us thought you might enjoy seeing some photos of our circumnavigation, where the state of construction shows from virtually any angle.
At the precise moment of the Solstice, 9:30 pm tonight, Pacific Time, the workers of Nature get the architectural blueprints downloaded from the architects of Nature, and all do a dance together. Sara and I will joyfully join in, for so much is being downloaded to us. By this time next year, The Garden Center for Peace and Cooperation, dedicated to Wayne and Marlene Owens, will move from construction phase to action phase, moving along the lines of its mission.
And, among other things, perhaps we will start to glimpse exactly what the Mission of The Garden Center is. At this moment in time, we are just doing what we are told. And building it. It is a little bit “if you build it they will come,” if you know what I mean. That gets more exciting when you are playing with real money and taking a, er, leap of faith. Time will tell whether we have been divinely touched, or are just plain crazy. Increasingly it seems to me that the line between the two is a little fuzzy. But what the hay, you can’t take it with you, as they say. And I married a woman who isn’t confused about whether she wants to play full out in this life.
Enjoy the pics, and the Eleven Acre Farm crew sends you a big hug, warm wishes and a word from Nature. Happy Solstice. We are at your side, ever present, everywhere.
You can click on the photos to see ‘em bigger.
Looking west: view of The Garden Center across garden (winter planted with vetch)
North end of The Garden Center, house in background
Looking southeast
Looking east: The Garden Center with barn in background
Looking north from the glade, Garden Center in background
Sentinel at the top of the glade
Sol, aka "Chubbs", on his way to China
Sol, aka "Chubbs", interrupted from digging to China, by hearing the word "treat"
Otis, aka "Chubby Hubby", prior to New Year's Resolution (self portrait)
Left to right: Garden Center, dog kennel (aka Stone & Sol's Lookout), house and barn. The barn is the red building.
Lunar Eclipse and Lunch in the Shire
The full lunar eclipse was a visual non-event at the farm, but the rest of the day was… stellar. I ambled out of bed at the appointed hour, went outside, gazed up and could see the full moon clear as day through a hole in the fog and clouds. But no eclipse. Houston, we have a problem.
I check my watch, and there is the problem. Still set for Central Time from the week’s travel. Back to bed, back up, look up, fog and clouds so dense Rudolph would turn back. Oh, well. The best was yet to come.
Laying the Lines of The Garden Center, August 2011
To tell you the rest of the story I have to go back in time. Back in August we were laying out The Garden Center with our excavator extraordinaire, Bob Long of JRJ Excavating of Newberg, OR. This was a momentous occasion for us, years in the making, a command from Spirit. That’s all of us in the photo, along with our general contractor, friend and superb craftsman David Liebelt of Traditional Woodworking of McMinnville, OR. Left to right are me, Sara, David and Bob.
Up the misty driveway comes our magical friend with a sparkle in her eye, Christina, with an armload of flowers for Sara. She knows it is the big day. Bob, Sara and Christina strike up a conversation, end up talking about, of course, draught horses. Bob’s dad had a farm with them, Christina said she wanted to do some small farming near here using draught horses and wants to learn about them, and Bob says he’s just done work for a woman, Susan, about 40 miles from here who’s bought draught horses and wants to teach women how to work ‘em. You know, just your run-of-mill conversation out standing in the field laying out a building called The Garden Center for Peace and Cooperation.
Long story cut a wee short, Christina and Sara ride out several months back to meet Susan and see her 100+ acre farm and new draught horses. They saddle ‘em up and take a ride. Two of them (the draught horses) pulling a John Deere horse drawn wagon. So the kind of hit it off and agree that Sara should introduce Susan to our neighbor, Duane, who’s into draught horses. It’s a little more than a hobby for him. He’s got 16 of ‘em.
Now you are caught up. Something’s stirring with draught horses, so today, the day of the lunar eclipse, it is time for Bob and his wife Linda who brought all this together, to meet up with Christina and Susan, Sara and me and draught horse rock star Duane from down the hill. Duane did get Sara going a little bit the night before. Sara called with a friendly reminder to come up for lunch and he said that he thought he’d slide up for a few minutes. I assured Sara that was cowboy talk for he’d be here but have a foot in the door if he didn’t find himself enjoying himself. Besides, he was dressing up two horses in bells and such and doing some Christmas themed ride for some folks nearby.
Duane ends up bonding with the Argyle Chardonnay and Sara’s buffalo chili, and seems to be getting on well with the horse people and tolerating even those of us who barely know head from tail. Duane’s a great story teller, very friendly guy and ambassador of draught horses. After breaking cornbread together we head down to Duane’s 70 acre place to get a tour of the barn and some up close time with his 16 Shires. What follows are photos of that journey, giving you a pictorial tour of our lunar lunch in the shire.
Before I leave ya with those photos, I will tell you one highlight. We were standing down in the horse barn and most all the Shires are up pasture. Duane yells, “Ya’ll come on!” and roughly 16 horses times 1,800 pounds and piece come galloping down towards the barn and the red bucket of oats in Duane’s big hands. Let me tell you, you can feel THAT in your chest! Whoa! Anyway, enjoy the pics. You can click on them to make them larger.
Heading to Duane's. Foreground: Linda, Susan and Sara. Background: Duane's place
Walking the frosty pasture. Shires in the field.
The walk to Duane's. L to R: Sara, Susan, Linda and Bob Long
Christina and a Shire
The barn tour. Duane teaching us about Shires.
Look closely. That's an ORIGINAL John Deere implement. As in horse drawn!
Back at our place farewell. Christina stayed at the barn to help Duane ready the horses for the night's ride.
Truss Hour
We had the country equivalent of “rush hour” about 10:00 am this morning. It was truss hour. Our contractor with his 4 excellent craftsman convened with a really big flat bed truck and crane about the same time the windows and doors (8 foot high sliding glass doors BTW) and our excavator/grader extraordinaire Bob and his sidekick Clint arrived. Actually, it was at the same time. And mind you, all that activity wasn’t spread out over 11 acres. Of course, it was all happening within about half a football field, give or take.
So… up went the trusses. Here’s proof. Enjoy.
The Garden Center
I’m way behind on posting about the going’s on at the farm. The mondo project we’re into right now is building a building that, among other things, will be Sara’s office. By “among other things” I am implying that we aren’t really certain exactly what this building’s purpose is (fully).
All I know is that one day I was thinking about building a 10 x 16 outbuilding to use as a gym. Out here in the boonies, its a hike to get to a real gym. About 40 minutes each way. Net-net. I don’t go. And my chest has fallen into my gut. But that’s another story. So here I am thinking about this building, and as clear as I bell I am told “WRONG BUILDING.”
When spirit speaks to me, which is rare, it keeps it pretty short. That minimizes my ability to misinterpret the message. So, I say, “I’ll bite. What building?” And I am told, “Sara’s office.” So I go to Sara last year sometime and say, “I’ve been told not to build a gym. We’re supposed to build you an office.” So she says, “That is ridiculous.” And that was that. I guess we don’t parse words in the country.
A couple of weeks after that, Sara speaks to me, too. And she keeps it pretty short. She says, “Yes, we are supposed to build me an office.” So I ran around the field like Snoopy dancing on an Easter Egg Hunt, because for once in my life I got a message before Sara. Hasn’t happened since, but I now feel pretty much complete for life.
Anyhow, so we are now building the building. It got a hat today, but more on that in a minute. Here’s the architect’s rendering of the building. So, reader, meet The Garden Center. Garden Center, meet the reader.
The Apple Harvest
Dad and Mom came over today from their home in McMinnville for a great lunch and the great apple harvest. Sara cooked a bodacious meal, a whole chicken handrubbed with an elixir of spices, basted with butter and cooked with carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, potatoes, garlic, and whole jalapeno peppers (we lived in Santa Fe, what can I say). After that, we waddled out to the apple trees.
You need to know a little bit about these apple trees. When we moved here the apple trees were scraggly and seemed destined for the chain saw. We’d agreed on that, in fact. But before said chain saw made it out of the barn, Sara was “told” to leave them be. So they did and that was that.
The surprise was that our neighbors told us before we moved here these apple trees didn’t produce. Now they are so prolific that you walk under them under your own peril in October. So off we trundled to the upper field to do just that. And what a bounty. We barely scratched the harvest and stopped at four boxes worth.
We brought the booty inside and sorted them. Pristine and not-so pristine. The pristines got wrapped in newspaper, gently placed in cardboard boxes and one went with Dad and Mom and the other to our cool storage room. The not-so pristines were queued for more immediate eating. And apple pies. Which Mom can crank out like Marie Callenders.
Dad, Mom, Sara and I hope you enjoy the photos.
Winter Sol-stice
It’s been a while since we spoke. The focus of the past months has been helping Sara’s Mom, Marlene, transition from this life to the next. We ended that period–most especially Sara–spent. We lived for nearly two months in Salt Lake City, with Sara taking point on providing much of the medical care to her Mom during the hospice phase.
So here we are in sunny Hawai’i–Kawai to be exact–resting, restoring and reflecting. The weather has been breathtaking, summer-like. Usually in the winter it rains here a lot, and such it was 2 years ago when we were here at this same beach with Marlene. But these first days, I mean wow.
But bow-wow is the real reason I am posting to you. We’re adding a little member to our family at Eleven Acre Farm. Our wonderful Blue Heeler mix dog, Stone, is about to be an older brother. When we return from our holiday here in Kawai, we pick up a bouncing bundle of puppy energy. His name? Sol. Spanish for “sun”.
We’d like you to meet him. Everybody, this is Sol. Sol, everybody.
Sol (top right), neighbor Cecelia and Sol's brother (bottom left)
Sol
You can’t understand Sol without understanding how Sol happened. The beautiful lady in the photo above is our wonderful neighbor, Cecelia. Sara and Cecelia often go walking together, and walking they were on December 16th.
Sara mentions to Cecelia as they walk with their dogs that we are thinking of getting another Blue Heeler. They are walking and talking and sharing the gift of gab and times like only females know on the one lane gravel road our respective houses are on, way out in the boondocks. Actually, a mile past there.
Up drives a Jeep Cherokee, slowly making its way up to Cecelia and Sara. The lady inside asks if they’ve seen two boys playing. Apparently her son may have gone AWOL to play with young, wild Kyle who lives up the hill from us with his family on 80 acres or so. Cecelia and Sara say, “No, we haven’t seen them.”
The lady says “thanks”, and then says, “By the way, do you know anyone who’d like a Blue Heeler puppy?” You could’a knocked Sara and Cecelia over with a feather. Out come two Heeler pups, thrust from the open windows of said Jeep.
We get all excited, Sara texts me photos, and then we cool our jets. We don’t know anything about this lady or the dogs, and they look older than the six weeks she says they are. Further, we don’t necessarily take such things for their face value, as in we didn’t take this to necessarily mean “here’s your dog.” So we get a little cautious about it. We do some online research with known breeders in the area, of which this lady is not. We search the local rescue shelters for a Blue Heeler or Heeler mix (Stone is a rescue dog).
The we get the idea to call our vet, who is awesome. We ask them for local breeders and ask about whether they’d check a dog out for us if we decided to buy. We’re given the name of a breeder four hours away in Eastern Oregon. Then the receptionist at the vet says, “hey, one of the vet techs here has a friend that has two heeler pups for sale. She says they are good dogs. The mom is mellow and vet tech personally knows the woman selling them.
All roads lead back to Sol.
So we go for a visit to the barn where the puppies are staying. We get to meet Sol’s birth mother, smallish, but very sweet and not hyper (as heelers can be). Stone’s mellow, and that’s what we wanted.
Even this simple meet-and-greet isn’t without event. When we arrive at the horse barn this striking young girl, 4 years old maybe, comes walking straight up to us in her blue jeans, green zippered hooded Carhartt jacket and Georgia Boot Romeo slip on shoes, throws her hood back, shakes her black hair out, looks at us with piercing blue eyes that are windows to a soul intensity I haven’t seen in a while, and introduces herself for goodness sakes. It was world-stopping, you-had-to-be-there kind of thing.
We meet the pups, play, talk, meet the other folks at the barn, watch a video of Sol’s dad on the breeders cell phone, watch this blue-eyed child wonder play, look at the horses and ready to leave.
As we leave, Sol runs to the barn door and watches us go, kinda standing there (as much as puppies stay in one place before running to the next). And then the young girl starts to cry that we are leaving. And one of the older men says in jest, “Watch out, or we’ll throw a child in with the puppy.” And Sara, never one to miss a beat, says, “You better watch out. We might accept her, as we haven’t any of our own.”
So, all that, combined with this full lunar eclipse and the Winter Solstice on the same day, and into the center stage of our lives pops 7 pounds of unbridled energy, Sol. With the whole experience leaving us with much more than a puppy. That, my friends, is a glimpse of how things go from time to time at Eleven Acre Farm. Every day isn’t like that. But many days, I have to say, are well above average.
Happy Winter Solstice to you and yours, from all of us at Eleven Acre Farm.
Come Together
A lot’s been going on at Eleven Acre Farm, on many levels. Sara and I become increasingly clear that the intent we are “anchoring” here and the portal we are attempting to open in cooperation with nature is creating something that makes our hearts sing, and that others may find attractive.
George is a 25 year old semi-pro Thai fighter about to go pro. He was out on Friday morning to fix the refurbished elliptical we just ordered for aerobic fitness on the farm. He said to Sara, “I’m going to remember this place if everything blows up, and what you all are trying to do here, and that you will trade. I can’t talk with other people about the things I talk with you about.” To all intents and purposes he’s a stranger. And in two short trips here, he saw something in what we were expressing. But it isn’t just what we are talking about, it is what we are doing.
Rick tilling the 11AF garden
A lot of what we are doing right now centers around the garden. We have a 90 foot by 90 foot garden going in. That’s 8,100 square feet. And I don’t have time to even scratch the surface on how many different levels we are “gardening.” Sara is actively working with the nature spirits and devas, and I have to tell you she (and they) sometimes blow me away. The garden was doing something well before we started planting it yesterday.
I’ve always seen a garden as a place where earth, seed, water and sun come together and produce produce. That is becoming something altogether different for me now, and it is changing me. Affecting me. And as oil spews through a hole a mile deep in the ocean floor, where our technology to open up the earth outstrips our technology to suture it closed again, that means something to me.
What also means something to me is that Dad and Mom are here, considering moving to Oregon to close out the last chapters of their lives. My sister Marian and brother-in-law John are a 10 hour drive south or a short plane ride away from here, down in the Bay Area. We are all excited about having more quality time with Dad and Mom before our time together starts closing around us. And they seem to be quite activated by this place. But you can be the judge of that. See them in the pictures below.
And like a refreshing northeast wind, Bradley and Shirley rolled in to Eleven Acre Farm on Friday. They’ve just bought a 35 foot motor coach, a real beauty, and are touring around. Fortunately, 11AF became a port-of-call. We drank deeply of our friendship with them–and fellowship. A clear reminder that good friends are rare indeed, and that it doesn’t matter how much time passes between seeing them–you are still at home when you are with them.
I’d just like to let the photos do the talking from here, and to say thanks for tuning in from time to time. I wish I had more time to write, and to share all that is going on here. But since I can’t, I hope that when you do tune in that you find the green light and the white light we are attempting to commingle and coalesce here refreshing, and that in some way it supports you in doing what makes your heart sing, too. Because when you do that, you in turn support us in doing here what makes ours sing.
Dad and Mom feeling a little childlike on the southeast property line
Touring the property near the nature sanctuary
Family. Farm.
Flower emerges from shadow
Wild Columbine in the 11AF wode
The massive fir on the savannah. "Come together. Right now. Over me."
Some green light white light from 11AF
Good Friday. April 2. Snow.
I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning, this Good Friday. Snow! Nowhere was that in the forecast. In fact, the low was to be 38 degrees. So we’ve taken some photos for you.
But wait! Lo and behold, just as I am ‘pressing this post for ya, Sara slips into my office and points out the widow, towards the pond. A coyote! Stone’s going nuts, I crank open my window and snap a few photos as the coyote moves westward from the pond, up the ravine towards the woods…
What a quiet, strange and special morning. I hope through the photos, you can get a sip of it. It’s special here, and we feel it. It is working its way into our blood, our senses, our pulse, our veins, the fibers of our being. Slowly. Snowly.
In some ways, Eleven Acres is small. In others, vast. And the world you are in as you read this is really not so different than the world I write to you from here, now, with a coyote patroling, wild, and as I write Stone is at my feet, domesticated, and yet hyper-alert to the movement of the interloper that is not the interloper in this world that is mine and not mine. It so depends on where we place the focus, doesn’t it? And the wall between domestication and wild, the thinnest veil. I opened the window between them, photographed the wild, and bring it to you into our domesticated world.
Yet this domesticated world is bordering on wildness, don’t you think? We’ve got Christian Militias, folks shooting through the windows of congressmen, a Tea Party, and some crazed woman from Alaska saying “reload” and “take your country back.”
Yes, the veil between wildness and domestication is thin. May we lift it with care, and find the courage, strength and groundedness to withstand the power of the commingling. And rather than sending us down into unconsciousness, may it propel us one step after another, to collective consciousness and individual freedom.
Snow in West Vineyard
Snow and Southern Glade
Snow and Waning Daffodils
Ancient Oak New Snow
Coyote Snow
As the Vernal Equinox Approaches
I thought you might enjoy seeing what it looks like at 6:30 am in the morning at Eleven Acre Farm. These photos are from one morning, a couple of days ago, as I could feel spring moving up the valley and into the spirit of the place. In the first photo, you see Mount Hood in the far distance. In the second, three deer playing across the road. And in the third, after meditating with Sara, the view out the front door–the sun rising and lighting up the moss on the limbs and the flowers at the base of the 200 year old oak tree in the front yard. Enjoy our sights, and come see them for yourself.
Sunrise Mt Hood March 2010
Three Deer, March 2010
Oak. Sun. Near Spring. March 2010
9:12pm: Full Moon Over the Farm
Sara and I were standing on the porch tonight, gazing at the full moon. It was quite the sight. The air was clean, and still cold from winter here that is turning into spring. The moon was hazy. The pond is full, satiated by the rains of the Willamette valley. We stood there together, quiet. This is a dream. One we had to dream together for it to be-come possible. And a little poem casts itself to the surface, as the moon hangs bright behind the 200 year old oak in the front yard, rendered to nothing except a giant silhouette in the moon’s brightness, and the frogs singing with fervor by the pond. My lady standing by me. A sense of completion. A feeling of fulfillment.
February Moon
Hazy full moon
Dark oak tree
Frogs | Pond | Cacophony
Silver breath hangs
Air I see
Night | At last | It comes to me
