Harvest

The last time I wrote something on here, I was about to start planting things, and now it's harvest time.  The time between sowing and reaping seems to be the busiest time of year.  When the sun comes out, there is so much to do!  The community garden, my church and the farmer's market have all helped me to feel a part of the place where I live, after a year.  Weeding with people makes for good friendships. 

I didn't know a year ago whether I would find kindred folks around here or not, but I'm glad to find that there are plenty, and some of them even have time to hang out with me!  My new community is very easy going and settled, compared to the city.  Grandmotherly Anna emailed one day and invited me over to pick berries that she's been growing and picking for years and years in her back yard.  I know her family well.  Her daughter and I took a hike at Silver Falls in the early summer, and she is also related to Taj's new principal.  Connections abound. 

Picking berries is something that people in my church do a lot of together.  I've had quite a few invitations.  We have a list serve and people put random requests and offerings on it every day.  Today someone asked for a pressure washer to borrow, and another person said she needed a renter soon. I asked where to get my computer fixed, and if anyone had a carseat for a friend who is coming from out of town for a visit.  I got four offers for each.  We borrow tools, share harvests, give rides and advice.  Being indebted to folks makes me feel a part of things pretty fast.  I like that. 

I'll be headed back down to Monmouth to work, twice a week, again in a month, but for the summer I've enjoyed being in my new town full time.  I've been working hard at weddings at the local resort hotel, and making pennies an hour selling fair trade goods at the farmers market, taking my dogs for walks and doing lots and lots of weeding, between home and community garden.  I even have a tan for the first time in my life! 

A week ago a friend came down from Portland to go wine tasting with me, and I brought her to a concert in a church-friend's huge back yard, where another church friend's husband played some folk music.  I know that she must have felt so strange seeing me with this new life, but it was ok with me.  I really felt a part of my community for the first time, and didn't regret losing the one I used to have in the city.  It does help that it has been a summer full of reunions.  I've been to two family reunions for my family, hosted one for Jimmy's, and in two weeks there will be one at the beach with my former home-group "tribe" at Imago Dei.

I live for reunions.  I'm so so sentimental.  With our July reunion that I started for my dad and his cousins a few years ago, I see the value of getting together each year when we lose one of his cousins, and we all remember visiting with them just a year prior at the last reunion.  Death is so hard, but a tradition of being together with family makes for less regret.  In my own life, I haven't had any friends die yet, but I still like to keep up with people, and not just on Facebook.  I really like to be able to visit in a relaxed way.  I used to go to the annual BBQ and baptism at Imago to see my people, but they don't do that any more, so we're starting our own gathering at Rockaway Beach.  I hope it can be a yearly tradition.  Friends from Chicago and Seattle are coming, even.  I'm so excited to see them.

This photo is of the spot where we have my dad's reunion every year, where his great grandparents were married, in Champoeg.

Losing the weekly farmers market ritual next month would have been hard, but I have another venture to replace it!  I have been on the list for a vendor space at the local antique mall for nine months now, and I've finally come up on the list.  This may be just what I need for my creative side to awaken.  I've been scouring country estate sales all over the county, and having so much fun!  There are some pretty amazing treasures out here in the boondocks.  Here are two of them, new neighbors of mine and my new friend's husband and son, just in case you thought everyone out here was politically ignorant.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8xOel2f5pI&feature=relmfu 

Time to plant something.

I've officially lived in Yamhill County for six continuous months now, and while I'm not jumping for joy to be out of the city, I can picture things working out for me here. In some ways it has been like outer space--I experience familiar things in little spurts or via long-distance communication and hardly ever in a relaxed setting. There are new friends to be discovered here though, and I may have found a few already! (Stay tuned....)

Over this six month period, my heart has become more and more affected by and curious about the land that I drive through every week, and the people who farm it. I've been so interested to know if many of them are eating well and getting access to whole, fresh foods as my gramdpa Bill and grandma Eva did when they were farmerfolk.

One of my favorite memories in all of my life was when my uncle took me to the sweet old general store where my grandpa, who I never met, took him when he was little. The store was far from home, but it had the best quality seeds, so they made the trip once a year for seed. Grandpa died just before I was born, but his legacy of valuing quality food is still strong in our family now.

As I drive through the valley, I see that each giant piece of land seems to be dedicated to just one big crop--mostly nuts, grass, landscape trees, or grapes, and once in a while, corn or pumpkins... this is the way it has been back to the day of my grandparents' parents' farms--I know. It is the way that farming works now that industrial tools are used and big yields are expected. But I wonder how that affects the farmers. Without the basic biodiversity of multiple crop farming, habitats for beneficial insects and essential farming practices like crop rotation aren't able to thrive, and the land is stripped of its rich nutrients. Earth-scientists know this, and yet we continue to farm for the sake of immediate yields and not for the health of the farmland.

I've shown some of the beautiful things that I've witnessed on my country drives, but some of the uglier things have been too shameful to photograph. The cattle farm just between Salem and Rickreall has no visible cows on it. They are hidden in a huge warehouse, and yet their manure pours down the hill in liquid form and floods the trenches that line the expressway. At least a mile of that stretch fills ones nose with pure sulfur, unlike the earthy manure scent I get from the grass-fed cattle farm near to where I turn when I drive from I-5 through French Prairie Farm Country, into the Newberg area.

The white dust that covered much of the farmland near to Taj's school last fall was also disturbing to me. I knew that my great grandfathers, Nils and Robert would not have had such amendments, nor would they have wanted to cover their fields with powdery chemicals, and they certainly would never have sprayed the toxic round-up that is used on all non-organic corn crops these days.

I often cringe when I see Latino workers in the fields, wondering what chemicals they are being subjected to, just because their lives are seen as less valuable in our society. If they weren't seen that way, I'm sure there would be an outcry against the effects that modern farming has on the health of these individuals, as there seems to be in Europe, where migrants don't work on farms as much.

As with all of my heart's social burdens, I have to say "I can't fix this," and move on to do what I can do. Part of what I can do is work with the Sustainability Club at the University, to bring in engaging educators who know more than we do about farming and our land. Part of what I can do is to write this here. But a really satisfying part that I really long to do is to work on my own little bit of land and make it bio-diverse.

I planted some trees and flowers this week, and I can tell you--my little bit of land is pretty much solid clay and rock. Digging a small hole is a major undertaking. There is no way that I could grow tomatoes or potatoes in that soil as it is now. It would be better used for making bricks than growing things. But as part of my weed-management plan (Jimmy is more concerned about killing weeds than growing good things, generally), I've initiated a form of permaculture that is already having wonderful effects. In our ungrassy areas, we laid down newspaper in sheets, five or six sheets thick, and then laid composted mulch on top, with sand mixed in to give it weight. This kills weeds, but it does something else too. After a few years of doing this sandwiching of carbon and nitrogen, there will be a good depth of fertile soil to use for whatever we need to grow. In the meantime, I have a choice....

I stand at the crossroad now of a consequential decision--to plant in raised beds here, on my land where I can watch things grow every day and work alone to fend off weeds and pests, or to join in a communal workforce at the university or at a church nearby, where there are community gardens.

I shared a community garden plot once in Portland. It was really hard, because it was out of sight, and during the summer, completely out of mind. Even with sharing duties with my many co-workers who had been in a very committed group which shared passion for this stuff, it was really hard to pull my part of the weight. The only reason I'm even considering doing it again now is for the sake of my own need for community and for the social power that comes out of a shared vision.

We need so many more community gardens on this planet! Mostly for those people who don't own any land of their own. I believe that we all have a basic need to grow things, even though so many people are out of touch with that need. I feel like it's a human right to be able to grow our own food, for a sense of power over our survival, if nothing else. Having lived in apartments for the past few years, I really appreciate that so few people have access to land. I was fortunate to have spots to plant berry bushes and rhubarb in my last apartment. Most apartment dwellers don't get that.

So I think I'm going to join the garden. I have my own greens here, planted in pots on my porch. Greens are the kind of thing you harvest continually, so that works best on the porch. Rhubarb and berries are perennials--they grow back every year, so they will go in the ground here too, but for my carrots and parsnips and tomatoes and squash, I think I'll join the garden. Hold me to it!

Happy to be Mrs. Moss

Yesterday was Jimmy and my fifth "mo-versary". I first heard about mo(nth)versaries in a book by my favorite theologian, Marva Dawn, who didn't get married until she was in the second half of her life, and who is a big fan of celebration. Taj and I have celebrated them for a few years now, and Jimmy's not as into it, but I like to mark the passing of months and years in little ways, when it's not too much trouble to. What I hoped to do each moversary was to bake one of the recipes of the various cookies that my friend Dana made for our wedding desserts. I haven't managed to find time to do that since our second month, when we were preparing to bring the puppies home. I'm definitely not the Martha Stewart I dream of being.

I think I finally have some perspective on my marriage, after five months, and: this is a good marriage--something I never really dared to hope for. We thought that our slight religious and political differences were going to cause the most trouble, but we found a church that we both like somehow, and it's really just the TV that we bicker over. (He likes it on, and I like it off.) Our worlds are very different, but our marriage works well in spite of that.

About a month ago, I came home after a fun urban weekend in Portland with some friends, and Jimmy decided it was time to show me "The Archery Shop," in Yamhill. He had told me very little about this sacred place where he and his dad go often on Thursday evenings, and he felt that the time had come for me to see it, so I put on my rugged rain boots and gloves (I was told only to dress for cold and mud). We got in his big truck, that has been sitting unused since we got a hybrid this past fall, and we went over some rivers and through some woods, and ended up on a long gravel road that led to one of the most remote stretches of the Yamhill River that you might ever imagine finding. The "shop" was a huge garage-like corrugated metal building with a wood stove inside, and a TV hanging high above it where some sports channel was silently showing golf events, a little store with archery things to buy, and a huge space for shooting targets with bows and arrows from many yards away. The shop owner took our money at the little store, and his grandson was one of two people shooting--he was about Mason's age, 12.

We didn't stay inside though. Jimmy wanted to show me the "3D course". He didn't tell me what that was. He just led me down a steep path toward the river. Next to the river bank, a ways off, there appeared to be a deer laying down. We stopped at a little post with a sign on it, and Jimmy shot at the deer. When we walked up to the deer from many yards away, I saw that it was made of foam rubber, and it had a little, fist-sized brown circle under its rib area, and Jimmy had shot his arrow right into the middle of that circle, without the use of any kind of telephoto lens. The next target was a foam alligator, and the next was a wild turkey! It was fun walking through the woods looking for new foam-animals. I enjoyed seeing him get his arrows into the tiny, invisible targets too.

Jimmy doesn't describe things at length unless it's an idea that has to be explained in order to understand, or when he's giving you a lesson. He sees the beauty of letting us discover things like this first hand for the first time, and I've learned to enjoy that, mostly because I trust him so much, I think. He's really great at demonstrating that people don't have to analyse and articulate as much as I always have--but just trusting natures course, and experiencing it rather than taking everything apart with words and acting like words are sufficient for putting them back together. I feel like we found each other at a good time in my life--I was ready to experience life in a less controlling way, and he is a good example of living life in that way. I had no idea that I was headed here, of course, but it is good to live with someone so different, who isn't as anxious or pressed by the troubles of the entire world.



Jimmy loves to play. When he's not at work, he's usually trying to find ways to get outside and run around, find geo-caches, play frisbee golf, spot wild animals and birds or shoot at things, with pool cues or arrows or guns. I don't naturally tend to do any of these things, but I'm learning to like some of them because he has been such a great teacher. I never had a lesson in bowling or pool before--I figured it was just something some people knew how to do, and others, like me, didn't. When he taught me how to throw a bowling ball, it only took me a few tries, and I started doing well. That was astounding! I don't usually feel very productive when we're doing these kinds of things, but I'm learning to be ok with that, and he reminds me of the ways that play has value.

He likes meat, and I like vegetables and grains best. Good thing he's good at cooking meat! I'm pretty good at cooking it sometimes too. I love that the meat that he brings home every fall lasts all year, and it is free of steroids, hormones and genetically modified feed, and it doesn't create excessive waste or pollution, because it's not bred for humans on land that could be used for growing enough vegetables to feed the world. It is wild. What a luxury to have wild meat! I don't eat the big hunks that he does, but I agree that it tastes amazing. This year Mason will start hunting, so we may have lots! Jimmy is pretty generous with his meat. Come October, you should ask him for a taste.

This weekend we went to the regional archery tournament in Lincoln City. The shooting competitions lasted forever and was pretty unexciting, but the wind and hail storm that rocked Jim's parents' motor home was exciting. We were in there with his folks, their two dogs, and our two dogs. I can see where Jimmy gets his laid back ways. His parents just rolled with all the challenges. The dogs were too freaked out to go outside, and it didn't even seem to bother Jim's mom that my dogs were peeing on the linens and pooping on the floors. She was prepared with all the back-up supplies and she remained unruffled. That's Jimmy too. He knows how to clean the house well, and does so periodically, but he's not going to keep it sparkling clean all the time just in case someone comes over. Man, do I ever have a long way to go in that department. I'm trying to at least keep the clutter level down, but with three kids, it's hard for me sometimes. I'm glad his expectations aren't as high as my mom's.

I always heard that the first year was really rough, but for me, being married is nowhere near as frustrating as dating was. I know that Jimmy will be here for me, and I don't have to worry about him going away, which is what caused me all kinds of anxiety in my past relationships. He's very patient, understanding and forgiving. He even manages to get through my emotional storms without taking them too personally. I am very blessed to be married to such a guy.

Domesticity

I finally had a chance to sink into the Yamhill Valley and its ways over Christmas Break. The week of Thanksgiving Jimmy started a new shift at work in which he works noon to midnight. Then the next week we got two little two month old puppies (My step-son Mason is playing with Kirby, above). So needless to say, when nearly all of the students left campus down in Monmouth during the first week of December, I was eager to stay home and sleep in with my family, and tend to my new little babies. What a godsend to have nearly a month off from driving down to Monmouth.

In the time I had at home, besides keeping the puppies from chewing up and swallowing every single object they get their paws on, I started to do my shopping in McMinnville rather than in Salem, and I started to cook a LOT. We hosted Christmas at our house, which was a first for me. I really enjoyed hosting and cooking for everyone, and buying all of my presents from local farmers, orchards, roasters and artisans.

When I went through the House of Myrrh workshop called "Heart Design" in 2010, one of the projects we did was to make a "life dream" map. A lot of my life's dreams have been coming true lately--besides getting married; having a beautiful, memorable wedding; and having a sweet, strong man around to help me do things I could never do on my own, I have time and funds to buy fresh, local (or wild!) produce and cook things from scratch more than once a week. ...Now I just need a dreamy garden and a trip on the orient express.... oh and I still need to become a jazz singer. Those are less attainable dreams, but possible still!

I dream I didn't have that's coming true this Lenten season, that might strike you as almost as terrifying as being a jazz singer, is that I'm going to preach a sermon at a church! One of the pastors that oversees my position at work asked me to preach at her church, a tiny little Episcopal one in Monmouth. I'm not sure if I will ever agree to preach again in the future, but for this one time, I'm really excited about it! During a trip to Birmingham three winters ago, a very liberated older woman named Katie, a deacon in a Episcopal church, and a virtual stranger who I was staying the night with because of a mutual friend, said something rather prophetic as she was driving me to the airport: she said that I should look into being ordained. I was so shocked and honored at the thought... it would have never occurred to me at that point. I'm still pretty sure it's not my calling, but maybe preaching will shed light on that some more. I think my husband is hoping I won't like it too much. It must be weird for men to be married to women pastors. It's not a traditional picture of domesticity.

I'd like to play the domestic role and decorate my new house more, but I haven't had a lot of money to since I had to get a new roof for my rental house in Portland. I think I'll enjoy it more decorating gradually anyway. I spent this past weeks' spending money on a concert in Portland. It was very satisfying. So many old friends and acquaintances were there. It was emotional for me. Portland tugs at my heart these days. I like where I live because I feel really free to be me here. In the city there is so much pressure to keep up with trends and norms. I guess if I was a trend-lover then I would feel more free in the city. I do miss the familiar sights and smells, the variety, and the intense nostalgia that Portland holds, but I think that leaving has made it all the sweeter.

I have found some of my places here in Yamhill County. They are still new, but they are definitely mine now. Some of them are: the Mac Goodwill, George Fox, The Red Fox Bakery (thanks Diane!), A Family Healing Center, The Blue Goat Cafe in Amity, Eggers Acres, North Valley Friends Church, Coffee Cottage, Harvest Fresh Grocery, and Recipe--dumbest name ever for a restaurant (says the Portlander in me), but it is suited to this quirky, pretentious but un-hip wine country life, and they do cook very good, locally harvested food, which is really all that matters to me.

Here's what I made from scratch today--quinoa salad with arugula and almonds, and spicy pumpkin and hominy stew.