from the pasture (April 12, 2007)
Wednesday, Slide Ranch took a field trip (or, more formally, a "development day") to organic farms in Bolinas. Naturally, I've already fallen head over heels in love with Bolinas.
As I remember it, I decided promptly (as I habitually tend to do) that my future may find me as a fisherwoman and surfer stationed off the coast of Bolinas. Or at the very least, the owner of local bakery and breakfast stop for other fisher(wo)mens.
After spending more time in the town and exploring the backroads with Whitney, a golden lab that I was sitting for last weekend, and visiting local organic farms with the Slide Ranch staff on Wednesday, its fair to say it seems that my dream could be reality. The folks we met are remarkable in that they customized their own ideas and passions to create a farming lifestyle that's uniquely sustainable...for both the land and for themselves. Among the four farms we stopped at, there was an elegant chicken and apple farm, a CSA with a renovated ship on the property used for selling pizza to locals, a permaculture institute with compost tea and weed brownies (not that kind of weed, mind you), and a larger scale farm with acres of salad mixes (but also a house built around a caboose train car which I madly adored and could have stayed in all day just oogling). Anyway, I could go on and on.
You may be asking: where did this put me on my return to Slide Ranch? Re-energized. Purposeful. Its foolish to forget the abundance of learning that the ranch provides. I could sit it the chicken coop for hours, tracking the chickens and observing their behavior, and learn more than in any classroom lecture. The connection between myself and natural world is a space where limitless love, inspiration, and fresh understanding exists. The ticket is opening my heart to it all.
Oddly (or maybe not), this hymn from my Catholic upbringing keeps sneaking into my head. As a seven year old, I always hoped for it during mass: "Sing to the Mountains. Sing to the Sea. Raise your voices, lift your hearts."
Its the "lift your hearts" part that I like. Images of my heart leaping up and opening to the pine trees on the mountains, the birds flying over the ocean...its pure freedom.
After spending more time in the town and exploring the backroads with Whitney, a golden lab that I was sitting for last weekend, and visiting local organic farms with the Slide Ranch staff on Wednesday, its fair to say it seems that my dream could be reality. The folks we met are remarkable in that they customized their own ideas and passions to create a farming lifestyle that's uniquely sustainable...for both the land and for themselves. Among the four farms we stopped at, there was an elegant chicken and apple farm, a CSA with a renovated ship on the property used for selling pizza to locals, a permaculture institute with compost tea and weed brownies (not that kind of weed, mind you), and a larger scale farm with acres of salad mixes (but also a house built around a caboose train car which I madly adored and could have stayed in all day just oogling). Anyway, I could go on and on.
You may be asking: where did this put me on my return to Slide Ranch? Re-energized. Purposeful. Its foolish to forget the abundance of learning that the ranch provides. I could sit it the chicken coop for hours, tracking the chickens and observing their behavior, and learn more than in any classroom lecture. The connection between myself and natural world is a space where limitless love, inspiration, and fresh understanding exists. The ticket is opening my heart to it all.
Oddly (or maybe not), this hymn from my Catholic upbringing keeps sneaking into my head. As a seven year old, I always hoped for it during mass: "Sing to the Mountains. Sing to the Sea. Raise your voices, lift your hearts."
Its the "lift your hearts" part that I like. Images of my heart leaping up and opening to the pine trees on the mountains, the birds flying over the ocean...its pure freedom.
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