No Warning Farm

I stopped by the fields yesterday, not expecting to find Paul and our three employees actually harvesting already. In March. I threw on some gloves to pitch in and was amused to hear these twenty-something farm workers deep in conversation…

I texted this photo to LB and Andrea today, with the note that “to keep my mind off disease and financial collapse, I sewed an apron for the commercial kitchen.” The coronavirus has sucked the life out of all of…

The same day that we cleared the fields of storm-damaged infrastructure, we worked on building a fence around what will be our new orchard, where we intend to plant less obvious fruit; no honeycrisp apples or ranier cherries, but plums…

The construction of our own building on this cooperative farm has sucked up a lot of our time and energy. I’ve declined several invitations from LB and Andrea for weekend gatherings because we’ve been out there on weekdays and have…

I’ve been looking at lighting catalogues for ages, especially the pieces at Barnlight Electric Company. I plan to accessorize our building with their pendants and goosenecks, powder coated in a zippy color (chartreuse). You can spend many, many thousands of…

On the plans, this area upstairs overlooking the west side of the farm is labled Rec. Space. But that doesn’t exactly describe it’s purpose. Our intent is to have three main zones, one surrounding a wood stove, one adaptable to…

I’ve been amused by the crew working on the framing of our retreat. They seem completely competent (“lots of measurements being yelled out,” I texted to Phil while he was in Israel, conveying my opinion that precise numbers were probably…

For several days, there’s been an upstairs without stairs. The crew used ladders and machinery to get up there, joking with me that I was welcome to go up in the scissor lift. I rode the Seattle ferris wheel high…

On the first day of construction, the guys on the framing crew asked me about the elk. They’d seen evidence of them, but after days, they had still not had an actual sighting. Then one afternoon, Brandon called out the…

A week ago yesterday, there was only a slab. On Monday, I managed to capture this photo looking up to the second story and the sky just before they laid the floorboards. It was the first time Phil saw the…