Winter has hit. There’s snow to be shoveled, fires to tend to, and root vegetables to cook. So I am told. I left Maine in late December, before the storms and cold arrived to both delight and torture New Englanders. (Or during these strange times, before the balmy days of Christmas; sixty degrees!) December to February, people like to say, well, if you don’t like the weather, move somewhere else. In March they like to say, I’m so tired of this weather. I went west. On a looping, long road that took me from Colorado to Oregon to California to New Mexico. Back again to Colorado, and finally, to California, where there are piles of citrus at the farmers’ markets, big waves, and I am in a t-shirt, thinking about the avocados in the kitchen.

What can I say? The mountains were tall. The road was red and brown and sharp and expansive. There was dry snow and heavy rain. The trees were green and towering and mossy. The snacks were abundant; they were darn good, especially, as ever, the ones made at home and out in Portland. The sun-shined. Days and nights were full of time passed with old friends. Neil Young was on the speakers.

I read Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. I was enthralled by the first two. By the third I was slowed down by the heaviness of the story. Perhaps the nature of the soap operatic tangle is to be both incredible and awful at once. Still, it is epic. I recommend the series wholeheartedly. Also, have you read the zine Doris, by Cindy Crabb? My friend Tara gave me a copy to take in while I visited her, and I’m hooked. They’re about life. About being a woman, being a friend, being a person trying to make something. The stories about the struggles and situations that make living such a trip are raw, straightforward, heartening, much like Tara herself.

I met Tara last year, in the fall. Nora and I ventured down to North Carolina in large part to attend a pie-making workshop at her bakery, Smoke Signals. Fall, is, without a doubt, my favorite season. All of the intensity of planting and weeding fades away. The final pushes to harvest and wash storage crops are one time only cash-it-all-in moments that make way for cover crops and clean slates. There’s a high lonesome quality to the lowering light, the changing leaves, the first frost, that makes me happy, sad and ready for it all to happen again. And, ready to make pie.

Before and after the trip, I have been inspired by Tara. She’s creative, full of magic, but also operating a very real, successful business. In the mountains outside Asheville she makes damn good bread, pizza and pie, but also, educates and empowers people to bake + gather +share (her tag-line) in their own corners of the world. I had experimented with a pop-up bakeshop on the farm where I worked, and was searching for someone who could advise me in the constant process of trying to wrangle all the ideas I have, and make them into something tangible.

During the workshop she was warm, organized and taught us how to make extra flaky wood-fired apple pies. Since the workshop, we have stayed in touch. We talk about farming, baking, finding one’s place, relationships; about living. This conversation is endless. We may not figure anything out, but we can make a lemon chiffon cake, start a fire and sit under a watermelon slice shaped moon with neighbors and get somewhere.

I’m learning how to sit still, while being on the road. Hopefully I’ll learn how to surf this year. Happy January.

All photos credited to Nora Carr. ISO: Someone who can repair a Leica camera. If you know anyone, let us know.

1. On the 13th of June, the first pints of strawberries appear at the Portland farmers’ market. While setting up the market stand, I resolve to wait until the strawberries at the general store are ripe and not buy any at market. At 7:15 a.m., Carol, a cheerful customer brings by a pint and tells us to help ourselves. The berries are sweet, juicy, and irresistible. By 7:45 I begin to worry that they’ll sell out quickly. I’m not waiting any longer. I buy two pints. The first is finished before returning home from market. The other is eaten the next morning, on-top of waffles. That day is one of the first truly hot, beating sun days. A neighbor comes over to help in the garden. He brings over his wheel hoe and we work until the weeds are knocked down. We have pie (not strawberry, but rhubarb), and fresh berries. In the early evening I swim and know that it’s summer.

2. The week of June of 15th is heavy with anticipation for strawberry season to start at Sheepscot General Store. The farm at the store has one of the only certified organic pick-your-own berry fields in the state. The phone won’t stop ringing. The first ripe berries are sampled by the the store staff and we tell everyone soon! So soon! There’s a Michael Hurley concert in Portland. Jon and I go with Eliot, a fellow who farms with us one day a week. He likes Robbie Basho (Blue Crystal Fire listeners united!) and goats. Michael Hurley plays Diamond Joe, Oh My Stars and amuses the crowd with his version of “Sweet Home Alabama” with a chorus of: “We hoe marijuana.” The next day there are quarts of berries for sale at the store and a few of my high school friends arrive for the 5th annual cake walk party. Soon becomes even sooner.

3. Pre-calk walk strawberry buttercream frosting curdling woes and the subsequent saving of said frosting with more butter, brings up the age old question: when is more butter, a small handful of strawberries and a quick swim not the solution to the problem?

4. The cake walk is magic! The cake walk started when I lived in Oregon and discovered that two of my co-workers and I had birthdays within a few days of each other. One day (or many days), I was talking about cake to Tayne, who was born two days after me and is in ways so similar to me, I’m sure we’re almost sisters. She had never been to a cake walk and suggested we have one to celebrate our birthdays. The first walk was a roaring success.

So many cakes! So many people whom I just recently, or never before, met came with cake and started summer together. It was dizzying; the creativity, the enthusiasm, the amount of sugar. Over the years, the cake walk has continued. Certain variations and changes made me miss that original excitement. The surge of happiness from the unpredicted. This year, there was little planning, little expectations, just the desire that there would be cake, new and old friends, and a party outside. It was that, and then some.

There was a massive chocolate cake that could have passed for a wedding cake, each layer topped with strawberry pieces. Shony-baby assembled a donut tower into a cake, which made all the kids (and some adults to) impatient for the cake walk to begin. Jon made a s’mores cake that looked and tasted like a giant campfire delight. Nick brought a German chocolate cake that was a first time ever-baked-a-cake cake! Nora, who has dubbed the cake walk her favorite holiday, baked the most swooned over cake: a chocolate lavender cake with an earl grey buttercream. There was a fire, plenty of food, and people whom I hardly knew bringing cake along with people whom I know the best. It was perfect.

5. Post-cake walk, there are strawberries everywhere. U-pick is open and the phone rings and rings. We expect that the picking will go on for at least three weeks, but everyone is anxious to begin. People line up in the parking lot before the store opens at seven. I wait until after store hours and go out into the quiet field. There’s a peach-light sky and I find plenty of berries to fill my freezer and my belly.

6. The first week of picking is over. I head to Long Lake, where my family has gone since my grandmother was a child. She’s ninety and waits all year to go to the lake. This particular weekend, of June 27th, which happens to my birthday, is also the first summer weekend for her. My parents, my brother and sister, and my aunts are all there. Saturday is cool and overcast and we go on a short hike that has big, moody views of the mountains and lakes along the Maine-New Hampshire border. At night we BBQ and eat what is the ultimate strawberry cake.

The particular cake was made for my birthday a few years ago and when I requested the cake the following year, no one could remember where the recipe had come from. A few years passed without the cake. There was much discussion of how good it was, how my sister never had it, and where-oh-where could the recipe have come from. Last year, somehow, my dad remembered, it was from an old Bon Appetit. The cake was made. My brother, being the lil-know-it-all that he is, mentioned how this wasn’t made first for my birthday, but for my mom’s birthday, many years ago. No, no, you’re wrong, we all insisted. He sent us proof, a dated photo from years before, with the caption “TELL ME I’M WRONG!”. This cake, the family strawberry cake, is legendary. And like many foods that connect family and memory, it is delicious.

7. Strawberry picking is ongoing. The short rain spells, combined with the sun and the warm days make strawberry ripening ideal. The season is longer than ever before and thousands of pounds are being picked off of one acre. I make strawberry ice cream, twice. Strawberry shortcakes, because they are a favorite of my grandmother and Matt. Strawberry buttermilk cake, because I bought a new cookbook. And strawberry ice cream, again, because STRAWBERRIES.

8. There’s a pop-up snack shop event at Dandelion Spring Farm. Last year, when Sarah and I brought snacks to the on-farm vegetable pick-up, we would experiment and make a variety of treats. This year, I’m going alone, and decided to simplify. Making what have become Tall Trees’ standards: ginger-molasses cookies; chocolate rye cookies; chocolate chunk cookies; honey pie with sea salt. People want sweet. People want chocolate. But, I make a strawberry rhubarb pie, ’tis the season. Only the other farmers there order the pie. We all agree, it’s good, really good. Although I wish it had been more popular, I’m glad it’s one of the only items leftover, because it’s what I want to eat. I have a piece the next morning for breakfast and am glad to have gone. Having the chance to connect with people that aren’t close friends, but aren’t just customers, is a part of the small-business equation that gives me the warm feeling that community is real.

9. The picking lasts until mid-July. The longest, best strawberry season, possibly of our lifetimes. Towards the end, though there are still plenty of sweet berries to pick, people trickle in. The initial frenzy is forgotten, everyone is ready for the next fruit. The asking turns towards blueberries, tomatoes, corn and beans. We want, we want, we have, and we want again. Frequently, when I weigh a box of berries, people tell me how this bounty is the pay-off for such a long winter, or how I’m looking at future jam, part of the prepping process for the upcoming season. Summer is not without winter. It’s hard to eat a bowl of yogurt with fresh fruit and not be aware of the ephemerality of the farm season. I have a freezer full of berries, but those too, won’t last forever. Some dark January day, I too will yearn again. To be out in the heat picking berries, after a long day of picking vegetables. Wishing there was more time to swim and eat ice cream with friends; wishing for it to always be strawberry season.

All photos credited to Nora. P. Carr.

The sun has been shining for enough days that people are turning on their irrigation, or saying, “We could really use some rain.” The daffodils, the surest and brightest sign that winter ended, came and went. On Saturday night, a mash of friends and I roasted hot dogs, tempeh and ribs over a charcoal grill. There was a campfire and music- mostly mixed reggae and bluegrass (an introduction to me of the band Old and in the Way), and towards the end of the night, Michael Hurley, a true companion to a glowing crescent moon and clear stars. Someone brought an excellent kale and other early spring vegetable salad. I made a vanilla cake with raspberry buttercream, using raspberries I picked and froze last summer. It felt, on the ride home, as we discussed the upcoming cake walk (!), that we officially moved into that slippery season where there are a lot of outdoor days and nights ahead, but it’s already happening quickly enough to seem hard to catch.

For the past few years I’ve collected summer fruits and put in them in the freezer for later usage. Winter can overflow with quiet moments, and it’s only logical to store the fleeting components of strawberry-rhubarb pie for days of less produce and more time.

Spring has arrived, with it’s edible flowering, leafing and budding glory, and my freezer (and assorted other freezers), has yet to be emptied of the food stuffed in it. (Or hoarded? Or maybe simply had to ignore on frozen days when only chocolate and citrus would suffice.) I am hurriedly making raspberry delights (a.k.a. raspberry chip ice cream), attempting to clear the slate for the ever-growing bounty headed my way. In this hustle, I am realizing that the squirreled away food (once potential creations, now clutter in my life), is a physical expression of the overwhelmed feeling I experience after reading one too many food blogs and can’t decide which rhubarb pie recipe to make. (Or should I make rhubarb cake? Or rhubarb popsicles? What about rhubarb-ginger pie? Rhubarb-pecan pie? RHUBARB-GINGER-PECAN PIE WITH ICE CREAM? What kind of ice cream?)

There’s an unsettled feeling that comes from too much of anything. Sometimes it’s just a stomach-ache. But other times it’s a deeper sense that less really is more. Blueberries are excellent frozen. I use them weekly in smoothies and can make my grandmother a pie anytime of year. Blackberries stay plump with summertime heat and perfume, I recommend keeping at least a few pounds for crisps and magic. All those plums, cherries and peaches? They’re still waiting to be made into one of a multitude of tarts, scones and cobblers I likely dreamt of on a day full of weeding and transplanting and sitting on the cool grass, watching clouds or nothing at all.

For me, preserving food, similar to growing, cooking and eating food, is about creating sustenance, enjoyment and the opportunity to share with others. The moments of being with other people, with a few good snacks and pleasant weather are sometimes as rare as finding cherries in Maine. Instead of more recipes, I’d like more togetherness. A bowl of strawberries with whip cream doesn’t need a thousand variations; it needs a table, an oak tree to set under, and some folks to gather round.

All photos credited to Nora P. Carr. I recommend following her for more pictures of things.

On April 4th, I started a garden. I filled one strip tray with a mix of tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds. It felt late to start these seeds. On farms I’ve worked for in New England and Oregon, we started seeds in the solanum family, especially tomatoes, by mid-March. The seeds then have plenty of time to gernimate and be re-potted into larger pots. There they become well-established seedlings before they’re planted outside, or into a high tunnel, sometime in May, after the risk of frost. I was delayed by my own hemming and hawing, uncertain if I should start a garden.

I’ve never had my own food garden. Last year, I had a small flower garden for experiementing with natural dyes. I planned to continue the dye garden, expanding it by growing a larger variery of flowers and herbs for additional purposes, like making teas and having cut flowers to play with, but I couldn’t decide if growing vegetables was necessary. In addition to working at the general store, I’ll be farming part-time, or part-3/4 time. All winter I was reassured by the knowledge that as soon as the snow melted and a few strong winds came through to dry out the soggy fields, I’d be faced with as much food as I can eat. I made no plans. The seed catalogs piled up in my living room.

Once I started to consider where my produce was coming from, I started farming. This was in 2009. I worked on different types of farms, and each year felt exhilarated, consumed, challenged, frustarated, humbled, and satisfied. The first time I harvested strawberries and knew that was what was in store for the next day, I felt giddy. There’s always something invaluable to learn, a kindred someone to meet and an endless amount of snacks to eat. Yet, by the end of last season, I had a persistant feeling that it was time to shake things up.

I was startled by a conversation I had mid-summer. While transplanting a co-worker rattled off a list of possible next to explore opportunities, I listened, made suggestions and planted one lettuce seedling in the ground after another. He asked me if farming was all I ever wanted to do. Since starting to farm, pretty much, yes. Before I started farming, I had this idea to travel and farm and write. Once I started farming, I was hooked. We got onto another topic. The day ended. I almost forgot about the conversation. Yet, it returned, another day, perhaps while weeding. It seeped into the year. I realized, I don’t know what’s to come of all this, but there’s an undeniable buzzing.

April 4th, was a cold, rainy day. It may have dusted snow early in the morning. This year, it felt like March was no different from one long, long February. The gray, the chill of the air, and the snow carried on as though early spring meant nothing. I’d had enough of winter, enough of waiting to be outside, to be dirty, to be myself. I went down to the store, bought 50lbs of potting mix and started a vegetable garden. As soon as I placed the seeds in the soil, I knew there’ll be no holding back.

Peter, an endearingly friendly and cranky neighbor, offered to plow the field across from my house. He normally plants a pumpkin patch in the space, but he’s taking a break and the space is free to use. I haven’t measured it out, but the eye-ball assessment is that there’s likely a half-acre of open ground. To start, I’m going to plant arugula, lettuce, scallions, kale, chard, collard greens, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, beets, carrots, beans, pickling cucumbers, and winter squash. To start. I need a plan for the deer. I need a plan for protection against all the pests that are so pesky. I need a plan for what to do with all the food once it’s harvested. But, more then anything, I needed to start this garden.

Spring has broken through. The smells of bbq and pine mixed with warm sunshine permeate the air. Nighttime is livened with the return of the peepers. Their chanting and chattering seem to exclaim, we are here, we are new, we are excited.

All photos credited to Nora P. Carr.

When I moved into a cabin, half a mile down a dirt road, surrounded by woods and families of deer, the oft-heard statement that the demise of print media is directly tied to the ubiquitous internet became a truth realized in day-to-day life. There is no internet provider willing to travel down the currently rutted out, muddy road for a few lone homes. Tammy, the spunky mail carrier, in a bright pink sweatshirt that matches her bright pink nails, has no trouble delivering the written mail, newspapers and magazines that, in a twist of times, are the best way to get the news. Anyone looking for a pen-pal?

Instead of checking my email and streaming NPR news stories while having breakfast, I’m listening to the radio or records. Between working and making dinner there is no catching up on social media on-goings. There is finishing an article in a magazine, walking in the woods or calling someone to have a conversation. The decision to stream a video or read a book is almost unchanged, substitute in movie from the library and the book remains on the shelf most nights.

A tiny desk concert from NPR online is music just the same as a John Prine record is. Reading an article from The New Yorker that someone posted on Facebook is still an article from The New Yorker. Though the forms of intake have changed, the content is made of essentially the same substance. Music is music. But, watching a video while having other tabs open, and maybe also checking on another site is not the same as listening to music and chopping vegetables. There is a frenzying of the mind that happens online. The distractedness that I allow myself on the internet would feel unreasonably jerky in real life. It’s a lot easier to do what I’m doing and stick to it without the internet to take me all over the place.

Through work, the library, and likely soon, a data plan on my phone, I have access to the internet. I still go online almost once a day. But, I have to plan on when and for how long. During this time I may not see every posting on the sites I like. I certainly don’t have time to follow every interesting link. Yet, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say, since I’ve switched to regularly reading printed media, I’m taking in more information.

Without the internet, I have a greater need for physical media. I’m thinking of getting a few more magazine subscriptions. I used to read various articles online, for free, but perhaps at a cost nonetheless. If I was reading without really reading, did I read it? Long live the library, where I can check out magazines, for free, take them home, and read them, in full.

Dana, an opinonated ninety year old former hermit, told me that the internet is destroying rural America. I wouldn’t say that. There are many highlights to having internet. Even with its fickle nature, it is full of gems. It has a way of making strangers, real people, living in cities or around the edges, un-strange. But, if you’re looking for some non-internet reading, viewing, and listening, I’ve listed some of my recent choices. I included two podcasts in the list, because they’re a useful hybrid. You need the internet to acccess them, but not to use them. Best of both worlds?

Books
*Tenth of December, by George Saunders. I’ve loved George Saunders’s stories since I pretended to write creative fiction way back in the day. This book came out a few years ago. I was excited about it, but I was farming, and sometimes that means not reading. I finally read it this winter, and man oh man. His characters are real and flawed and struggling and trying for a contented life in the face of real life, but also in futuristic real life. It’s good stuff, always.

*The Round House, by Louise Erdrich. Louise Erdrich’s books, like John McPhee’s and Joan Didion’s, are coming with me to that desert island. All of them. The Round House is particularly haunting. I read it in about two days. Partially because I couldn’t put it down, partially because I was scared and wanted to get to the end so I could erase my fear. I’m not sure how scary it’d be for average non-scaredey cat folk. I’m sure it’s a great story. Although, if you haven’t read anything by her, Love Medicine is a masterpiece. I’m in the middle of The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, and that’s epic as well.

*This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett. This is a collection of essays, and they stuck with me. So much so that I read the book for the first time last winter, and re-read it this winter. Patchett’s telling of applying for the L.A.P.D., taking care of her aged grandmother, and how she came to be married again, after swearing not to, are all fantastic.

*Great Plains, by Ian Fraizer. It has history, personal experiences and descriptive imagery, all of which is incredibly engaging and covers the American West, more specifically, a tiny part of Native American history and contemporary experience. The book started as a series of essays in The New Yorker, and it’s a thrill to read.

Additionally, I recently read and recommend: On Immunity, by Eula Biss; The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Kushner; The Goldfinch, by Donna Tart; and Delancey, by Molly Wizenberg.

I am currently reading, and can’t fully report on, but can say that so far I like: In Search of the Perfect Loaf, by Samuel Fromartz; The Island Within, by Richard Nelson; and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, by Michael Chabon.

Magazines
*Orion. A staple. I have a subscription, and had one even when I had internet at my house. It has an environmental slant. Reading it, I often feel helpless and horrified. Sometimes, I feel hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we can maintain this thing that we’ve mostly destroyed, but still, not all is lost. It’s the real deal.

*Harpers. This is a magazine that I’ve been taking out of the library and am close to subscribing to. The February ’15 issue, is a good place to start. There’s reporting on Cliven Bundy (the cattle rancher with a militia fighting BLM in Nevada), prison reform (or non-reform, as the case may be), and a photo-essay on wolf-dog hybrids. It’s hefty, but monthly, so unlike The New Yorker, it’s feasible to read through before the next issue comes out. And, though it’s been said a few times before, it’s worth saying, The New Yorker is a great magazine. If I read just The New Yorker, I’d have enough good reading to last me the full week, every week.

*Gourmet. Yes, it is no longer in print. After reading various criticisms on the current state of food journalism, the simplest thought I had was: I miss Gourmet. When I read it most, right before it was cancelled, the issues had a great range of writing and voices and places profiled. I would love to find a replacement, ideas?

Movies
Warning: All of the movies I’ve seen in the past month have been heartbreaking.

*12 Years A Slave. You’ve likely heard of it, but if not, it’s a historical account of how one man was kidnappened into slavery and the twelve years that follow. It’s brutal.

*The Broken Circle Breakdown. This is an incredibly intense story of a couple falling in love and falling to pieces, triggered by cancer in the couple’s six year child. The couple is in a bluegrass band, and the music follows the ebb and flow of happy times and the unhappiest of times. Heartbreak and heart-shatter, all over the place.

For more sadness, I watched, Mississippi Burning and The Last Mountain, about civil rights and coal mining, respectively.

Records
The majority of my records come from the Goodwill, making Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Johnny Cash a large part of my collection. That’s alright by me. Nothing beats finding something special, like Elvis Costello’s My Aim is True for $2. Every so often, I splurge and buy newer records.

*St. Paul & the Broken Bones. Half the City is a mighty fine hot pink record. Soulful and rocking.

*Sturgil Simpson. He sounds an awful lot like a modern Waylon Jennings, deny it he may. I like to play his records and make pizza.

*Frank Fairfield. Jon has his records, but I want to steal them. They’re mostly out of print and hard to find. Solid folk music.

*Michael Hurley. He’s a legend to some, unknown to many, but his music is worth giving a listen to. Start with Armchair Boogie.

I’m going to buy the re-release of Kenny Knight’s album Crossroads. I’ve heard bits and pieces of it online, and it’s country, rock and all sorts of goodness.

Podcasts
The dollop! Comedic relief! In the podcast, two comedians discuss an event and/or person for about a hour. There are gold-star episodes, but the quality and humor can be erratic. 10 cent beer night is my absolute favorite episode. They recount a time when Major League Baseball thought a sound plan for filling up seats would be through a promotion in which they sold beers for 10 cents each. Hilarious.

Gravy. This is put on by the Southern Foodways Alliance. They’ve profiled veteran brothers who are now farming, the contentious history of Derby pie and a Louisiana bar that is only open on Saturday mornings. The episodes are short, but informative and completely varied. If you haven’t visited the Southern Foodways Alliance site before, it’s an internet rabbit hole worth tumbling into. It may lead you to place like Grady’s BBQ, which, without the internet, would be mighty hard to find.

All photos credited to Nora P. Carr.

Wes is a regular at the Sheepscot General Store. He comes in for the raw cream, sold by the pint, from a small dairy down the road. It’s hard to come by the cream, and Wes usually settles for chocolate sugared donuts and occasionally, a bag of snapea crisps. Sometimes he buys a ginger beer or a six-pack, but that’s the extent of his shopping. He’s requested to be on cream alert, leaving his number, in the hopes that he can have it in his coffee every morning.

Wes loves the cream from Maine, but hates the Maine winter. He went to Key West for a few weeks, and recently returned, with a promise to move to Florida by August, and a small turquoise earring in his left ear. He told me happily he’d made his decision to go. Unhappily, “They don’t have anything like this down there, no way to get good whole milk.” I nodded, unsure of if that’s true or not, and said, “Well, probably there’ll be access soon enough.” He agreed, commenting on how between the changing times and the amount of cows in Florida, it won’t be long now for everything to come together. I nodded again, told him I’d be seeing before he left, and he laughed loudly, both of us knowing he’ll come by every few days for the cream.

Wes’s easy-to come chuckle rattles with a history of smoking and tends to catch at the back of his throat, somewhere between the past and the present. His mustache is full, but his strawberry blonde-to-white hair is almost always covered by a baseball cap. His dark wranglers and brown bomber jacket set him slightly apart from the men and women who come into the store wearing carharts and flannels. Still, in a Whitefield line-up, he doesn’t stand out.

I moved to Whitefield this month. I’ve worked at the Sheepscot General Store for roughly four months, and before that came to the store infrequently on Friday nights, when there’s always pizza and often music or someone speaking about topics relevant to living in rural Maine, such as soil health and keeping bees. Whitefield is a town of less than 2,500 people. Perhaps surprisingly, they don’t all frequent the Sheepscot General Store. The store has been open now for four years. In the time I’ve worked there, multiple people have come to counter and told me it’s their first time in the store and that they live down in the road in the same breath. I’ve yet to ask anyone why they haven’t been in before but likely it’s a range of reasons; from not having found the time, from resistance to change, from wariness of the prices, and perhaps, from truly being unaware of its existence.

Recently, a man came into the store with his family. He walked in, looked around and announced, “I can’t believe a store like this is out here, in a place like this.” He stopped at the sandwich menu, and said it again. He was astonished, a little-to-a lot condescending, but overall, genuinely surprised. He couldn’t believe a place full of diverse items- local foods, freshly baked sourdough bread, produce from the farm on the store’s property- existed in a small town, a mere thirty minutes from his own almost equally as small, small town. His town has tourists and art galleries and a number of restaurants, and a well-established co-op that jives well with the scenery and hardly surprises anyone.

The general store is not a co-op, it is not a box store, it is not exclusively a farm-stand, and it is not a restaurant. It is a place where you can buy bulk oats, batteries, farm grown carrots and get a everything house-made corned beef reuben on rye sourdough. It’s a place where you can go to inquire about finding house-sitters at lunchtime and return at dinnertime, reporting that the recommendation was spot-on and arrangements were made. A place where someone may drop off kefir grains, just hoping someone may be interested, and a few days later, someone will show up asking about kefir grains. A place where everyone knows your name.

There are places, all over this country, some that I’ve been to, like the Big Hollow Food Co-op in Laramie, Wyoming (where you can get root beer milk, in a glass jar) and The Root Cafe in Little Rock, Arkansas (sweet potato fries!!!!), and some that I’d like to go to, like The Floyd Country Store in Floyd, VA (music and snacks, music and snacks!) and Rose’s Fine Food in Detroit, MI (living wages! portions of tips donated to charities! discounts for neighborhood locals! crybaby doughnuts!), where something like that fuzzy word community exists. There are people making food and music and happiness in the nooks and crannies of cities and coastlines and hillsides and flatlands, whether we expect it to exist or not. I think Wes will find his cream in Key West. I would start here.

All photos credited to Nora P Carr.

My friend Jon made one of the first cornbreads I remember liking. I was a picky eater for a long time, but since realizing that peanut butter & jelly do indeed taste good together, I’ve been catching up. It was a basic cornbread, made in a cast-iron skillet, with jalapenos and cheddar cheese bits. Did it have corn off the cob mixed into it as well? It was summer time, late august, when we were harvesting corn by the bucket full and eating our fill moments after. Jon invited the crew and some other folks over to his backyard for a potluck/BBQ/drink around a fire evening. There were a few chickens clucking their way through the yard and Steve had his guitar. Steve also brought cornbread, but said Jon’s was better and it was. Everyone was happy, but nothing was particularly extraordinary.

I’ve been friends with Jon for four years now. While not farming together, we’ve made food, walked in the woods, and listened to records. In the summertime, we’ve gone swimming. We’ve had a few mini-adventures. Once we travelled to Vermont. Over the long weekend, we went to three farmer’s markets, two co-ops, and one bakery. We ate bread and/or pizza at every stop. (This is what happens when you get two farmers, one of whom is an aspiring grain grower and the other a serious snacker together.) Another time, we drove North to hike and explore Skowhegan. There’s a farmer’s market there, and The Pickup, a local foods cafe in the same building as an operational grist mill. They make excellent bread and pancakes. These trips were out of the ordinary. Mostly, we make food, walk in the woods and listen to records.

Try as we may to let a sunset soak in and recognize the happiness in regular, daily happenings, the beauty of normalcy is that it flows in everyday life without glittering and flustering and making our hearts beat any faster. Does that pre-work bowl of oatmeal make the same splash as cinnamon buns on a holiday morning? Not likely. But, do those cinnamon buns sustain us? There are people who walk in our front doors with such frequency that we may keep stirring the pot of soup before giving them a hug. (If we hug at all, because didn’t I just see you a few hours ago at work?)

Jon, I guess you’re oatmeal? Which, if you are what you eat, this works out on a lot of levels. Thanks for being the backbone to so many good days. Thanks for always playing your guitar and singing “Goin’ Down the Road.” And thanks for answering my questions. If you’d like to get to know Jon and why he’s such a special bowl of oatmeal, keep reading. You can find him, his cornmeal, and other produce in the state of Maine at several farmers’ markets and at the 3 Level Farm store. This is the inaugural year of his own farm, Good Morning Farm, and if he doesn’t fall asleep in his fields trying to weed in the dark of night, it should be a grand success.

My questions and Jon’s responses are what follows.

do you have a favorite cornbread recipe? if so, what is it?
I can get you a recipe if you like, but my preference is for sweet, cakey Northern cornbread. Half whole wheat flour, 1/4 or more white sugar. I think the flavor and texture also offer a better compliment to adding cheddar cheese, jalapeno, and scallions than the thin Southern style. Both styles need to be baked in a preheated cast iron skillet to come out right.

what got you started on the whole corn/grains growing train?
I guess it wasn’t until I visited Salamander Springs Farm in Berea, KY that I saw small scale grain production as a viable cash crop. Susanna Lein has been homesteading and market gardening on marginal hunting land that she started clearing in 2002. She raises an absurdly high percentage of her own food year round, attends a weekly farmers market through the summer, maintains a CSA subscription, and grows for a health food store in Berea, all without grid electricity, bought in fertility, or tillage. A large part of her business comes from mail order sales of corn meal and dry beans. When her work slows down a little in the winter, she can grind and bag custom orders at a time when her other markets are essentially dormant. From the beginning, I aspired to be as self sufficient as possible on the farm but grains always stood out as requiring more land, more specialized equipment and expertise than I had available. Susanna taught me how much is possible with a little creative thinking.

what makes you so certain of maine?
I like Maine because it is New England, where I grew up. I’m close to family and old friends, I have personal associations with the climate and the landscape and the culture. I like the seasons in the Northeast. I like the remoteness and the independence that comes with it. But at the same time, I feel the quality and value of community and socializing to be much stronger than in regions of southern New England. As I see it, daily life here is more immediately connected to the “natural” world. Even if it’s just surviving in the cold, there is a wild character to the place has to be tolerated.

what is a good day: spring/summer/fall/winter?
Spring: I wake up and throw one last log into the wood-stove in the prop house and give everything a drink before breakfast. I spend the morning filling 72s and sowing seeds and trying to keep the feeling in my finger tips. In the afternoon, I waddle through the mud and work to refine my mental picture of each field through the season, what’s going into them and what’s coming back. I eat fresh greens, scallions, and old root crops.

Summer: I wake up in the dark and start running right away. Bringing in head lettuce, cut salad, bunched greens and getting them washed and cooled as early as possible. I scramble to get 10 more things picked and packed before breakfast, but then I remember the cucumbers are ready too, and the peas, and the broccoli. I begrudgingly eat some cereal and drink some coffee (is there really no faster way to boil water?) then run back to the fields with a stirrup hoe and start making the rounds through each bed. My lunch hangs off the plants I tend to. I try to move irrigation around and stick some transplants in the ground before I leave 30 min late for the farmers market and watch the mornings harvest walk away in $10 and $20 increments. I get home and briefly nap before starting over again.

Fall: I bundle up and bring a thermos out to the carrots or onions or rutabaga or what not and settle in to it. One bin after another comes out of the field, goes through the wash station, and gets packed into the root cellar. There’s something hard to articulate about emptying a field and filling the cellar. At some point, I have to take off a few layers, then a little later I have to put them back on. I go warm up my cabin by roasting squash.

Winter: The snow is still falling. I shovel out walking paths and clear off the drifts from around the high tunnels but spend most of the day looking out the window, reading, writing, on the phone. The power stays on and nothing breaks.

what got you into farming? what made you stay into it?
Reading the dust jacket of a Michael Pollen book

what do you listen to in the wash station?
I listen to the way water drips off vegetables differently. Sometimes, I hear birdsongs. Sometimes, tourists will pull up and yell at me, “Y’all got any sweet corn?”

anything else?
I trust you to use your creative license to obscure my foolishness.

All photos credited to Nora P Carr.

Also, I’m no cornbread expert, but I made this recipe to go with chili the other night and we all agreed, it was one of the more perfect cornbreads we’ve had.

Photo Credit: Nora P Carr.

I wake up early, needing to catch the light that seems to ache as it breaks out of the darkness. I eat a bowl of oatmeal, with cinnamon apples and peanut butter. Sometimes I stretch, or run, or read, but mostly I think, whoa, time off.

For the first winter in recent history I am not working outside (yes, yes, yes!). My inside job is a part-time gig, making my days mostly my own. To fritter or fill. Everything is reversed in this new world of so.much.time. This whole farming calendar based-life can seem like a high-speed chase (March-August), that you inevitably escape from (sometime in October/November), but only at the edge of a cliff which you have no choice but to descend into. A cavern filled with all the possibilities post-poned during the frantic, time-sensitive period of seed! plant! cultivate! harvest! wash! pack! distribute! do it all again! do it all once!.

Ah, the long awaited “winter projects”. Activities dreamt up sometime between the hundredth and thousandth time cutting arugula. Oh, the books I shall read. The snacks I will make. And, mostly importantly, the better plans I’ll make so that next year, next year won’t be such a race. Sleeping, farming, swimming, and collecting plants for dyeing will all synchronize as easily as spreadsheets turn an April sowing of carrots into a June harvest.

What if tomatoes grew like kale? Not just in the rush of summer, but steadily throughout the season. Then there’d be time to get the trellising done properly. To beat out the weeds. To not just to have a fat BLT, but to can pasta sauce, to appreciate tomato soup in the real chill of winter, and to use a full day to create something elaborate, like puff pastry tarts with tomatoes and goat cheese? To do and to make. To sit and to enjoy.

But, picking pounds and pounds of tomatoes everyday?

Balance. That’s a word that buzzes around without sticking to the reality of living. Sometimes it’s hot and buggy and tiredness runs deeper than a catnap will erase. But, there’s a momentum to it, and making a blueberry crisp for a late-night bbq before waking up at three to go to market the next morning happens. Other times, it’s a wide-open, late December gray day and I’m on the couch, wondering, will I actually get my laundry done today or will it sit, just like me, the cats, and the pile of snow outside.

I may not have fresh tomatoes on every counter, in lily crates on the floor, storing in my fridge, but I can organize the kitchen and go to the library to take out cookbooks filled with fantasy tomato salads. Months from now, when the tornado hits, I’ll look forward to this place of quiet and slow-going. Somewhere inbetween busy and slow, constant and erratic, the year comes and goes and comes again. Here’s a short list of some happenings that happened this past year and I’d be tickled if they happened in the next one.

*Biking to work! Again. One of the biggest challenges moving from urban to rural life has been the lessening of bike riding. Moving to a house that was a mostly flat and short bike ride to the farm changed everyday for the better. The wind and sun (sometimes rain) on my face pushed me out of sleepiness into readiness for work in the morning and seperated me from work in the afternoon. Always & forever, please?

*Visiting the best small town, Marshall, North Carolina. The first time I went to Marshall was an accident. We’d been hiking and were hungry and where better to stop for a picnic than a small mountain town with a co-op, train tracks and a river? How about a small mountain town with artist studios in a former school on an island? A small mountain town where Smoke Signals Bakery, a dream project of wood-fired baking, farming, snack events and workshops is based? This is the place. I returned there late fall for a pie making workshop at Smoke Signals. It was glorious. Of course the pie we made was the best, but of course it was really about people and togetherness and snacks. Maybe we should all just move to the mountains of Western North Carolina to make stuff, grow food and eat snacks?

*Eating Dan Roberts’ pizza. This was years in the making, but man was it worth the wait. I farmed with Dan a few years ago and pizza was his jam. He made pies at Apizza Scholls before farming, and afterwards kept tinkering and thinking and talking about pizza, all just to taunt me as far as I can tell. (To his credit, it is difficult to make pizza for someone who lives in a different state from you.) It is damn good. When he opens his shop, I’ll be there everyday eating Mama Lil’s pickled pepper and sausage pizza. Until then, I will go to Tinder Hearth one of these days. I live in Maine. It’s a wood-fired pizza barn party. Must happen.

*Going to the Dave Rawlings Machine concert. This was the musical happening that tore into my life. I can’t wrap my head around it all still. Somehow Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, forces unto themselves, expanded their touring band to include Paul Kowert, Willie Watson and John.Paul.Jones. John Paul Jones! No one could stop smiling. I suggest spending some time on youtube watching videos of this tour. Epic. Alternate with Willie Watson’s solo videos. Epic epic.

*Walking in the woods in Awendaw, South Carolina. I may have been limited in my pinecone collecting, but meandering along the low-slung boardwalk through the swampy marsh and the longleaf pine tree forest in Awendaw was the walk for me. It could’ve been the waning late winter afternoon light that made everything russet and warm. But likely it was the company of two dear ladies who traveled alongside me in search of snacks + trees + America all the yearlong. We spent a good amount of time chasing nuggets of happiness, despite everything that is messed up, and in those woods I think we had it. Definitely later that evening at Awendaw Green, a weekly outdoor barn jam, we found it. A place where anyone and everyone can sit together (around garbage can fires if it’s winter), listen to local acts and nationally known music, eat picnics and meet Wade. A South Carolinian who runs the show, gets starry-eyed when talking about his fishing boat, and will share his moonshine. America, hello.

*Eating bread at Boulted Bread in Raleigh. More and more breads are being made with locally grown and milled grains. This is the way! There is something to be said for the flavor of bread made from fresh, fresh flour. And that something is, keep on keeping on. It is good. This may be a good time to note, I have an extended wish list of future snacking & going. If you’re interested in knowing more, or accompanying me in adventures, let’s talk. For starters, if anyone wants to go to Scotland and eat cake at Lovecrumbs, I’m free.

*My friends are getting married! It’s the best! Thank you for sharing love and for all the best snacking and outdoor boogie-ing. Moments sneak into life, and I am happy that it is all happening.

There are pictures! They are coming. Nora P, some help please? And some chilaquiles?

So. Let’s pretend that now is the place to begin and the space between this and the last post didn’t just wiz by without the telling of the first days we were able to sit on the porch and eat spring collard green hummus wraps that were so freaking good and exciting, but now we can sit on the beach and have fresh salsa before and after swimming.  Take that brassica greens.

I wrote an early spring blogpost, which is now outdated, but I’m tempted to post it regardless. In part because it’s already written, but mostly because it puts farm time into perspective.  All of the vegetables and fruits I was waiting on, impatiently, have come and gone. I hadn’t even begun to dream of eating a stack of grilled eggplant and zucchini with basil, bacon, mozzarella and TOMATO, as we did last weekend, oceanside.  That was too far away.  I was still reeling from a long winter.  Looking over my shoulder, worried it might drop in again and upset the strawberries I was planning on turning into jam, pie, ice cream and a tall, tall cake.  Check all that off the list.

The light has shifted past the peas and peonies.  There are golden streaks in the river as we bike to work.  In the melon patch yesterday we talked about starting to harvest the winter squash.  (IN THE MELON PATCH. HARVESTING MELONS!)  The garlic is drying.  The first plantings of cucumbers and beans have stopped producing.  If spring is the time to hurry up and wait, and the height of summer is hurry up and hurry up more, late summer is the wait, wait, everything has hurried up too fast.  We are closer to the end than to the beginning, and wasn’t the beginning four months ago?

A strange thing happened yesterday.  My friend Matt and I were transplanting lettuce, when lightening struck us.  It was surreal, and thankfully, fortunately, not serious.  But we both felt it. He saw currents shoot out of his hands as I watched a huge bolt hit down not far behind him. I’ve never heard thunder clap so loud, and some force, fear or electric, dropped me straight to the ground.  There was no warning that this particular cloud would be the one to strike. Walking down to the field we heard a distant thunder, but it was all blue skies and white poofs above and we commented on how nice a thunderstorm would be.

It hasn’t been the hottest of summers here, but it’s been humid and buggy and there have been many a post-work jump in the lake, river, or shower.  We’ve applied sunscreen twice a day, craved popsicles and wished to set under the maple tree with a book.  We’ve all travelled the globe at least once in our get-away dreams, particularly to farms that are weed-free, full of rests and fruits which aren’t partial to the Maine climate.  We’ve thought and thought again about what to do during the winter.  We’ve wondered how to reconcile the want to continue farming, travel, and further other goals, plus deal with that whole money bit so much that it’s now mundane conversation.  What are you going to do this weekend?  How are you going to write more and visit all the bakeshops you desire and grow vegetables?  Where have all the scissors, pens and harvest knives disappeared to?

You can be having such conversations when a single thunder cloud in an otherwise clear sky, lets loose one shock of thunder, followed by, although I’d say it was nearly simultaneous, a zing of electricity that may or may not have caused your back to tingle and your mind to go blank.

It was so fast and so surreal that we just looked at each other, wide-mouthed, lettuce trays in hand.  Matt said: We just got hit by lightening, and it occurred to me just then, that yes, yes we did.  So we ran.  Out of the field, to the woods.  There was a small rumble of thunder to the north, but otherwise, the sky was bright and harmless and it didn’t even rain.  I noticed that Matt’s hands were shaking as he called our co-workers for a ride back to the barn.

The cloud passed and we were fine.  We can still pick flowers for the dye pot, use the yard berries to make scones and wander along the trail through the woods to the shore in a t-shirt and sandals.  But, the days are getting shorter and we will note more and more that it feels like fall, and it will be fall.  Lightening strikes, late-blight is in Maine, and there isn’t any way of stopping it.

Please note, regrets for the lack of pictures, but that was a delaying factor in my original spring post.  They’ll be coming soon, along with other improved blog features, including the revealing of my post-lightening superpowers.