Oregon County Fair I was gone from Songaia for a long weekend at the Oregon Country Fair, and it’s incredible how much the garden has changed in so little time. All the blueberries are ripe, the beans are surging up their trellises, and the tomato plants in the hoop-house are finally looking big and strong. The keyhole beds, whose rounded edges and serious inter-cropping, have looked to this point like not much more than a mess of dandelions, but with all the vegetables finally asserting themselves it now looks like a mess of delicious abundance. When you’re working in the garden every day these changes are hard to see, but even a few days at this time of year and it really is incredible. I tend to approach the garden as a problem-solver, on the lookout for things that need fixing: the fungus on the pear leaves, the struggling blueberries in the north food forest, the four successive plantings of carrots mowed down by slugs. Pulling back then from daily work let me appreciate how well it really is doing, despite all the work it still requires (and always will).
Alongside the growth in the garden, coming back to Songaia also meant realizing how normal life has come to feel here: Tuesday morning breakfast ( / philosophical roundtable / Songaia history lesson) with Nancy, the beautiful grounds, eating at communal meals, adventures with Brent to acquire free exercise equipment from Craigslist… The day is filled with countless small and not-so-small positive interactions, and coming back to Songaia helped me to realize how much these have become normalized as a good part of my life.
Picture Dad put on Facebook of a rocket
from Gaza being shot down over Be'er Sheva.
Picture Dad put on Facebook of a rocket
from Gaza being shot down over Be'er Sheva.
Food Forest Planning Because of some things going on at home (including the fact that my dad is currently visiting family in Israel and is consequently spending a lot of time in bomb shelters), I need to return to Oregon again for about a week. I am sorry to lose more time with the community, and sorry to leave the garden at such a beautiful and abundant time. But I’ll bring my maps of the food forest and Hugelkultur planning materials, and am excited to see how much the garden will have grown by the time I get back.
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