Weeks 1 and 2

• Cleaned the farmhouse top to bottom (with more than a little help from my friends).


• Introduced Charline, a lovely young woman from Quebec City, to the farm while the farmer was away.


• Fed and watered 35 chickens twice per day.


• Gathered eggs, then washed and packaged them for sale.


• Hollered at Gypsy, a sweet, old Golden Retriever, for stealing and eating eggs.


• Hollered at Gypsy for stealing into my room and eating my cat's food.


• Planted several flats of spinach, lettuces, and beets.


• Weeded carrots and beets, inadvertently weeding out some of the beets.


• Watered rows and flats in the greenhouse with a watering can because I didn't realize there was a hose.


• Planted 2 rows of onions alongside garlic that was already in the ground.


• Spread loads of mulch on said onions and garlic, 6 beds of strawberries, and a 15x30' area.


• Used a broadfork to aerate the soil in that area, then trenched 4 rows with a hoe and spread worm castings around, before planting sugar snap peas.


• Chased chickens off the new pea patch.


• Chased chickens off the onions, garlic and strawberries.


• Chased chickens out of the greenhouse.


• Chased chickens back into their own blasted yard.


• Severely cut back 2 enormous hedges of eleagnus.


• Pounded fence posts in for a new chicken area using this awesome crazy 18lb tool.


• Loaded oak logs on and off trailer for shiitake mushroom operation.


• Drove golf cart to and fro, with and without trailer.


• Harvested shiitake mushrooms.


• Helped lift 4 12-foot logs into place as part of terracing what will be the kitchen garden.


• Won a rooster-human standoff initiated by a foolhardy rooster.


• Cursed house-loving ladybugs and ants.


• Cooked a biryani so bad I could barely eat it.


• Played soccer with Charline in a pecan grove.


• Gazed in wonder at Venus, a Cheshire cat moon, Orion, the Big Dipper, and the Pleiades.


• Taken daily walks in the woods with Mozell, the cat who often acts like a dog.


• Slept like a baby every night.


• Loved every minute of my work.


• Missed my community and friends in Bed-Stuy.

Technical Difficulties

Out at the farm we enjoy the satellite interwebs. We enjoy them so much that it doesn't bother us that watching 1 hour of rich media results in our pipe being squished to the size of a pipe cleaner for the next 2 days. No, that doesn't bother us at all, precious. We adore driving 20 minutes to McDonald's to buy a $1 sweet tea in exchange for a free hour of real broadband wifi.

Damn internet provider peoples.

Happy Lilly Ledbetter Day!

Despite what we're often taught in school, injustice isn't corrected only by the actions of charismatic leaders, elected officials, or military might. Those folks are responding to demands made by ordinary people.

Lilly Ledbetter is one of those ordinary people. She worked here in Alabama as a Goodyear tire plant supervisor and discovered just before retirement that she'd been payed less than her male colleagues. Arguing gender discrimination, she sued and a jury agreed. Yay, right?

Unfortunately, no. W's guys on the Supreme Court overturned the lower court decision, saying she should've filed suit within 180 days of getting her first paycheck. Who the hell knows what their coworkers make in the first 6 months on the job or ever?

Congress recognized this absurdity and passed a bill that President Obama will be signing into law today - the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Change happens because ordinary people stand up - sometimes alone, sometimes with their neighbors - and say enough already. In today's New York Times column, Gail Collins shares the stories of several women who changed the working world by standing up for themselves and other women.

Miss Lilly, you make me proud of my home state, exemplifying the best that can come of my people's history of dogged perseverance. I wish I could hug your neck.

More Info
The American Prospect Talks with Lilly Ledbetter

Jesus is My Co-Pilot

Big George's Sign

If I Ever Need a Bondsman

I love the South's penchant for nicknames. My family engages in the same practice that brought us a bail bondsman like Weedy Varner in Anniston. I have great-aunts called Sip and Dank, and one great-grandfather went by Grandpa Eight Mile.

Signs of Spring

On my way to feed the chickens this morning, I saw the first daffodil of the season blooming just below what will be the kitchen garden.

New York, I don't miss snow and ice.

We'll be back to the upper 40s and low 50s in a couple days, but for now it feels like spring and I'm grateful.