Food Adventures

today was the first day of the adventure that is slide ranch summer camp in these covid times. my group is alright, we have 2 set friend groups that fall precisely on gender lines, as well as 1 floater. so we shall see how that goes. we are all wearing masks, but social distancing is a pipe dream at best. we did some hiking, we sort of made community agreements, and we learned the basics of what causes wind (differences in air temperature and pressure) we did NOT do some of the activities i had planned, such as pinwheel making and talking about wind as renewable energy (the pros and cons of it....!) we did play capture the flag, which had my attempt at social justice moment of the day....we tried to rename jail to "outhouse" but i think we still need to work on mindful language we smelled a lot of things we used our portapotty a little, washed hands a few times, and employed some hand sanitizer and disinfectant spray we discovered that we did not know all...

the hiatus in blogging is evidence of a very very busy week! we were getting trained in milking of the goats this week, which mean an 8 hour work day + 3 hours of milking from 7-10pm on Tues, Wed, and Thurs. it's also just been a somewhat hectic week as staff transitions and preparing for camp are in full swing. i anticipate that the rest of the summer will be similarly busy, so the blogging will likely happen with less frequency...but i'll attempt to share some notable moments and highlights! night milking! i am now proficient at milking goats, but still a bit slow, particular the last step that requires massaging the udder and stripping the teat to get all the milk and prevent mastitis. one of the goats kicks, so i need to improve my reflexes...i got a pailful of milk all over myself bc she kicked after i had already milked out most of her udders. yikes! another new discovery from night milking is that the barn is an ideal pee spot, bc its covered and there is straw on the...

one notable activity of today was getting up close and personal with the composting privy, which is the toilet option for pooping (peeing is mostly done in nature). how does a composting privy work? you poop into a hole. you put sawdust over your poop. every three months, this big pile gets turned over. and then three months later, this turned pile gets wheelbarrowed away to the hillside and returns to the world as compost/soil. so today we did a lot of shoveling and wheelbarrowing and some extraction of TP from the pile using gloved hands. fun times! other moments of the day included foggy tidepool exploration. found some crabs, anemones in aggregate groups, limpets of various types, barnacles including some feeding, and a sea star from afar. also did some wool activities, ie spinning and carding. end of the week! finally got the chance to cook dinner and made a typical lentil veg thing, as i am prone to do...reminds me of my vassar days. also made a large batch of croutons bc we ...

I think I need to stop giving a play by play unless it feels pertinent. I'll share some highlights of the day/interesting things that are new to me sourdough english muffins for breakfast...there's a fellow sourdough fiend in the community i chose my nature name today! it was a very difficult decision and i wavered around tropaeolum, redwood, tomato, and ended up on tamika turnip. im not sure if this was the right decision but ive given it to myself so now ill have to learn to love it! learned some really fun egg facts today. for the cooks: fresher eggs have rounder yolks, blood spots are caused by movement/bruising during ovulation (so a sign of potential free range!), and duck eggs are very fluffy in baked goods my afternoon chore is the barn, which consists of: refilling alfalfa, water, and minerals. bottle feeding kids and lambs. turning off the electric fence and bringing in the ruminants to the barnyard.

Today was a very long day! 8am meeting 830 garden harvest/intro session 1030 logistics/scheduling session 12 lunch 1 teaching session 230 garden intro/planting session 430 farm chore: goats/sheep feeding and care 530 resident meeting...which went past 8pm, with a break for dinner. lots to discuss! covid is chaotic to navigate in a group of 20

Today was a full day of activity! Breakfast was a yummy oatmeal topped with fruit, walnuts, and granola. Our morning began with an intro to the greenhouse, potting soil creation, compost, and an unexpected boom from an explosion/fire by Stinson Beach. Yikes! All calm on the ranch though, and the greenhouse is full of little joys (small strawberries and tomatoes! tiny seedlings of chard!) The second half of the morning was a training based on BEETLES, which is a UC Berkeley Enviro Education resource. We practiced observation, student/nature centered learning by doing sensory based observations in the garden, focusing with magnifying glasses, taking different vantage points of a tree, and using the "I notice, I wonder, it reminds me of" process for examining a leaf. We also discussed anthropomorphic language use, the careful use of naming and identifying, and pancakes vs waffles. Lunch was actually catered today! I had a nice vegetarian quinoa wrap, dining by the yurt overlo...

My east-facing bedside window makes for a gentle morning wake-up, easing me into the day before my alarm. I love the harmony of body clock and natural light that make sliding out of bed to meet the day feel like a gift and not a chore! My first run experience: a short morning jaunt along the Owl trail with ocean views the whole time, arriving at Muir Beach overlook, and a short traipse into the neighborhood above Muir Beach. In the future, I'll get down to the beach and start off into trails on the other side...but the summer awaits and my shoes are ready for miles ahead! Upon my return, a plate of eggs and toast outside my door! A morning of meeting and greeting and then another short hike to explore favorite tree spots, wander down to the beach and tide pools, and begin to learn more about the plants along the trails. Today was a big learning day! We also got introduced to all the animals –the honeybees, in both top-bar and langstroth hives; the goats and sheep on the pasture...

On March 14, I left a special food adventure in Ecuador to return to California. Today is June 14, and I left my house in California to begin a new food adventure...also in California, a mere 50 minute drive from my door in El Cerrito, but an adventure all the same! I find it useful to write about experiences that I sense are special, and while I think that journaling on pen and paper feels more appropriate for this experience, I'll also make use of the ease and speed that typing allow, as well as the share-ability of this space. This afternoon I moved into Slide Ranch! It is literally on the California coast, right next to the ocean. I can hear the waves outside my tiny house as I write now. My new living space is a small cabin called "the chapel" or "the buoy house." All of the residences have different names and their own personality. My house is one of the smallest, but I have a good feeling about it...there are some lovely, kind notes left by former inh...