My body's in the city, my heart's on the farm

I sent out an email to many already, so I don't want to double up on the info. I guess the thing that I want most to say is that now my greatest challenge is to live wholly in the present as we spend the next year (well, 9 months) in Minneapolis. Last weekend was a revelation: I want to live on this farm for the rest of my life, welcoming you to experience what I'm feeling, inviting you to become a part of what will surely unfold there.

The weekend, after signing all the necessary papers and being able to finally call the place ours, consisted of a celebratory champagne toast and hot dog roast followed by the best kind of work - some gutting, some painting, some reveling, some beer drinking and some skinny dipping the sweat off in the Red Cedar River. And some fun with the truck's four wheel drive mechanism. I want to be back there now.

Life is happening!

Charis

The farm is alive

I have held off in posting to wait for the unbelievable to be touched, seen, heard, smelled, and tasted.

glorious,, reverent, pastoral, sacred, inspiring, perspiring

The immediate awareness is the sound. It is untrue to say that there are not any sounds. The sounds are real and vibrant. They are not the sounds of car alarms, fire engines, obsentities yelled by passer-bys on the street. Crickets, trees swaying, breeze across my beer bottle making a whistling sound, grasshopper jumping from grass blade to grass blade, laughter, crackling wood in the fire, birds frolicking, coyotes screaming in delight, are what make my ears and soul ring.

Trees blaze with greens, reds, oranges and reach deep for sky. Hills caress the landscape in gentile and erotic fashion. The moon lights the valley enough to play frisbee. When the moon is gone, the Milky Way appears solid and bold. Morning mist covers the valley and trees cast through a black outline as if you are in the Serengetti. The giant matron of the land shimmers her leaves in the cool breeze.

Carrots the size of my calves and baseball onions were freed from the grasp of weeds waist high. The soil is moist and collapses in the palm of your hand. Wood is sharp and dry, ready for warming the exposed skin touched by the cooling nights. The Red Cedar River takes your breath away as it simultanously washes away sweat and dirt pasted to your skin. The morning and evening dew soakes through your shoes and socks.

Clean, clear and crisp are the smells that cleanse your senses. The nose stops running and becomes atune to all the greens, trees, airs surrounding the area. Old straw, hay and pulled weeds begin the composting process.

I climbed high into the tree and knocked down the ten apples on the tree (off year this year). The bitter yet sweet makes my whole body shimmer with delight. Juice runs down my chin and I can not believe how fantastic it tastes. Potatoes and onions add the wonderful additions to the meals and carrots generate a quiet, yet nutritious drink.

Despite alarm to all five sense, the joy that is flushed throughout my being, it all still seems unbelievable.

Jay