Bolinas, California

Arriving….I arrived by car, after driving 10 long days across country from NY to Bolinas in mid August (I only now really feel like I’ve gotten my feet under me) During this drive I was given a glimpse as to how large this country really is. So many ecosystems. So many diverse cultures. Wow. All I can say or rather ask is how can our political system even contemplate absorbing so much diversity? How can we say, that what is good for a coastal city dweller, must be good for a large corn farmer, and visa-versa? But even with these large questions floating in my head, I was able to get completely caught up in the beauty and majesty of our wild lands and national parks…Such amazing geological formations, foliage and landscapes…From the Rocky Mountains to the Salt flats of Utah.


Chicago Deep Dish


Somewhere in Iowa


Arches National Park


Hitting 3,000 miles in the car


Lake Tahoe


Bolinas, CA

As I was saying, I arrived in mid August to my new home and job at Commonweal Garden in Bolinas, California, the primary demonstration site and educational center for the Regenerative Design Institute (RDI). We work in collaboration with Commonweal, a health & environment research institute and retreat center in Bolinas. Commonweal and our property are on the border of a magical place, the Point Reyes National Seashore. It’s not uncommon for me to see dancing foxes and lolling sea lions all in one day. I say magical, because this place has a really intense energy. It may come from the fact that this was sacred Miwok lands or that we are on a lost continent that is slowly rising out of the Pacific. Whatever it maybe Bolinas is special.

RDI has a collection of amazing programs & workshops that range from one-day classes like knitting & weaving to longer programs like the nine-month RDNA (Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness) course. Because these programs are hosted on the farm there are always students here milling about or sitting in our large yurt library having class. It’s usually very busy with these folks coming and going but then there are the quiet days when there are no students here and it is just my fellow work traders and staff. In total we are about ten people that all live here permanently in our small humble community. Our community’s main responsibility is to care for the land and the facilities of the educational center. For me personally this ranges in all different ways from gardening to teaching, as I’ve also been given in the interim the title and responsibility of Farm Manager for the next couple of months.

It’s been a blessing and a challenge, having these new pressures of Farm Manager…Farming in a new climate, new people, lots of animals…deer, voles, gophers, slugs, and quail, eating at our garden,….learning an unfamiliar land. But the garden is looking beautiful and my crew is awesome. I’m finally getting to really express my creativity and skills on this land.

As farm manager I get to live in a beautiful cordwood cottage with a deck that has a stunning view that overlooks the farm and behind that, the Pacific Ocean. I share with the rest of the community, the kitchen, office, bathhouse, and living room. This is just like past communities I’ve lived in. I really enjoy sharing, especially when we all get to partake in delicious organic meals straight from the garden and lots of stories.


The altar in my room in the cordwood



Composting Toilets


Bathhouse


Our living space

Another perk to living here is that I get to join in on the workshops taught here. We also get our own private EOL (Ecology of Leadership) class and I think this week I’m going to take an indigo dyes class.

A little note about the farm...So Commonweal Garden is Certified Organic and super diverse with our main growing area about 1.5 acres with a variety of plantings, a large kitchen garden, a 2 acre orchard, and tons of perennial zones. Because it’s California we grow year round so that means we are entering a season filled with brassicas (kale, cabbage, etc), though, this little valley I live in has it’s own weather patterns. It can be sunny and 80 in San Francisco (which is 20 miles away) and 40 and foggy here. As soon as the sun is gone from the sky it gets cold. Which makes me extra happy about my little cozy cottage. On hot dry days it’s a bit more of a challenge as we are on our own water system. We’ve got a couple of ponds and a creek that runs straight through the property that we collect water from to irrigate the plants, so we have to be extra thrifty when watering. But this also means that we have cool crisp unpolluted, unchemicalized water to drink.


RDNA's Garden Beds


Baby plants hardening off outside


Lion Paws


Snow Peas


Kitchen Garden

The farm is designed with a traditional permaculture infrastructure with greywater and rain catchment systems, composting toilets, swales, etc….As well as goats and chickens! I’ve gotten pretty proficient at goat milking and cheese making. And this week we may get our apple cider press out and start harvesting apples.

Basically to sum up, I’m working hard, but in a beautiful area of California and teaching beautiful people in a beautiful garden, so at the end of the day I’m exhausted but very happy.

Hope

This graffiti has been on a wall outside the main shouk in Jerusalem as long as I've been visiting...And just recently someone painted over it and created this new one.

Some Wonderful Articles

I just came across these great articles written about Hava V'Adam (my old farm) that I thought I would share for everyone to enjoy....To add another voice of love for this place.

This Is the World We Live In

New Voices: Eco Israel

It’s the beginning of another spring month and the weather is still cool with some occasional showers.


Flowers in the garden

My daily diet has been including such things as: artichokes, kale, swiss chard, fennel, kohlrabi, beets, lettuce, radishes, and white mulberries from the garden and omelets (made from our chicken’s eggs) and freshly baked sourdough bread. Supplemented of course with dried fruits, nuts, and grains from our co-op and fruits from the friendly neighboring grocer in the next town.

The days are also counting down with fewer holidays left for this Jewish year. In fact I believe there is just one. Shavuot. We just ran through 3 of them, Yom HaZikaron (Remembrance Day), Yom HaAtzma'ut (Independence Day), Lag B’Omer.

For both Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzma’ut they are commemorated by a long siren throughout the entire country that sounds for 2 minutes. It’s such an eerie sound as everyone stops what they are doing to stand in a moment of silence. Even Israelis driving in their cars will pull over and get out of their car to stand. It is always a sorrowful yet beautiful moment for me especially when I reflect on how many millions of people are standing together at that exact moment.

Lag B’Omer is traditionally celebrated by families and friends getting together and lighting bonfires. It’s an amazing site to see with so many fires and so much smoke. For the festivities Yigal and I went for a hike through this beautiful mountainous forest near Jerusalem and met up with the rainbow festival camping out there. Needless to say there were tons of bonfires, singing, and music playing.

Pesach Break

This year I began my Passover with a search for chametz (food that contains grain i.e. bread). This was my first time participating in this ceremonial ritual of hiding chametz in random places throughout the house to have someone else search for it. Ironically it reminded me of an Easter egg hunt but instead of finding colorful eggs you collect old pieces of bread. Once collected, the bread is put into a fire and burnt. Part of the idea of hiding the chametz around is so that in your search you can also find real chametz that was accidentally left during the cleaning.

Another new phenomena for me this Pesach was schmora matzo. I had no idea what this was or its significance but Yigal was set on finding some. So we spent a late afternoon trekking through Jerusalem to a back alley matzo bakery to buy it. Schmora matzo is special because of its long process and the intentions that go into its creation. This special matzo begins as wheat that is grown with the specific intention of becoming future matzo. Special care is taken so that the flour once harvested and milled never comes in contact with water. Once the matzo dough is made, it's then hand cut, and baked in a giant wood-burning oven. And like any delicacy it is carefully weighed by the kilo, then sold for a price of 360 NIS (that’s roughly $100 with the current exchange). At first this seemed to me as a complete extravagance but any food created in the 'slow food' manner seems to have special energy and there's something about anything baked in a wood burning oven that has such a good flavor. Not to mention you are considered the hero of the Seder night if you can manifest this special round matzo for the table.


The wood-burning oven


Weighing the matzo


Leftover scraps of matzo

Seder night for me this year was very special, set in a beautiful backyard surrounded by tons of fig trees, lots of friends around a bonfire, matzo ball soup, and plenty of lamb.

Passover in Israel is a national holiday and many people take the entire week off to travel. A good portion of the country is off on vacation.

For my vacation time I did a three-day workshop intensive called Shomra HaGan (keepers of the garden). Which is a wilderness survival course based off of Tom Brown's teachings. During the program I learned survival skills like how to start a fire from scratch using a bow-drill, build a shelter, and tracking. I’m still working on my bow-drill technique; I can produce smoke but no substantial coal yet.


My instructor teaching me the bowdrill technique


The base where the coal is created

Yesh Meain's 5th Anniversary

The weekend before Passover was Yesh Meain’s 5th Anniversary for their exchange market. Because Passover is the national spring cleaning holiday, there were tons of things to be exchanged at the market. We had about 400 people come through and we also sold some baked goods and pizza. I learned how to make pizza, including the dough, in the wood-burning, so awesome.



Pics from the Market

Hava V'Adam

Just saw this short video on my old farm and thought I'd share