Poetry, Pizza, and Permaculture!!

It was a pizza party!

This past weekend was Bioneers (http://www.bioneers.org/about), a convergence that happens every year here in Marin county at the civic center. its chock filled with all sorts of special guest speakers, booths, a show case examples of sustainable and innovative technology and principles based around permaculture and sustainable living, teaching, and greatest change for the people!

Michael to the left, and the crowd going over the wonderful toppings for pizza!

 So after a little rain the night before, the weather turned out wonderful on Monday for a special Commonweal Gardens Bioneers after party hosted by the wonderful Penny Livingston, Michael Presley, and friends. Michael brought all sorts of delicious local delights for pizza toppings, as well as his very special 7 year old sour dough starter, and a pizza dough starter he made from fruit yeast he converts to wheat over a 6 day period! how cool is that! we hosted almost 40 teachers, speakers and wonderful guest of the Bioneers festival, including Penny's Hawaiian brother Kalani, and a very special guest, Joanne Cambell, a coast Miwok tribal  elder. such an honor! i manned and stoked the the pizza oven early in the morning, and tended the pizza cooking while Michael prepared and topped amazing pizzas with lamb, sausges, heirloom tomatoes, amazing cheeses made by a local cheese maker, and a plethora of other local ingredients.

 The Poetry came from some wonderful artists and poets, including Drew Dellinger (Drew Dellinger) who had some great words (obviously). right after everyone left and we cleaned up, the clouds gathered and rain came again, thanks universe! enjoy the photos below!

Liam, Olivia and Danny enjoy pizza

Matt grinding some fermented, roasted acorns for topping

Danny Checks out the Lamb and sausages Liam is preparing

Liam preparing while Kalani and Athea play some music.

Kalani and Athea

Olivia preping salad.

getting ready for pizza

in the kitchen pre-pizza

the spread!

the crowd gathers and approves!

Field Trip to the western Seirra foot hills

 Road Trip to pottery land-

Mr. Danny Vitali and i recently took a trip to a part of california i fell in love with- the western Seirra Foot hills, near Angels Camp/Jackson/San Andreas. we went to visit a friend Maya who i took RDNA with last year,  and her sculptures she has been working on. Maya has been staying with an awesome guy, Kern. these photos are of his pottery studio, homestead and property. it is beautiful country there, really cool community, beautiful sugar pine, ponderosa, manzenita and rolling golden foot hills out near gold country. his gardens are beautiful, and danny and i work traded and did a little other work for Kern while hanging with his awesome community he is building. some what of a renaissance man, he has built his mother a rad rammed earth house, a sauna, a beautiful pottery studio with solar hot water heat, a house, and a really rad seed bank that he shares with his community. land is available and cheap. Maya has been looking around and tempting me with prospects. 

My ideal scene would be to find some land up there, spend my time here at RDI on the coast for a few years while i visit and slowly improve the land over time turning it into a permie heaven. it was a area of California i had not even imagined to exist, and cant wait to go back and visit. Kern is wanting to install a food forest/orchard this coming winter so if i am not doing that here at RDI and have a moment, i will try and visit again. i was hooked. 

Pottery studio

Maya and her nail sculpture

Kerns Kiln

the gardens

More Gardens

A small shed/greenhouse space off Kerns awesome Terrace garden.

Kerns Pottery studio with solar hot water panels

the amazing farm next door to Kerns place

the house, moving the drum set to prepare for a party

in other news, just a few weeks ago Olivia and i took a walk up the wish creek watershed here on the land and took a magical mystery tour through the two head waters. it was fern covered, oaked and bay tree heaven. here are some photos of the upper water shed here at RDI, as well as the top ridge that we made it up to looking west towards the ocean. Enjoy!

up in the thick of it

beautiful bay

fern gully

looking down the west ridge towards the beach

looking down the valley, this is commonweal- the trees are hiding the property! way off on the horizon is just south of SF city.

The Quail

Mr. California Quail

Mr. Quail- how protective you are of your sisters and brothers, your brood, and your family. thanks for letting me know where the foxes are, where you are, and your all around beautiful song. hope you enjoy the scraps we feed the chickens, and the wonderful plants i sometimes forget to net in the garden. your very welcome!

Cosmic intentions

Osprey nest pin hole camera 120mm format

 Where do your intentions go and what are they? 

we swim through life, through calm waters, white water, small eddies, currents, and tides. we encounter every manner of what life has to offer in our big swim. we may not know this at the start, but our journey up the stream of life is long and our intentions can be great, timid, and treacherous. 

over the last year intentions and what we bring to the forefront of our thought and life has been a big question for me through and after the 9 month regenerative design course. 

what i leave for this post is short and simple:

                           What lights you up in life?

                                 What do you want to leave behind?

                                         who do you want to be remembered as/for?

these two images were taken and dug up from the archives- overlooked for lack of luster, dug out of the stacks because of their lure over my eyes now; but hardly looked through directly after the roll was shot. overlooked because of the stream of images they were gathered with, proved stronger. these two were not intentional in the moment... or maybe on the sub-conscience level they were. but they are beautiful none the less. they were happy intentions made without thought. maybe i knew they were beautiful, but they were not my focus for the roll that i was shooting. just a testament to how intentions can be great in the moment without realizations, positive through and through. 

let your intentions forever be positive, and the path you may want in life that you want to walk may present its self easier then you think. 

let go, and remember my favorite saying- 

                       No attachments.

looking to the cosmos.

Apple Pressing

Apple Pressing Party

 Its October here in Bolinas Ca, and we have had the last 5 days of awesome, hot, sunny and beautiful October summer- and its no different this beautiful morning. that means that the apples are ready, plump and beginning to fall off the trees. and we have a lot of them! Jonas went around yesterday and harvested 20 or so milk crates full of apples, almost 5 varieties. we pulled the press out, washed it, clamped it and re-enforced its old and rickety body, and started grinding away!

Cider being stored

 From around 6 crates, we harvested about 6 gallons. not bad. each crate i believe is a  less then a bushel. so our apples are not as juicy as they could. a bushel usually yields around 3 gallons.  we very well could be around a 1.5 give or take per milk crate.

 Olivia and Kian grinding away

 we still have the whole west side of the property to harvest apples from, as well as many more up in the east orchard! hopefully we make some awesome hard cider, apple cider vinegar, apple sauce, apple butter, dehydrated apples... we will be doing a lot  with all these apples! maybe its time to call the Marin Glean Team and come take some away. time will tell. better get grinding on some apples before it gets too hot!

Johnny and Apollo help Jonas drink and press the juice!

the orchard back in Putnam county NY.

  It takes me back east to upstate New York in Putnam county to some family land we used to have an annual apple pressing party. all the friends, family, and neighbors would come out, bring home made soup and bread, and press all day drinking cider, playing music, and eating good food. here are some past photos of those times past. Enjoy.

press and grind!

filling the grinder

Grand Apple Master Tony and grand daughter

making hot spiced cider to drink while working

the crowds thicken