It wasn’t a really tough decision. Green Edge emailed me. I read it, said “holy crap” and told Robert they offered me the job. Then I wrote back and accepted it pretty much right away.

This was after wishing for a few minutes that I wish I had more time back in Seattle before making such a big decision. But, I had made up my mind already. It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up.

The only thing I didn’t like about it was having to leave so quickly. I was offered the job on 8/14 and I had previously agreed to be there by 8/31 if I got the job … and the two weekends between the 14th and the 31st were already spoken for. I didn’t get to say goodbye in person to several people who are important to me – Kevin, Nazma, Geoff, Carol and Mario to name a few! These are people I spoke to almost every week if not every week. I feel bad I’ve left them behind. I had to do what I had to do, though, and it is certainly not like I will never, ever see them again!

Needless to say, my life has been fun and interesting over the last few months and downright crazy for the last few weeks. I am really looking forward to getting settled at the farm and for all the craziness to die down!

My last days in Seattle were a blast, even though I didn’t get to see some folks. Mainly, because I was in Robert and Amy’s wedding!

I was honored to be a groomsman, but I don’t have any pictures of me in a tux … though I have a feeling there will be some. The wedding was good, no one fainted or tripped. However, there was one slight slip up by the wedding party during the complicated catholic service … but the wedding coordinator finally gave us the tip to get back up to the alter and in place! The reception was fine. Not crazy at all, not to late.

I did have a moment when I got back to Robert’s place with his tux. After I got my tux off and ready to be returned back in it’s bag, I had a few moments to myself. I broke down a bit and even shed a few tears. I was leaving this place and these people. It didn’t really hit me until then – until after the wedding, after taking off the tux, when thinking about where I was going that night and what I was doing in the next few days. It’s hard to believe this was not even a week ago! A week ago tomorrow, yes, but it’s hard to believe it just happened and I’m already so far away. I was struck saddened for a moment knowing I will be in a different place in a week, and that Robert and Amy are truly my best friends in Seattle! I guess that kind of thing happens after an emotional wedding afternoon. I’m really happy for Robert and Amy!

And, I’m looking forward to Ohio! I have no idea what my online status will be at the farm. I’m sure I’ll be posting something again in the next few weeks with details.

The picture above is where I’m living. It’s a shipping container that has been converted to a house. It’s 40 feet long by 8 feet wide and aside from being super-cozy, it has a surprising amount of room! The inside is essentially divided into three parts: the kitchen, living area and bedroom. It was a refrigerated shipping container, so it is insulated and holds the heat produced by the small, plug-in radiator. Cooking anything on the gas stove heats the place up too. There’s a utility/bathroom built on to the side of the container. It’s got the hot-water heater, a shower, bathroom sink and built-in composting toilet. It’s awesome!

I’ve even got a land-line and DSL so I can keep on doing freelance design in my spare time! I’m really happy with the setup!

Work here is going well so far. We’ve started in on putting up a deer fence. The first run of posts have been hoisted after clearing quite a bit of blackberry and scotch broom infestation. I think we’ll get quite a lot done in the next two weeks as well, before I head to Florida for a couple of weeks.

I am enjoying working with Joe and Celina and am getting to know their kids and various family and friends. Their farm is a bit smaller than Plum Forest, and is a little closer to the scale I can see myself starting out with. There are several apple trees on the farm and we’ve been harvesting quite a few apples. We’re going to do another cider pressing here pretty soon. They’ve got barrels and barrels of apples they’ve been storing. I think I’m going to try and make some hard cider this year with some of the produce. It seems fairly simple and I’ve really started to enjoy drinking cider. It’s so much more simple than beer … it’s just apples!

Joe’s also got the tractor, a BCS 853, I’ve been dreaming about for the last year since I first learned about two-wheel tractors at Erik’s farm Ytre Lygra. So, I’ll get to have some hands-on experience with one before I consider buying it! Joe has some great implements for it as well – the 26″ tiller, chipper/shredder, mower and mini-trencher. I think he’s thinking about the rotary plow as well.

Joe’s 853 has the diesel engine, which is what I was considering as well. Right now the battery for electric start is gone, but it is really quite easy to pull-start. Not having a front-end loader would be a sacrifice, but I’ll have to get some experience building and turning a compost pile without one to know whether it would truly be a necessity or not. A tractor with a front-end loader would be something I could probably borrow from a neighbor, ideally.

Buy Nothing …

I successfully avoided buying anything on my fourth annual celebration of buy nothing Friday. Which, after listening to the various podcasts and news reports about the economy, is apparently the wrong thing to do in a lot of people’s opinions. Go buy buy buy, consume and do your part for the economy! Pah! So many people are going to simply dig themselves into a deeper hole buying things for xmas. I wish everyone would just subscribe to this idea: Buy Nothing Christmas. As someone who “doesn’t celebrate” Christmas because of my beliefs, I don’t even look at it from a religious perspective, from how the holiday has been completely distorted. But, there’s a great movie out now, produced by “Super-size Me” star Morgan Spurlock. It’s called “What Would Jesus Buy?” Check it out! Then re-think your holiday shopping, and damn the economy! It needs to be fixed in different, more sustainable ways.

I say I successfully avoided buying anything, because I came very close! I really want to get a couple more pairs of Carhartt Double-Front work dungarees and I don’t have a tea kettle! But I think I’ll try to support a local business or two, even though I won’t get it “on sale” or at a “doorbuster” good price. It will be worth it!

Peter Schiff

One last thing while I’m at it: This past week, NPR’s Planet Money had a guest on – Peter Schiff. I was floored hearing what he has to say! Not that I am an economist in any way, shape or form, but at least two years ago I was predicting that the housing market bubble was going to burst within a year. I even suggested to a friend to hold off on buying a house (she didn’t listen to me) until next year.

I also started down the road I’m on because I believe the way most Americans live – in debt and consuming a ridiculous amount of material goods, wasting energy in the process while driving their vehicles commuting crazy distances and eating food from they don’t know or seem to care from how many thousand miles away it came … ok, I’ll stop … What I’m getting at is Peter Schiff predicted the economic crash years ago, and everyone was laughing at him. My agreement with him is kinda shaking me up a bit, because it is becoming obvious to me now that I am economically more Libertarian than I realized. I guess part of that is realizing it means. It certainly does not mean I’m a Ron Paul supporter, all of a sudden. The only reason I say this is because Schiff himself hovers around economic libertarianism. And, I agree with everything I’ve heard him say. Especially what he’s saying about the economic “bailout” …

Another good turkey day

I spent Thanksgiving this year again at Robert’s house. This year his awesome girlfriend Amy joined us. We had a Plum Forest Farm chicken, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and pumpkin beer. I don’t have any pictures yet, and will post one or more when I do!

Actually, this year it has flown less than ever. Farming is by far a different way to experience life and the passage of time. It seems like so long ago I was just starting at Plum Forest Farm and we were sowing seeds, preparing new beds and building the garden for the season. Seeing the plants grow from the tiniest seed, through transplanting, tending (weeding and weeding!) and then finally harvesting throughout the year is such a great experience. It totally brings you closer to what is real. I’m going to miss it! And, I’m forever changed by the experience here. Now we’re essentially tearing down the garden to retire it for winter. Removing irrigation systems, weed-barrier pathways, stakes, rocks – everything we need to do to be able to till large areas and sow cover crop seed.

So the deal for me over the next few months – I’ve accepted a winter internship at Sun Island Farm. I’ll be working with them to develop more of their infrastructure. They are a smaller and newer farm than Plum Forest, and they don’t have a farm stand, or a harvest shed, or an all-important deer fence. I’m really hoping that we get to some solar electric and hot-water system work, which is what Joe, the farmer (no pun intended or reference to “Joe the Plumber” – the fake talking head hired by the McCain camp) does in addition to farming. I really want to get involved in solar in a big way and become a proponent of that. It’s go to be part of a new economy going forward.

If it’s not clear to some, this means I’m staying on Vashon Island near Seattle, where I’ve been all year just about. I like it here. I’ll be on the island until April at this point, after which I’m not sure where life will take me. I’m just enjoying where I am for now.

The election

One of the biggest things on my mind lately is the election. I’ve already cast my vote for Obama, which I knew I would do months ago. I’ll stop short by saying here that I really can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would vote for McCain/Palin. It is so obvious to me that McCain/Palin are the absolute wrong leaders at this time for the USA. It fully and completely escapes all comprehension and reasoning of mine why I have people, whom I think of or thought of as friends, who are going to vote for McCain. I just … I don’t know. I can’t even begin to imagine what these people are thinkging, other than they have been made to be very, very fearful and afraid.

Me and farming (again)

I read back over what I wrote last time. I definitely love growing food, and without a doubt, if I casted any in my last post – my internship here at Plum Forest Farm is the best thing I’ve ever done with my life. Second only to taking a year off and traveling. It has changed the way I will live forever and is exactly, exactly, exactly what I wanted to do this year. It has been absolutely great and I wouldn’t trade the experience I’ve had here for anything.

love and life

I continue to be a naive dufus when it comes to women. The good thing is I’ve never had such absolutely amazing women in my life. There are four women that I totally adore and would be lucky to end up with – I just need to figure out and/or find the guts to actually do something about one of them. Silly me. If it’s not obvious to anyone else, find a partner is one of if not the more important thing I think in my life. Now I just have to figure out how to not let it rule my thoughts and cloud my judgement, which it has a tendency to do. I just need to have fun with it, as a good friend has stated more than once. I get to focused on an end goal and I skip over where I am now and I need to enjoy now a bit more … we all do!

The good news is that Alissa and I are having regular great conversations on the phone. So things are going better in that department. But, I have no plans (yet) for going to Chicago! There’s a lot about her that I really like and I’m not prepared to give up yet!

I’m busy planning my motorcycle trip in November. I’ve got some panniers on the way to carry my stuff. A few wwoof farms have responded and I’ve got my route planned all the way to San Francisco right now.

I still don’t know what I’m doing in 2009 yet! I’ll take it as it comes!

The big change right now is with my web host. I’m going to be transferring this site very soon. I’ve went with Geekstorage.com and so far am happy with them. It’s certainly a drastic difference compared to absolute mess the last time I switched hosts. I don’t like the geekstorage name so much, but I guess that’s partially because I don’t want to really admit I’m (sometimes) a geek!.

I’ll be transferring steve-wilson.net very soon and there will be a day or more when it is unavailable.

Lastly … I’m also in the business of reselling web hosting. So, if you need a web host, I can help you out with that and give you a good deal!

While that’s not a good or bad thing, necessarily, it’s amazing how many things that lyric can apply to all at once. Mainly what I’m applying it to right now is my love life. Or, now, my lack thereof. In my last post I mentioned Alissa from Chicago. Well, she’s back in Chicago for almost a month now. And, things have changed. It was different when she was here, apparently. Sure it was! I don’t know what it is or what happened, exactly. Of course I want to say it was on her end, but who knows. Maybe it was my fault.

In any case, I’m bummed and disappointed because – I truly felt with her that I had found what I am looking for. After she had left I thought, possibly incorrectly and mistakenly, way to much about what I ought to do to keep things fresh and interesting between us. I felt like, I really want to hang on to this girl. I mean, it is not like I was calling her every day, or emailing her every day, or poking her on Facebook every day. We talked every once in a while on the phone. I sent her an email here and there. I asked twice in an email two weeks apart if she’d had any more thoughts about me coming to visit. (Which, I thought would be crucial to anything lasting.) I mentioned a visit once on the phone and got very positive response (not so much with the emails). Also in an email I tossed around some travel ideas, about meeting in Chicago and going on a trip, or her joining me on a motorcycle trip somewhere. Or various other ideas.

But I guess I pushed it too far. Pressured her a bit more than she wanted. Had I known that she doesn’t feel up to a relationship, I would have never kissed the girl. I mean, you can’t ask that before can you? Wouldn’t that ruin something?

After feeling so good about the connection between us, I felt really stupid to find out she’s essentially not interested. How does that happen? The only thing I can think is that it was all in my head (which, everything is, really). She showed interest in me too (fleeting or not, maybe I need to be able to tell the difference?)

How do people find each other and stay together?

I guess 2000 miles between you at the very beginning (i.e. days after) of a relationship isn’t the best thing for keeping things going. And, finding out if the other person is looking for the same thing you are (a relationship) is key, I guess. I don’t know what to do now. Do I let it go? and if she wants to rekindle something later, renew my interest then? She knows how I feel about her and my desire for there to be an “us”, I’m pretty sure. Do I call? keep in contact?

Damn.

Any secrets?

For the moment this recent occurrence has made my future planning easier. I’m now planning my motorcycle trip down the west-coast. I may have the first wwoof farm already lined up. I’m putting some feelers out for freelance work.

I still don’t have even any vague plans about 2009 yet. Although, they could involve a drastic move away from the Northwest. Or could involve extensive two-wheel traveling. Either way I think farming will be part of it.

Send me some freelance work if you got it!

My mom’s visit was a lot of fun. I didn’t write much about that, but it was really great to have her here. We went to the strawberry festival a lot, listened to some great live music, walked and talked and got too much sun. She helped around the farm a bit. And, mostly fed me well and was a great mother! I got spoiled, having someone here cooking all (or most) of my meals. Her being here made the week of me running the farm go a lot better.

The day my mom left we had a wwoofer scheduled to arrive at the farm. All I knew about Alissa was that she was an art teacher from Chicago. I can say now with a smile on my face that she was the most interesting and the most beautiful wwoofer ever! From the moment I saw her walking up the driveway, carrying her backpack, I was like “Wow.” We worked together, cooked a meal or two together, talked, watched a movie, and to me there was never a dull moment. We ended up hitting it off really well, and for lack of a better term, I’d say that I pretty much have fallen in love with her. Or at least I think about her every day and a lot of what I think about is when and how I’ll get to see her again! Alas, she was only here for a week, one great week! We hope to spend more time together some time in the near future.

Other than two incredibly excellent women being in my life … the farm is going well. We’ve got chickens coming out our ears! The Cornish cross birds are out on pasture converting their feed to meat, and it’s amazing how good they are at it. A couple weeks ago we got 100 egg-laying chicks in the mail and they are growing fast too. We’ve had our two biggest weeks at the farmer’s market and have nothing but more great stuff to come. We harvested all of the garlic, and whoa – it is soooo good! I have no idea what kind boring white-skin garlic the grocery store usually sells, but the garlic we have is awesome. A few of the varieties I remember are Siberian, Silver Skin, Killarney, Italian Red. Onions are almost ready. There’s more ripe tomatoes every day. We harvested our first potatoes last week, a red variety called Huckleberry. Summer squash is growing like bonkers. I picked a bunch of raspberries and boysenberries (and ate a lot in the process .

We’re caught up on weeding, for the most part, too. Which is an amazing feat. That’s not to say there aren’t a couple beds that have weeds almost as tall as I am … it’s just means the beds we care about are all tended and beautiful. Today I renovated the mobile egg-laying coup with new dividers. We’re hoping it helps the chickens break and eat less of their own eggs. Yes … the chickens know how good their eggs are and will eat them. I think the problem was they didn’t have their own private laying cube, just this open area that was easily shared by other crazy chickens. They would all be piled in this one spot for some reason, like 5 chickens on top of each other. Then the bottom one would get claustrophobic and want to get out, and crush an egg. They’d smell the yummieness and start eating away. This egg-eating would happen several times a day and we’d lose several eggs, probably more than we know. The next thing we have to figure out is how to keep a few rogue chickens from flying over the fence and laying eggs in random places. We’ve found a few caches where they make a cozy spot and lay, but it’s usually too late, after they’ve layed several eggs who knows how many days before.

The chickens, the animals, are definitely a big issue on the farm. I’ve personally went back and forth on the whole animal thing. I haven’t decided yet whether they’ll have a place on my farm yet. This week is a bad week for me to decide, anyway, as I’ve been fatigued and can’t quite seem to build up enough energy and momentum to really get going in a good way. I’m feeling a bit tired, really. Maybe it has something to do with not really having a day off for a few weeks. And, I know it’s got something to do with being on a total high with Alissa around, and then her being gone and 2000 miles away. Funny how that works!

I’m also riding my motorcycle a fair bit. And, now I’m almost completely official official. I took a Motorcycle Safety Foundation Intermediate Rider Course this past weekend in Bremerton. Essentially now I have this little card that I can take to the DoL and get my full motorcycle endorsement on my license. Also I think I can show it to Progressive and get a discount on insurance. The class was good, I’m glad I took it. That’s all I’ll say before I say something not nice about it.

Phew, well, so much for going to bed at 9. I’m tired and need some sleep. I’ve been woken up every morning by my alarm for the past two weeks. One of these days I’ll get caught up!

And, the heat. Today it is hot. Damn hot. The hottest day of the year so far. I’m fairing well in the cabin, but it is just on the verge of being uncomfortable. I need to move back up to the loft next to the big open window where the breeze is blowing in. The heat is making me sleepy.

The market on Saturday was a good one. We totally sold out! Everything we took! It all went!!! It was a great feeling. Every market gets better and I enjoy it more and more. I will definitely miss it. It’s such a great thing to do! Work all week, tending, prepping, growing, cultivating and then take all that hard work to market every Saturday and sell our wares directly to the people. There is nothing like it! It’s going well.

The only thing at the moment is the machine didn’t ship with Leopard pre-installed (which is why I have the Leopard screen in the background). But, the company I bought it from is sending me new Leopard disks, as they advertised the machine as having Leopard.

I’ve got all the apps I need to be productive already on it, thanks to Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium. It is kinda nice they are all wrapped up into one now.

I’ve gotten out for some great walks around the area. Around Greenlake a couple times, up and down Phinney, down 45th. Almost always I’m walking to do some errands like groceries at PCC, checking mail, renewing my driver’s license, crap like that. I’d guess I’ve been walking about four miles a day. I’m enjoying not having a car, for the moment, but know I’ll start wondering how I’m gonna get around when things I wanna see aren’t within walking distance, or how I’ll move my stuff out of storage when I decide to move out of Robert’s living room and into somewhere else.

Other than that, I’m doing a little work, but not really. Bigger stuff is percolating and there’s a lot of possibilities fluttering about, but nothing solid has landed. It’s not disconcerting yet … but it won’t be long!

My reunions with Seattle friends aren’t quite finished either. There’s still a few people I haven’t seen yet, but don’t doubt we’ll be meeting up really soon!

Europe is on my mind a lot, though, and there are times I’m sure I’ll be going back very soon. But then other times where I’m looking forward to working here in SEA and saving some more money and truly following my long-term dream of buying some land and really changing things up drastically. Either way it’ll take some thinking and planning, and I’ve got time for that!

Ah, and if you haven’t noticed, I’ve finally updated and rebuilt my portfolio to mesh with my current web design/style/whatever and made it available again.

The weather is the crux of my problem with Florida. People do not want to be outside in the humid slop that is the weather here, so they don’t go outside. The internet and TV and video games have strong staying power – it’s what you do when you don’t want to go outside. Maybe it’s a stretch of my imagination, but no WONDER so many people are over weight. And no wonder I am absolutely BORED out of my mind. I feel brain dead, and it’s not from the heat. It’s from air conditioning and fake entertainment. If anyone I know hears me talking about spending any length of time in Florida again, please slap me … hard.

aye … ok, that’s enough complaining from me. I’ll shut up until I have something interesting to say.