I didn't make it to the farm last weekend. I ran the Hood to Coast instead. What an exhilarating experience. I can't believe how good and bad it felt. The team bonding, staying up all night, running in the dark of 4 am, my thighs turning to bricks in the middle of the 14th mile....all so good and so painful. I think I'll do it again.
The birds in the pie cherry tree ate and ate and ate today pecking away at one cherry for five minutes at a time, they picked the tree clean. It was a full moon. The echinaea popped open, it's one of the best medicinal plants on the planet. Good things are happening. We turned the compost bins so we could make potting soil, everything in the nursery is outgrowing its pot. The middle of the bins have all the worms, at the bottom the soil is pure organic humus. We used weedmat to cover a few hundred square feet near the lower field so we could plant perennials like Sedum, Echinops, Echinacea and other clumping plants. We also planted Sumac a fabulous tree whose trunk is furry and feels like antlers, it gets a red fuzzy cone all over it in the fall.
Hood River has two main roads to Parkdale. Dee Hwy, where I grew up is on the west side and Hwy 35, where the farm is, on the east. My old friend and school pal, Paul Aubert, just opened a stand on his families land at fruit loop number 17, near Toll Bridge park, high up on the east side. I have flowers there for sale and this weekend between cutting and watering I went there for a wine tasting. It was lovely, Naked Winery out of Hood River is buying grapes from The Dalles, their wine was fine. The cherries at the stand were from The Dalles too, which I haven't heard much about lately except talk of Google's move there. My flowers sat in the windows and made me happy while I tasted pinot noir and merlot, but when trekers came by motorcycle I had to admit to myself that their chances of selling were slim. Oh well, I love Paul and his fruit stand, its worth it.
