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It has been many years of dreaming. Many years of asking fellow farmers to strip on sultry summer afternoons, hoping that the light was right, the veggies weren’t shy, and my photography skills were up to the task. And now it is here, the 2016 Soil Sisters Farm Luscious Calendar. Photographed by Maisie Ganz with the help and sexy bod of many a friend.

I have printed a few copies in order to make the final tweaks before printing en masse. And I am writing this post to ask you, my dear readers, to pre-order your 2016 calendar. I will be printing at the end of this month once I have heard back from those so inspired to have our gorgeous and tastefully seductive creation on their walls this coming year. And if you are wondering just what locally-made, farm-themed gift to give your relatives, friends, and lover(s) – then this is your lucky day. Printed on professional cardstock with vibrant inks and a simple layout, these puppies cost a pretty penny to print and ship – hence the need to pre-order so I don’t break the bank. My bank that is. Calendars are only $20 per or $15 if you buy 3 or more. Local pick-up will be available at the Nevada City Farmer’s Market and shipping an option for those out-of-towners ($5 added for shipping per order).
Email me at soilsistersfarm@gmail.com with the Title: Luscious Farm Calendar to order. Please write how many you’d like and if you are local or out-of-town (leave address if out-of-town).

And I don’t want to give it all away, but here’s a glimpse into this year’s Luscious calendar….Order Today!

 

we farmers try so hard, we want to be
a thing of virtue, proud and free
we grow our food and make compost
of self-sufficiency we boast
but when the season comes to close
a panic starts, and worry grows
“it’s fall,” we exclaim, “i need to know
just what and why and where to go”
“the winter’s coming, the days grow short,
i feel the urge to sail from port
my friends go south to catch the sun
they climb and surf and just have fun
carefree and young they jet around
i watch with envy from the ground.
no kids, no mortgage is this my chance
to go to baja, thailand, france?”

but then i take a deep breath, and re-remember
vacation is more than bali’s beaches in december
it can be the stoking of the woodstove’s fire
making sculptures out of wire
hunkering under blankets warm,
listening to thunderstorms.
mornings of yoga, drinking tea
scaling mountains, climbing trees
rainy walks along the ditch
mending clothing stitch by stitch
fixing fences, building shelves
tiling the bathroom all by ourselves

the day to day is beautiful, i need to worry not
of adventures not yet taken, or the perfect snorkeling spot
inside myself is where i need to be
to find the truest sense of free
where mind is still as fallen snow
constriction eases, i can let go
be more like the bear that settles down
a fox whose den is close to town
the little frog that croaks and sings
whose happy with the simple things
the truth of living they seem to know
while my discovery was slow
just find a hole, a stump, a pond –
location’s insignificant
cause all the world – inside and out –
is perfectly magnificent.
love, maisie

 

right now there is a baby who is very much resisting entering this world. she/he is comfortable where she/he is, being carried around in a floating belly-world, hearing the faint sounds of goats bleating and farmers talking and doggies barking. and yet it’s time, and we here on the farm are all pins and needles to meet this little person. to love it and give it popsicles in the summer and explain why dragonflies swarm. to read it stories by the pond and hold it’s hand and laugh at the funny things it says. to learn it’s special kid-wisdom and to give it the best bites of the pie and to forget what we were so busy doing and join it to look up at the shapes of the clouds.

little one, i am so excited to meet you. you’ve already hooked me and we’ve never really met. so please go easy on your momma today and get your head oriented right and get yourself out here so we can see you and welcome you proper. i will bring you marigolds to admire and eat. i will make my doggie howl so that you can giggle. i will walk you around in the evening and tell you about the trees and all the silly things we did when we were young and all the silly things we are still doing now. and when you are older i will play cards with you way past when i would prefer to stop, just so we can hang out a bit more. blessings on your birthday, this day of your birth. you are so loved already, safe and speedy arrival little one! love, m

 

the thunderclouds are building today
the madrone trees dropping their
crackling leaves
so that it feels like fall and not summer
rain drops wake my dog
his speckled paws outstretched
he looks up, looks at me, briefly
lays his head back upon the boards.

wind scatters the canopy
falling needles, leaves, droplets
i can hear a tractor but it is sunday,
there is no appeal for me,
and anyways, my aspirations lean more
towards the ambitions of the border collie
than those of the one who wears the carhartts.

wild raspberries,
a green branch that arcs
over the bathtub –
what caused it’s peak, it’s descent back to the earth?
why not climb upwards and always more up?

the madrone is slick and red
with bark that peels from ash to green.
and i am in love, here on this blue earth.

i am in love with a man who holds me like a precious thing.
and kind words, and kind touch, our currency.
i am in love with this afternoon, humid air and nervous birds,
time to write, to draw a little sketch of succulents in their pot.

the tractor strains.
julius flicks his paw. an ant maybe. or leaf falling.
the madrone sends me one too
a gift, yellow with a splatter of blood still left in it’s veins.

now he is running in his sleep
after storm clouds. after sheep.
after fish in the river who glint and dart and nibble,
always out of reach.

i take his cue
and curl up in bed
to sleep and dream
of my love, who comes to me as a deer
who went climbing in the mountains
and returns to these hills at night,
unafraid to lie down in the dry leaves.

– maisie

i’ve been climbing a lot lately. rock climbing that is. which is strange, given that the months of april thru october don’t really provide farmers with a lot of disposable time. and with most of my monday thru friday taken up on the farm, my weekend hours have become these precious little morsels of freedom – freedom from worrying, weeding, planning, and planting – that i must protect at all odds. so driving in a car to some windy summit, then donning a funny-looking harness and uber-tight shoes, has got to be pretty darn appealing if it’s going to take up my whole saturday. but i guess it is, because i find myself heading up there most weekends.

a couple of years ago i went on one of those 10-day meditation retreats. ten days of silence. ten days of deliberate walking, slow-motion in front of the meditation hall, and ten days of sitting, for hours, in the attempt to empty the mind. on the outside, everything looked calm. but my mind was racing. i made up elaborate plots to movies. i had mock arguments with my then-boyfriend. i fell asleep sitting up. i thought about how many minutes, and then how many seconds, until lunch. i thought about all manner of superficial and inconsequential topics. sometimes i thought about nothing, which was nice. i had insights into my habitual patterns of thought, and was able to shift some behaviors that were no longer serving me. that was also nice. and sometimes i felt a deep sense of peace and joy from just being alive enough to watch a deer move slowly through the woods, to hear the creek down below the meditation hall, to sleep deeply and soundly all night, even though it seemed as if i’d done nothing all day.

but i am convinced that rock climbing would have been the buddha’s preferred activity.

i’m surprised it’s not mentioned in the ancient texts. because nowhere else, doing nothing else, do i feel that sort of release from suffering that the buddha talked about. on the rock i am alone. just me and the breeze. my mind empties of thoughts, the farm becomes a distant memory, and all that is in front of me is all that matters. the rock. where to place my foot. the next bolt. the rope. the wind. my own breath.

but i’ve got to give the buddha some props. and i don’t mean a rope and a harness, i mean respect. as meditative as it is, i know i can’t be rock climbing all the time, and it’s not realistic to rely exclusively on climbing remote crags in order to get my zen-on. there’s just too much real life that happens off the wall. there are bills to pay, orders to fill, flowers to plant, dinner to make, birthday cards to write, plumbing to fix, pets to pet – all the activities and projects in between those calm, quiet moments where i must remember to breathe. and let go. and relaaaax. i can’t trail around a rope on my waist and expect it to catch me when i fall. i have to have other safety measures. i need to learn to go with the flow as i hoe the never-ending aisles of amaranth. i need to breathe as i plant the salad mix, practice walking deliberately on the farm, and train in the art of trance-like meditative states in order to survive a trip to the local co-op store (the single most socially overwhelming place in our town, second only to the annual county fair).

it’s just that the act of climbing brings a sort of equanimity that feels so rare. but i recognize that it is also one practice among many that makes peace possible. or a little more possible. so does sitting quietly for a few minutes after lunch, watching the western tanagers flashing yellow through the trees. or taking an outdoor bath after work, in the woods, listening to the goats shout and the mosquitos hum and the bumblebees pollinate the wild raspberries. or just drinking a cup of tea in the morning without checking email or watching a youtube video. basically doing anything that inserts a moment of sanity into the insanity of a day.

it is told that the buddha sat under the bodhi tree and attained enlightenment. what the ancient texts must have left out, is that after sitting under this tree, and after his remarkable transformation, the buddha climbed it. he wrapped his hands around those smooth branches and hoisted himself up in the the boughs. he looked at the leaves moving in the breeze, the tigers passing underneath, the ants marching single file up the trunk. he climbed and he meditated and he felt great peace. but he also climbed down. he stepped back into the fray of people and things, and he traveled and taught what he had learned. i’m not sure the buddha had to meditate much after his enlightenment. but i do expect that every few days, or at the very least on his weekends, he’d go for a climb.

love, maisie

i haven’t been writing lately. i have the regular surplus of seasonal excuses – the greenhouse is full, the irrigation needs to be set up, the salad mix is overdue for a weeding. i come home tired. i wake up groggy. i work all day in between. it’s not as if i am feeling overly stressed, my life feels manageable enough. but i am lacking that creative joie de vivre that only comes for me when i allow myself the space to turn down the static of my life, dip into the depths of my imagination, and write.

this evening i stopped by tim’s barn to hang out with the goats. the late evening sun cut bands of light through the holes in the barn, illuminating swirls of flies and straw-dust, the flick of long ears, the mumble of moms, the constant grinding and chomping of teeth, the little spastic hops of the kids. i’m glad i stopped. to be alone is a beautiful thing, in a barn, the creek running down below, the light filtered just so. to be alone is something i sometimes avoid, for fear of loneliness, for fear of being left out, for fear of suddenly dying, beneath the hooves of seemingly gentle goats, with no one there to hear my last words pronouncing to whom i bequeath julius.

there’s some saying, about how we are never really alone. there are the stars, the bees, spiders spinning webs in the corners of our houses, and bluebirds who throw themselves against our windows. the deer pass by and stare at us with those unblinking eyes. even the wind shares company with us, and the trees too, standing stoic, watching over it all. but it is the lack of human company that can be so upsetting. or depending on the context, very appealing. to not have to talk. to not have to negotiate who’s going to make dinner, who’s going to do the dishes, who’s going to pick up the dog from band practice. to read a book, to write a letter, to make soufflé without worrying that it will sink, because only i am there to watch it rise. there are, in fact, good things that go along with the territory of being alone.

but the difference for me, between an evening alone and a lonely evening, lies in how much i am willing to just be with myself, with whatever feelings arise, whatever thoughts come. so mostly i feel lonely when i am scared to do something bold, something vulnerable, or something creative. any sort of action that requires a premeditated presentation of an aspect of myself, in the artistic sense. write a blog post for example? i’d would much rather have someone entertain me. because then i remain safe, emotions tucked up inside, nary a story of inadequacy nor a tick mark added to my sense of self-worth. “make me happy,” a part of me is saying, “show me something interesting, and poignant, and illuminating about me and everyone i know, about the human condition, about life and death and so on and so forth.” i am resisting looking at these things for myself and by myself. i am turning up the static of my life rather then drop into the unknown waters of the present moment.

so guess what? i’m writing a blog post. maybe you noticed. and it has vaguely to do with goats, but it mostly has to do with allowing myself to write something, anything, and how good it feels to stop the mind’s chatter, the body’s constant need to work the farm, and just say something out loud. you may love it, you may, hate it, but i’m not too worried because i have also added pictures of baby goats.

love, maisie