Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Like Suntan Lotion


This place sinks in to your skin and takes at least two weeks to be effective, just like sunscreen, you get sun protection in 20 min. that last a few hours. Here it isn't about protection, it is about lowering your protections, opening up and looking through new lenses, and I think it lasts at least a few years.

You can feel Rancho El Nogal sink in when you are letting yourself enjoy our simple composting toilet system, requiring you to carry your already composting poop in a bucket mixed with organic material to a pile to let it mature. You've a new prescription so as to see the beauty in transforming a bodily waste into a valuable fertilizer without a single flush. In the morning when you've changed your attitude so that you are thanking the rooster for crowing at sunrise so as not to miss the sight, or coffee. Seeing and feeling the results of your everyday work, from eating the eggs you gathered from the chickens you fed the table scraps you were too full to eat last night. To opening the door whose hinge you just fixed. Opening up to what is "around the bend", by walking forward to have a look.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Eat In Place



Food travels. Typically, the delectable delights on your plate have traveled between 1,500 to 2,000 miles to reach your mouth, according to a study conducted by the World Watch Institute. If you crunch the numbers in a conservative fashion, three meals a day, 1,500 miles per meal that is 4,500 miles a day, and 31,500 miles a week. Whoa, a weeks worth of food for an average American eater travels as far as a typical American does in a year, where are the food frequent flier miles?

Thankfully for folks here at Rancho El Nogal, some of our food travels less than 50 m. to reach our hungry mouths, from the vine to my fork tine in 2 min. flat. This year our gardens are bigger than ever and are producing some delicious, nutritious, organic produce. All our chickens are free range, our hens are happily laying light brown eggs, and our nine little chicks will be laying in November. One momma pig will birth in September and the rest of our drove are growing and looking forward to acorns this fall. We gather berries, tunas, wild onions, teas and wild flowers for the kitchen table, during evening walks to view the sunset.