off the grid

if stonelake farm is off the grid, how come the octagon has lights? how come the octagon has running water to cook, wash, and shower? and how am i able to access the internet to upload this blog post? where's the electricity coming from? where's the running water coming from? and how can it be that my showers are hot?

it starts here, at the top of stonelake's property, where pipes and storage tanks collect water from the creek.


the pipes take the creek water downstream and down the hill, all the while gaining velocity.


this contraption, a pelton wheel, inputs gushing water and outputs electricity.


electricity is stored in two car batteries tucked neatly away in this wooden box.


at the same time, stonelake farm derives energy from the sun. multiple solar panels, including these two outside melinda and francis' home, input the sun and output electricity. the first panel supplies much of the farm its electricity; the second panel supplies melinda's editing studio and the farm's internet cafe. access to the internet is limited at stonelake farm and i was able to use it for two hours a day. one thing i learned at stonelake farm was that two hours of the internet a day is more than enough.


the secret to the octagon's hot showers is the nearby solar panel. the water comes from the creek, travels from one side of the farm to the other through pipes, and is made piping hot by this solar panel.


in addition to being a natural wonder, stone lake farm is a technological wonder.

now i'm home. tomorrow morning, i leave for a week at new york university for a faculty workshop on teaching with technology. while in new york, i'll finally get to meet my two new nephews.

farming

there are many animals living on stonelake farm.

there are lots of chickens, maybe a dozen, most of them hens. collectively, they pump out around ten eggs a week. the eggs are delicious. they taste the way eggs used to taste. at times, the chickens are allowed to peck and poke their way through fallow fields in the garden. they feed on and distribute the compost (mulch), peck peck peck on the ground (hoe), and poop all over (manure). the chickens, while not too smart, are experts at prepping garden beds.

there is one dog and her name is lalune. lalune is the most self-confident, self-assured dog ever. if you see lalune, there's a good chance that francis is nearby.


during various points of time, stonelake farm's duck population ranged from two to twenty; currently, two ducks - duckalito and duckalita - call stonelake home. early in the morning, the ducks quack and flap their way into the garden where they, hypothetically, find the fattest slugs and snails and eat them uncooked. realistically, duckalito and duckalita spend most of their time tearing through the garden indianapolis 500-style. when possible, the ducks' poop is mixed with hay and made into mulch for the garden and orchards.


there are currently six humans at stonelake. most of what we eat comes from the garden (plus the eggs from the chickens), most of what we throw away is composted, and our trash is kept to a bare minimum. francis and melinda's home comes with a composting toilet, a living system that converts human waste into humanure, which is then fed to the fruit-bearing trees in the upper orchards. farm visitors use the outhouse and our wastes nourish future fruit-bearing trees on the lower orchard. it also affords views like this.


there are six goats - three adult goats, three baby goats - on the farm. tiny, the proud mama, is one hellava goat - friendly, social, vain. she's making a lot of milk, which is a good thing - the three little goats require three bottles of milk three times a day. although tiny is the only one making milk, all of the goats make poop, which is, i believe, the farm's main source of mulch and manure. on a farm, goats are all-stars.

the three baby goats - florence, zetta, and alfalfa sprout - are 100% cutie pies. the baby goats are comprised almost entirely of leg, and they are not exactly sure how to use them. they jump - upward, with a mid-air booty-shake to one side - for no apparent reason.

raining

barbara kingsolver begins animal, vegetable, miracle with a perfect anecdote. kingsolver's family of four (plus dog) are in a quick-stop convenient market just outside the city limits of tucson, arizona. they have packed up all their belongings and are driving east, to a farm in southwestern virginia, to live a year (or more) of what kingsolver magically calls "food life."

at the time, it had not rained in tucson for over two hundred days. so when the sky suddenly darkened, kingsolver, her husband steven, and the young cashier at the quickie-mart took notice.

"dang," the cashier said, according to kingsolver, "it's going to rain."

"i hope so," steven replies.

the cashier, a "bleached-blond guardian of gas pumps and snack food," scowls at steven and says, "it better not, is all i can say."

"but we need it," kingsolver says.

cashier: "i know that's what they're saying, but i don't care. tomorrow's my first day off in two weeks and i want to wash my car."

eeks.

yesterday it rained at stonelake farm. it wasn't a torrential downpour, but neither was it a wimpy drizzle. it was a beautiful rain and it lasted nearly the whole day and evening. the rain watered buck mountain, the trees, and the surrounding fields of grass, some of which, as a result, has turned from hay-like yellow to grass-like green. naturally, the rain also watered the garden.



i spent most of the day in the coopala, dividing my time between reading kingsolver's book, listening to the rain fall, and being mindful.


that night melinda, francis, sarah lewison, and the two interns, montana and kelson, joined me in the octagon for dinner. the whole meal was delicious, especially the centerpiece, a fresh salad made from at least ten different greens from the garden.


all of us were, i am sure, more than thankful for the rain.

gardening

each morning at 10:30, i report to francis, stonelake farm's garden director. he assigns me a task in the garden that takes about an hour. in exchange, i receive fresh farm eggs and delicious dinners that come straight from the garden. plus, i learn a whole lotta new gardening knowledge and skills. the deal is sweet.

first task: working with melinda, we built supports for the tomatoes.


second task: digging and prepping circles for watermelons, cantaloupes, and winter squashes.


the garden requires an unbelievable amount of forethought, attention, research, love, and labor. task done, i roll - to go read, to go eat, to go be mindful, to go find the waterfall. francis and melinda stay put and keep working.

from my standards, the garden is huge and includes one main section and about four or five smaller, terraced plots. the goal, melinda says, is for the garden to feed her and francis as well as visitors to the farm.




a week ago, while in omaha, sarah and i saw author/farmer/humanitarian barbara kingsolver on the television. we only caught the last five minutes but everything she said made so much sense. upon returning to the city, i bought her new book, animal, vegetable, miracle, thinking it would be a perfect book to read at stonelake farm.

it is.

with excellent help from her husband steven and eldest daughter camille, kingsolver manages to horrify and delight. she horrifies with stories of terminator genes, genetically modified seeds that after one year of life are programmed to commence a species-wide suicide - killing the plant, preventing the farmer from saving seeds for next year's crop, and boosting profit for corporations like monsanto. and she delights by recounting how much health and joy and well being and pleasure she and her family gather from working in and eating from their garden.

kingsolver's book and stonelake farm share many similar characteristics, i think, and one of them is this - both are rooted in growing solutions not merely bemoaning situations.

living

for the last three days and the next six days i am here, at stonelake farm, as an artist in residence. stonelake farm is about three hundred miles north of san francisco, nestled snugly on burr valley road, in bridgeville, in humboldt county. the farm gets its name from its owners - melinda stone and francis lake.

i'm living in the octagon.


the octagon was built by the farm's previous owners, the wheelers, in the early 1970s. i believe multiple families lived on the farm and together they raised the octagon. there is a strong connection between octagon architecture and counterculture/back-to-the-land movements of the 1960s and 1970s but none of us were exactly sure what that connection was. the octagon provides an open, public space that lends itself to communal living. the octagon also generates a circle which relates to the whole circle-of-life idea so important to the back to the landers. perhaps there's othere connections. maybe the octagon architecture is simply easier to build. maybe the octagons have something to do with the inspired, futurama designs dreamt up by buckminster fuller, one of the spiritual and social guides of the 1960s and 70s. or maybe it's just that the octagons look so damn cool.

like an octopus, the octagon has eight sides.

a side to enter and exit - as well as to borrow or leave behind a book.


a side to sleep.


a side to write and to look out the window.


a side to cut bread and look out the window.


a side to cook food and wash the dishes.


and many other sides, including the top side, a coopala, which i'll need more time to explore before i try to describe.

if you hop, miraculously, over the sink and through the glass window, you will land in the solar powered outside shower. when it's sunny, it can deliver as hot a shower as you desire. and when you stand, buck naked, in the shower, this is what you see.