08-08-08

yesterday afternoon, sarah and i converged in arcata, and by late last night she was here in the octagon at stonelake farm. in the morning, i explained to her how the eight-sided tenure narrative writing machine works and she suggested a few excellent configurations. later, sarah surveyed stonelake's garden and created one of her signature salads.


happy great eights day!

reading while writing

lately, i've been spending my morning coffee on a bench outside the octagon overlooking the lower fields and forests of stonelake farm. in the morning, i read a page or two of david samuels' recent new yorker piece "dr. kush."


at night, after group dinner and washed dishes, i steal away to the same bench, this time with whatever remains in the night's bottle. under a hundred million stars and sarah's headlamp, i read a chapter or two of lisa lutz's the spellman files.

a box full of scholarship

sometime before moving to seattle, i met up with my dissertation chair john caughey for lunch. after we finished our meals and talked about this and that, i asked john if he had any advice for me getting tenure.

he thought for a while and then answered: "when you get to UW, get a box and set it aside. a good strong box. anytime you do anything - anything research, anything teaching, anything service - get some kind of physical evidence of the thing you do. then, put that physical evidence in the box. when you publish something, put a copy in the box. when you finish a new syllabus or get an award, put it in the box. when you get a letter of appreciation from a student or colleague or member of the community, put it in the box. then, when tenure time comes around, you'll have a box full of scholarship."

i thought for a while and said, "that's a great idea! thanks, john!"

in the center of the octagon there is an eight-sided pit. this morning i placed my tenure box in the pit and began taking out the box's contents. instead of me arranging the work into three categories (teaching, research, service), the work arranged itself: first as pods, then as clusters, then as blobs that suggest some kind of a continuum of scholarship. currently and curiously, the work seems to have settled into eight rough blobs.

the guestbook in the octagon

i spent the morning reading the first half of the octagon's guestbook. the guestbook's authors are everyone - kids, teenagers, college students, artists, writers, filmmakers, lovers, partners, parents. what runs through all of the entries i've read is deep, deep appreciation, wonder, hope, and gratitude for the octagon, for stonelake farm, and for everything francis and melinda are creating here. it's a multi-authored, collaboratively-designed book of renewal and gratitude.



there's a page in the guestbook from the fearless davies forum crew. i think amber mcchesney-young's entry in the guestbook sums it up nicely: "I've had a wonderful time here at Stonelake, chopping wood, cooking, eating, and listening to Francis' wisdom. There should definitely be a USF program here." great idea, amber!

michal, a student at scattergood friends school and part of the team that helped build the new outhouse and the solar shower deck, writes in the guestbook, "Francis, thanks for teaching us so many skills and giving us the opportunity to work through several rounds of trial and error."

wow, i thought, reading michal's sentence, what a wonderful compliment from a student! and then again - wow, what a wonderful definition of engaged teaching! engaged teaching is giving students opportunities to work through several rounds of trial and error. i'm totally using that in my teaching narrative.

greetings from tiny and zeta.

chores at stonelake farm

besides a few small chores like letting mesa, the barn dog/puppy, out in the morning and feeding her breakfast, my main assignment at stonelake farm is the lower garden.


each evening around six-thirty i water it all, except the potatoes and the squash which get watered every other day. i weed the weeds and then feed the weeds to the chickens. after watering, we plant - a new batch of carrots thursday and three new rows of potatoes friday.


my other important task is to harvest. this chore is the most delicious.