my indian summer

this is an obvious one, but i'm just gonna say it: i love farm life.
we sit on a little basin sloping down toward the coast with mountains on three sides and eucalyptus groves in front of us. from the hill my yurt is on (dubbed 'coyote hill' by my friend louis) you can see the ocean and hear the elephant seals. there is a constant occidental breeze to balance out the sweltering sun. the cold nights are a plus too. i am very into the extremes in temperature. it has been non-stop harvesting this week. every time someone asked me what i'll be doing on the farm, i always answered with an i don't know. oh, the labor! i mean it's not that hard, its just constant. my first day was on tuesday and we had to harvest for our 50-something CSA boxes. then twice a week we harvest for farmers markets in palo alto and pacifica respectively. my favorite harvest this week was the potatoes. it was cool enough watching airielle (the farm manager) and sarah (all-around bad ass lady) drive the plow through the beds to upturn the plants; but taking my shoes off, sitting down in a ditch of dry california soil and digging for spuds with my bare hands takes the cake! the work day starts around 8 each morning and we go till about 5:30 with an hour break for lunch. we rotate lunch duty and it is always delicious. sometimes we go down to our neighbors PIE RANCH for lunch. they make fresh chevre. we like them. the fields are nice to spend the day with, harvesting greens in the morning before the sun wilts them and giving the strawberry patch a once-over in the late afternoon. the ol' back has had some fits, but it's nothing a little yoga can't fix. after work, it's straight to the outdoor solar shower where i let all the dust from the day run down the drain. night time is my favorite time on the farm. yesterday after work i started cooking some beans and definitely underestimated the time they needed. so until 1a.m. we were having a bonfire, drinking some quality trader joe's wine, eating pot cookies and just staring at the sky. the beans came out fine and i slept in this morning. got up, and the aforementioned louis and i hitched to santa cruz! i have a feeling this little cycle of life is how it will go for me the rest of the season. i will eventually work the farmers markets. nothing big. but i can say that there is something about having a little canyon all to yourself; having the whole sky as thinking space; hearing coyotes and barn owls and sea lions at night; reading the time from the way your shadow falls under the sun; choosing what you will eat by walking up and down rows of various vegetables; keeping your hands constantly moving all for one reason- growing food. which i haven't even begun to wrap my mind around what that means. i call it my indian summer because of the dust even my pee kicks up and because of how invisible yet crucial i am to the greater society and because the sun is why i am able to do any of this. i also call it my indian summer because it came late but was worth the wait. i haven't felt this good in years. not even just the farm but this general time in my life. maybe she was right when she said it hasn't even begun to begin. each of my san francisco visitors and experiences were a perfect interim between taking a break from life and fully getting back into it. everything finally feels okay and makes sense. everything that has happened brought me to this pinnacle of gratitude and grace. i've been here before and i call it my indian summer because that's all i know right now. it's showing on my skin and the darkness has vanished from under my eyes. it's showing up in how i am experiencing the dynamic of living: community, food, being outside and surrounded by nature. it's good man, it's great! i'm totally into it, i love life, etc!
and now, a poem sent my way by the lovely isabella scott, whom i will pounce on so hard next time i see her:

Gravelly Run

I don't know somehow it seems sufficient
to see and hear whatever coming and going is,
losing the self to the victory
of stones and trees,
of bending sandpit lakes, crescent
round groves of dwarf pine:

for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:

the swamp's slow water comes
down Gravelly Run fanning the long
stone-held algal
hair and narrowing roils between
the shoulders of the highway bridge:

holly grows on the banks in the woods there,
and the cedars' gothic-clustered
spires could make
green religion in winter bones:

so I look and reflect, but the air's glass
jail seals each thing in its entity:

no use to make any philosophies here:
I see no
god in the holly, hear no song from
the snowbroken weeds: Hegel is not the winter
yellow in the pines: the sunlight has never
heard of trees: surrendered self among
unwelcoming forms: stranger,
hoist your burdens, get on down the road.

A.R. Ammons