Tai Chi Classes

I am organizing different Tai Chi classes, of which 100% of the proceeds are for the Vermont Foodbank. The first 10-week course will begin Tuesday, October 16th, to be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church in St. Johnsbury.

Opposition

Ohsawa said "opposition is great friendship."

When folks ask me 'how is da farming going?', I sometimes tell em "for me, for me--farming is like theater of the absurd--like being in love--being in the moment and simultaneously aware I have very little control how our crops are going to turn out." Time line lingo--in time and through-time [big picture--details]. One month, a drought and next month a deluge. All dried up and probably pretty soon--washed away. Still, not to be analyzed, I am experiencing "I am the soil". Yesterday, with a boatload of chores in front of me, I felt the prompting "Now, right now, disc your next forage crop field, now". Now? Made no analytic sense whatsoever--the drought has compacted that already deeply contracted clay beyond reclamation for this year... still, Steff was busy re-engineering a newly discovered well [out by our commercial crop field]--never give up, give in, OK]; so Steff told me not to interrupt her. so I jumped on the old Case tractor and got the newly repaired [thanks to my three stooges-Marx brothers ingenuity] disc harrow, held together with farm chains -- onto the compacted field. And the field opened right up and I got down pretty deep. Just absurd... Chuang Tse butterfly dreaming: the mother earth is dreaming of us& we are dreaming into the mother. Extreme yin and extreme yang are the same. Frozen, stuck thought forms dissolving into, transmuting into prayerful tobacco smoke offerings of just deep enough for me & 'mine'-- gratitude.

Harvest and Cover Cropping

Bringing in some of the harvest before the frost tonight: corn, bok choy, squash, fingerlings, beets, watercress, and few tomatoes still to be gently saved, etc. Covering yesterday's broadcast seeding of winter rye.

Promise from God

Yesterday, as I was plowing and preparing a 300' x 60' area of soil to be annexed into our 'commercial West Pasture garden' (now totaling over an acre), riding on my tractor joyously for several hours (hard work driving the big go-cart--yup), the what-was-called-weather changed dramatically from sweater cold rain, to humid, to rain. I found myself praying, giving thanks, blessings, and the mists cleared in the West -- revealing a rainbow in front of me and this old tractor. I believe the sensation I felt was in the innermost core of my heart.

Mid-September Harvest

We are harvesting more crops than I know what to do with at the momen, and weeding the beds that we will soon plant garlic and bibb lettuce in.
For this summer growing season we quadrupled the size of our 'commecial garden', and now we have doubled even that -- laying in forage radish seed, winter rye and forage turnips. Soil is magical, the land, sky, hills, seasons beautiful.

Farmer in the Dell (or Mountains)

Farmer casts some seeds
Farmer casts some seeds
High, hoe -- the ...
aw nuts...
Broadcast forage seeds onto newly reclaimed gardens
Stomped in -- to differing rhythms
Who thought of the label 'legs'?
Halfway into the dance I was drumming the soil -- motherdrum -- with my own two Tao prongs
"It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississiipi mud"...

Rain, Mist, and Moose Prolonging His Residency Here

Blessed rain all night. Mist covers the farm early a.m.
Yesterday, as I spent my second day shoveling cow manure out from the 40'-50' rental trailer, Moose appeared once -- for what I would like to believe was a deliberate 'how d'ya do' -- from our very deep woods in the Southwestern section of our farm. This is his second week here and his prints are all over 'moose bog' -- located in the Southeast section of our farm. I was honored to have him as a guest. It was as if he knew I was preparing the clay soil for a seeding of forage turnips, which I imagined would be to feed our longears for the winter ...

Tai Chi & Hard Work: I Teach Five-Element, Five-Spirit Meditation Practices--Not Self Defense/Martial Arts

Yep, farming is hard work--of sorts. Yep, it can be a shock to discover the degree of labor intensity required to farm professionally. True thing. I am not referring to part-time farming, etc. Steff and I are doing 100% of farm jobs ourselves. Folks ask me, "How do you do the hard manual labor with your Lyme diseases, three major potentially crippling injuries still taking their toll -- you are 67 Marc."

My answer is "I am practicing Taoist energy practices: what appears to be Marc shoveling a 40' tractor trailer-load of cow manure onto our compost pile is the single-palm change from Bagua zhang--done within a Taoist Yogic context; not a martial context whatsoever...


Shoveling our long driveway is practicing the mother-son five-element sequence from Hsing-Yi -- done in a Taoist Yogic context...


I do not practice/teach martial arts, even though the name might imply to some folks 'kung fu'. I practice/teach a pre-birth five-element, psycho-spiritual, Taoist yogic Bagua Meditation, related to Tibetan Bon Shamanism.

So, if you believe you see that I am coaching/practicing Kung Fu -- no, I am practicing/teaching Taoist Yoga--Taoist Alchemy--which will NOT help anyone to be 'number one guy/win/defeat/dominate/combat/compete/control or harm your fellow human beings in ANY way whatsoever'. If you want to learn any of those things, go away & find the right 'teacher' for you.


I practice/teach a pre-birth five-element, psycho-spiritual, Taoist yogic Bagua Meditation, related to Tibetan Bon Shamanism.

Kale, Watercress and Garlic

Our primary commercial focus this year is selling/developing kale, watercress, garlic, leeks and tomatoes. Our other foods are less commercial: beets, basil, dill, sage, herbs, Swiss chard, rapini, lettuces (esp. bibb), zukes, squashes, andnon-GMO sweet corn.

Following Nature

Folks call to tell me, 'Marc, I have a great horse for sale.' Great for who? Should be a natural enough match. Enough natural flowing together

'Marc, I have an acting role, come try.' OK, OK, but 90% of the time, I say, 'use other guy, better natural match for this role.' Not too much flowing for me.

'Marc, start vegetable CSA'. No-go to neighbors' CSA; they offer you consistency & I'm not there yet. In time, I naturally will be.

'Marc, I'd like to see you -- I heard you are highly recommended as a therapist.' OK, but, 90% of the time, I recommend another therapist -- should be a natural enough matching flowings. No blame.

'Marc, please grow lettuce, etc. it is a big seller' OK, and lettuce, etc., ultimately is going to need to be a natural match for the energetics of the farm & for the lettuce, and the local markets' needs. I am following the spirit of natural/supernatural cooperation. I do not enjoy the flow of technology. The relationship channel needs to hold the flow of pleasure, the potential of pleasure, of music & poetry, and for me to invest time, energy.

Back in the day, in the Old Country, a director brought an aspiring actress backstage to meet me, he wanted to cast us together. We went back to her 'pad', stayed there for years...

Humidity

Today was a bit too humid for me to weed, compost all them garlic beds. And noon-ish time is when I take my old baba nap--when the lifeforce is in the very yang fire element. Anyway, noonish arrives, it is humid and at least I was pretty sure which direction to walk to arrive back at the farmhouse. I cobblehopped back, Custer's last two steps, turned to Stephanie in the kitchen handing me a glass of cool Bancha tea, and I said, "Y'know, back in the old country, they used to give me a little schnapps when I come in from the field."

If I Was a Rich Man

If I was a rich man, biddee biddee boom, all day long I vouldn't have to veed, if I was a wealthy man.

Orphans, Orphanage, & Mickey Rourke

Every now and then--the conversation comes up and I tell folks "Quit the beef about Mickey. Mickey Rourke is just doin' exactly what our teachers told us to do." So, we are adopting longears, raising veggies, and sharing love, music and wavelengths... And thanks to Sandra Seacat, Walter Lott 'n Lee; 'n Maria Yraceburu. It is all OK

August 16 Chores

Early a.m. barnyard:

Chores while chanting, morning chanting,
Scything a burdock area where the old barn used to be...soil there is black gold...
Pulling weeds, preparing for fall garlic planting in commercial gardens...
Carrying buckets of rainwater down the hill to the tractor to cart way out to the West Pasture, to our cow manure soil soup area,
Adding soil soup to the tomato garden.
Reseeded buckwheat covercrop in tomato garden
Apply rainwater consistently to watercress

Watching Steff: effortlessly best of chums with all the four-leggeds, turning deep green with envy.

mid august feast

arugala,mixed lettuces,beans,kake,bok choy,spinach,six varieties of beets,corn,rose finn fingerling potatoes,costata romanescu zucchini,giant sunflowers[several varieties],winter squashes,nasturtiums,yukan gold potatues,radicchio,swiss chard,brocoli raab,leeks,-all coming along in the west pasture commercial organic vegetable garden...

close by is Steff's tomato garden ,in which glacier,volkov,mountain princess,peacevine,big boy, tomatoes are all coming along.and lookin good....

several varieties of tomatoes, lettuce, arugula, swiss chard, peas green beans, corn, zucchini, beets watercress,broccoli raab,basil,dill,parsley,sage,rosemary,thyme,oregano,marjoram,chervil,green, peppers,radishes,lacinato and vates kale growing,growing ,grown in our organic guest house garden.

farm working week

I am continuing to add manure to our new forage radish garden..forage radish to address soil compaction and to provide wintewr food for our livestock...moving in thedirection ofself sufficiency. always careful not to trample,tractor under-our precious frogs[whom I am reading are prime indicator of non toxic -no chemical fertilized- soil...
I am continuing to cart out water,rainwater collected from two days of blessed prayed for rain-to our west pasture gardens.In some furrows,Steph has a pete moss -cow/equine compost concoction[the peetmoss to retain water.we are trucking in trailor loads of cow manure to compost biodynamically for next years compost piles.
planting kale,spinach ,lettuce n beets in the tail end of the growing season...weeding-experimenting this week with propane torch/tank to remove way too many weeds......
Preparing projected medice whhel herbal garden site for cover cropping. &planted more buckwheat into Steff's tomato garden-surrounded by oilseed radish boundary..
OUR Farmer geritol is brown rice n leafy green home growns.. Case VAC smokin when it is humid-loyal good friend tractor partner-I am workin us way too hard maybe.thank you good old oil additive BARDOL- I used Bardol in most everything old that still runs-tractor geritol.

july drought

july drought. midwest drought copycat.... farmer hardship....still,great abundant....
august downpour........amazon rainforest copycat-humid....farmer hardship.......still great abundant
the sprouting seed of a whole being makes steady growth...

Forage seed Turnips and Oilseed Radish

This past spring, we quadrupled the size of our West pasture garden [commercial garden, using composted cow manure]. In addition, we built a tomato garden,with hoophouses alongside--ready to cover the tomatoes when weather conditions warrant... I am continuing to lay in compost in the commercial garden for fall plantings--primarily kale, sunflowers, beets.

We have disc harrowed the remainder of the west pasture, and planted forage turnips, for winter food for our livestock and to subsoil the compacted soil. Tomorrow I will add cow manure to some of it to experiment; if needed, I will spread manure on all of it and reseed if I have to.

Time allowing, we are so pleased with oilseed radish as a subsoiling/food device, we disc/plant the entire north pasture with the oilseed and forage turnips and the guard donkey will just have to get over it--till it grows and he can eat it.

bobo donkey

Bobo,a donkey who was a guard donkey of cattle,arrived to his new forever home here on july 26.He is settling in nicely,taking command of his barn,barnyard,the north pasture and both paddocks as well,soon as the forage radish is ready,he will get the green lite to dive into what was the old barnyard paddocks, & then-the west pasture.donkeys need plenty of breathing room.ms

Forage Turnips, More Cow Manure, and Disc Harrowing

Up to 29 truck & trailer loads of compost and cow manure so far -- some of this latest batch for turnip seeds we scattered over a blessedly rained on newly-harrowed area (harrowed with a 700 lb disc harrow). , and a heavy chain is now wrapped around it for just the right dragging results (plus cinder blocks for counter-balancing weights). And it gets the job done.

These amazing forage turnips will root deeply -- displacing weeds, and breaking up conmpacted soil/clay. The tops are eaten by the equines as forage, and they keep growing back to get eaten some more -- thus cutting hay/feeding costs. In late winter the turnips die off, leaving composting vegetable matter in the now aerated soil, and enriching the previously lifeless clay.