Carrie Newcomer, one year later, in Boston

I finally have a copy of Carrie's new CD, Before and After -- with an autograph! =) I've wanted to get my hands on a copy of it ever since she sang "A Small Flashlight" for the encore of her concert at Warren Wilson College last year (a song that I could have sworn she sang just for me...).

She of course remembered me - and my name. We checked in before the concert and I realized that I'm in a similar position to where I was a year ago when we talked in North Carolina - and the year before when we first met in Oregon: trying to figure out where to go next in life...

She made a comment about life being a cycle of circles of re-discerning that never stops (although hopefully it's a little different each time and we can get through it a little easier...). Then, to top it off, she opened the concert with "There is a Tree," and when she came to the line "in circles that grow ever wide" she looked right at me. And I smiled, and she smiled. =)

cohoot connections

our parents always forget that the two of us haven't met. just because we're the same age and interested in farming and live on the east coast and because our parents live in the same cohousing community in oregon where we've both spent time doesn't mean we know each other!

but now we do. i decided to make our parents' delusions a reality by calling up Laura and visiting her in Brattleboro, VT. and we had a fabulous time. :) lots of beautiful fall hiking, planting garlic, and cooking of garden-fresh produce! pumpkin pie, pumkin bread, minestrone soup, brussels sprouts, kale, squash...and a giant miatake mushroom found in the woods.

can life be like this all the time?

so mom, dad, yes - now we are friends, and not just in your imaginations. :)

Cold Pond Community Land Trust

South Acworth, NH

My stay here at Cold Pond has been quite nice - and very quiet. I got here just in time yesterday for Steve to greet me before he went off to go bowling, and then I was on my own until almost 11pm to figure out how to make a wood cookstove work, take a walk, build a fire in my little cabin, and search unsuccessfully for matches, among other things (including talk to the neighbor about the horses that had gotten loose and were in the road...).

Today, it snowed. It was heavy, wet snow, mixed with rain at times - like the way it snows in Western Oregon. And it was windy. So, we didn't do anything. In fact, from the time I walked over the house at 9:30am, I didn't set foot outside again until I walked back to the cabin at 9:30pm. We made potato-leek soup, and Steve made an apple cobbler - yum yum!



It's down to Brattleboro tomorrow!

Re-visiting Agape

Once again a wonderful but short visit to Agape. I managed to make it to Francis Day from Boston with Kate! Hooray! I was glad to finally experience this event that I’d heard so much about last year. It was a gorgeously sunny and colorful crisp fall day, and there were at least 200 people there. The program’s theme was “Women and War: reclaiming our voices,” and included women speakers from Japan, Burundi, Afghanistan, and Iraq as well as Dorothy Day’s granddaughter and a U.S. veteran in her mid-20s who’d served in Iraq when she was 19. It was a powerful day, and ended with the planting of a tree in honor of the mother of two Iraqi boys who are here with their father getting treatment for injuries sustained in the car explosion (caused by U.S. gunfire) that killed their mother.

One of the highlights was the singing and dancing led by the Burundian community! It was also really nice to see so many familiar faces and catch up with a few of the people that I had gotten to know pretty well during my internship. I was glad not to be an intern though, because it meant I simply got to sit back and enjoy it all without worrying about logistics or running in and out taking care of details or dishes. Can we please stop having wars?

on the river that flows both ways

"River, take me along
In your sunshine, sing me your song
Ever moving and winding and free
You rolling old river, you changing old river
Let's you and me river run down to the sea!"


I just spent 10 incredible days with 17 incredible people on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. It was loads of fun, and I loved it, but I think I discovered that even though I love the water, I'm not a sailor. Or a chemistry teacher. I was originally only supposed to be on the boat from Sunday through Saturday, but I ended up staying 3 extra days because they were short on staff and volunteers. I'm glad I did, because there was a lot of lousy, rainy, windy weather the first week and 4 groups cancelled their sails!

My job description as a volunteer was to help in every way I could - with boat operation, maintenance, and education. So I learned how to tie a highwayman's cutaway, a round turn and two half hitches, and a stopper knot; how to clip the lizard onto the otter trawl net line; how to coil a line (always clockwise!) and make a butterfly coil; how to tie a reef in the sail. I did 7am saltwater deckwashes, scrubbed soleboards, cleaned the hold shelves, washed dishes in the galley, and helped furl the jib. I slid a lot of fenders between the rub-rail and the pilings, manned the tiller, and did bow watch in the rain keeping a lookout for logs and moving vessels.

On the days we had group sails, I taught kids about dissolved oxygen and turbidity, tides and salinity, navigating on a river, the history of Hudson River sloops, how to identify an oyster toadfish, tell the difference between male and female blue crabs, what a hogchoker is and how it got its name, and how to touch a fish (use one finger - your "fishy finger"- to stroke it, not poke it, because we don't want to squish the fish!). I even played some music. And of course I hauled away on those halyards to help raise that gigantic 3,000 pound mainsail!

"Come along with me upon this broad old river
and we will see what we can do,
for when we work together in all kinds of weather,
there's no telling what the power of the people and the river can do!"