As many seem to know, we have moved to the country. We bought a small farm, calling it Oasis Farms, a year ago and moved in in April. We’re famous to the post office delivery lady, who says she tells our nice neighbors to come visit, to the lady at Lombardi’s who says we have a beautiful piece of land, to people stop me on the street to ask what we’re planting, what we’re doing with this 1900 house, 2 1/2 acres w. view of Mt. St. Helena and panoramic view of Sonoma Mt. nested between Cinnabar Theater and Cinnabar School.
In may we so enjoyed building a Living Earth outdoor adobe “Lovin Oven” w. Micah Elliot and 49 other brave souls when we asked them out as part of the global 350 Garden Challenge started up by 350.org, challenge met and then some. 629 gardens begun or amended in Sonoma County! thanks to iGrowSonoma, Daily Acts, Petaluma Bounty, so many others.
Then we asked people to come plant and share the harvest later. Now its later. The tomatoes were very slow coming but gangbusters coming in! Freezer full of quarts of sauce, each representing 10+ tomatoes each, we’ve fed endless bits of heirlooms to our chickens (hoping this doesn’t give them the runs!) and we have et so very many as angel hair pasta sauce, sliced and toasted on bread with cheese, salsa. Everyone who comes goes away with tomatoes, zuchs, many with a dozen eggs. Chicks laying about a month now, loving dust bathes and tortillas (is that OK?), etc.
Everyday a huge full basket of tomatoes to pick (thank you, recently departed Ruby for the garage sale basket the day I needed it!) and everyday new batch of sauce.
But the tomatoes were ganging up on me and piles beginning to rot at the bottom before I could get to them. We didn’t schedule a harvest party – we’re breaking ground for new house, chickens do take some time, its silly season for politics, a dozen family events…I’m swamped.
So it was with great joy I received the helping hands of Bonnie Evans, her son, Tate, and our Brit friend, Patty Charley, at the kitchen table yesterday. A good
omen of days to come when the fruit of 200 trees comes in! 
So Patty moves twice as fast as I do and makes up her own routine. But betwixt us all we managed to NEARLY clear the kitchen table of produce – for a day. Chopping, tossing in to pots of boiling water, blending, ripping fresh basil into the sauce. Sweet fun – what a very different life than we shared in the warehouse home we called the Cave. Same cast of characters, different lifestyle. So much to be grateful for.