Christine H. Lee

Author: Christine Lee (Page 2 of 6)

Wants to be Gryffindor, but is Hufflepuff. I should be writing.

East Egg: Or How I Became a Husband

October 10, 2018 /

(The new virgin queen of East Egg, August 2018)

 

I picked up my first hive late in the evening. East Egg came from a Randy Oliver nucleus, or mini-colony, bred for both mite resistance and gentle disposition. I’d put my order in months earlier, the day that Trump was elected, an act I didn’t realize then as defiance. That I’d support matriarchy in any way I could, including a colony of bees.

What I wanted then was solace. I also wanted distraction. I wanted to fulfill a lifelong goal of keeping bees. I’d always wanted bees, but my ex husband had been resistant. But he was gone–he’d left me, and with that went any excuses I had for not allowing myself the space to which I deserved.

Even then, it took me a couple years to do the research, take the classes, and order the bees so I could be well prepared to husband a hive.

The word “husband,” first recorded around the year 1000, originally meant “male head of household,” whether married, single, or widowed. “Husband” didn’t mean a married man until the year 1290. In that same year, the word “husbandry” came into being as a noun for “management of a household and its resources.” In the 1300s, the word “husbandman” came to mean a farmer or tiller of the soil–so the word “husbandry” expanded to mean farming and agriculture in general.

So here I was, for the first time in my life, husbanding. Husbanding myself. Husbanding the household. And husbanding chickens and now bees.

I was no longer a wife. And I no longer wanted to be a wife ever again.

I was going to be a husband.

The box of bees was sealed shut when I picked it up. It buzzed. It was full of life. Heavy. We carried it carefully–CAREFULLY–into the car, and drove it carefully–CAREFULLY–home. And we placed it on a hive stand. We unsealed it. We walked away.

The next morning, I couldn’t help but peek in. I lifted the cover off the box. There they were–five frames of bees, surrounded by an additional five empty frames that the bees would fill with more brood (baby bees), honey, and pollen in the coming weeks and months. I named it East Egg. It grew. It produced honey. It kept mite counts below 6 throughout the year, without any intervention or treatment. It was so strong going into the winter later that year, that it emerged this Spring with a catastrophic mite count of 46–it had robbed a bunch of hives and brought home mites.

I treated it with an organic treatment. And the mite counts dropped again. I cherished its magnificent queen. Took pictures of her whenever I spotted her. Sometimes the bees stung me–and while I suffered from large localized reactions, I didn’t really much care. I loved what that hive meant to me, and I kept at beekeeping. I was a husband.

I was helping bees grow and prosper. I was learning about the different roles of the female workers–how they start as nurse bees, move to cleaning the hive and caring for the queen, then move to guarding the hive, until the final phase of foraging. How tidy–that the last stage of work took them out of the hive, where most of them would end up dying.

The few males–the drones–I ignored. They didn’t sting. They were there to serve the purpose of passing the genetics of the hive on. Nothing more. Every time I talked about bees or opened up the hive, any worry I had–dissipated.

When the apple trees blossom around the Spring equinox–bees are prime to swarm. Swarming is a way of reproducing, as half the hive leaves with the queen to a new home. The remaining bees raise their own queen from the eggs left behind. But in the city, you don’t want to do this. To be more exact, your neighbors would not appreciate you doing this.

And also–why let your bees swarm when you can create an artificial swarm (a split) and make sure to give them a good home?

I split East Egg. In other words, I took a few frames out of East Egg (two frames of capped brood, one frame of eggs, one frame of honey, and the rest empty frames) and put them into a new box, and thus a new hive. This split had bees and eggs and capped larvae–and no queen.

Without a queen, the worker bees made a queen from the eggs. East Egg now had an offspring of sorts, and the queen of East Egg, a daughter. She was a rare ebony colored queen. I named the new hive split Bree, and she went to live in Sonoma County.

But then–tragedy. East Egg started to dwindle. It had been a very very healthy and large colony until May. Five boxes tall! A full box of honey going into Summer.

 

But somehow, East Egg never capped the honey. I was so busy with other hives and a rare vacation to Hawaii, that I neglected to go down into the deep box to double check brood–even after I didn’t spot any eggs in the second box.

Something happened to the queen right after the split. I know this now, because I made a chart of the hives I managed this year, according to their growth. You see, East Egg started taking a dive after I made Bree in April. But I didn’t notice.

I saw the queen, but didn’t notice anything wrong–and because she was alive, I figured all was okay. Here she is, on May 27, post-split.

Doesn’t she look okay? Right?  Look closer. There’s a mite on her shoulder.  I remember making a note to check her again the next time I opened up the hive.

By now, she’s stopped laying–reading my notes now, I know.

 

 

You see, bees normally supersede a failing queen. I often call my bee colonies “The Borg,” because they work as a cohesive unit. The queen is beholden to the workers, and the workers are beholden to the queen. The worker bees build a queen cup if they sense something wrong. They raise their own queen. And the queen usually lets that happen, knowing her own demise. But not this queen. She tore apart every queen cup.

She didn’t let them make another queen–and so I thought all was okay. But in June (June 16 to be exact), I took a closer look. There she is, the queen. Looking injured–see her peeling thorax?

 

In the end, I had to kill the queen, when I saw how injured she was. It was awful. Later, someone asked if I’d preserved her–dunked her in some alcohol. And if I ever have to kill another queen bee, I’ll do that. But no. I stepped on her in an inglorious end.

Out of loss and setback comes opportunity.

So I decided to use this as an opportunity to purchase a Randy Oliver queen.

I bought a Randy Oliver queen. Placed her in the hive where the candy plug would be eaten away in a few days. The candy plug never got eaten away by the workers. Strange. I called my mentor, and she said to go ahead and remove the candy plug. I did. And the bees? They killed her.

I had no idea at the time, but the hive had laying workers. At the time, I thought the queen was newly injured just a week or so earlier. I thought the queen had only recently stopped laying eggs. (A queen can lay about 1500 eggs/day). But in hindsight, she had stopped laying in May.

Laying worker is when a hive goes queen-less for long enough (3 weeks or longer), the worker bees themselves start laying eggs. They do this, because they do not smell queen pheromone, and they do not smell egg pheromone.

The eggs laying workers lay are unfertilized, so they are haploid, and become drones. In a sense, this is the way a dying hive still sends off its genetics into the world. The brood pattern is uneven and spotty, unlike when a queen lays–she lays in a solid swath of eggs.

And so for the next 6 weeks, I put in a frame of eggs from another hive, hoping that the smell of fresh eggs would suppress the laying worker situation.

 

East Egg persisted. I inserted frame after frame of eggs from Tangerine Hive each week. I think I put in a total of 8 frames of eggs over six weeks. (Tangerine Hive, meanwhile, had a gorgeous queen that was a laying machine).

It persisted. Like, nose above water, persisted. It got invaded by wax moths. I took frames and put them in the freezer to kill the larvae, and substituted clean frames.

We kept going. All I wanted to do was to keep this hive alive through the winter.  It was important to me. I was a husband. I was husbanding. I was helping matriarchy survive.

By 6 weeks, East Egg was assaulted by robbing bees. Strong hives will rob other hives. They will send great numbers of bees to a vulnerable hive and rob it of its honey. And oftentimes, the robbing bees will kill the bees inside the hive. I imagine East Egg did this last winter to other hives.

There was a cloud of bees above East Egg–I wondered if it was some sort of odd swarm. I didn’t think of robbing, because I’m pretty diligent about keeping a robbing screen (it keeps outsider bees from going in the hive, while allowing the home bees to go in and out freely) on my hives. Out of curiosity, I rushed outside in a bee suit. Despite the robbing screen, the hive got robbed out through a tiny notch in the inner hive cover. I hadn’t even considered that notch. It was a tiny notch.

And there, on the ground, was a small pile of bees. Inside that pile: a new queen.

East Egg had managed to make a new queen–had managed to break laying worker. As a beekeeper, I learned that persistence can pay off. That laying worker might take 6 weeks to suppress. That an additional hive is of great help. That bees need community. That a notched inner hive in Berkeley is a dangerous thing.

As a beekeeper–or husband of bees, I’m trying to unravel this mystery. I refrained from talking about East Egg all season, because I felt I had let down those bees. I felt I had been a bad husband. But in the end, I never left them. And they never left me. They fought until the end. And so did I.

The top picture–is a picture of the virgin queen. She’s tinier than a mated queen. She was the last one standing, because the female workers protected her, clustered around her. I’m standing too, because of all the women in my life.

Harvest

September 3, 2018 /

I’m teaching a novel structure class. Freytag’s pyramid, which he diagrammed in 1863, describes a 5 act drama.

1. Exposition–or rather, an introduction
2. Rising action–building suspense
3. Climax–the big showdown
4. Falling action–tying up loose ends after climax
5. Denouement/Resolution–the end, whether problems are resolved or not resolved

Late Winter and early Spring is the time for a garden’s exposition. Planning. Buying seeds. Germinating them indoors or in the greenhouse. It is an exciting time full of possibilities. Every year, I also work on a few experimental plantings–like gourds in Berkeley and cucamelons that are new on the seed scene. And many different kinds of peppers in hopes of making hot sauce. I also planted blue sesame plants for the first time. Some other items I planted for the first time: meadow arnica, schisandra, myogi ginger, cherimoya, wasabi, warren pear, coolidge pineapple guava, burdock, rocoto, blacktail watermelon, and a banana.

Then they’re transplanted into the ground sometime in Spring or early Summer, and the rising action begins. New variables like the weather and sunlight and fertilizer and soil quality and insects and pests and diseases come into the picture. The weather warms. But fog might roll in. Things get more complex. The plants spread their roots, begin budding and growing, and produce fruit and vegetables for harvest. Progress is measurable and visible. Sometimes, there are surprises. Like raccoons that party like gangsters in the garden each night, digging up mulch to search for grubs. Or really, just dig up plants for no good reason other than the fun of it. And of course, the clematis vine that never ever ever flowers. And powdery mildew. Always powdery mildew over here.

There are welcome surprises, too. Like one pluerry fruit the first year of a pluerry tree’s planting. Lemon guava fruiting for the first time since I planted it last year. More passion flowers than I can count. Infinite sweet pea flowers. Tomatoes and after tomatoes.

Everything reaches a tipping point. Reaches a crescendo. Reaches climax.

At a garden’s climax, the tomatoes and squash and cucumbers and eggplants and beans and peppers and corn–nearly everything is ready to harvest, almost at once. It is thrilling. This is the point I’ve been waiting for all year.

But also–the problems that existed earlier in the season in smaller quantity become even more evident now; I am battling powdery mildew that threatens to kill my squash vines on the squash arch. It’s coming at me with a vengeance now, because I let the first whispers of powdery mildew go overlooked earlier.

The myogi ginger fell over and died a couple weeks ago. The schisandra is yellowing–and I’m not sure that’s normal (I have to look up whether or not it’s deciduousthank goodness this is normal–they’re deciduous). The blacktail watermelon, which fruited with great hope earlier–has stalled. The watermelon fruit is about four inches in diameter. Yes. FOUR. The cool foggy Berkeley weather has triumphed there. The meadow arnica is tiny but growing. My blue sesame plants never flourished. The raccoons keep coming. Even as the garden is at its peak, it is at its most vulnerable.

Things are literally falling over–dahlias heavy with bloom. Tomato plants busting out of their Florida weave.

And they will fall over–what will follow is falling action. The tying up of loose ends after harvest. Cutting plants down. Building compost. Cooking the harvested vegetables.

I’ll sow cover crops. Sow some winter garden crops like carrots and kale and lettuce. But mostly, I will let the soil rest and rejuvenate. There is resolution–what pests haunted the garden before will no longer be relevant. If one spot was particularly powdery-mildew-susceptible, I’ll plan on planting something different there next year.

But mostly, I will be better off than I was the year prior, because of this garden. Even if a bit tired.

In tragedy, the protagonist is worse off. In comedy, the protagonist is better off at the end than at the beginning.

Here’s to comedies. And gardens. And urban farms.

The Generosity of Gardeners

August 10, 2018 /

I love honor system farm stands.

An honor stand is an unmanned fruit and vegetable stand laden with fresh local produce, often from a nearby farm. There is a scale, a pen, and an empty notebook in which you write down what you take and the total you owe. And there is a lockbox (often bolted to the stand) into which you put your cash.

An honor stand can be located in a commercial district within a small park, like Table Top Farm’s stand in Point Reyes. Or it can reside by the side of a highway like Little Wing Farm’s stand as you see here. It looks like a beautiful diorama.

They are a temple to those who love produce and fresh ingredients 24 hours, 7 days a week–and it is also a temple to the generosity and integrity of those who love produce and farm ingredients. I’m not sure this could be done with other products. Copper piping? I am guessing stolen and sold. Nails? I am guessing stolen and possibly thrown on the road. Cars? no way. Televisions? Double no way. But there is something about plants.

This past weekend, we happened to be in West Marin to visit a new friend and his wife. On the way home, we pulled off the road to visit the Honor Stand. We sent up a huge dust cloud, and as we stayed inside the car waiting for it to settle down, our anticipation grew as we eyed the dollhouse of a farm stand from the car windows.

We bounded toward the stand. My daughter picked out a dahlia bouquet garnished with perilla leaves, as well as squash and basil. We wrote down our totals. And I put the appropriate amount of cash into the cash box. It was–delightful.

We whispered while choosing our goods as if in a library, another exercise in honor.

The minty-basil smell of the perilla accompanied us all the way home from our drive to West Marin.

It was a day of generosity–punctuated by that honor stand.

We had gone to visit a new friend in Inverness. Our new friends have a marvelous garden. P and I were enthralled. We got to meet their tiny ducks (did you know there is such a thing as tiny ducks)? We also met their miniature parrot (I just realized there is a theme here of undersized birds) who does amazing tricks. Charlie the Parrotlet is even on instagram if you want to see what we saw.

Our friends opened us with open arms and warmth. They’d left berries on the raspberries for days so P could thrill in picking them and eating them off the branches. P also picked pea pods, shelled them, and fed them to one of the ducks–a duck who is particularly fond of peas. We visited a 400+ year old buckeye tree.

We brought fresh eggs from our chickens as a hostess gift. But–oh my goodness, we went home with our arms full of various garden products. We didn’t expect that. And of course, we were unable to refuse.

It’s a general pattern that when we visit our friends’ gardens, we bring something home, whether it is cuttings to grow or seeds or fruit or a quart of goat milk or a pint of honey. We never expect to bring things home–it just happens. And we try to bring something to them, as well–we have eggs and honey and cuttings and fruit to share as well. It is an amazing exchange of generosity and foresight.

Recently, as we struggled under the weight of succulent cuttings from a gardening neighbor, her husband noted, “I haven’t observed such generosity in other hobbies. I’m an art collector, and we share nothing.”

Plants cannot survive solo. They have to pollinate and reproduce. And there’s no loss (only gain) in ensuring others have plants you love. It’s true–there is generosity among gardeners.

This post incidentally, is also about making friends. About the generosity of extending friendship. I haven’t made very many new friends as of late. I have been consistently disappointed and hurt by the world and it makes me cozy up in my house. This past week has given me hope. I met these new friends at their home, their garden, and they were so sweet and big hearted and humorous and kind to us. If I were a different kind of person, I would have wept.

In the same week–I met another person, someone I’d met via the internet. He was friendly and gregarious and (again this word) generous–so much so that it made my cynical heart suspicious and whisper, “Are you for real?” But you know–there is no reward without risk. And I met him in real life. (My hobbit soul felt very adventurous this past week) .  Over the course of dinner with him and his friends, it became clear that he is truly that nice person.

And I felt ashamed for feeling so wary–I thought about how I have closed ranks in recent years. And I wondered if that was truly the best thing to do.

But mostly, I was happy to find good people. That there are more out there.

(Edison Collier fountain pen with a stub nib. Ink is Pilot Iroshizuku’s ku-jaku).

We do what we can with what we have.

July 4, 2018 /

The sky is filled with smoke. Sepia. Golden. Pink. Somewhere behind the haze is a view of San Francisco, which normally on clear days, you can see with great clarity–sometimes you can even see the grid pattern of the windows on the downtown office buildings.

But not this weekend.

This sky is also raining ash. Everything is covered in these fine flakes–the garden, the leaves on the trees, and cars.

The smoke is not from a happy cause. It comes from the fires in Yolo and Napa County, ushered here by a northerly wind. Somewhere in this dust are ancient trees and dead deer and squirrels and burnt cars and dreams.

The sky reminds me of my own trauma, my LA childhood in the early 1980s. LA air quality has much improved since then–I visited recently and was amazed at the clear skies. But the sky of my LA childhood was a dirty pink, a peach-brown, like the healing welt of a second degree burn. I grew up with smog alerts–and despite them, we played outside. By the end of the day, our lungs hurt with each sharp inhale.

My lungs hurt when I think of LA and my childhood. I can’t help but think the pain had everything to do with Los Angeles, because I have no painful memories in New York City–and the actors in my life never changed. It was always me, my mom, my dad, my brother, and I.

My friend moved to LA. It brings her energy and hope. She loves it there. I am supportive of this change–and of her happiness in Los Angeles, even though LA does not bring me the same. One person’s jail is another’s freedom.

We do what we can to survive. We will run away. We will find sanctuary. We will be frantic with pain trying to find safety. We will be restless. We will finally find shelter. Or maybe not.

Speaking of smoke: beekeepers use smoke on bee hives when inspecting. The smoke masks alarm pheromones that would otherwise cause bees to become defensive and…sting the intruder.

I try not to use smoke if I can, especially on my less aggressive hives like East Egg. It freaks the bees out a bit. I rarely use smoke on East Egg.

East Egg was my first hive. Its queen was my beloved queen. She kept her mites down near zero all year last year. She was huge and amber.

A few weeks ago, East Egg’s queen was injured.

So I had to replace her. Which I did. Which is another story.

But because she was not healthy and because she was not laying, and because every time the hive, suspecting her injured state, would build a queen cell with the intention of superseding her, and because she kept ripping the cells down and killing whatever queen potential lay inside, the hive went awhile without brood (aka “bee babies”).

The population dwindled. I am waiting for it to replenish with this new queen, which I placed in the hive about a week ago. You can see that tiny plastic cage. She is inside it, waiting for the bees to get used to her before she is released safely.

East Egg is dwindling. Almost ailing, save for the fact that a new queen is in place.

It is tiny. And it makes me worry. It has so many resources half-finished–honey frames yet to be capped, for instance. There are not enough bees to finish that task. The bees are doing what they can to survive.

I move things around between the two of my hives here in Berkeley. One is a resource for the other. Tangerine Hive gets the uncapped honey frames. There are many bees in Tangerine and they will get the job done.

If the queen of East Egg does not thrive, then I will put a frame of eggs from Tangerine into East Egg, and the worker bees there will convert one of the eggs into a queen.

We do what we can with what we have.

 

 

Going Up

June 23, 2018 /

This winter, I made space.

I thought I’d run out of room–that there was nowhere to go, nowhere to grow new things and expand my garden and life–but then I realized there were ornamentals I could cut down. So I cut those down and worked on mulching the soil. The soil wasn’t very good–and I knew I’d likely have to wait a season before I could plant vegetables in the mulched areas.

You see, skunks and raccoons like to come through the garden in the summertime each year–they dig through mulched areas for bugs and critters, and any little plant is at their grubbing mercy. If I don’t plant anything vulnerable there, then they serve the purpose of turning and aerating the mulch as it composts.  Let’s go with that. Yes. Every setback is an opportunity.

So–I had to find another way to make room. Because there is more than one way to make space. I looked up. And up. And I looked at the plants, stretching their branches and leaves toward the sun.

I would go vertical.

On pinterest, I saw that there are myriad ways to go vertical: bean teepees, lattices, trellises, etc. But I. Wanted. A. Squash. Arch.

I fantasized about a tunnel of green in my garden. With little squashes hanging down from the top in Autumn. And beans in the summertime. Maybe some watermelon with slings keeping them up. I mean, we can all dream.

So I asked my partner for help (he is good with tools and taller than I am–plus it is always good to have help). And I went out and bought cattle fencing, PVC pipe, and fence posts from the hardware store. We already had the twist ties.

This is what you need for a squash arch:

  • Cattle Fencing (a big roll of it is nice–it is about 4 feet wide, and depending on how long you want to make your arch tunnel, you will need a multiple of 15 (it’s about 15 feet per section)).
  • 1 inch PVC pipe + connectors (each section needs 2ish spans of PVC pipe–you want at least 20 feet for each section–and since noone really sells 20 foot long PVC pipes, you will need to buy a connector for each span).
  • PVC pipe cement
  • Fence posts (I bought both 4 foot and 6 foot fence posts–the 6 foot fence posts worked better)
  • Twist ties (a bunch)

This is how you build a squash arch:

  • Figure out where you want your arch to go. You can put it between raised beds. Or, like me, you can put it along a pathway.
  • Connect your PVC pipe. You will also need to cement it in with pipe cement.
  • Hammer a fence post in. Attach the PVC pipe to the fence posts with twist ties. We attached it with masking tape to hold it in place before we did the twist ties.
  • Attach a 15 foot long portion of cattle fencing to the PVC pipe.
  • At the edge of that section, hammer in more fence posts.
  • Repeat.

We didn’t construct it with much precision–so my directions are general.

Finding space isn’t a specific act, either. You make it how you need to make it. Also–if it doesn’t look perfect, the vines will grow over it, and make it beautiful.

Beauty is in progress.

Bees Please

June 11, 2018 /

I have always wanted bees. To become a beekeeper.

But there is a difference between intentionality and becoming the thing you want to become.

Pascal introduced framework in the study of decision-making, coming up with the theory of expected value: When faced with a choice between uncertain alternatives, you should determine the positive or negative values of every possible outcome, along with each outcome’s probability, and then make your choice. Or in short–figure out best case scenario and worst case scenario, and see with which you’d rather live.

Another theory is loss aversion, or the discovery that winning $100 is only about half as appealing as losing $100 is unappealing. (The reason I don’t gamble). This theory illustrates that the relationship between value and losses/gains aren’t always equal; losses are a bigger deterrent than gains. 

I’d wanted bees for years–I can’t even count how many. Only that in 3rd grade, we were each assigned to pick a creature and do a report on that animal or insect. I chose honeybees. And the more I learned, the more interested I became in these diligent creatures. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch them work. I wanted to smell the honey and wax firsthand.

My desire to become a beekeeper has been a low level but steady desire, like french fries–I can live without them, but I’ll also never turn a french fry down.

But I didn’t get bees. I was married to a husband who was averse to bees and beekeeping. He had bee venom allergies. And he wanted nothing to do with any sort of farming or husbandry. The risk of putting strain on our marriage and relationship outweighed any unknown, positive outcome from beekeeping. Basically, I wanted to stay married. I made many decisions based on not wanting to lose something. Not wanting to lose my marriage.

And so I refrained. The loss deterred any unknown gains. The worst case scenario outweighed the best case scenario.

It didn’t matter. The worst case scenario still came to fruition. I lost anyway.

When he left the marriage, a tipping point emerged for so many decision points in my life. No longer did I have to consider his aversions. I wanted to turn every single failure and setback into an opportunity and this was one way to turn a failed marriage into opportunity. And furthermore, I wanted to create more space for myself in creating a new life as a single woman and single mother. I wanted matriarchy to combat the shit that would be coming down the pipe. It was time. I was ready. I wanted bees. I didn’t even want the honey so much as a living colony whose behavior I could observe and nurture. I wanted an example of an effective matriarchy.

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Korean Natural Farming: LAB

February 27, 2018 /

Or should I call it “–Natural Farming?” Because I’m of Korean descent. Get it? Get it?

I had no idea there was such a thing until last year, when I met badass Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm–where she practices Korean Natural Farming (and grows Korean plants and I basically want to follow her around for a week). But back to the subject: I checked the notion of Korean Natural Farming in my head and put it in the dark recesses of my obsessive and twisty brain.

Recently, my friends A and J brought up Korean Natural Farming again. When I brought up the fact that I was trying out cricket poop/frass as a fertilizer, and how it was horribly stinky, J suggested LAB.

LAB?

Yes, he said. Lactic. Acid. Bacteria. Korean Natural Farming. Spray it on. One of the things it does is get rid of smells.

Huh, I thought. I’ll give that a shot. And I read up.

Korean Natural Farming (or KNF for short) is about strengthening every biological component of plant growth without using chemicals or outside fertilizers by using indigenous microorganisms (IMO) like bacteria and fungi. You avoid fertilizers and manure and instead, focus on what’s going on in the soil in your environment and encourage naturally existing processes within the ecosystem.

Its principles tie in well with permaculture and no-till farming, which are two practices I’m embracing these days. Go with what’s there, go with the flow of the land, the basic idea being that you want to cultivate based on the ecosystem and all the little critters within, making sure things are in balance and largely undisturbed (yay sheet mulching/lasagna gardening!).

It sounds hippy-dippy, yes. And I don’t subscribe to every hippy dippy thing out there. But some things work and do make sense–like acupuncture. Other things–like planting during a waxing and waning moon–well, I’m still not sold on that.

Plus KNF has…POTIONS aka amendments aka fermented items. There’s Fish Amino Acid, and Fermented Plant Juice and Oriental Herbal Nutrients…but I started out with Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB for short). Because stinky cricket frass.

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Hobbiton Farm

February 19, 2018 /

I have a farm. (I feel like Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen: “I had a farm in Africa,” sans empire and imperialism).

I was reluctant to call what I had, a farm. I had chickens and bees and several vegetable areas–but somehow, it did not feel like enough. Likewise in the early days of writing, I couldn’t bring myself to say I was a writer. But with all identities, the pendulum shifts at a certain point; with writing, I gained confidence, I gained some achievements, and I formed a community, which helped me make the transition to calling myself a writer.

Someone once told me that identity is composed of three things:

  1. Legal identity
  2. Social identity
  3. and most important: Self identity

At some point, Hobbiton Farm became a farm not just in name but in function. Over the winter, I began ripping out ornamental plants with the intention of replacing them with edible plantings. I chopped down some nameless, non-fruiting trees and built a hugelkultur bed in their place (and using the wood therefrom). I’ll be experimenting with hugelkultur and planting vegetables in that bed at some point.

I got some frustrating news mid-winter, so what can you do when you feel helpless and exasperated? You learn to use a chainsaw and tear down a twenty-year-old trumpet vine, of course. Over the course of a few days, that vine came down. I sawed and hacked away at it. I was covered in tree detritus everyday. I chopped that thing down bit by bit, and then I dragged the pieces away one by one, too.

And I added the vines and branches and leaves to the–yes, the hugelkultur bed.

By week’s end, the wall was rid of vine. The trellis was rid of vine. It was ready for a peach tree. And it was ready for grapes.

My daughter was dismayed when she saw I’d cut down the trumpet vine. But has been consoled by the peach tree and grapes. (And yes, it was exciting getting bare root fruit trees delivered in the mail–such is my life that this is what excites me).

In the past year, I made new farming connections. From them, I learned about no-till practices. And also Korean Natural Farming practices. We geeked out on farming information. On gardening. On plants. On horticulture. I started making lactic acid bacteria. I’ll tell you more about that in subsequent posts. Along with bees–the bees the bees the bees!

But mostly, I’ve been out in the garden every single day. This winter, I became a farmer.

I’ve been obsessed with amending the soil. Last year, I could tell the soil needed help–plants would top out at a certain point in certain places in the garden. And that I’d have to lay down new foundation.

I learned about sheet mulching. Thank goodness the Amazon boxes have finally come in handy–the cardboard boxes are the first layer when you do sheet mulching (which I like to call “lasagna gardening). Which then you top with compost and leaves and what have you. This method chokes out the weeds below. It builds new soil. It is a no-till method, whereby you don’t disturb the earth (and micorizzhae and earthworms and what have you) below. It replicates what happens in nature: earth, then the leaves that follow upon it.

It’s been therapeutic for me to hang out with my bees and chickens and experiment with soil amendment and learning about new gardening practices. Maybe it’s the Vitamin D from sunlight. Maybe it’s touching the earth. Maybe it’s the adrenalin from sweating. Maybe it’s witnessing the matriarchy of the bees (and the matriarchy of the chickens). But it makes me feel better. It makes me feel comfortable in my own skin. I just want to share it with you, in hopes that it enlightens and maybe makes you feel better, too. Or know that the world is still somehow working, even though the world feels like it’s going sideways.

So I’ve expanded. My goal is to turn the entire yard into an edible landscape. Whatever is on it, I think, must serve a purpose. I’m making space.

I feel helpless a lot–and it’s not a feeling I like to carry around with me. Farming makes me feel less helpless. There’s always something to do. The farm is self-sustaining. It is about having purpose. In that sense, I’ve always been a farmer.

I’ve believed in productivity my entire life. It happens when you’re a child of immigrants. I was raised to be aware of where I put my energy, and what the harvest might look like. This is the place.

As a woman, I wasn’t raised to hold tools. As a woman, many of the tools sold at the store are too big for my hands. But this winter, I learned to use a chainsaw. I used big-ass drills to help build a trellis. I bought cattle fencing and fence posts, so I can build a squash arch. It feels good. A tool belt might be next. Do they come in women’s sizes, I wonder?

(picture of the garden, Summer 2017)

Lifehacks on giving birth to a book

June 22, 2017 /


Book publication is like giving birth.

Thus, I provide two lists, with advice and lifehacks for each.

When you give birth to a baby:

  • 6 weeks before giving birth, start the perineal massages. It is not sexy. But it is helpful.
  • Take all the hospital supplies home with you–the squeeze bottle, the cloth underpants, the pads, the chux, everything. You may need all of it. You may only need some. You won’t have time to get more. Take them all home.
  • Amazon.com and Diapers.com are your friends.
  • Get a flat waterproof crib sheet. That’s not for the baby just yet. Put that under you while you sleep for the lochea (there will be lochea).
  • Get a headlamp for nighttime diaper changes.
  • Coconut oil is your nipples’ friend. I tasted lanolin, and it was so gross I couldn’t fathom giving it to my baby–so I slathered coconut oil instead. I still have that jar.
  • Dermaplast spray if you gave birth vaginally. ‘Nuff said.
  • Tucks pads.
  • That first bowel movement after giving birth? It’s epic. Hold on to the walls. You will be okay.

When you give birth to a book…

  • Enjoy the book cover reveal. Enjoy the galleys. It’s all a thrill!
  • Don’t ask anyone to help with publicity if you haven’t sent them a copy of an ARC. Send out a lot of ARCs, if you can.
  • Be ready to set aside time to write articles and such to help with book publicity.
  • There will be haters. Don’t let them get you down.
  • Be prepared to email blurbers yourself. Email them. They may not be able to say yes. Shake that off, and keep emailing.
  • Thank your blurbers. Send a card. A tiny gift. They read your damn book and then said something nice about it.
  • Goodreads.com is not your friend. DO NOT RESPOND to Goodreads.com reviews. In sum, do NOT respond to ANY bad reviews of any kind, be it Goodreads or the Nytimes.
  • If you have a book launch party (and you should), bring a guest book so people can sign and leave you notes. You’ll find you have very little time to have meaningful chats with each person. (This advice was gifted to me by another friend).
  • Make a list of your allies–litmags and organizations and people who have genuinely supported you throughout the years. Never forget them.
  • Keep friends who aren’t writers close to you. Maintain the part of your life that has nothing to do with writing.
  • Have a friend you can vent to about bad reviews or the process of book publication. Someone who won’t be jealous, preferably someone who’s been through it before.
  • Keep a running list of press, so that you can update your website later.
  • If you will be doing radio interviews, practice speaking without saying “um, uh, like,” and other things that buy you time. It’s better to pause a second or two then say “uhhh.” I did this by recording myself speak and counting the times I said “like.” (the Southern California girl in me flows strong).
  • Now’s also the time to strengthen yourself as a book reader. Mark your manuscript and reading copy up–put notes down indicating where you want to increase volume, slow, speed up, or pause.
  • Prep a few lines of greetings for when you sign books. So you don’t go blank.
  • Thank your publicist (if you have one). They work hard for you and your book.
  • Self care, self care, self care. If you have the resources, plan a getaway for after book launch and publicity duties end. Do what you can to make sure you nurture yourself.

Chickens and Bees

May 9, 2017 /

I’ve been meaning to write about my burgeoning urban farm (I’d say homestead, but I’m just not there yet–though it’s my ultimate goal to have one). The other night, I picked up a nuc of bees, and I figure it’s now time to share a little with you.

I’ve wanted bees since I was 8 years old and did my animal research report on bees. What little I learned then, nurtured a growing love and interest for bees. Where my friends had bee fear, I had none. I loved their diligence and found their worker hierarchy endlessly interesting. My uncle on my mom’s side was a chicken farmer and chicken veterinarian. I remember seeing his farm of chickens and being intimidated by the raw number of cheeping chicks and squawking hens. But I was struck and interested, once again–they had entered my psyche and my world and were no longer a foreign thing but a farm animal to be grown and nurtured.

Then I visited my friend Novella Carpenter’s urban farm about ten years ago–and that made me want to undertake an urban farm and get some chickens.

My husband-at-the-time was firmly opposed. He wanted a strictly ornamental, well-manicured garden. And he wasn’t too hot about livestock, let alone the two tomato plants I did have that ended up attracting rats, to his great dismay. So those plans were on hold indefinitely. Until they were not. Continue reading

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