Making home in Manzanita

I woke with the birds and the train whistles and sat and watched the sun rise over the Columbia River while I called mother for the first time since going into the woods.

"OH MY GHHHAAAAD!"

I had to hold the phone away from my ear and as politely as I could muster, asked her to please tone it down. It was far earlier on my end. I strained to find a satisfactory way to parse through the thick volumes of experience and offer up a layman's summary. As she navigated through the conversation with narrowing questions, I felt a tension rise. It was not that she was doing something abnormally wrong or that it wasn't good to hear her voice but the barrage of questions just felt like my experience was being forced through a funnel and being mitigated from what it truly meant. I was later explaining this to my Manzanita friend and host over dinner and she immediately understood. Its probably largely another mother-daughter thing. Luckily, Tex and Blossom had been stirring and he was now giving me the heads up that they were ready whenever I was. I got off the phone and we hit the road for our last short leg to Portland.

Southeast of downtown, we parted ways. I let them out when I stopped for gas and helped unload their packs and longboards as they set up their "stage" at the curb, ready for their next unknown adventure. We hugged and Blossom assured me that of all the driver's they encounter, I was one for the journal. She wrote down their number and reminded me of the offer they had extended throughout the drive of coming to see them in San Fran and visiting their farm when they reach that point in their goals. It was such a strange feeling to drive away without them and be waving from the road.

Having to be in Manzanita before the day's end, I was sparred from the illusory lure of Portland's vast commerce potential and made straight for my only two necessities: groceries and coffee.

Local caffeination-station of the day: Dragonfly Coffeehouse

Brew Deets: I don't remember much about the brew because of an overshadowing of serendipity that was far more interesting. But it was caffeinated. 

Distinctive Feature: They have free butterscotch candies, extremely comfortable couches, and Melissa works there. 

City: Portland, OR

Local Healthy Foodie Hoodie: Food Front Co-op

Local Product Feature: SO MUCH. I knew that I would be splurging from the get-go but had no idea just how much Kombucha could be in one place. 

-Lionheart Kombucha: very pure and simple. less sweet than any store-bought. Some of my earlier brews tasted like this. Decent for hydration but I've got a sweet tooth/flavor-crave.

-Brew Dr. Kombucha: I got an apple one that was not as flavorful as I was expecting but later on, I encountered their Lemon-Cayenne and that one is delicious. 

-Happy Mountain Kombucha: again, not as exciting as it sounds. 

-Its Alive! Raw Kimchi Crackers and Pesto Pumpkin Seed: The kimchi curry cracker was softer and lost its flavor over time but the pesto pumpkin one had larger seeds and the pesto flavor really popped. 

-Curious Farm: Ginger Turmeric Sauerkraut: amazing. 

and the winner: 

SOMA Coffe-bucha. You have no idea. 

And the bottling design, friggin bad-ass. 

So, after two weeks in the woods eating what the world brings into your life, it is quite an overwhelming experience to go into a store so lush with amazing local food and choose. I had to have walked through each aisle at least three times just to make sure I saw every local product there was to see.

With a little snacking from my grocery goods, I went next door to the Dragonfly cafe to hole up for a couple of hours and re-enter the virtual world of the internet/upload photographs. It was here, as I was about to get my coffee, that I noticed yet another local brew that had almost escaped my taste test. SOMA had a coffee and a cherry-chai, both things that I would never have thought of combining with Kombucha in a million years. I asked the woman at the register if she had ever tried them. As much as I   was splurging, I was not crazy enough to buy both flavors. She had had the coffee one. I explained my wide-eyed wonder that was probably still lingering in my expression from the store, saying that I was traveling and had never seen so much kombucha in one place. She asked where I was coming from. Then things got weird. Hey, "Keep Portland weird", right?

"Ann Arbor" A hesitant smile crossed her face.

"You've been there?"

"I'm from there. I went to Community High School."

"Hey, me too!"

"What's your name?"

"Melissa."

I don't really know what to call the next look she gave. And I think I just said "what?"

"Oh nothing, just, my name is Melissa also."

On her lunch break, Melissa came around the corner to join me at my table and presented me with a fork and plate for taboulli and pita, as well as a cold bottle of SOMA coffee-bucha. We talked about what brought us out this way - she was finishing up midwifery school - and shared one more moment of bafflement when we discovered that two years ago, we had stayed in the same Tom Bender-built Manzanita house only two weeks apart from one another. I could call it none other than Rainbow energy.

I arrived in Manzanita that afternoon with the intention of visiting the farm for a tour but no way of knowing how to get there, short of my vague recollection from two years ago. I drove to where I thought the business of one of the farm-stays was and arrived there just as she was about to pull from the parking lot, closed for the day. Sure enough, she directed me straight along that highway - 53 - onto the farm.

I passed it a couple time and would have passed it a couple more if it hadn't been for a dirt-covered young man in a straw sun-hat crossing the road, my signal that perhaps farmin-ings were afoot. After one meager attempt at the secluded, steep gravel road, I realized I would be parking off of the highway for the season. There was a pull-out almost straight across and I got out and trekked up the drive. I knew where to go from the tour a couple years ago and although it had sounded like it would be a slim chance that people would be around when I got there, everyone was around. I briefly met the wwoofers  before Ginger and I ventured off.

The "upstairs" that I had seen years ago was everything on the same property as the house and the fields that had been cultivated with veggies back then were now on standby. There were some small beds getting ready for fall planting but most of the property was reserved for prep work. Next to a greenhouse of cherry tomatoes was a larger one with large tables and hoses and bins galore for washing and sorting. Attached to the house was another prep area with food-grade sinks and scales and a second refrigerator, converted from a freezer to save energy. There is also a hot tub, shower and compost toilet behind the house, a yurt where ginger stays, a small one-room place for Brian and Lee (I will introduce everyone later) and a house that I saw years ago which is now a guest house for their hospitality business.

We headed "downstairs" next, a property she had leased across the street containing most of the 4 acres of crop.Ginger explained how weeks were split, with three harvesting days, a grab-bag monday and a weeding wednesday. She apologized for the weeds in her beds and I thought she must be joking, compared to the weed action we had tried to mediate at Kismet. She had it all going on: Squash, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, kale, chard, turnips, beets, peas, eggplants, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic, basil, parsley, radishes, fennel, spinach, salad greens, corn as well as a host of beds designated for her partners start-up herb endeavor and herbs for Vivi, a vendor I met on my earlier trip here.

I had half expected this sort of preoccupied detachment of fitting in social tangents between the day-to-day demands of farm work but Ginger was actually incredibly down-to-earth and light-hearted. As we headed back up, she told me about her vision to have a sort of incubation program and living quarters down here and her genuine hope to bestow upon her volunteers a sure footing for how to do this themselves.

Scheduled to start bright and early at 8am the next day, I headed off for the evening to find out where my friend (she has requested her name not be used) had found herself. She was just leaving the clay studio downtown and we decided to meet up at the local grocer and from there, went out to pizza at The Pizza Garden. In our enthusiastic dinner catch-up, it was mentioned that I was considering the search for a job and my friend immediately asked our waitress if Geanie was around. Geanie was a petite, clear-eyed beauty with a look of rugged but heart-healthy skin. When she came out, I was immediately thrown the stage and pitched my offer and plea for a bit of supplemental work. She was in fact considering some extra help and gave me an application which I got back to her before we even left.

Back at the house, I was much too exhausted to venture the beach or even properly unpack. But there was no denying the overall fantastical feeling. Like many of the houses nestled within this mountain coast, it had the feel of a jungle cabin. Everything was wood which, although my host found overwhelming, I couldn't imagine being anything else. One because paintings would make it too busy and two because she was such an earth child, she had placed plants on every window sill. The dining room table looked out over her garden which had a small sampling of the best herbs and veggies. We pretty much went directly to the most important room that night: my bedroom. She'd blown up a gigantic air mattress and turned over some sheet-covered boxes to make little night stands. The entire basement, the size of two of my Ann Arbor bedroom was all my room. There was a sliding door that looked out to a backyard of blueberry patches.

but mostly, there was a bed. And tomorrow was about to be another busy day.

Still to come: A house tour, an introduction to my farm buddies, farm fun and the Country Fair.