Radio Acres Farm Alternative Gift Sale

Vendor FAQs

What kind of vendors are you looking for?

Vendors who make and sell their own original, handmade craft products or artisan food items are invited to apply. You must be present at your booth on the day of the sale. We are not looking for Tupperware-type products or of the mass-produced nature.

How can I apply?

Fill out the form below and send an email with pictures of your products to radioacresfarm@gmail.com. We will respond within a week.

General Info

Booths will be set up outside throughout the farm, and will consist of a 4x8 size table. Smaller or larger tables available on request. No splitting booths please. 

Vendor Fee

The fee for a booth is 10% of your total revenue from the event. 

The annual Radio Thanksgiving

*Note: it's been awhile since I blogged.

We fostered a baby, and then we had a baby. Enough said.

The grandest tradition we have here at Radio is our Thanksgiving feast. This was our fourth annual bash at the farm, complete with homegrown turkeys and over thirty friends and family.

Certain aspects of our celebration have evolved over the years: our first Thanksgiving at Radio included a Tur-duck-en, because we had raised both ducks and turkeys... and who doesn't like them all smashed together with stuffing? I thought that initial tur-duck-en was delicious as I sliced off a piece and tried to determine which meat was what, but subsequent years with store-bought ducks were not as tasty.

Eventually, all turkey recipes have been replaced by one simple and efficient cooking tool: the deep-fryer. We've concluded that a vat of boiling oil cooks the tenderest, tastiest birds. And you can't mess around with turkeys that you've raised yourself. They are quite the investment.

Our potlucking has evolved as well. We have gotten better about sharing the load of the Thanksgiving meal, and this has continued to increase the culinary handiwork displayed and consumed. This year we had friends bring some particularly delicious whipped yams with sage, of which I heard many inquiries for the recipe. Our newest housemate broke out his churro (or sausage) maker and deep-fried some jalepeño-chedder churros with a honey glaze that we could not eat enough of. And a certain good fortune brought a whole tub of mini-croissants leftover from a holiday office party that I put in a new stuffing recipe. It turned out delightful. The recipe is below, because this stuffing is too good to have just once a year.

Needless to say, before the food we were like

and then after platefuls of deep-friend Thanksgiving goodness we were like

What has stayed consistent, and by far is the best part of our Thanksgiving traditions is the eclectic group of people that joins us. We usually have family both near and far that pilgrimages to the farm for the food and grandchildren. We also welcome neighbors, friends, and friends of friends to come and join our feast because (literally) the more the merrier.

So if you ever find yourself wondering what to do on Thanksgiving, come and join the family here at Radio. We'll save a turkey leg or two for you.

churro making

kids and lemons

I watch the world by me pass...

Today reminded me of why we are here. I was blessed to sit down with my 7 and 9 year old girls this morning and participate in the fine art of mud pie making. Of course, I also introduced them to the age-old Mexican art of making mud tacos that possibly only my siblings and cousins could truly appreciate.

I am struck by the fact that my oldest daughter is 9 and this is the first time I've found the time to make mud tacos with her. She's made mud pies on many occasions in her life, but why did it take me this long to sit down and share this little bit of my history, my childhood with them? When we were praying tonight, my youngest daughter thanked God that I played in the mud with them today. This was supposed to be the reason that we moved here in the first place - to breathe, to stop with the constant rat race and to raise our children well. To live simpler, to grow real food, to have time to dig in the dirt and play in the mud. Too often we struggle with occupying our children so that we can "get something done" rather than engaging with them.

This whirlwind of life moves so incredibly fast sometimes and I am slapped in the face by occasions of simplicity such as this. I am reminded to slow down, to take a breath and to savor these moments in life. We moved here to try to work together with our best friends toward a simpler life. It is so easy to get swept up and carried away in the tide of our society; the values, the desires, the wants, the "needs" of everyone around us. It's easy to let those desires become our own and to forget the reason that we decided to partake of this crazy project in the first place. I am reminded that I need to put society's desires on the back burner and live my life in ways I won't regret. When I am 80, I don't think I will look back and regret that I didn't have that great car when I was 30 but I do fear that I will regret the things I did not do with the people I love. I think I will regret time I didn't spend with my parents, places I did not see, and mud pies I did not make. I think I might regret not savoring the sunrises with my spouse while milking the goat and the sounds of the chickens in the morning. The whirlwind is so easy to get swept up in and once you are in it everything around you becomes a blur. Today was a stark reminder that I don't want my life to be a blur of everything I am missing on the periphery of this beautiful ride.

Turkey Time

Last post was about Food Day, but certainly tomorrow is the USA's true food day. We're having friends and family join us at the farm (lonely? let us know!) and this past weekend we harvested our turkeys in preparation for the feast!

Did you know that the turkey is the only animal native to North America that was domesticated? It's believed to have been domesticated in Mexico, and spread northward, ending up on our thanksgiving dinner plates. Did you also know that turkeys are some of the ugliest  strangest looking birds you'll ever see? They have all kinds of things hanging off them or bulging out of their face. Poor birds.

Our friends from She Shoots He Scores came to visit for the weekend and shot this amazing video of the farm.

Happy Thanksgiving from Radio Acres! May you eat good food and love those around you tomorrow.


Radio Acres Farm from SheShootsHeScores on Vimeo.

Planting in the heat

Last Saturday was the hottest day of the year. Make that the hottest day in 24 years. If only we could have been even a tiny bit clairvoyant when we planned our planting party back in the springtime. Instead, we skipped the beach, broke out the rototiller and invite some friends over for some manual labor. Some explained that their thermometer told them not to come (which was exactly what we would have said to ourselves).  But a few brave souls bared the heat and came over for some gardening and some beer.

This small community event was co-hosted by the good folks at the Coffee & Tea Collective, and featured some Radio food and Atomic beer. It's ultimate goal was to put in the ground what could be a Radio Acres Tea blend. So chamomile, marjoram, mint, lemon basil and other herbs hit the dirt. Lemon Verbena and lemongrass got cut and dried, and new rows were added to our farm, which we're all very excited about.

No one passed out, which we thought was a success. It was fun to hang out with other people in San Diego that are excited about local food, and we made the beer last late into the evening, when the weather began to cool.

This weekend, blessed by a marine layer that's just beginning to fade, we're planting our fall garden and getting our irrigation going. Here's hoping the harvest will be plentiful!

If you like, today you could make your way over to the C&T Collective for an artisan cup of joe, and then stop on over at Tiger! Tiger! for some tasty beer, come on down to Radio to plant some seed, and you can recreate the weekend for yourself.

Party Favors. More pics here. 

A collective planting party

We're teaming up with the Coffee & Tea Collective to host a planting party at Radio Acres this Saturday. A potential Radio Tea blend could be the product of our labor! Please join us if you can! 

 

Just a little update

The ball is still rolling on our permits! They are to go to the city one last time tomorrow, so fingers crossed we get the stamp of approval and can move forward with our plan. Man, everyone tells you that it takes longer and costs more than what you plan, and so far at least the former is holding true. We are really just excited to be *hopefully* breaking ground sometime soon, though.
We are also starting to move forward on really maybe possibly actually farming a little more, which is FUN. Our farm-mates will be gone again next week, but I think that come April we may be ready to turn the soil on our freshly made plots and start planting a good strong summer and fall garden. We are also in the process of developing a cool partnership with The Coffee & Tea Collective here in San Diego in which we will collaborate to grow, forage and process tisanes and tea blends for them. I am super excited about this project and can't wait to see where it leads! We will likely be hosting a community event with them to get a bunch of stuff in the ground and also to walk through a harvesting and foraging session with interested community members. Stay tuned for info on that!
We've been throwing around the idea of doing a kick-starter type investment thing going so that we can get moving on either goats or tilapia - what do you think? Would you be interested in investing? If so, what would you be most into? Sound off in the comments with your opinion!

Farmers Market and workshop

Come visit us at the Southeast Farmers Market tonight at its new location!  Market St., JUST WEST of Euclid on the south side of the street.  Can't miss us!  We will be hosting a winter seed planting workshop from 3:30-5:30, you get to go home with your very own seeds, ready to grow!  We'd love to see you there.

Coastal Clean-up!

There's nothing like getting up early, breathing in the fresh morning air, and sitting in a lawn chair in front of a huge dumpster. That's what we here at Radio Acres like to do to keep our canyons (and thus, our oceans) clean. Kim and Groundworks SD are hosting sites in Shelltown and at the Earth Lab where the neighborhood can drop off any trash they have.
We at Radio know nothing of miscellaneous yard waste, building supplies, old appliances, and junk that builds up in the small hiding places around the farm. (*that is a lie.) No, we are NOT hoarders. I promise. Free garbage dumping is a pretty awesome thing, especially when it can free up extra space around the farm, and keep it out of the canyons (where we often have to maneuver around mattress, seats out of old cars, furniture,  and God only knows what else wrapped in garbage bags and smelling like death.)
So, if you live in the area and have some trash to unload, come and hang out with us!
Dump spots are at:
Boston and 40th
38th and Z St.
Alpha St and 38th
Alpha St. And 41st
and at the Earth Lab

Labor Day Reflections

In honor of Labor Day, Jeremy and I slaughtered the last two of our meat birds. We may have some roosters that we hatched ourselves lurking in our flock, ready to crow at dawn on some unsuspecting Saturday, but for now, the meat bird raising project is officially done.

With my hand deep in the warm innards of a newly-dead rooster, and on this holiday that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers, I thought for a moment about the men and women working in the often unbearable conditions of our meat factories. Think Tyson, Jimmy Dean, a big packet of ground beef that you bought for tacos. When you kill your own chicken, you understand the sad, smelly, and complicated work harvesting meat is. Imagining doing that 8-hours a day (or more), in deplorable working conditions, and with little compensation make me realize how cheaply we get the meat that we eat (in America, daily or every other day).

It is often immigrant or refugee communities that take these types of jobs. When I was working with Sudanese refugees, many were moving to the midwest, towns that had big meat-packing factories, because there was steady and available work.

Thankfully, we are caring more about the way that our meat is raised... free-range, grass-fed, hormone and pesticide free. This no doubt affects the working conditions of the people that harvest and package our meat as well. But let us continue to care about and figure out ways to advocate even more fiercely for the humane working conditions of our meat as well. And collectively, let's say a prayer of thanks and protection for the workers that are doing the hard job of providing us all with the meat we love to eat.

If you'd like a more hands-on experience of how hard it is, I can call you when the next rooster crows...

More information on the meat packing industry.

Cob Stompin

We took the short drive to Euclid Ave to participate in our Friday ritual of fresh local food and community. I was prepared to meet up with some great people and buy some local produce, but we stumbled upon an unusual scene. There was a group of Second Chance youth collecting rocks and asphalt on the outskirts of the parking lot. Second Chance is a program that works with incarcerated youth and teaches them valuable job and life skills to transition them into the "real world". There was a large tarp with rocks, clay, sand and hay set up and a crowd gathered around Chad Bliss the youth farm coordinator for Second Chance. Chad asked the group of onlookers why farming and earthen building skills are important? Answering his own question Chad eloquently rambled on about how people are totally dependent on others, sometimes working 2 jobs just to survive, eat and have a roof over our heads. People who can grow their own food and learn earthen building can create a sustainable future and be less dependent on a "thing" based economic system that values "things" more than people. Chad took off his shoes and started mixing materials found in our back yards like clay, sand and water. Cob squished through his toes and the smiles of the crowd were contagious.

He started stompin and mixing the materials and rolled them back and forth using a blue tarp like a spring roll wrapper to roll the materials back and forth. His wet muddy feet were to much for my daughters and with a little prodding we too were cob stompin. Another local kid had already joined in the fun and we were dancing the Cob Stomp. Around and around we went with reckless abandon. Our dancing feet were creating a natural building material and maybe some community art.

Cob has been used all over the world as a building material and is known for moderating the internal air temperatures of homes. Cob is constructed using rocks as a base to keep the cob away from moisture, and is blended with hay which provides a sort of natural rebar to strenthen the structure. Cob is sealed with bees wax, wheat paste, or limestone paste to keep moisture out. It is easy to work with, hard as a rock and virtually free. You don't need multiple trips to Home Depot and your kids can help create and design the structures. The only problem is the permitting at this point but hopefully this to will change like gray water policy in San Diego.

So go ahead get some neighbors together and throw a Cob Stompin party. Take your shoes off and let go. You just might even create your own pizza oven, bench , wall or maybe even a house. Consider it a neighborhood art project, pedicure or a free mud bath.

This Peoples Produce Farmers Market workshop is a series put on by Victoy Gardens that will happen every other week and teach our community valuable skills of self sustainability. This is a great opportunity to meet your neighbors and support your local economy. Check them out at http://www.victorygardenssandiego.com/.  

For your information: Just a couple million years ago there were whales swimming down Euclid and Market right smack dab on top of the People's Produce Farmers Market and the graffiti walls of Writers Block. The only predictable part of life is change. Enjoy it!

Meditations, part 1

Keep on keeping on.

May has gotten off to a rough start here at the farm.  I suppose it happens everywhere sometimes, but I tend to be the eternal optimist.  It's tough to find ways to push me down, but every once in a while the odds just seem too far stacked for me to balance, for me to see the glass as half-full.  It's during these times that I need to just hit the hypothetical reset button, to figure out a way to put everything behind me and look to the future.  I've always taken solace in the thought the God provides us a new day, a new sunrise every morning so that we have a fresh start.  Sometimes it's the only way to move ahead and put one foot in front of the other.  Human nature necessitates survival, and sometimes it's times of crisis that birth the best ideas.  This month has made me think a little about what it means to be doing what we're doing.  How did we end up here, and why?

Well, first off (and I guess I am truly only speaking for myself!), we loved the idea.  We loved the ideas of 1) being in community and 2) farming the land.  We loved the ideas of 3) living a simpler life and 4) building sustainability off of what we have.  We loved the thought of sharing the burdens of life and of home.  I guess I've been thinking a lot about this over the last week or two.  It all sounds good on paper, no?  But what does it mean in practice, this hypothetical "sharing the burden?"  I think it's easy to get wrapped up in what it means to "split" everything equally, to make sure that you (and everyone around you) picks up their own part and that no one is unfairly getting left with too much of the work.  It's easy to think of yourself as the one who is picking up most of the slack.  Unfortunately, I think every single one of us feels like this sometimes.  It's easy to either feel guilty because you know that you didn't do your part or to feel shafted because you feel like you are the only one picking up the heavier load.  When you are in a marriage, you dialogue with your spouse and you naturally fall into your roles as a family.  My husband never got mad that I didn't take out the trash a single time that we were married and living together over the past 10 years.  He would pick my clothes up off of the floor without (too much) complaining, and I would always do his dishes.  It's interesting to me to see the way that we are all trying to figure out this pecking order of sorts.  Factually, we don't have as much house work here as we did when we were living on our own.  We split the chores and the deep cleaning of the house.  We did also decide to take on a lot more projects and we have a lot more land, so we've created more work with everything else that we have going on here.  These projects are hobbies, things that we love and that we want to be doing, so in theory they shouldn't feel like too much of a chore, either.  Realistically, I love spending time outside with the hens.  Jeremy loves being out gardening and planting and watering.  Sarah and BJ love the dogs and canyon walks.  I think these are all somewhat interchangeable, too.  Why is it human nature, then, to try to always make sure everything is "fair?"  I hear the echo of my girls arguing in the background and tattling to me that it just isn't fair.  They want everything to be equal, even though maybe if they really thought about it, it wouldn't matter anyhow.  Each of them really enjoys certain things and maybe they should just focus on enjoying all of the things that they have and the blessings they've received in life rather than being wrapped up in this battle of "fairness".  I think I started thinking about this a while ago, when we were first moving in together.  I remember having a little epiphany about it and realizing that I think it's this attitude that could ultimately crush a fantastic relationship.  It would crush a marriage, it could crush families.  I've seen extended families crumble in the battle of "fairness" when someone passes away.  Why do we, as humans, have a hard time getting over ourselves?  I think it's a good exercise in life to be able to meditate on this and take a breath, and be joyful that we have the ability to take care of each other and to help each other.  We should be more filled with joy when we have the chance to pick up someone else's slack, and we should take peace in the meditations of our day to day life.  I am grateful that I have these chickens to feed and that I have water coming out of my tap to give them.  I am grateful for the sun on my shoulders as I water the garden beds, and for the new seedlings that are wriggling their way through the soil.  I am eternally grateful that I have a bathroom to clean, and a fridge to stock and food to cook.  I thank God every day for giving me the time and the ability to do these things.  I pray that I will be better at it and remember how to be eternally grateful.  My time could not be better spent than by taking care of those around me and the people I love.  I hope that I continue to grow and that God reminds me of this as I am asked to continually give in life.  What an honor and a joy it is to be able to give to and serve those around me, and to work on the land that He is gracious enough to let me live upon.

Well, I started off this post with the plans of writing something totally different and this is the tangent I ended up on.  I guess it does hit some of the notes that I started off wanting to write about.  It's funny because contrary to what some of you might think, it's actually all going good here with us.  This hasn't been a battle or a fight, just a personal meditation.  I sometimes see elements of it in all of us, but I think we have a pretty good balance here.  It's something to continually grow with, I think.  There are so many more meditations that this blog post has sparked in me, and I will write on each of them this month.  It will be a good meditation for me, since I've been all internal and broody lately.  Maybe it will be a good way to get May to turn around and end with a glass half full.

Southeast San Diego Farmers Market

check out this link to take you to the website!  

The peoples produce project seems pretty cool.

We took the kiddos to the local farmers market this past friday.  I hate to admit that it was the FIRST time I'd been there!  Jeremy took the kids once before, and he said that unfortunately this go-around was even smaller than the last time.  We did go toward the end of the time-frame (2-7 officially,we showed up at 6:30) but there were only a handful of vendors and the few that were there were starting to pack up.  We met a lovely woman from Somalia who had some awesome fusion-African food that incorporated tastes from a few different regions.  She and her daughter recently started this food business and they were incredibly kind-hearted folks with some delicious sambussas and alicha.

Jeremy had apparently done some research and told me that this is not the first market they have attempted in the Southeast region of San Diego.  Unfortunately none of the past markets has succeeded.  It's not hard to see this one teetering on the verge of oblivion, but I hope that we can rally our neighbors enough to show some support and stoke the embers.  A thriving outdoor market in this part of the city could be such a blessing to a blighted community.  It would be a fantastic way for neighbors to meet each other and build community, as well as supporting local businesses and farmers.  It could change the health of the community and people, from the inside out.  It's no secret that lower income parts of town also tend to struggle the most with health issues and healthy eating habits, so it would be the perfect way to reach out to this demographic and educate people.

Some other really exciting potential is that many people in this area have a good amount of land.  We were fortunate enough to meet the market manager, Diane, and she was mentioning that they are trying to educate the people in the community in growing their own food and bringing it into the market to sell.  With something like this, it could bring money directly back into our immediate community and help people from so many different directions.  It feels like a regression back to the old world, where people would (and still do, in some parts of the world) walk their goods to the market to barter and sell within their immediate community.  It's something we've been lacking in our society since our grandparents era, maybe we've never even had it.  Something of romanticism that reminds us of foreign countries or a scene out of a movie.

This Friday we will again be picking up some delicious African food from this market.  It would be awesome to see some of you there, picking up some produce or sharing dinner with us.  I promise that it won't have all of the fancy booths that the Hillcrest market has, but you will know that you are doing something good to contribute to a community that could really use your support.  Who knows, you may even catch a glimpse of that spark and know that over time the flames will grow because of you.

Canyonlands

I love our canyons. You may not know that San Diego is full of secret canyons that allows one to go on a bona fide hike in the middle of the city... but it is!

We love to take early (ish) morning walks, afternoon strolls, weekend adventures, whatever. There are rambling trails, grasslands, palm trees, chollas, and often, a lot of trash. Our canyon is right in-between Market Street and 60th. It's lined on both sides by houses, and busy roads, but in the middle it's a quiet (relatively) paradise.

Our dogs love it too. They are sheep dogs through and through, and at their best when they're bounding through the tall grass. Here's are two videos to illustrate.

We get the best of many worlds here in San Diego. The hills, the sun, the beach. Mountains if you go out east far enough. The border a few exits down. It's a meeting of many wonderful worlds.

However, if you find a surfer that has lost their dogs' leash, this is what you get... wandering the canyons of North Encanto.

Are you prepared? Episode 1

What if there was a theory that radical environmentalists, CEO's of major oil companies, leading geologists, famous UCLA professors and government energy executives all believed in? Would it get your attention? What if leading geologists in the United States pulled together a report (The Hirsch Report) that proved scientifically using the best data available that in the coming years we are beginning the end of oil. (The Bush Administartion supressed this report. Suprise!) According to the Hubbert Peak Oil Theory oil availability and production is shaped like a bell curve. The United States reached our peak in the 1970's and have been declining in production ever since. Just ask BP why we drilling at 5000 feet in the Gulf of Mexico? Or ask Canada why they are taking off entire mountains to get at tar sand deposits? Oil is getting harder to get extract. For evidence see info listed below. The world reserves will from the best estimates start a rapid decline in the next 2-5 years and according to Jared Diamond could practically disappear in a couple decades. What does this mean?

Well it could be a conspiracy theory developed by the solar and wind turbine companies to get people to purchase their products. It could a conspiracy brought to us by the creators of ethanol who want corn to stretch from sea to shining sea. Or it could be partically true. Partically because I say if something like this is even half true we are in for a chaotic future. Sure technology and good old human ingenuity could save us? Or we could be rescued by renewables? Or nuclear power and natural gas could rescue us? But what about the transition?
OK I don't quite remember but in 1973 there was a war in the Middle East called the Yom Kippur War. Oil production went down 5% and people waited in lines for gas for hours in the US. There was mass hysteria and fear. Still skeptical? Let me continue.

Like I said before don't take my word for it check out the evidence and make up your own mind.

Next point. We also have emerging economies like China and India with populations over a billion each who want a piece of the middle class dream. China's need for oil has been increasing exponentially. In 2009 China counted for 1/3 of the global increase in oil consumption. The US is not off the hook. We use 25% of the oil on the planet with 5% of the population. So we have exponential population growth and people who want to drive all over the world; with declining oil supplies. I won't even mention the US debt or diminishing water supplies. Let's stay on topic.

OK but we could just switch to electric cars and peace would spread through the world like facebook on a college campus. Well the problem is our entire economic system and the global economic systems are completely dependent on oil. From chemical fertilizers (our food) to plastics to tires to shoes to electricity to gas it is all dependent on oil. The truck drivers who are the back bone of the economy are complaining that they will need to raise our food and product prices because deisel is 4 dollars a gallon. What happens when gas is 10 dollars a gallon. We are facing a ripple effect unpresedented in human history. Every economy on earth is completely interconnected. Just ask Iceland about the little global recession we just had in 2008.

Ok enough statistics. True nobody knows the future and people also worried about Y2K you could say. We have had alarmists all throughout history and they have always been wrong. What about the most famous alarmist of them all. Noah! It may sound weird to want to prepare for a theoretical collpase or at minimum a rocky economic transition but history is very clear on this. Watch the documentary by Jared Diamond called Collapse and he will eloquently lay out the signs. I hope and pray post peak is a fantasy and nothing happens. After all the billions of people living in poverty in the Third World will probably be hit the hardest as food prices skyrocket. Just ask half of all Egyptians who were making $2 a day as global food prices soared. But if for some reason the signs are here whether faintly or glaringly we need to be prepared for post peak living. How will we do this, and how will we help others learn how to survive post peak living? More on that in Episode 2.

Great information on this subject:
http://www.postpeakliving.com/
Preparing for a Post Peak Life Video/Power Point--- Part 1 and Part 3

Documentary- COLLAPSE by Jared Diamond and National Geographic (highly recomended)

For a less "socially acceptable" documentary try Collapse by Michael Ruppert

Sustainable in San Diego!

An old professor of mine at SDSU wrote an article on food sustanability in the newest edition of Edible San Diego:

http://www.onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=10517&l=1 - It's the article entitled "SDSU Embraces Sustainable Food"

If you don't know about Edible San Diego, it's AWESOME and here's their website:

http://www.ediblecommunities.com/sandiego/

Double take

Sarah and I were talking the other day about the hilarity of trying to do things in community.  It all started when we decided to get rid of our car a couple of years ago and share their car, the camry.  Many of you know the story - we sold our one and only car and they wanted to try to cut back on their drive time, too, so decided to sell us "half" of one of their cars.  It worked out great, to this day we still share that poor camry.  The funny thing about it was that our insurance company did not know what the heck to do with us!  Ultimately, we didn't do anything.  Not because we didn't try to give them our money and do everything legally, but because neither one of our insurance companies could figure out how to add us both on since we lived at different addresses, etc.  Everything stayed under their name and we just paid them for half of everything.  Shhhh - don't tell anyone!  This came out last year, so at least in theory it should make things like car sharing easier to do:

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/california-takes-a-giant-step-toward-personal-car-sharing/

I just went to our Farmers agent and got everything - house, all of our cars - put together with all of our names on it.  That was another feat, and as I was reading through the paperwork I saw that they named Jeremy as the head (since we had the original account) and added Sarah and BJ on as Relatives in residence.  I suppose that's good enough.

Another thing that was funny and different was opening our joint bank accounts.  It was just something you could tell hadn't really been done before and it took a lot of patience and time to get it all right.  We walked away with 4 functioning debit/credit cards, all with our own names and pins, so that was positive.  We did finally receive our checks and even though they told us that we could get all 4 of our names put on them, they didn't arrive that way.  Thankfully at least one of us from each family made it on as signers, though - officially Sarah and I are officially the couple.

Small things come up here and there, like the dog stuff.  According to the vet, they keep switching owners every other time we take them in =)  I don't even know who Vetco has on file as their owners at this point.  You can't co-register for a vons club or albertsons card, either.  Netflix does have their "queue", so that works well.  People's Market is set up to have a household card, but that doesn't count because they're a hippie store. We haven't gotten the pink slip to the trailer yet, but I am sure that's another one that will have to just have one name from each family on it.

It's been difficult to try to figure out ways that we could refinance or take out loans or all get added to the house.  Jeremy's brother did figure out some info for us, so we need to take those next steps on all being on the title here.  I guess we've found that in general, our society is not really set up for people to do things in community.  It's not impossible and people aren't "anti" in any way, it's just not easy and streamlined, which is unfortunate.  It might turn some people off, such as the car-share situation when we really were, I guess, illegally driving that car half the time.  I mean, people who "borrow" your car are still insured, but it makes it very complicated if you like to do everything by the rules.  I wish that more things were set up to make the process a little easier.  It would be nice if Jeremy could write a check to someone out of our account, too.  All of the gratification and support that is coming out of this community is definitely worth the small inconveniences that it's created, and we definitely got a good laugh when the first official piece of mail arrived addressed to Sarah C and Kimberly B.

post-party.

This weekend was our goodbye party for tom and bria. It was much fun, but also sad. They are packing up and moving in a flash, so it was nice to take a night and celebrate them, slow down, eat some tacos. Post party, we feel a little like this:

But, we have some great leftovers. My cast iron skillet is my absolute favorite item of our kitchen (better than a microwave). I highly recommend one for every kitchen. Very multi-purpose. Once you get a skillet, I highly recommend this cookbook.   Anyhow, using this pan, I cooked up the best breakfast taco I've ever eaten in my life.

That's some al pastor from Murphy's (favorite meat of the night, better than carne asada!), a corn tortilla,  and my husband's famous poached egg. They combined to make this wonderful post-party breakfast. 

Bria and Tom, you will be missed. Let us eat tacos together for many more years to come, despite what coast we're on. 

location, location, location!

People are often confused about where exactly we live.  The assumption is often made that since we have a little bit of land, we must be way out east and they tend to be thrown off a little when I tell them we are only about 5 miles from downtown.  One of the biggest reasons that we all kind of made a jump for it and picked up this property was because of its proximity to everything.  We are definitely within San Diego City limits.  As said before, it's about 5 miles from downtown and about a 10 minute drive to the beach.  As the crow flies, I reckon we are about 12 miles north of the Mexican border, which is crazy to think about!  Here is a map, I circled Encanto with a red oval.

Now, another interesting point to make about this property that we chose is that it is in Southeast San Diego.  This is interesting because, according the the gang series on NPR, this is the part of San Diego with the highest amount of gang activity in the region.  Here is a link to that map.
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/oct/06/north-county-comes-grips-gang-problems/
I know that a lot of people may not have chosen, necessarily, to live in this part of town.  Another big part of our hope and dream is that we can really be a place in the community where people can convene, where we can come together for dialogue and be a very fruitful place in THIS community.  Hopefully, one day, people will see this as a shiny spot in an awesome community with a hugely diverse range of people.  We have already met a wide range of amazing people that we can call our neighbors, and it seems - so far - like just the right fit.

Looking ahead.

Just getting off of an interesting week of change.  One kid is finally getting over her sinus-to-ear infection with a hefty dose of antibiotics (sigh).  This past week a big change occurred for all of us!  We have officially grown our farm numbers from 4 adults and two kids to 5 adults + 2.  Yes, yes, we acquired another adult somewhere along the way.  Colin will be living with us for a period of time.  It's very exciting because he is really into the FARMING aspect of all of this, and since none of us really have the time and energy to put as much as we'd like into it, he will be the designated farm hand for the next few months.  We've got projects on the drawing board and hopefully will be able to really make some movement towards feeling like a real farm!  Aside from our poultry endeavors and some rogue fruit trees we've managed to stick in the ground, we've been pretty lax about this food production thing.  It makes me so sad when I have to buy salad and chard every week!  This is all stuff that God has given us the ability to grow ourselves with nothing more than a little tenderness and time, yet we still haven't put seeds in the ground.

Another big change that happened last week was that I finally QUIT my JOB!  This is a big deal, and I'm still hyperventilating a little.  It seems that since I've started there, it's just been so tough for me to achieve any type of balance in my life.  It's a super high stress job and it's been difficult for me to manage and still feel good about the dedication I've been giving my friends and family (non-existent to some of you this past year, I know!  And I feel really bad about it, and that's going to CHANGE!)  My last day is the end of this month.  I will be entering the world of personal chef-dom, so if you know anyone that is interested in having a fantastic chef make all of their meals every week, send them my way!  I also hope to begin teaching more fitness classes and just be a better mom, wife, and friend in general.  BREATHE.

In the next week or two we will finally be getting our travel trailer!  Initially we had put some money down on an old vintage Airstream, which didn't pan out.  Turns out my gramps has an old 1960-ish Travel-Eze sitting on his lot that he offered to donate to our farm for free!  It's gonna need some TLC, but we can't wait to get to work fixing her up.  Here's a pic.  I don't for some reason have any full pictures of the thing, but you can get the gist.

We will be having a celebration next weekend for some of our friends that are moving to New York.  It's a fantastic opportunity for them and we are of course thrilled, but it's always so bittersweet to say goodbye.  I suppose it just means we'll have to take a trip out that way sometime soon!  We have friends in Boston we've been meaning to go visit as well, so maybe this will be the nudge we need.

I promise to look back soon and post those pictures and the turducken process.  Take care!