The following posts were taken from the website for Harms Vineyards and Lavender Fields, which we operated from 2010 until 2019. They offer a window into our lives on the farm and the ways the farm changed us. In 2018 we decided to end our lavender business but we continue to work with our land in ways that bring balance and health. Posts on this website will continue to follow our work.
Animals are an important part of Biodynamic practices. Not only do they help with weeding, but their manures provide fertility, all part of an important feedback cycle. Biodynamic Association Listing The Biodynamic Association website has a new feature in which we farmers, growers, processors and producers are… Read more »
Lessons in Biodynamic Goat Keeping
Lessons in Biodynamic Goat Keeping Despite all the theory and spiritual discipline that Biodynamic agriculture offers, there is always the practical to consider, and goats are good reminders. Lesson: always keep a goat busy doing what you want the goat to do. Otherwise, the goat will make the determination herself. Goats need a project…. Read more »
Photo by Lowell Downey, Art and Clarity Beauty Transforms Beauty transforms us, but it is truly a mystery why. Perhaps the apprehension of Beauty is a portal in which we are open to a spiritual dimension that the busyness of our everyday lives has obscured. We get a view of the essence of things, feeling… Read more »
Farmer as Quintessential
Tools of the Trade It isn’t how we think it should go: by cutting back, we strengthen the core. Pruning is painful! It means relinquishing possibilities in order to direct attention and vitality in a considered way. The focus, hopefully, is for the good of the whole, whether that be the whole of… Read more »
Beginning visit with Valley Oak The method is simple: suspend rational thought, forget what you think you know about what you are seeing, lay down the mantle of ownership. Simply be. With your hand— or in your mind’s eye— draw the plant. Get every detail: the way the leaf curls inward on the… Read more »
Dogs meditating during morning stirring. Busy morning! We are transplanting rose geranium into the orchard and spraying 501, silica from quartz crystal. Moon in Gemini (until 11 am), an air, or flower, sign, and descending now, an ideal time to transplant. The silica spray (horned quartz crystal, or BD 501) on the aromatics brings the… Read more »
Wesley and his dad catching tadpoles After the rain began last month, the frogs started their seasonal chorus, so loud at night that, if you are close to the pond, it can hurt your ears. Their vibrancy has resulted in a myriad of tadpoles which swim along the deep irrigation pond’s edge eating… Read more »
When Old Friends Die Death always feels sudden, it seems, and no less so for a tree. Last night the dear old Valley Oak by the little farmhouse where Ramon and his family live, fell. The tree, at least 300 years and perhaps close to 500, lays shattered on the driveway. Although years ago a… Read more »
Bud Break: Beginning, Again
The season’s fruit and leaves are all wrapped up in this baby bundle. This week the Chardonnay vines are pushing tiny buds, some already unfolding to reveal miniature leaves and future grape bunches, baby bundles of the season’s riches. Today we begin the Biodynamic sprays. The moon is in… Read more »
The Drought: Interview with Michael Presley Michael Presley studied atmospheric science at UCLA &graduate work for NASA/JPL doing satellite data evaluation
https://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/comp/nhem/rb.jp Some years ago I met Michael Presley at a native plant conference held at the Summerfield Waldorf School in Santa Rosa, CA. Michael presented on how to use native medicinals in landscaping, but the talk was ever so much more. It quickly became apparent that this was a… Read more »
© 2024 Patricia Damery.
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