welcome to the hilltop house

as hopefully a lot of you already know, dave and i will be changing our residence to the rainbow farm, which is right next door to the farm we've been living on. our friends, lexi and rob, have extended an invitation for us to caretake the cabin they are living in, as they are seldom there. we'll be living there fulltime, taking care of the cabin and land around it and they'll come to stay every now and then.

our cabin is called the hilltop house. its a magical place that is enchanted by the wood surrounding it. there's no electricity, but there's running water and we're working on hot water. the yard needs loads of work, but we're really excited to be doing it. we've already planted catnip in front of the porch and begun the peace garden:


this will be a perennial herb garden with sage, lavender, oregano, thyme, and lupine. we'll be adding a brick pathway in the shape of a peace sign!

here's our outhouse


it needs some fixing up, but you get the idea.

here's our washtub fuchsias



boyd


and an awesome cabbage



oddly enough, percy has already moved in. he followed us over there one day and came back to the yurt a couple times, but now takes up his permanent residence at the hilltop house. there's another cat that lives there and they seem to get along.

there's an apple tree laden with big fat granny smiths and two undetermined plum trees. berries are ripening all over the place! you can go anywhere on the farm and pick wild fresh dew berries, black cap raspberries, and thimble berries. the blackberries and huckleberries with be coming on soon!

go to our web albums http://picasaweb.google.com/pennymj for more pictures of the cabin, wildflowers, zucchinis and loads more cool stuff.

peace and love,

penny and dave

meet the neighbors

as many of you know, we live nextdoor to an intentional co-op community called the rainbow farm.

There are several cabins on the farm:

main house

main house is intended to be the central hub of the community. the caretaker, eugene, lives there with his partner dani, dani's daughter millie, and their son journey. this is where potlucks happen and where people meet up on hot days to head down to the river. there are solar panels on the roof that provide over half the power for the cabin.

the schoolbus house

the house was actually built around a schoolbus, and the origional frame is still sticking out. in the photo you can see it on the left, above millie's head, with plants sitting atop it. this house is completely powered by solar. angel and justin live there with their children savannah and zia, two chickens, a rooster, a llama and olive the dog.

the hilltop house

we think this is the prettiest house. its the house most set back into the woods (and up the hill) and surrounded by trees. it has a beautiful stained glass window that was made by a woman named joy who lived there many years ago, a kitchen floor with pictures of slugs, suns and moons, and a battery-opereated wall clock that makes a different bird song every hour. our good friend lexie (dani's sister) lives there, but spends most of her time in Eugene. living in town makes her commute to a farm in junction city significantly shorter.

the dome and the yurt (not our yurt)

the dome (sorry, no pictures yet) is lived in by a guy named mark that we haven't met yet. he works in town, and hasn't visited the farm since we've been here. its an incredible cabin, with a geodesic dome built on the side. bill and raymond live in the yurt on the corner of the field in which eugene grows organic timothy hay. bill has lived on the farm for two many years to count and raymond has been there with him for several years now.

jacob, tera, millie and dani

jacob and millie


dave leaning against a drum made by eugene at main house

millie and me

olive the dog

we showed our photo albums to the neighbors so that they could meet our family, and now you, our family, has met our neighbors. hopefully visits out here in the future will enable some of you to meet them in person!!!

we love and miss everyone more than words could ever say....

be well,

penny and dave

on the smith river

Hello!!!




Its been too long since this thing got updated. Our internet access is beyond limited...we've only got dial up on the farm and our laptop won't make it into town since we can't run it without it being plugged in. Oh well =(

Anyway, we've both been working on blog entries with pictures to describe our experiences thus far, but I figured I could do a little update before that. We're working like crazy, as this is the busiest part of our season. I now work at the consignment booth at farmer's market. It s a booth run by the market to sell for farmer's who don't have their own booths. My friend Dani, who lives on the rainbow farm next door, manages the booth and got me the job. Dave brings our starts in the van to market, sets up the Morning Sun Organics booth and runs that with Tera. The two of them are actually making delivery to an organic garden center in Eugene right now.

We've been learning the business, making friends and finding new hobbies. We've become avid mushroom hunters and will be consigning oyster mushrooms at market. Spring and fall are really good times for mushrooms, so we're hunting!!! We've found oysters, chantrelles and hedgehogs, and they've all been really yummy. Now we're going to try selling them to make some extra loot. I'm also going to be crocheting some market bags to sell.



Boyd and percy love it out here. Percy has been catching mice, moles and snakes and Boyd has swam in the Pacific Ocean.

So, that's all for now I'm sorry to say. Sooooon we will get our grand posts up with tons of pictures and it will be like you're right here with us.

Until then, we love and miss our friends and family more than we can say. We think of you everyday.

peace and love,

penny and dave

shout your name into the wind....

this is it....our last drive of the trip....out to the farm.

driving across the country has been the most freeing feeling we've ever felt and now to end it and have our dreams come true is unfathomable.

don't listen to anyone that tells you you can't live your dreams. we're doing it.

life is beautiful and God is in everything.



be joyful!!!

penny and dave

show me what this thought is worth...

there are no words to describe what we've experienced in the last few days.

divine maybe.....

see for yourself:

click here for Wyoming

click here for utah and idaho


click here for oregon

we're in a lovely holiday inn tonight....so warm and comfy, a half hour from portland and 3 and a half hours from home!!! next sunday is the farmer's market meeting in eugene for all people who will be selling at it. needless to say, we are beyond excited about that.

there are so many people i wish we could share this experience with...so many people that we miss. we love you and love you even more now that we've seen a bigger sliver of god's vast creation...and seen you in it.

be well and be still,

penny

Halfway There

Wow, so much has happened since our last post.





Last night we stayed in Davenport, IA. Tonight we're in Sydney, NE!!! Its about 30 miles from Wyoming, which we're really excited to see in the day time.

Iowa was absolutely beautiful. The land was very humble, very flat and treeless. Patches on trees scattered themselves along the fields and houses were group around these trees. It was a very peaceful drive. We've taken a lot of pictures with out 35 mm, but won't be able to add them until we get the film developed. We listened to Johnny cash for the drive, as well as iron and wine, which made it feel like home.

But here's a good one:



Tomorrow is Wyoming, Utah and Idaho? Who knows....

Until then, be well and be still,

Penny

p.s.


We hit our 1,000 mile mark!!!

PEPPER SPRAY AND STUN GUNS - THIS EXIT!

hey everyone....this is dave here on my first post on the mustard & cress blog. i'm excited to say that this is our first post from the road. as of 10am today, we were on our way west. the sign above shows just how awesome upstate new york can be. after we hit buffalo, the weather began to get worse until we finally decided to chill for the night just inside ohio. we're at a days inn and boyd and percy are in here with us. below are some pics from our travels today....

1. boyd has been great in the car....he seems to be very comfortable sleeping in the backseat most of the day. he got pretty wild when we let him out though...

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2. i love this picture the most......

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3. at the rest areas, because we have a trailer (no matter how small) we have to park in the "trailer" spots which is basically the "trucker" spots. we think our car looks pretty silly in the midst of all the big rigs.


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4. this is how much percy likes riding in the car....

well....tomorrow we're headed to nebraska...more to come...

do good work.

~dave