To Market, To Market!

What a week. I laid in bed, feeling through the pain of my muscles and heartache over losing the farm. Meanwhile, there's a fire raging 30 miles away, people losing their homes and livelihoods. So I decided to put together a dinner for fire evacuees. Just a night where they could feel comfortable and have a home-cooked meal.

With a concerted cooperative effort, a delicious meal came together at Julia's Yokayo Ranch. It was a time to celebrate what we have: food and each other.

In that spirit, I got my farmers' market supplies in gear and made it to the Ukiah Saturday Farmers' Market. I'm glad to finally share the products of my labor. Years of research and hard work paid off when I saw how people responded. "This is great! We need local grains!"
"You've got the prettiest booth at the market!"
"I've been hoping we'd have fresh flour at market for years. Thanks for being here!"

"Your farming methods are going to save the planet."

You know, after all these complications and catastrophes, it was really nice to hear those things. I feel that I'm finally doing what I set out to do: to feed people.

Second stroke

My luck hasn't improved. When I emailed the investors to inform them that I was hit by a semi and will be less responsive than usual for the next week, they responded saying that there won't be a farm next year and I need to wrap up.

At least the grains are getting good use. The red fife as plant, grain, and bread.

impressive

I hadn't been in a car accident in 15 years. As of today, I've been in two this year alone. In May I was hit by a car while I was on my bike. Today, I was hit by a semi truck. The driver said he was looking in the other rearview mirror and didn't see me. I asked if he heard me honking as he backed up,  but he said he can't hear in the cab.

So I'm writing from the ER right now. What a bummer because I was going to start selling at the farmer's market this weekend. I spent all of Monday hauling grain to clean it with an impact cleaner and many sieves.

I haven't had a day off in awhile, what with the third milling job. I will take this opportunity to rest for a bit, binge watch some Twin Peaks.

Oh! And eat some bread made with my red fife! Finally, a taste of my labor.

Loafing in the ER

Healdsburg SHED Highlight

The Healdsburg SHED maintains a delightful, image-rich blog. They wrote a piece about me that begins with

We’re proud to announce that Mai Nguyen is the new miller at SHED, in charge of making fresh flour and polenta each Friday afternoon. But Mai’s ability to competently mill is such a small fraction of who she is that we can’t leave it at that.

You can read the rest here.

Change Is Gonna Come

By now you have seen the photo of the little boy on the beach laying in his red shirt and blue shorts. Aylan Kurdi, lifeless. We've seen many photos of Syrian, Kurdish, and other people who've recently tried to reach the northern Mediterranean countries by boat. We've read about the rich nations rejecting these refugees.

I can't help but think of my family and their journeys by sea. My mother stayed stranded on a boat for 11 days without food or water. Several cousins drowned or were lost in their attempts to escape. Where would my mom be if that Norwegian ship hadn't picked her up? Where would my parents be if the US rejected their application, as the Canadian Harper government did with the little boy's family? It's disheartening to see the same struggles 30 years on.

I'm doing what I can to serve the refugee population I'm connected to. But there are more people out there. I'm going to try to make some more room, grow some more food, feed some more people.