Long, drawn out, better late than never Year In Review.

Well, I didn't figure out the meaning of life this year.

I did, however, spend a lot of time looking for things I thought were true. But the more I try to sort things into good and bad, beautiful and ugly, the more I miss the point. Like Nea here. Simultaneously good and bad. The great Snarfer! That's been her name this year. Snarfy, Snarf Face Killer - the renditions are infinite. Sometimes I sing her the song Little Surfer Girl, by the Beach Boys but instead - you guessed it! - Little SNARFER Girl!!!

This year Eric and I built up a lot more of our lives, the stuff of life at least. The home building, the animal husbandry, growing food and flowers. The business of trying to sell some of that stuff so we can build more. Here's a picture of the main room in our house back in April when we had young chickens inside, and trays of soil blocks on every surface. Eric says "farm house?" that means you farm in the house, right?

Of course the chaos of it all is appealing to me. I love a beautiful mess, more than anything. When I die, hopefully here at Worlds End decades from now I want it to be ten times the mess. And I hope that when that time comes, I will have learned better how to be around people and connect to them. This year I have been working on my intimacy issues; trying to figure out why I want to be alone all the time or why I favor brief encounters with strangers. 

That sounds funny, like I've become a hooker, which did not happen this year, trust me.

I did fall in love with chickens though. They are incredible weird little things - so social, so bossy. Everyday they follow complex agendas I can only wish to understand; fanning out across the homestead in patterns coinciding with times of day. There's the mid morning rest followed by lunch at the coop (usually), then foraging west out towards the drive. Noon? Siesta. Two o'clock you can find them under the lilac dust bathing if the weather allows, and by 3 they are on the move south towards the kitchen garden. 

Our girls have shown (limited) moments of uncanny intelligence. I hug them and make up stories for them. I call them the beep-beeps. In the morning when I open the doors of the coop they pour out in a gaggle of clucks and tweets and suddenly it's time  (cue music!)  for the BEEP-BEEP show!!! ... Featuring the BEEP-BEEPS!!! With special appearances by (you guessed it!) the BEEP-BEEPS!!! God I love that show.

This time last year Nicolette and I went teaching in Australia...subsequently I've been connected to a lot of Australians. Working with flowers makes the world shrink. Infinitely small, this flower world of ours... [insert winking heart blowing emoji]

This year I thought a lot about doing a book, publishing a book of my own or working on a bigger book project. I talked to lots of people about it - agents and publishers but in the end I scrapped it all, it never felt right, too forced, or I'm just not ready. Why rush? People say it's the cornerstone of your brand. Wait what brand? We don't even have business cards.

We started our flock of Icelandic Sheep here at the farm. A bit earlier than we had planned, but fools rush in. There are 9 ewes ranging in age; two older stragglers we adopted from friends and 7 strapping young girls with good milking lines. Next year we'll get a ram, breed all the girls and in spring 2014 we'll have lambs - hopefully 15 or so. When you have lambs, you have milk...this all took a while to comprehend, for me at least. Here's a picture of the day we drove to Vermont to pick up our sheep guarding dog, Puccini otherwise known as Poochi.

Poochi is a Maremma, a dog bred in Italy since ancient Roman times (salve canis! I took latin in school) to protect flocks from wolves (lupus - not to be confused with lupus the disease which I also thought I might have this year). Around here he wards off coyotes and the occasional cougar. 

There is no training with this type of guardian dog; as long as he bonds with the sheep (ovis). He has to think the sheep are his family. This means we're not allowed to take him out for walks or love him too much. This has been really hard.

Tu non potest diligere canis qui habitat cum ovibus. (You must not love the dog who sleeps with sheep.)

Last spring we threw a big plant sale in the city to raise money for a tractor at the farm. It was one of the best days in our Saipua history, and the following week we put a down payment on a John Deere. (Which ironically, is called 'going green' around here because of the paint color on the tractor, not for the gallons of diesel fuel it consumes)
Plants for plants! I love this idea so much; this year we'll do it again on March 8th.

The tractor let us really get into growing this year -- we planted all sort of things. 

All these ^ flowers? We grew them ourselves! In hindsight feels like a big deal. I learned a lot about timing. I learned a lot about the fragility of some plants and the resilience of others.

In 2013 I did not have to buy one can of tomatoes. When I get frustrated with what feels like slow progress it's small facts like this that keep me motivated.

We installed solar panels at the farm this year. My dad has always been a geek about alternative energy, and lately -- parasites -- but that's another post. In the eighties we had giant 1 foot thick solar panels on the side of our house. He helped us finance the project, and we are now gratefully receiving approximately 95% of our yearly energy from the sun. Still putting diesel fuel in the "green" tractor, but hopefully that will change this new year if we can hook up the deep fryer. That's all you need for bio fuel right?  

I can't write a post about 2013 without mentioning all the amazing help - interns and apprentices and volunteers we had work with us.

Bianca, the sensitive lover of beauty. I've loved watching her bravely change careers and seeing her excitement as she discovers flowers for herself...

Nicole, the type of woman you look at and then you have to look at again. She is mysterious and witty. A dancer, and (she's gonna hate me for writing this) a real deal intellectual! God, I want to keep all the interns forever!

Evelyn, our most committed apprentice. She came from SanFransisco for three months for an immersion experience. I miss her can-do attitude at every event since she left. And her indispensible graphic skills (without which we would never have finished our 2013 soap sampler box.

Reuben! He wrote me a letter from the perspective of a feral cat last year..wanted to come on as an apprentice for a few weeks. I like to work but there's nothing like an enthusiastic 21 year old in the field, let me tell you.





Mikee; graceful, stylish and inquisitive. I miss his help getting dinner ready talking and sipping wine together. I feel his flower talent is about to rise so fast...watch out!



Natalie - I met her at a class we taught last January in LA. She loves animals and it must be said that she was the first intern to really bond with Goldie (the prettiest chicken). She's thinking about flowers and how they are going to fit into her life, I'm waiting to see.

What a strange year of figuring things out, an unsettling year of unknowns. Back in the summer, at the end of the day I would walk the rows of flowers and cut things, making bunches in my hand till I couldn't hold anymore. I'd walk these fistfulls back to the work table - a makeshift studio in front of our house. Usually I would just toss them into a bucket and forget about them. This is a florists ultimate luxury I would tell myself. To pick all the most beautiful flowers for yourself and then never arrange them...

Maybe this year was a year of resting a little more. Leaving the flowers be while I worked on the farm or...didn't work at all. There in lies the root of my moody troubles this year. 

My one new years resolution?

TO WORK HARDER. 

Nothing Ever Happens on Mars.

First of all, Welcome to my personal growth blog!

Every morning at the farm where I've been for a week or so now I get up and sit here with my coffee. I have a new coffee pot that is very good and so this is a better than usual event. I just look out the window and think. My mom says I get thinking from my father.

I've been a nervous wreck for the last week, with no real explanation except that I'm really terrible at relaxing. Just the way I am. With time off my anxiety blooms; spores of it mushrooming, a dark algae in standing water. Invasive and fetid ... by the time I realize what's happening it's too late, it's systemic...HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! 

I convinced myself of dizzy spells, I have low iron, a sinus infection, parasites!, early signs of a stroke, chest pain. Lately I've been trying to just let it take over, staying in bed half the day sometimes, eating chicken liver pate with a spoon (high in iron) and going to bed at 8pm some nights. I'm getting better at handling anxiety, just letting it happen. Just being OK with the strange feelings, no matter how uncomfortable. Fighting it makes it worse. 

When I think about how I wanted Christmas to go it's like this; me and Mookie had a week with no work, no visitors at the farm and were going to relax and spend days in pajamas making waffles and reading in bed and talking like we used to, losing track of days taking long walks with the dog...

If you want to really fuck yourself, set up a bunch of 'realistic' expectations and then wait to check em off like a laundry list of happiness. Life is like this in general. I'll be happy when I fall in love, when I have my own business, when I have a farm. 

Now I have to deal with myself or invent more tasks and more distractions. Which undoubtedly I will do because I am a modern, success-oriented woman. But I know I have to keep coming back to deal with this thing in me; this deep dissatisfaction that is the result of always ignoring the moment and rushing to the next thing. 

For my sanity I keep one foot in the city. I find rest in the joyous hum of days carved up into 1/2 hour segments buzzing around in the back of a taxi cab yelling into the phone. Like magic, every single one of my symptoms vanishes when I'm there. 

PERENNIAL Calendar with Brown Parcel Press

A few months ago Megan of Brown Parcel Press and I started talking about making a letterpress calendar together; mixing my flowers with her printmaking. TaDA!

It feels so luxurious to have such beautiful prints of my flowers; Megan's interpretations of the flowers are so accurate while managing to remain rooted in her own artistic style. I'm sort of in awe of this collaboration. I hope you like it.

The prints are made with 100% cotton paper (no trees) and are intended to function with the calendar and also on their own. So in 2015 you can still keep the prints on your bulletin board. I mean, if you want to.  

I've been working on tweaking our website this week. We have a new and improved SHOP page; this calendar is up there (sold for $45) along with all of our soaps, candles and some other random things I'm offering up from the Saipua vaults. 

P.s. This is the last week to order your holiday wreaths. You can also come by on the weekend (we'll be open Saturday and Sunday from noon-6) to pick one out in person.

puppies and lilacs from the poorly kept saipua files

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS ARE IN NO WAY SEASONAL, NOR DO THEY SERVE AS AN ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF CURRENT SAIPUA ACTIVITIES

(You have to be so careful these days.)

A more accurate account of current going-on's would be me doing my typical solo city dinner of cheese, bread, and a box of arugula listening to westend girls by the pet shop boys on repeat. Ignoring the work at hand to look at old photos and try not to think about how tired I am. And how I can't wait to crawl into bed with old episodes of gossip girl. 

Today was a rough day. For one thing, I've been in heels and a brassiere for over 12 hours now. Secondly my truck is at a chop shop on 38th and 10th after breaking down on the FDR this morning. Which is bound to happen in our world of constantly hustling things back and forth...suddenly I'm jamming a truck full of flowers into a cab on Houston Street, showing up miraculously on time for a celebrity photoshoot. I've learned that you don't mention your truck troubles; it's just not that interesting.  I haven't agreed to do a photo shoot for a while, and it was fun to be back on set - this time with jewelry that required 8 (I counted) separate guards. I went over to the jewelry table during a floral lull to check out the booty; "Can I look?" I asked. And I got a careful look up and down (tight jeans with tight pockets so I was in the clear) "Yeah you can look." 

What I like best about photo shoots is that they order fancy lunch, so I was happy today - despite my transit woes and the fact that I was forced to handle out of season peonies. Just feed me and I'll do pretty much anything you ask.

I don't feel like myself on these types of days. I try to remember to wear deodorant, to put on mascara. I always feel like an imposter, like the kid sister tagging along...the girl that doesn't fit in. Years ago it was because I was the youngest on set or the most naive. Now I get it, I understand most of it; the way women in magazines are, the way the photographer needs to assert his opinion on the angle of that one ranunculus. It is actually important. 

The contrast of living at the farm, working to keep animals alive and well fed and fondling fifteen dollar Australian peonies and Van Cleef diamonds is a stark one. I struggle with the uncanniness of this disconnect a lot lately. But this seemingly silly scenario is one which allows me to have the farm that I so desperately need for my work these days. I cannot have one without the other. 

Looking at these photos from last spring I recall great luxurious afternoons. They say memory is inaccurate, unreliable.  My memory is writing it's own story on these photos. A story overtop of the real one, the way it really was. (It's sort of like instagram.) In reality I know these days were average. No better than today. I went to photograph the lilacs out of obligation. 

It's weird when your job is to make things look a certain way, when you are hired for pretty. Lately I look at things and I feel like a zombie. There is just so much pretty lately. A proliferation of pretty. A million styled lives spinning. 

My sometimes astrologer cum therapist is so smart and gets all of this - got it all right away months ago when I started to try and figure out my depression. 

She said:

"Go do something beautiful and leave your camera home. Don't show anyone. Do it only for yourself. For your own consumption. You are starved!" 

Good grief, life is a grand puzzle. Thanks always for listening to my ramblings. 

november

Here we are at the end of another momentous event season. How are we all doing? Everyone still have their wits about them? I'm sick of flowers! This happens every year to me in November just when the garden is all done and the flower markets are really sucking - unless you happen to live in Portland Oregon and are one of the lucky luckies that's been to Kings Mums and posted practically pornographic images of chrysanthamums all over instagram. Jealous!!! Currently trending: mums, pressed juices, ignoring climate change and I'm sorry to say, still...flowercrowns. Discuss.

In my world the last month has been a blur of back and forth between the city and the farm, but I'm glad to report I'm sitting still for a while. Feeding the animals, wheelbarrowing something around, digging up dahlia tubers, picking ticks off the dogs, staring at my computer screen trying to write this little book I'm putting together.

At Saipua we're reorganizing again. It feels like a constant regrouping process there this year. What did I expect? The farm has really thrown a monkey wrench into things. I tend to take on too much, and then hold my work to the highest standards. And when it doesn't reach those standards I beat myself up like nobody's business. But the positive side of this is that we're always evolving, always keeping ourselves away from the dangerous, murky shores of stagnation.

You can always do something better. It can always be better next time. One constant struggle I have: it's never good enough. Which is the saddest part of me, and I'm figuring out how to work with that. Though mindfulness and meditation. (Also trending.)

 I want to tell you something helpful or give you something useful with this post. Yesterday I was talking with new friends about business. They are just starting out, and I felt the same excitement for them that I've felt over the years at Saipua at our different junctures. As I've been thinking about how to move Saipua forward, I have been thinking about what's worked for me as a business owner - one with no business training.

 First, I think diversity is key. Creating a business that has lots of different facets. Having different modalities for doing business allows for more growth, more ideas, more ways of making money. The different pieces feed off each other. And when one thing fails or slows down, you have the safety net of another. For us this has been selling soap, making weddings, teaching classes, now growing flowers. So when we slow down in the winter with weddings, we can rely on holiday sales of soap and candles. I see farms do this a lot; and they have to...it's never a good year for every crop. The more varied your crops, the more likely you are to have a profitable year, or at least get by.

 I also think good people make for good business. This one is trickier to explain, but I believe in this more than the diversity thing. In a world blown open by the internet, friendships happen so fast. Networking happens at lightning speed. Some of these relationships are great, and some are like junk bonds. Taking time to foster true relationships with people ends up benefiting your business. You ever meet someone and you can just tell they want to land you as a friend and then keep on climbing? Shake em off! Before they get to be a fat tick!!!

Reflecting on these photos from a big wedding we did in October, brings me always back to a familiar place which is how lucky I feel to have some many great people to work with. Not everyone is perfect; not everyone is the best at everything. I get to know everyone's strengths and their weaknesses. And my own too. And then I try to put us all together and make the most amazing, elegant machine. The perfect beast, big enough to defeat all my disappointments.
That monster moves forward without fear of what's coming.

September wedding