“It turns out that the common soil bacterium M. vaccae acts like an antidepressant, boosting the levels of happy hormones, serotonin and norepinephrine, in humans and other mammals . . . and because M. vaccae is everywhere in most healthy soil, every time you eat a piece of lettuce from your garden, you’re probably getting […]
“We’re built to walk. We’ve been wired by natural selection to absorb meaning from our days at the loose-limbed gait of three miles an hour. And whether we count ourselves cursed or lucky to be standing on the Earth at this frenetic moment in our history—I, for one, would choose no other time to be […]
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris “One of the advantages of being born in an affluent society is that if one has any intelligence at all, one will realize that having more and more won’t solve the problem, and happiness does not […]
It is always busy when Michael is on the quinta, although this time I’ve managed to twist his arm on more than one occasion to take it slower than usual. The most important project for this visit was to build a front porch, and as I bought the steel beforehand, he could immediately start with […]
“It is the silence between the notes that makes the music; it is the spaces between the bars that cages the tiger.”– Zen saying I lift the mug to my lips, inhaling as I do. The smell of coffee sends signals of joy to my brain long before the caffeine has a chance to enter […]
“Soils, like people, are transformed by the company they keep. They develop slowly, over time. Top soil, the upper, most productive layer of soil, takes over 500 years to form. That precious inch – and all remaining layers of soil – evolves in response to the climate, terrain and organisms with which it comes in […]
“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden A soft rain is falling this morning on the quinta. Midnight is curled up on the bed, while Lily restlessly dashes in and out the door getting wetter and wetter. I’m sitting on the couch writing while trying my best to […]
“The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour […]
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” -Benjamin Franklin Michael likes to get his hands dirty and be involved in almost every project on the quinta, but when he and Tim decided to clean one of our two wells on the last day before he left, I just shook my head and muttered under my breath […]
“When we eat good food, we smell and taste the earth, and thereby reconnect with it: that is what it means to eat with grace.” – Darra Goldstein I stood amazed this morning as I looked out over my veggie patch. The transformation from a piece of sloping earth into something filled with edibles brings […]
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