Costa Rica is where American school buses come to die. Or, more specifically, they come to the town of Puriscal. About five months ago, I boarded one of these ancient yellow Bluebirds. Knowing little to no Spanish at that point (I did start picking it up later), I was lucky to have found a young … Continue reading
When I left Minnesota in January for Costa Rica, I wasn’t completely sure what I would find. I will credit my time at Quail Springs Permaculture last year as the catalyst for the kind of trip I crafted, but I chose my ingredients carefully: Country? One without a standing army that seemed to hold the … Continue reading
It’s always the cities I find myself stopping in accidentally, on the way to another destination, that cast a certain kind of spell over me. Perhaps it’s because they’re the ones for which I hold the least preconceived notions. This is how it was with Barcelona, and so it was again a week ago with San … Continue reading
It’s been a little over a month since my return from Quail Springs, and I can feel the experience slipping further into the recesses of my memory. Going through pictures of the beautiful views and faces that surrounded us for those ten days, listening to recordings of songs we fell in love with (Andrew’s songs … Continue reading
During our time at Quail Springs, we weren’t going to be planting or harvesting, but Brenton still gave us a tour of the farm. He explained the benefits of small, polyculture plots cared for by people versus giant, monoculture plots run by machines (“You can stop by and weed a few plants on your way … Continue reading
Imagine you’re building your own home – and anything goes. Branches for hangers, wrenches for hooks. Colored glass bottles for windows. Trees rising from the clay ground to the straw ceiling. And the smooth, speckled walls of your earthen home harnessing the California sun’s warm glow. All you need is a small, one-room house – for … Continue reading
Our first full day at Quail Springs was an adventurous 7-hour hike up the watershed, led by community member Brenton, who had also kindly picked us up from the Bakersfield airport the day before and driven us on a 1.5-hour trip back to Quail Springs, filling the time with facts about the fields of orange … Continue reading
I spent ten days of the first month of 2014 in a place called Quail Springs. ~ ~ Quail Springs is nestled in the watershed of Mt. Pinos and Mt. Abel, occupying 450 acres of the Pinyon-Juniper woodlands of the upper Cuyama Valley, California – land that has been sacred to the native Chumash people for … Continue reading
“That was the end of the first part of Paris. Paris was never to be the same again although it was always Paris and you changed as it changed.” –Hemingway I’m still saying goodbye to Paris. Sappiness and nostalgia aside, there isn’t a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about it, or been … Continue reading
Paris after traveling felt completely different somehow. My mentality prior to leaving had been something like this: Paris has everything, so why would I ever want to leave? But after seeing Spain and Morocco, Paris just didn’t quite measure up anymore. It’s not that Paris was bad, necessarily – it’s just that it no longer … Continue reading
making ⟷ meaning 