I gave my love a ukulele

Martyn and I never, or rarely, buy gifts for each other. His first gift to me before we were married was a perfectly intact dragonfly, which I was over the moon for-a match made in heaven said his family if she likes dead insects instead of jewelry. But with our move to Maine, one thing I wanted to bring into our lives, especially as we age, our new lessons and skills. We had talked a year ago about getting ukes, but never did. So for our anniversary, I surprised him with two ukuleles-and I am so bad at keeping surprises but I managed to pull it off.  We are trying to practice an hour each night. The first song we are learning is "Always Look on the Sunny Side of Life".

Thirteen years ago I married Martyn. It is a day that was a turning point in my life, of course, my first and only marriage. You might know the story,  I was 45 and had left Minneapolis with a broken heart and wobbly but re-emerging healthy ego,  to move to Oregon without knowing anyone except my brother. I took flight after feeling called to the West, leaving my parents behind - a hard decision- and many friends I still love and care about. I found a wonderful bungalow in a village and the I planned to live there forever, it felt that right to me. The day I was moving in, there was a knock at the door. Those of you who know me well know that I am not a fan of pop-ins, at all, even Neil Young popping in might irritate me. But that day, I remember I was thinking,

Who is coming here when there is a moving van in the driveway? Don't they know I'm crazy busy and tired and look like crap {looking back, I looked pretty good, now that I'm 13 years older I can say that.}

A man put his hand out and shook mine, and said,

"Martyn Dunn. I had to come meet you, I heard you had the same last name."

Word travels fast around here, I thought.

My slight irritation from a pop-in turned to a warm feeling, a safe feeling. I remember thinking that I was really glad he was my next door neighbor. He wasn't a hipster or arty or anything, but he had this kind face and smile-I am sure if you read this blog you have seen it and would agree with that assessment. Embarrassingly [at the time] I also remember knowing I would be with him at some point. I didn't tell anyone though. not a soul.

A year later, we married, in the garden we built together at my house. There was other stuff in between there that brought us to our union [garish pitch-you can read it all in the illustrated memoir of our courtship Donkey Dream]. I have thought many times, I think if I'd met him in my twenties I might have walked on, I don't know though. I'm glad we met later in life because I was ready for kind not cool, honest not showy, authentic not excitement. But to say our life has not been exciting is the opposite of the truth. We went onto start a farm, raise 4000 lavender plants, fence an empire, raise sheep and care for old, crippled barn animals. We built a lot of stuff. We fixed a lot of fence. We cooked our own meat and vegetables and grew into our life in Oregon on the farm. The farm there and all that came with it created what we were best at-envisioning something together, expanding on it and jumping in building it. And now we are here in Maine, at 58, rebuilding another farm, another version of Apifera. I would not be doing it without him. After living as a usually content and full of life single woman, always living alone until I married, I wonder now if I would be happy again if Martyn died. A horrible thought. I don't want to think of a world without him.As one old timer said, after his wife of 60 years died, and he was still actively creating at 90, he sad, "The fun has gone out of it all, but I go on."

It's been said before by many-marry a good friend and I will second and third that. I rarely say when making introductions, "this is my husband," I tend to say, "This is Martyn," because that is who he is to me-Martyn.

He makes me laugh. Laughter is more important than anything. Commitment on top of that and an understanding that I am me and he has to be him makes a perfect pair. I never had it before, and I can't imagine ever having it with anyone else.

I don't believe in luck. I think we were brought together, after we both had other relationships to be part of and learn from. I wasn't ready for marriage even in my late thirties, I can say that clearly to you. I'm so blessed no-one married me!  I've learned so much about myself through my marriage-relationship are teachers-and I know he has learned a lot too and in many ways I've seen him blossom through our time together. I know I have added to his world, and vice versa.

Dirt Farmer and Farmess

Nine years ago I married Martyn. How would we know what lied in store for us?

Every day I ask the sky to bring him home safely. I still love hearing the sound of his car coming up the gravel road. He is truly the most gentle person I know.

I am soaking it all up. All around me I see people that lose their mates, sometimes suddenly. It is not something I dwell on, but I have always lived my recent years with the understanding that nature is Queen, not me, and my time or his is out of my control. Perhaps this is why the world and life touche me so profoundly and I am hyper sensitive to both joy and sadness - because I see death entwined with life.

Living on the farm has meant we spend a lot of time together, working towards goals, learning, laughing, crying over animal graves, watching trees grow from seedlings to fruit bearers, helping an old barn, growing our own food and eating pies of love.

While Apifera has sprung from my internal rumblings, and it truly found me as much as I found her, it would not be the same without The Dirt Farmer. It might simply fall down.

To all those who haven't found a mate and yearn for one, or who have lost a mate and are lonely, remember the story of a broken heart who had lost her wings, but she grew them back and landed in front of a little house far from her homeland. And then there was a knock at her door.

Open love letter to a dirt farmer

The Dirt Farmer doesn't read my blog which gives me an enormous amount of latitude to share the inner sanctum of my love for him...or pictures of him in odd farm like poses.

As I looked out over the small sea of people at Pie Day I could hear 'Yummm" as they tasted my pie and when more than one person at a time would "Yum", it resonated in some kind of spiritual farm orchestra with the bees humming in the nearby gardens.

My Dirt Farmer was busy rushing about as I was on Pie Day and we really never came together because our roles were to host...and guide small fingers holding carrots. As I caught glimpses of him through out the day, standing next to the many structures he has built for our farm, including the Donkey Hug area and many outside "rooms', I'd get one of those "Yum-Bee-Buzz" resonances in my heart.

When the guests had all left, someone caught this picture of two middle aged dirt farmers wearing carefully selected hats sitting exactly where they belong.

Love note to the Dirt Farmer

I think the thing about mid life, or once you pass into that part of your life you view as some kind of internal marker of 'mid', is that time goes very fast. I don't remember life as going fast from age 1-20, or from 20-40. But I find myself saying more and more, "That seems like yesterday."

Such is the case as I write this post. Seven years ago I married Martyn, and it seems like moments ago. My name when I woke up that morning was Miss Dunn, and later that day, I became Mrs. Dunn. For those of you who don't know the story, I moved to Portland in 2003, after spending more than a year with my drapes drawn in my old homeland of Minneapolis. I had been suffering from the worst kind of broken heart, the kind that lingers, and leaves a visible dent in one's heart area, and sort of takes your dreams and shifts them around until you start doubting what those dreams were.

I bought a sweet little cottage in Portland, and the very day I moved in, a man knocked on my door. "Hello, I'm Martyn Dunn, and I heard you had the same last name as I did, so I just had to introduce myself."

Yes, we had the same last name, and now instead of having just two Mr. Dunn's in my life, my father and brother, I had many Mr. Dunns - my husband to be and his many brothers and his father. I knew immediately this was a good thing, to have this particular Mr. Dunn right next door, and I did know I'd marry him. I didn't tell anyone, not anyone. And if I had, they all would have rolled their eyes.

Many of you know the rest of the story. He climbed his cherry tree in a heat wave and brought me his harvest, while I sat suffering, my fair Irish skin wilted even in the shade of my bamboo grove. I thought it odd that he'd be up in a tree in a heat wave, but when he brought me his bounty, just like a male cardinal fetching food for his bird, I internally had an epiphany - that this was a worthy mate. The next day I baked him a cherry pie from his harvest and that too led to an epiphany- that if I was baking in a heat wave, this must be love. And it was.

I don't believe that there is just one person out there for each of us, but I do believe we are given opportunities to connect with optimal relationships that change our lives. Each day is full of tiny choices, that can change our paths- and while all these paths teach us, engage us, challenge us....some paths help us reach what I call a "place of sense".

And meeting Martyn has helped me get to this place called Apifera, this 'place of sense'.

I will never forgot the wonder of this story, or how so many things had to line up for us to meet. Like the fact there was already a buyer for the house in Portland, but I insisted I had to have that house, and the details were ironed out so it became mine. Or the fact that when I bought the house in Portland, I gave up on ever having a small farm, which had been my life long dream. I figured this little Portland house was perfect, and my dream of owning a farm just wasn't meant to be and wasn't logical. But we all know that dream was just waiting to present itself in a proper manner. Don't forgt your dreams, don't let them down by abandonning them.

So, seven years have passed. And the pictures here show us before Apifera exisited. How can that be - no Apifera? I can't imagine it now. I can't imagine life without Martyn. When he married me, he had no idea he'd become a Dirt Farmer, or be surrounded by a semi feral cat colony, and senior short goats....and donkeys who share fresh apple pie.
He allows me to be very independent, and I need that. I need to be the child of wonder, in my barn, communing on my own in nature just as I did as a girl. I need space and time to think, and breathe into the neck of my horse. It fills me up to make art, and write and create.

But we come together at night, we still like to be together. I still anticipate his car coming up the gravel road. There is no seven year itch here, except for the hay stems that have crept into my shirt.

He is the most patient person I have ever met in my entire life, and I am the most impatient. He tolerates the gas emmissions of my little pug, and drove in a snowstorm to help me pick up a senior pygmy goat. He understands that when Neil Young is singing, he is not to interupt with idle chatter. I really do make him pies, and he really does help build me things that I concoct in my head- like double dutch doors that lead to donkey hug area.

My old Aunt Emily wrote in her wedding note to us that we only needed three things to succeed in a long life together- bread, love and laughter. We have it all, plus fresh eggs, donkey brays, dog and cat hair on everything, and a river front to fish in.

More fashion from the Dirt Farmer

If you are a reader of this blog you know my right hand man, my side-kick in fencing work, the chef of Apifera, the one who follows with hammer and tool belt, is also a fashionista in his own right. It can not be duplicated, so don't try. One must actually be Martyn to pull these outfits off.

Yesterday the Dirt farmer came out to have a coffee break and I noticed the rip in his pants at the knee was being held together by many safety pins. He carried it off with such grace, I felt it deserved a mention.

And for the record, I do not stage these fashion encounters with my husband. As we say in our house, "I dressed my own self today!"

Pie Love: Raggedy lattice tops

I made the Dirt Farmer an apple pie last night, complete with my raggedy lattice top, and onlookers. A 'raggedy lattice top? What's this?" you ask.

Well, I once tried to make a perfect lattice top, like the ones in glossy magazines. After some time trying to master the perfect lattice top technique, I rolled the dough up into a ball, and calmly, but firmly pronounced to all who could hear, the dogs and one cat wandering by the kitchen window, "I do not make perfect lattice tops."

Instead, I mastered what many can't, "raggedy lattice tops". I realized upon making my first lattice top how it looked somewhat like my braids, a bit messy, with little wisps sticking out here and there. But both my braids and lattice work have a nice energy, lacking any bit of arrogance. Martyn loves my lattice tops for their spontaneity, and because they allow the earth's juices to bubble out of the crevices.

So anytime the Dirt Farmer does anything extra heroic, or really grand, like building me a double Dutch door for my Donkey Hug Area, I reciprocate with a raggedy lattice top pie.

You

I am overwhelmed by the many emails and comments I've been receiving from so many people about the new Apifera Farm site. I wish I could post all of them, some just made me so...humbled. There seems to be a recurring theme in comments of "Your art or writing makes me cry." I don't take this as an insult. To be honest, I can cry when I look or read at some of my work. I like to think I balance out the intensity with humor - through my many muses, and my own inner muse that can be a rascal.

I live like the hairs on my arms - when I sense anything, something innate in me stands at attention. I guess it's nice to be able to stimulate other's through words, or art. Anyway, thank you to my readers, followers and friends, some who remain cloaked, but that's okay.

"What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." Ralph Waldo Emerson

He brought me cherries, I made him pie

I've been working on finalizing the new Apifera Farm website. After 5 years, the farm has evolved, as has my work. It's time to have a site that not only is better designed, but also is closer to what Apifera is - a farm, but also a place born from the love story of two people. And there's pie involved.

The love story is still evolving, and as I worked on the new site, I thought about how my soul is exercised when I bake for Martyn, and how my heart is caressed when he cooks my meals. As I type, he's in the kitchen, stuffing a farm raised chicken, with our land's herbs and spices. My senses are delighted. I feel loved on many levels, but when he brings me a plate of his cooking, I'm nourished, which is one of the many benefits of real love. Putting the farm site together, I realize this is a side of Apifera I want to write more about.

So visit the new site, and get a tiny glimpse into our beginnings. I'm being beckoned now, it is time to sit by the fire with the dirt farmer.