Beeloved Farm.

With all the traveling and running around I've been doing lately, it's easy to become overheated. There might be times when you feel spasmodic, but not in a productive way, more of a frantic way. You might feel agitated by every noise that's man made. Today was definitely one of those days.

I escaped to a farm 45 minutes east of Sacramento, in a town called Shingle Springs. Off the main road, I drove along a bumpy road, the tread of the tires quickly becoming bare. It wasn't until I was greeted by a calm black Labrador with an old soul at the wrought iron fence, pulled a sunbathed plum off a tree and ate it...that I felt...relaxed.

Beeloved Farms is not a big farm, but they do raise rabbits, heritage turkeys, ducks and chickens for meat. There's a modest garden, bee hives for honey, several cows and a week old calf (that I got to feed). The owners Kelly - who will be teaching this fall at a nearby college because of her recent wrist injury -and her husband Bill, a contractor turned farmer to help out Kelly, are amazing. Advocates for the consumption of raw milk and various other radical ideas that go against the practical ideals of society, are energetic and calm. Bill's easygoing demeanor reserves conversation like a starving lost trekker conserves energy. The words are far and few, but profound and soft spoken. That made this city slicker nervous, with my constant sarcastic chatter and relentless need for witty dialogue. I learned to just shut the fuck up.

I couldn't imagine myself living this far away from the city when Kelly invited me to become the farm's ranch hand. But, after sitting on the porch of the cedar shingled house Bill built for he and Kelly, drinking beers and sharing very few words. There are no neighbors. Just quiet, with the occasional sound of the windchime as the background music. A moo. A quack.

I think I could easily get used to the lifestyle of content laborious tasks and silence. Oh, and good beer.