tillage

some times a day's work is really good. 

sometimes there's a tour of rolling oak wonderlands, with coyotes and red eagles by someone who feels every inch of the land in his bones. a man who will haul ass up a rocky steep hill in his huge pick-up barely looking at the road and then screech to a halt to point out a baby oak that might just beat the odds of oak regeneration.

Then you happen upon soil  untouched for over 20 years. and that magic crust is tilled before your very eyes. you are in the company of soil scientists. this kind of tilled soil is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread for them. this soil is a time capsule. a sequester of carbon. an ancient text to translate. They hatch a plan to come back out the very next day to poke and prod and sample and stand in awe for all the information only they can read from these big chunks of hard soil. 

I did some long awaited tilling with my own hands this weekend--beginning again feels good. a garden that follows fall into winter is slow going, but so rewarding.
 

my bountiful box of dreams. strawberry runners, arugula and broccoli starts all from a sliver of a nursery in Noe Valley. seeds of fava, baby gem lettuces, and tatsoi.

before

after. half the plot done, half to go...