We are pleased to introduce…

L to R: Coe + Kyle – the new residents of apt 730-2 effective November 1st.

Kyle + Coe

 

Greg & Carolyn; the new residents of apt 726-a effective October 1st.

blink of an eye

all of the sudden, the franklin farm will have two openings october 1st.  we are sad to see joy go (but she’s been introduced to an amazing deal on a house) and sad as well to see erik and heather and israel go (but they have unforeseen circumstances forcing their change-damned michigan economy anyway!).  maybe it would be easier to see them go if we didn’t get along or some other sort of upheaval, but it’s hard to let them go when we still LIKE them. and we would rather keep living with them, for sure. blast.  isn’t that how life goes.

meanwhile, we must move on.  the franklin farm needs some “farmers” again.

take a look at 726-a, a large 3 bedroom with (non-working but good for candle collection) fireplace in the dining room.

and 730 -2, cozy upstairs 2 bedroom apartment with the possibility of being able to finish the attic for more space if you’d like.

if you think this would be a good fit for you, or someone you know, let us know!

a little more about us in the “what’s this” page, in case you’re wondering.

take your pick

(scoots soapbox into position.)

i met someone the other day who had just moved to grand rapids and had to find a place to live, not knowing anything about the city.  she’s moving here from detroit, on the other side of the state.  as she told us her tale of finding an apartment, she mentioned she had “found a lot of streets i didn’t really want to be on,” and went on to describe her nervousnous, and on…

finally, i had to interrupt her.  ”umm, i’m sorry, but i really don’t think we have any streets that are dangerous like that in grand rapids.”  and then to lighten the mood, i added, “didn’t you say you’re from Detroit?”

detroit, even, if you ask me doesn’t have anywhere you’d need to be afraid to Drive through.  During the Day.  But detroit is notoriously rough, and run down, so it seems strange that someone from a city with a “real” ghetto would be afraid of the lame version we have here.

everyone chuckled at that quip, i had succeeded in lightening the mood.

but then it got dampered again by the response:

“well yes, but i live in the northern  suburbs.  i Don’t go Down to the City.” you could tell just talking about the place made her nervous.

now here’s the thing.  there are no blatantly dangerous places here in my fair city.  usually, contrary to this story, folks who visit from large cities ask me where our ghettos are, tell me we don’t have a “bad part of town.”  and it’s true.  as a friend has quipped my neighborhood, it’s just “ghetto lite.”  there is no cue that tells you there is danger lurking, that you should have fear driving down a street in broad daylight. nothing.

unless, of course, either poverty or color makes you nervous.  unless you don’t want to get too close to the poor or the black or hispanic.  in which case, we have a conclusion we are forced too.  we have either classism or racism going on here.  it’s one of them, i wanted to tell her, which would you like to claim as the reason for your fear:  classism, or racism?

take your pick.

food off the farm.

 

foraged juneberries and mulberries, ready for freezing.

a few of us went foraging for berries yesterday.

i wax eternal here:

http://bechiri.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/foraging-adventures/

sun.day.

the franklin farm is now officially full.  not just the garden (which is mostly full but still mostly looks empty) but also the apartments.

 

steve huss and kellie kalish have moved into 726-2 after we picked out colors and put some life into their apartment.  this apartment used to be two one-bedroom apartments which makes for an awkward arrangement.  unless you want two separate-feeling spaces, then it works great.  we hope they will be happy there and we definitely are happy to have them join us!

 

steve bakker is back from the spain, where he was wwoofing for two months. it was so nice to have him join us in the garden yesterday!

 

and the fruit trees and berry bushes we ordered are now in the ground, most of them looking like sticks but we are anxious to see new life sprout from them.  in the front yard we have:

paw paw trees

black and red currants

mahonia (berry)

red-flowering quince

manchurian apricot

 

in the back yard we have:

fig

aronia (another berry)

bush cherries

and lilac bushes, which no aren’t food but i (holly) have always had a big crush on them so there they are.

 

it’s so satisfying to see it all coming together!

lists of progress

sneak peak.

into the garden yesterday:

carrots, parsnips, red onions, white onions, garlic, kohlrabi, cabbage, shallots, more tomatoes, pumpkin, squash, cantaloupe, daylilies.

 

came in a big green bag in the mail today:

aronia, bush cherry(2), red currant (3), consort black currant, fig (2), paw paw, mahonia (also termed grapeholly), red flowering quince (2), manchurian apricot (2), concord, catawba, niagara.

 

ration of filled to available back yard garden plots:

7 out of 8!

(the front yard:  also full.  the side yard of 730:  prepped and ready for mushrooms, nearly.  the “parking spaces:” housing mulch, topsoil, wood and branches, and filled with growing things in nearly every other space.)

 

 

 

 

i started to put in a list of things that still need to be done, but this today is a celebration of progress.  future needs and goals and dreams can wait.  now we celebrate movement forward.

how does your garden grow?

 

there's not enough of this in the garden. yet.

 

 

i’m about to head out to the garden to plant a whole slew of tomato plants and other wonderfulness, but before i do that i wanted to give you an update:  we have our last farmers chosen and they have their colors for the apartment chosen, and we are just so blessed we can’t hardly stand it.

and: we’ve been making progress on the garden.  a lot of progress:

 

loading the jimmyrig with "by-products" from the one tenth of a cow we own at green pastures

"till and turd" party in progress.

 

massi reports that tilling is Lots harder than sanding hardwood floors. (note the giant pile of junk trees we cut down from between the houses)

 

a whole heck of a lot of work happened between that last photo and this one.

 

i could go on with the photos... but i'll leave you with this: a tomato "wall," a cucumber grid, and pea guiders. i'll have to do a 2nd shot of this in, say, august.

so i’ll share more soon, and hopefully get some other farmers to join me in posting about what we’re up to around here.

until then, we’ll keep building our haven where we find ourselves,

holly

available!

 

walking down the hallway

franklin farm’s last apartment to be finished is …well…as finished as it can get before we find the right folks!

 

we decided to leave the walls primed but not painted, so our new tenants could decide on colors to paint the walls (with restrictions like no black or bright purple or fluroescent green, of course), but it’s ready.  do you know someone who would be interested in joining us?  a family, a couple, individual people looking for other individual folks looking for community?

 

one of two bathrooms

 

small office off the front bedroom

 

living room leading into kitchen

kitchen.

here’s what we look like

 

red dining room walls for conversation

 

a quiet corner to work on my book

while we are putting the finishing touches on our last of 4 apartments, and looking for folks to join the franklin farm, i thought i’d give you a window into what the rest of it looks like.  our home, 730 apt 1, where massi and i (holly) live, is strangely void of photographic documentation.   i have not been good at documenting the process and in fact don’t seem to take good pictures of my own home, add to that a loss of many photos from a computer crash, and there’s not much i can share with you.  

next week i’ll have photos of that last apartment, and maybe while i’m at it i will take take some more pictures of our own house so you can see where we live, too.

just a window into our little community….

 

tomatoes ripening in our kitchen, looking at 726

photos 726 apt a

before steve and joy moved in to the house next door, this is what this 3 bedroom apartment looked like:

 

living room looking into dining room

 

dining room fireplace

 

dining room looking into living room

 

bedroom 1 with crazy built-in drawers

 

kitchen

 

bedroom 3