at home in tallahassee

when i left new orleans a little over a week before, i didn't think i would be coming through tallahassee. but i ended up spending five days in the small capitol city of florida. it has been a time of rest and recuperation, cooking and working on little sewing projects. as i am away from home longer and longer i seem to seek out and relish these opportunities to be at home in a place.

some places i make myself TOO at home. such ended up being the case with my first hosts in tallahassee. i felt like i was starting off on the wrong foot when i showed up near midnight thursday. our first day together was wonderful though, when i helped my hosts out at their full earth farm. i was super excited about them as farmers who are also into fermented foods such as sauerkraut! they had more than two gallons total of various lactofermented food in the fridge. when i found out a rye sourdough starter is also kept in their house AND they have a grain mill for grinding the flour fresh, i was all over making a batch of bread! my excitement led to overzealous use of the kitchen, which was part of the discomfort that arose between my hosts and i. the meals we shared i cooked and i ended up making a second batch of bread at the end of my stay with them. i just basically overdid it and was not sensitive enough to their need for space and their limit of what they were willing to give. i bought groceries that i thought made up for what i'd used, but they did not feel it did. major bummer. it has been a big learning experience for me.

i try to write mainly about my positive experiences, but i do have these challenging, negative experiences along the way as well. this is where i am growing most and hopefully by the time i get home i will have many things worked out so i can be a more effective member of cooperative community.

speaking of community! katie and aaron know the weston price foundation chapter leader in tallahassee! she was willing to have me over for a visit and helped me out big time by providing me with a quart of chicken stock and vegetables to make a hearty soup! i gave her a pint of sauerkraut and returned later with a loaf of bread. this felt like a really good exchange to me. real neighborly.

on friday night i went out at the recommendation of katie and aaron to 'first friday', where i mostly felt awkward and ineffective in my mission of selling bracelets, busking, and making connections with people. i did see many individuals with hula hoops! young, hip girls were walking around with them as accessories... i'd never seen this before. i talked to a couple of them and had really good interactions.
at the end of the night i ran into the cyclist friends of my hosts who they thought i should meet, justin and merina, who were with a couple cycle tourists. these guys also have beards and are from the NW! they are "circumnavigating the united states by bicycle". good idea. check out their blog if you like.

the folks i was hooked up with through katie and aaron to stay with after them were paul and rebecca. they are part of the emerging permaculture community of tallahassee. in september they established the first permaculture design company, edible landscapes, and recently finished their first project! they were very kind to let me camp in their huge yard and share their house for three nights. i cooked and cleaned for them too, but we communicated a lot more about this than i did with my previous hosts. i just helped out a little bit in the garden one morning, though i would have liked to do more. they are still in the initial stages and envisioning a lot more than installing.

paul shared some ideas of people and places to check out along my route up the eastern U.S. this was very helpful and may lead to some important experiences for me.

a couple mornings while meditating in the living room i enjoyed hearing paul exchange greetings with folks passing by on the street. this is a hopeful sign that this neighborhood can come together and thrive! my hosts are involved in various efforts to nurture healthy connections with people and the earth in their community, including a community garden that will be built on three currently vacant lots. they will be involved in design and perhaps also implementation.

another majorly important part of the positive experience i had in tallahassee was bicycle house, where i went for my first time on tuesday to try to solve a mysterious issue with my drivetrain. it was a little irritating grittyness that i could mostly feel when in the middle gear on my five-speed freewheel. it turned out to be a sticky pully, due to grit and lack of lubrication. it had been bothering me since biloxi beach and i was SO relieved to figure it out!(i later, in roanoke, discover the problem was a worn out chain)
the following two days i returned to the shop to hang out and help however i could. i overhauled a headset, patched a tube and adjusted brakes... helped move bikes out front at opening. they just got a huge delivery of bikes that had been abandoned at the university. sad business, but they are going to do some loving, healing work, with many volunteer hours, and get these bikes running to encourage commuting by bicycle!
one reason this is one of my favorite shops ever is that it feels like a cafe in the shop area, with a big, wooden bar and stools. there is a kitchen and place to hang out in back. their grand vision for when they expand includes a cafe and hostel. please support them if you come through tallahassee!
the last things i did there were to eat lunch (sourdough bread with hummus, raw goat cheddar, and yogurt cheese), write this blog post, and get my picture taken for their tourist page. then scott, the 'father' of bicycle house, rode with me to show me a nice way out of tallahassee towards montecello.

fully packed. dig those reflective sidewalls!

everyone notices the butt patches.

this is the helmet i decided to adopt.

below is a picture of a nice dinner paul, rebecca, and i shared. you see greens with parsnip, sweet potato sheppard's pie with local, grassfed beef, and sourdough bread topped with yogurt cheese. it is in the bowl that i made from a section of gourd at winter count.