Happy 3rd Birthday Garden Gallivanter!!!

Three years ago tomorrow, I wrote my first blog entry and Garden Gallivanter was born. I wanted to post this today, since I’ve woken before the break of daylight to drive down the bumpy mountain road (yes, all by myself!) and catch the only bus from our darling mountain village to Nice to practice some yoga at a local studio; and now at a wine bar for un petit verre du vin rouge and fast Internet connection. Tomorrow we’ll be in Grasse at another marché, so I didn’t want to miss the chance to wish Garden Gallivanter a Happy 3^rd Birthday!

I remember having had this idea I’d been itching to scratch, to create a space where I could reflect on my then new gardening adventures. I wanted to create a portfolio of my work, to map out all the places I was going to make better, more beautiful, and maybe even inspire others out there along the way, to garden, cook, travel, to try something new. I didn’t know where it would take me or where I would take it, but after 3 years, I’d say we’ve covered some good ground.

This Garden Gallivanter has enriched the soil and unearthed a passion for teaching kids how to grow food and community in the inner city, seeing another side of Los Angeles she had never known. This was where it all started.

Meanwhile, she created a garden in the backyard of a new house for the one closest to her heart, her mom. Through that project, she found peace with a new meaning of home, understanding that now it just meant two houses to call home instead of one.

Then she followed her heart to Montana and saw for herself what “amber waves of grain” meant, those words she had sung so many times during Elementary school. And there she learned what hard work really was and how a family farm looked like. There she dodged mosquitoes in the torrid heat of July while harvesting peppers and tomatoes. There she harvested, packaged and delivered organic produce to people and markets, driving through Big Sky country. There she saw how magnificent heritage turkeys look like with their red and blue colors. There she felt what tired really felt like and raced against unexpected rain showers, harvesting as many onions as possible into a rusty wheel barrow before the first drops hit her forehead, and when they did, running full speed to the barn, the wheel barrow bumping along, where she braided the onions to hang and dry.

It was a glorious summer, but LA called her home. So she returned and landed an unimaginable gig as the Edible School Yard GardenTeacher at Larchmont Charter School. She felt like she’d been working to get someplace like this. There she cultivated many hearts and taught some incredibly phenomenal kids and their families how to love and respect the garden and all the food it gives us. And they taught her more about all of the above and more, yes more. There she revitalized a Garden Program and discovered pure joy.  There she dug for rollie pollies and watched the metamorphosis of Monarch butterflies with her gardeners. There she felt valued and loved for not only her work, but her essence of being. There she found her calling and discovered that doing what you love and paying the bills with it is actually possible.

All the while teaching the importance of composting, lady bugs and selling Meyer lemons at the Garden Stand with her kiddos, this Garden Gallivanter discovered an amazing group of other gardeners and studied alongside her fellow comrades to become an LA Master Gardener.  Over summer, she got to go up to Berkeley to the Edible Schoolyard Academy, see the first Edible Schoolyard, say hi to Alice Waters again and meet some even more awesome Gardeners and Educators from all over the world.

After two amazing years of being Ms. Tiffanie Tangerine, a new wind swept up this Garden Gallivanter and took her to France. There she wwoofed, tasted raw lavender honey straight from the hive, under her bee suit, amongst a sea of lavender in Provence. Oh all the things she tasted: raw sheep's milk while herding sheep with Marie and Samuel, Nicolas' cheese on the daily, wild mushrooms sautéed with Sarriette, discomfort, yes, even the bitter taste of discomfort. In the French Alps she learned how to drive a manual 4X4 truck up the mountain and down the mountain; how to catch the bus; how to sleep in cars, on floors, under trees, in J9s, along the coast, the highway, on a mountain top. There she discovered a different kind of love, of struggle, of missing home, of the tears you can only cry when lifting a really heavy bee hive, wet, cold, your fingers almost breaking off, your feet slipping on the gravel, under the pouring rain and thunder…of the gratitude you can only feel when taking a hot shower after 10 days on the road, of learning how to wait, of erasing old boundaries, drawing new ones, re-drawing erased ones, of learning to be without so much and still being….

Santé to all the adventures had, all of them, the ugly and beautiful, to all the wonderful people along the way, who have shaped this blog and my soon to be 27 years of life right on Thanksgiving next Thursday, by the way ;) and to those of you on the other side of this computer screen, reading and ready to catch the next wind with me. Thank you for being there.

*Photo by Tiffanie Ma