I just love this poem/story written by my favorite farmer Tara Smith from Tara Firma Farms.

Thanks Tara for your inspiring newsletter this week (and all that you do)!

Happy Holidays!

To all the Parents, Aunts, Uncles, Sisters and Brothers…What to get for Christmas…

Twas the night before Christmas

And all across the Farm

Not a creature was stirring

All quiet in the Barn

The children were nestled

Scattered about the house (four sons – 21, 22, 23, 14, a girl that is supposedly just a friend and another kid from who knows where)

My husband I were sleeping (hiding)

I awoke to a SNAP…one less mouse (peanut butter in the trap works really well)

Staring at the ceiling

Feeling the dread

Knowing I would soon

Be getting out of bed

Wrapping the presents

And filling the socks

Wondering if they would think it funny

If they were filled with Rocks

We don’t need any thing

We don’t need more stuff

We don’t need to waste

It’s all useless fluff

The packaging and paper

Our landfills are full

Our buying and buying

Needing more is just bull.

It’s never enough

All the junk, all the stuff

It doesn’t make us happy

Myself I rebuff

It’s not about stuff

It’s not about things

It’s not about toys or gas cards or rings

It’s not about spending

Time in the store

It’s not about giving out crap

Anymore.

It has to change

We have to wake up

We have to think long term

The “stuff” we have to give up

So I took out a pen

And paper to write

I made several renditions

Notes to my boys that night

I wrote of how proud

I am of them all

How we laugh together

They are really a ball

I wrote of their wins

And how they show character when they lose

I wrote of honesty

And lack of drug taking and little booze.

I tried to explain

How a mother does feel

To see her children

Engage in a way that is real.

In the wee morning hours

I drank coffee and cried

The paper was stained

And the tear stains shown as they dried.

With so little stuff

Under the tree

I worried they would wake

And be disappointed in me.

I watched as they gathered

Around the lit tree

Each taking out their letters

Reading silently.

I watched them tear up

As the heart embraces

The emotion it feels

It showed in their faces

The love of a parent

So simple to give

It lasts forever

Any stuff it will outlive.

It takes only time

And a paper and pen

Give them a gift

They will remember when…and always…
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Your Farmer, Tara Smith

P.S. If you add a little cash to the envelope they’re really like it. (added by  @Sally_K) I want to be Tara when I grow up.

Marin Mommies has created a great list of Easter egg hunts in Marin and the North Bay.

Check out this list for some hopping family fun in 2011!

http://www.marinmommies.com/marin-county-easter-egg-hunts

And here is some Easter fun for the adults!

This comic makes me laugh every year.

Funny thing about this blog… the post that drives the most traffic to my blog is the one I wrote about “affordable haircuts in Marin”. I guess with everything being SO expensive here in Marin people are on the lookout for something affordable. The hair salon has changed names since I wrote the post about cheap haircuts in Marin, although it is still the same great people. Salon Carlos in San Rafael is now called Salon Mirsa. I went yesterday to get my usual $10 haircut.

I like to support local, independently owned businesses but I’m not one to spend big money on a haircut. I’ve also never been happy with haircuts from that big super chain haircut place.

I was happy to discover Salon Mirsa (thanks to Celia who introduced me to the place). Salon Mirsa is kind of unique for Marin County. It doesn’t exactly fit the Marin County stereotype. The main language spoken at Salon Mirsa is Spanish. That’s because Salon Mirsa is located in the heart of the Canal community of San Rafael where most of the residence are Hispanic. But don’t let the language get in your way! The stylists at Salon Mirsa are a very welcoming and friendly bunch. Just tell them you know Sally .

Salon Mirsa has top notch stylists. If you are on a budget and are looking for a great haircut for you or your kids try Salon Mirsa. Tip: all the stylist are great but I especially like Tere.

$10 for a haircut! I don’t think you’ll find a better deal in Marin County.

Pictured below (Mirsa, the owner – Tere, the stylist – Celia, the mountain biker who got her hair dyed blue).

If you are hungry after your haircut you can find some tasty Mexican food nearby at Picante on Bellam Blvd.  Or you can do a little grocery shopping and get a cultural experience all at the same time.

Hey, Marin you don’t have to go all the way to San Francisco to ice skate this holiday season!

“On Friday, December 3rd – for one magical, fun-filled night only – Tiburon Holiday Festival 2010 will feature an OUTDOOR ICE SKATING RINK for families, couples, ice skating enthusiasts, and everyone to delight! So grab your coziest scarf and hat and get ready for a once in a lifetime opportunity to ice skate along the shores of the San Francisco Bay with the most breathtaking backdrop of the twinkling, present-wrapped San Francisco skyline.

The evening’s festivities will include: the traditional Fountain Plaza Tree Lighting Ceremony with classic holiday carolers, costumed characters strolling along magical Main Street, wonderful holiday treats, yummy gingerbread house decorating, Winterland Snow Globe Making/Photo Shop for kids, and more! In addition, the town’s eclectic shops and tasty restaurants will be offering budget-worthy discounts and specials to while away the hours.

With spectacular views of the SF skyline, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, and Angel Island (plus ice skating too), only a Scrooge would dare miss this memorable San Francisco Bay Area holiday event!” – Shop Tiburon

More info here: http://shoptiburon.info/events/tiburon-holiday-festival-2010-featuring-outdoor-ice-skating/

A. R. Silverberry is actually the pen name for Peter Allan Adler. “His novel, Wyndano’s Cloak, delivers a message of encouragement for young people to believe in themselves and trust the treasures they carry inside.”

Peter grew up in Marin, and is a long-time resident of the Bay Area. A licensed psychologist since 1991, he works with children and families in Cupertino, and balances his clinical practice with writing. Wyndano’s Cloak is his first novel, and has captured five book awards. A sequel is in the works. Visit his website at www.arsilverberry.com.

Silverberry will be at Borders Books, San Rafael, on September 25th, 2–4 PM; and Borders Books, Santa Cruz on October 2nd, 2–4 PM. He will donate a portion of author profit to DrawBridge, a nonprofit that provides expressive art programs for homeless and other vulnerable children in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. He encourages donations directly to DrawBridge at www.drawbridge.org.

Did the Bay Area inspire your book?
Absolutely. I like to use real places as jumping off points for settings, and everything I needed for the kingdom of Aerdem was right here. I wrote the book while riding the Caltrain from Morgan Hill to Palo Alto. For inspiration, all I had to do was look out the window to see the farms, fields of mustard, and wildflowers painting the hillsides. The Bay Area is magical. Even as a child, I imagined all kinds of fairy folk lived on Tam or about the trails behind my house in Homestead.

Where is your favorite place to hike/bike in the Bay Area?
The Los Gatos Creek Trail is great for biking or walking. The trail runs right through Vasona Park, where there’s a lake. Sneak preview of the book, the setting for chapter 29 was inspired by Oak Meadow Park, which merges with Vasona Park. If you go there, you’ll see a carousel, and other places where I got ideas.

What is your favorite restaurant in the Bay Area?
Gardino’s in Los Gatos. I love the chicken pesto salad, and the chicken kabobs are to die for.

What is your favorite place to get coffee or tea?
Peet’s. I buy their Mocha Java for my home coffee.

What is your favorite place to shop for clothing?
Macy’s at the Stanford Mall, and Patrick James in Aptos.

If you had an out of town guest coming to visit that had never been to the Bay Area where would you take them?
Can you ask something easier! Muir Woods or Golden Gate Park, but they’d have to choose. For me, there’s nothing like those redwoods. I’m in awe every time I see them.

Favorite independent bookstore in the Bay Area?
Kepler’s in San Mateo. They do a wonderful job bringing children and books together, partner with the surrounding schools, and support nonprofits in their community.

Mill Valley is special. We have two Whole Foods within 1.2 miles of each other and we have two frozen yogurt places within two blocks of each other not to mention the one located downtown or the one in Strawberry Village. Off the top of my head I can think of four frozen yogurt places in Mill Valley (and Mill Valley is not a big city!) Funny thing is, only 13,000 people live in Mill Valley. I guess you could say Mill Valley really likes healthy food and frozen yogurt.

My favorite frozen yogurt place is Swirl. Swirl is one of the newer kids in the neighborhood but I love the self serve concept. The yogurt is sold by weight so you can eat as much or as little as you want and you can mix your yogurt and toppings as crazy as you’d like. For instance, I had a little of each of these toppings on top of my last yogurt: mango, strawberry, raspberries, chocolate chips, gummy bears and chocolate syrup. It’s like a salad bar of yogurt and toppings. (I know I should have totally taken a picture of my concoction but I was too busy eating it.)

Something else I love about Swirl is the atmosphere. It’s fun! Swirl is owned and operated by a local Mill Valley family. When the owner is there he walks around with his camera snapping pictures of all the happy frozen yogurt eaters. Those pictures get uploaded to the big screen TV so the next time you come in you can watch for your picture on the screen. I’m up there at least twice.

This frozen yogurt is great fun for everyone!

Mill Valley Swirl
417 Miller Avenue
Mill Valley, CA, 94941
415.388.2636

Hey Mill Valley what is your favorite yogurt place and why?
I know we’ve all been doing a lot of comparison tasting.

Please leave a comment below. Thanks!

The more I learn about the food industry the more I realize how important it is to get back to eating “real food”.

Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science. –Michael Pollen, In Defense of Food, An Eaters Manifesto

Leslie Citroen of Mill Valley is teaching the Bay Area how to get back to eating real food one chicken at a time.

Leslie and her children run Mill Valley Chickens. They sell chickens and teach classes on everything you need to know to keep your backyard flock happy and healthy.

I really enjoyed visiting with Leslie and her daughter Logan. Being in Leslie’s backyard with the chickens and talking with her adorable daughter about 4-H brought back a lot of memories. I grew up with chickens in my backyard and was a 4-H member! (Yes, we had chickens in Orange County.) I was impressed with 6 year old Logan’s knowledge and handling of the chickens.

Leslie has a multitude of different types of beautiful chickens. (I did say beautiful chickens – some of these chickens were beautiful!)

I saw chickens of all shapes and sizes. I even discovered a new chicken called a Naked Neck (see photo below). I learned these Naked Neck’s are popular among the boys… I think it is their almost Sci-fi creature like look. I have to admit when I first saw the Naked Neck I thought it was a hen that had been pecked by the others. I assumed she was at the bottom of the pecking order. Leslie seemed to have a weak spot in her heart for the Naked Necks, she talked fondly about how sweet they were.

The chickens are actually great animals for kids. As you can see, Logan was carrying the chickens all over the yard and they seemed perfectly content in her arms.

Since Leslie’s chickens are truly free range (pastoral) meaning they are free to roam around her yard they’ve started playing Easter Bunny. According to Leslie and Logan everyday is like an Easter Egg hunt. They find the eggs hidden behind trees, under bushes, in holes…

There are many benefits to having your own backyard chickens; here are a few:

• Fresh eggs.
• Chickens are easy enough to take care of that a 6 year old can manage it.
• Kids learn responsibility.
• Something fun for bored kids to do.
• Getting food from the source and avoiding the use of oil to ship the food to the grocery stores.
• Not supporting factory farmed chickens.

Even though I’ve focused on kids and chickens you do not have to be a kid or have a kid to reap the benefits of your own backyard chickens.

Fun facts about chickens:
Chickens lay more eggs when there is more sun light. You will get more eggs during the summer months.

You can determine egg color by the color of a chicken’s ears. ie. white ears equals white eggs, brown ears equals brown eggs.

When your chickens eat scraps and forage in your yard for bugs -eggs are far healthier and chock full of vitamins —  than commercial raised eggs.

Not so fun fact about chickens:
Factory farmed chickens are often stored is small cages where they can’t even move and the lights are left on 24 hours a day to encourage more egg laying. Besides the cruelty to the bird imagine what the stress does to the quality of the egg. I’m not going to go in to the gory details of our food industry… I’ll save that for another time and place.

Looking for something fun and unique to do this summer?
How about visiting Leslie and her family at Mill Valley Chickens? Just contact Leslie and set up a date a time. You can purchase your own backyard chicken and take one of her classes to learn all about taking care of your backyard chicken. The chickens run from $15 -$25 each. Chickens range in age from 3 weeks to 3 1/2 months so they are already past the critical chick stage and well on their way to be egg laying hens.

You can also purchase ready-made chicken coops from Leslie or arrange to have her build a custom one for you.

In addition to the chickens, I was very impressed with Leslie. She’s a licensed general contractor. It’s not every day that you meet a female licensed general contractor!

On top of taking care of the chickens, her business and her kids Leslie has a fantastic garden full of fruit, vegetables and flowers. I was lucky enough to be sent home with a bouquet of fresh cut flowers from her garden, a handful of eggs and some lemons.

To top it all off Leslie joined Twitter after hearing me rave about it. You can follow her at @MVchickens.

To learn more about Leslie, Logan, Luca and the chickens visit: http://www.millvalleychickens.com

If you are thinking about getting your own backyard chickens contact Leslie! She knows her stuff.

The Youth in Arts Italian Street Painting Festival in San Rafael was cool! I didn’t have a lot of time to hang out but I made a quick pass through downtown San Rafael on Sunday afternoon. Here are some of the amazing pieces I saw.

More information:

http://www.youthinarts.org/ispf.html

http://twitter.com/youthinarts

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Did you know right over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County you can find all sorts of farm animals?

You can happen upon them in Tennessee Valley. See yesterday’s post about the Turkeys.

Or you can go to Slide Ranch right off of Hwy 1 on the way to Stinson Beach where you can visit goats, sheep, chickens, and ducks.

Happy (almost) Wordless Wednesday!

D Sharon Pruitt, photographer

My kids aren’t actually driving me crazy (they’re big) but it’s raining A LOT and I’m guessing other people’s kids might be driving them crazy. It’s really, really raining (for California standards). When the weather is like this I just want to stay home and enjoy my fireplace. I don’t like driving in the rain.

However, if you are a Marin Mommy or Daddy stuck at home with little ones during this storm you may be going a little stir crazy. I remember back in the day when I was a preschool teacher in the early 90s… there was one winter when it rained for about 40 days straight. Let’s just say that was a VERY long winter.

If you are feeling the itch to get out with your little ones check out the wonderful list of weekend family events happening in Marin over at the Marin Mommies blog. She has some great suggestions for fun activities with kids.

I just have to share something really cool I saw the other day. I wish I would have been able to take a picture. I was driving north on Highway 101 in Marin and the sun was out but the freeway was very wet. As the cars ahead of me were driving water was spraying up from their back tires creating a look of rainbows shooting out from beneath each car. It was a very cool site to see. I kind of felt like I was living in a psychedelic 70s cartoon.

photo via Flickr user Pink Sherbert Photography