Day 9: Gualala

We love the Mar Vista. Our cabin is like a modern Swedish cottage, all of the details elegant with huge windows facing the forest and the hens. We have a gas fireplace heater that is like a real fireplace. There is composting and recycling and water brought in by gravity. Owners Tom and Renata show that luxury vacation can and should be Eco friendly and active. We can hike to the beach, hike to the woods, pick vegetables for eating, cook our own meals, fill the redwood soaking tub, play with the hens and goats, cut our own flowers, build a fire, eat in the green house, relax on the lawn -- all hassle free because they take such good care of the place. The price is a steal for the maintenance and enjoyment of your cabin and the whole property.

In the morning they deliver farm fresh eggs to your door -- blue, speckled, and brown. I try again on overcoming my dietary restrictions and Jay makes us omelets. I figure this time I know the hens, then are really cute and well cared-for, and nobody eats them. However, this was another failed attempt ending in gags and tears. I'm trying to rationalize this -- I don't mind doing things I don't like. I wait in lines, I grade papers, I drink our kale juice in the morning, but I just can't put down these eggs. I wrap them in lettuce and still can't do it. It reminds me how cultural and psychological our food is. Jay and my best girlfriend also from India eat everything and laugh at American eating habits. Americans remove the bone, buy only the breast, and don't eat the skin on fish. An American struggles to eat fish when it actually looks like a fish, whereas Pia prefers it that way, even eats the eyeballs. I would like to be more conscious of the food I eat, I wish I could eat the eyeballs, but now I wonder how hugely engrained my eating habits are.

We walk to the beach, which is just across hwy 1.

The Pacific is wild with cliffs, rock formations, and trees. Fishermen come in on boats toting huge fish. Two little girls in wet suits show us their catch and lug their equipment back to camp. Why didn't we learn that in girls scouts? The girls' curriculum should be much the same as the boys -- how to survive in the woods, how to fish, how to fix a bike.

It's laundry day, but not everything dries in the cool air outside. 

We play in the garden

And the greenhouse dining space

Relax

Soak in the redwood tub

And collect the hens' eggs with Tom. He puts a bunch of feed in my hands and tells me to squat. The hens come poking away and I hoot and holler! It's so fun and silly! They are gorgeous hens that are plump and soft looking. They have French hens and some from Chile that lay blue eggs. Tom built the chicken houses and locks and opens them every sunset and sunrise. Jay looks under a hen to collect its eggs.

We collect about 90 eggs.

There are goats and a spayed ferrel cat that watches over them. Jay is excited to see a cat, usually fiercely independent, choose to take on the responsibility of watching goats without any training. She is always with them.

Jay makes a delicious Indian dinner and we sit by the fire then go to bed. These are my bedside flowers: