It has been three weeks since Morgan, our cat Leon, and myself have moved to the Texas Panhandle, and despite our new residence's sleepy demeanor, our time has been filled with an interesting group of characters and illuminating experiences. We have settled into 

a generously sized bunk house on the Frying Pan Ranch in Bushland, TX ten miles outside of Amarillo and a stones throw from the Americana landmark, Cadillac Ranch.  Our new home is hosted by Mary Emeny who owns and lives on the Frying Pan Ranch.  Mary also serves as a coordinator for the High Plains Institute for Applied Ecology, and its two primary projects the Mariposa Ecovillage and the High Plains Food Bank Community Garden, both of which Morgan and I are working on in our time here.  In addition to Mary,  the Frying Pan Ranch is also home to Arzella Kay and her husband Jamie, Shawn and his 15 year old daughter and 10 year old son, and Rick Todd.  Each of our neighbors have proven to be quite unique. Mary is a founding member of Habitat for Humanity and has a tenacious  drive for social and environmental issues, is addition to being extremely sharp and hilarious. Arzella and Jamie are both in their sixties and have given themselves the title of "aging hippies" and live up to it quite well.  Shawn works as an "entertainer," working with drama companies and education groups.  He is originally from the West coast but packed up his children and possessions into a trailer and traveled the country until several years ago he met Mary at a church service where she offered his family a place to stay for the night and he never left.  Rick is all parts a scientist, naturalist and poet.  He built his solar powered home from straw and mud on the ranch where he lives with his two dogs Josie and Nellie.  Everyone we are surrounded with here is fairly like minded. Each others company is considerably appreciated since there are not many others who are cut from our similar cloth living in Amarillo.

Since moving in all three of us have started to become comfortable in our temporary home, although it took some gradual adjusting.  Morgan has struggled with the persistent wind and endless arsenal of dust that more times than not will end up in her eyes.  My own struggle has been to keep from tracking that dust into our house with me, as well as wearing sunscreen during all hours of the day.  Additionally we have both struggled with the weather here.  

The wind is relentless, the sun is brutal and the thunderstorms are unlike any I have ever seen before.  Amarillo only gets 20 inches of rain all year and I think we have gotten it since we have arrived.  We had a few storms roll through the ranch since we have been here but, none  as severe as the one in the video above.  Wind speeds of 95 miles per hour were recorded  which were accompanied by several inches of rain and hail.  In my attempts to film the storm I found out that rain moving that fast feels more like bb's more than falling water.  Lesson learned.

The one thing we have had no trouble with is the sunsets.  I wish the photos served them proper justice but they have to be seen with eyes rather than a camera lens to get the full effect.  They have been a welcomed end to our long days.

With that being said we have been working hard to make our days long.  Both Morgan and I have been spending most of our days at the High Plains Food Bank where we our  building the area's first community garden.  As it stands now we are preparing the acres worth of land for the United Way's Day of Caring in mid-August where 300+ people will spend a day volunteering at the garden.  This task includes building garden beds, planting plants, growing plants from seed, installing irrigation, putting up a fence around the perimeter, and assembling a water catchment system.  In addition to our days in the field we are also coordinating community involvement and enlisting volunteers for the event.  It has proven itself to be a lot of work turning an open field into something that resembles a garden, but worthwhile and it shows signs of being very rewarding.  But most notably we have a project that we are excited about working on, and although we are putting in long hours, it rarely seems like work; we are very fortunate.

Our plan for the garden after the Day of Caring is to begin a high intensity program that should have plants producing year round that will feed the area's youth, as well as serving as an educational tool for local sustainability.

I hate to put words in Morgan's mouth but we both feel like this is worthwhile project that is a great opportunity in permaculture and community building, and we are very optimistic that it will a great success for HPI, the United Way, the High Plains Food Bank and Amarillo.

With all of this being said we hope to use this blog as a way to keep our friends and family up to date with our adventures in the Panhandle, and plan on sharing our photos on Flickr soon.  I hope all is well,

Marc, Morgan, and Leon