Harvesting History While Farming the Flats

Picture yourself on a creaky porch in Bolinas, California, with Muriel Murch handing you a mug of cider, her eyes crinkling as she launches into a yarn about Blackberry Farm. Harvesting History While Farming the Flats is her memoir, a glorious jumble of 2013–2015 diaries and stories stretching back to the ‘60s, when she and her filmmaker husband, Walter Murch, sank roots in this defiant coastal town. It’s not just about coaxing crops from the soil—it’s about life, love, and a community that told developers where to shove it. Back in the day, locals like Orville Schell and Phillip Burton fought off plans for the Marincello Estate, a mega-development that would’ve paved over Bolinas’s soul. Their victory birthed the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Murch’s tale hums with that same scrappy spirit.

Her writing’s like a chat over the garden fence—warm, vivid, a bit meandering. You can almost hear the squelch of mud under her boots as she describes a heron eyeing a gopher like a proper villain or the sweet zing of persimmon pudding shared with mates. She’s dead honest, too, about the juggling act of raising four kids—Walter TY, Beatrice, Carrie, Connie—while Walter was off editing The Godfather or The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Sometimes, she frets, the farm got short shrift. But the land’s heartbeat thumps through her words: bottling cider with Sean Thackrey, who’s mad for medieval recipes, or watching young Mickey Murch farm like he’s chasing a dream. Warren Weber pops up, too, his Star Route Farms a beacon of organic grit.

The book’s a bit like herding sheep—tales hop from ‘60s Sausalito houseboats to a 2021 spring, with names swirling like leaves in a gale. It can leave you dizzy, piecing together who’s who, but that’s part of its magic, like flipping through a mate’s dog-eared diary. Murch muses on big stuff—migration (her own from England, sparked by a visit to Karen Blixen’s Danish home), aging, and who’ll tend the farm next. Recipes for watercress soup and persimmon pudding are tucked in, making you want to cook up a storm. It’s a book for anyone who loves stories that taste of dirt and heart—readers of memoirs, foodies, or film buffs curious about Walter’s world. Grab a brew, sink into a chair, and let Murch’s muddy, hopeful Bolinas wash over you. It’s a cracking read, quirks and all, that sticks like soil under your nails.