After morning chores I went to the garden to do some harvesting! It was a lot of fun because I have started going through the squash patch bare foot to reduce the amount of tromping and stomping that I do. But it's real nice to feel the dirt between my toes. I also have started playing a game with the grass hoppers, Its basically like catch and release fishing, because I just try to catch them when I see them, but then I let them go! Here is a nice big one I caught!
While harvesting I stepped on a 'goats head' which is the local name for the dried out seed head of the Amerant weed, It went straight into my foot, and they are about 3/4 of an inch long! But I say this not to be gruesome, but to point out how naturally resilient our bodies are to damage! I just kept walking around on it and after about 5 minutes the bleeding stopped because mud clotted it up, and then all the pain was gone as well! Amazing!
Some other good new is that the turnips that Jim and I planted a couple days ago sprouted today! Probably because of all the rain we have been having! Here is a close up of the sprout, as well as a wide shot of the beds we made. As welllll as some new beds in the process of being made!
On the already finished bed, you might have noticed the black strips, that's called drip tape or drip hose. It is a slow release of water over and extended period of time and is the most conservative as well!
While I was harvesting Okra I saw a spider in its web with three bugs caught in it, and it was feeding on one of them! It's cool the amount of wildlife I get to see out here! Also while harvesting Okra I was amazed at how much food is produced from gardening. It truly is incredible! I have probably harvested Okra about 6 or 7 times, and each time I get a full tote of them, out of just 20 or 30 square meters of Okra plant. Same thing goes for the cucumbers and tomatoes, they all just keep producing food! Which is what we want, but I am just amazed at the volume of edible food that one plant can produce. It really is a wonderful partnership that we have with nature in, a partnership that I think should not be abused in the ways that it is. By that I mean any form of unwholesome production of food, such as feed lots, where they force cows to be so fat that they can't move, or the production of artificially inflated produce, I see that type of food production as a violation of the partnership that man has had with nature since the beginning of life!
For lunch I was particularly hungry today, I think my metabolism in increasing since I have been here, so I made and extra large sandwich!
"Permaculture is a combination of the words permanent and agriculture, it offers a unique approach to the practice of sustainable farming, ranch, gardening and living. Permaculture shows how to observe the dynamics of natural ecosystem. We can apply this knowledge in designing constructed ecosystems that serve the needs of the human populations with out degrading our natural environment. Permaculture sites integrate plants, animals, landscape, structures and humans into symbiotic systems where the products of one element serve the needs of another."
or here is an alternate, more concise definition:
"A design science that seeks to create agriculturally productive systems with the diversity and sustainability of natural systems in order to provided food, water, shelter and all other needs in a sustainable (or even regenerative) way."
So hopefully you can see that it is a worth while cause and quite easy to have a in depth conversation with a knowledgeable farmer about the whole concept! As Jim and I work more and more together I notice more and more similarities in us. For example today, when I had finally finished harvesting after 6 hours of work, he set me to thinning out the zucchini patch. This entailed going through each plant individually and culling out the weak or sickly branches, and in some cases even taking of still healthy branches. The concept of thinning is that by changing the level of leaves and branches that the plant has to take care of, it transfers what energy it would have normally put into maintaining all of those straggling branches, into the few healthy ones it has left. The reason Jim had me do this now, at the end of the season is because he is hoping that by leaving basically just the flowering branches, that he can get one more harvest worth out of the zucchinis. Which normally wouldn't happen with out human intervention. Any how, as he was instructing me on how to do this process he said that he normally likes to in his mind have the intention of communicating to the plant that he doesn't mean it any harm and that he is trying to get rid of the leaves that are stressing it out and help it produce beautiful fruit. Then he went on to say that in general he has that attitude towards all his plants and thanks them for feeding his friends and family! I was blown away! Everything that he was saying was resonating with me on a deep level and it was so refreshing to have that moment with him. I went on to assure him that I didn't think he was weird or anything like that, and that I actually did an 8 week experiment about the effect of human intention on plants back in my college days. It was another great moment of us realizing that he and I have a lot in common! He then shared with me how he did a similar experiment when he was in 7th grade with a lie detector that the built. The experiment Jim did very much mirrors the work of Cleve Backster scientist who did great work with plants on discovering how they are more sensitive than we realize! Here's the link for anyone who is curious about Cleve and his work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleve_Backster It's all pretty fascinating stuff if you can drop some preconceived notions that we have about plants.
I was talking to one of my friends today about my experience here and how much I am loving it! How it feels like I have been underwater my whole life and now I'm finally at the surface and inhaling my first breath of fresh air! All of that talk about the difference between my experiences up until this point, compared to what I feel now got me thinking about why there is such a difference between the two experiences. Here's what I came up with, and let it be said now, that everything that follows is just the humble first draft of thoughts of a 19 year old kid who thinks he just might be starting to understand the world, so please take to heart anything that resonates with you, and cast aside what does not, after all, everyone's experience is their own, and we all learn and live in different ways.
One important difference between this experience and my schooling, if not the most important difference is that here at the farm, in the words of Wayne Dyer, I am following my bliss. And by that I mean here, I am doing exactly what it is that I have wanted to do for a long time! Which is unfortunately a rare thing in today's society. People for the most part end up doing things that they don't want to be doing because they feel obligated to for financial reasons perhaps, or because it's what is socially accepted or whatever else drives people to do the things that they don't want to be doing instead of what they do want. In a sense I feel blessed that the driving aspiration in my life, up until this point has been to be a farm hand, because that is a very attainable dream. And here I am, living that dream, it's so wonderful, the only time I remember feeling this happy was when I was a little kid and everywhere I went I had a smile on my face!
So that is definitely one characteristic of what makes this life so thoroughly enjoyable for me, versus being in a situation that my heart is not in. And that principle, follow your bliss, is applicable to every decision or life choice that someone makes. Given two options, or one hundred options, there will always be the option that draws you closer to your bliss, what ever that may be! However the second defining characteristic between the bliss I feel here, versus the drudgery I felt in school, and that I think many people feel in other areas of work, is a little more dependent on my specific situation. I think that by nature of being on a farm and living a farm life, I am blessed to be experiencing fresh new adventures each day! Tomorrow always brings with it new possibilities and excitement, and because of that I feel I have escaped from what I call living life on an assembly line. For example at school or work, where yours schedule is the same each and every day, it feels almost like you are just being buffeted around to marginally different experiences that never fully stimulate you because the whole time secretly you are yearning for something more out of your day to day life, at least that's the way I felt. And prior to this experiences, I had no idea that I could feel this good, I thought I was doing pretty good at school, making the most of it, having fun, etc. But that took so much effort, I had to actively carve out sections of my day where I could have some freshness in my life, have some joy, and spontaneity. But here, being happy is sooo easy! The freshness crashes over me like breaking waves, and just when I surface from the water, laughing and shaking the hair and salt water out of my face.. A new exciting wave just bowls me over! Some of theses waves are challenging but worth while all the same, and others are just waves of pure joy!
Now if anyone out there is currently in school or work where they perhaps feel subjected to the "Assembly Line" lifestyle, my intent is not to rub it in anyone's face about how good I have it out here at the farm, but rather, my hope is that this can be looked at as a sort of testimonial to the pay off of having a dream and chasing after it till you get it! It is one of the most worth while endevours someone can undertake. Because after all, if we have dreams but are resigned to never achieving them or feel we have some sense of duty to our current, but not ideal, life situation, well then whats the point of having dreams in the first place if they are just going the be gazed at longingly but never sought after. Dreams are meant to be chased!! And as I said before, I feel lucky to have my dreams be centered around manual labor and nature for those are fairly easy to manifest, but whatever your dream is, it's attainable!
Okay, that's quite enough of that! Wouldn't you say?
I tried to not end on philosophical notes so for the sake of that cause, I will quickly mention that I had, once again, Beef mac and Tom for dinner, it was still delicious though! And on THAT note, I will end things because I have already stayed up past my bed time going on my rant! It is past 8 o'clock already! Yikes!
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