After breakfast, Jim and I were back in the garden, preparing beds for planting,which meant Jim was discing future beds with the tractor, while I continued to screen compost! During today's morning work session, it dawned on me how frugal and smart Jim is. For example, One of the wheel barrows had an odd set of handles, indicating one of them broke somewhere along the line, but rather than pitch it, or give it to goodwill, something most people do, he fixed it right up, and then repair is seamless, other than the fact that one is a handmade handle and the other is from the manufacturer. Also, I broke a pitch fork today, I felt awful about it, and tentatively called out,"Hey Jim, I broke the pitchfork..." and his first response was, "Well, can it be fixed?" I replied, "I don't think so, I broke the metal part, the actual fork, not the handle." He said, "Oh, I'll go weld that right up!" and he came back less than 10 minutes later with the tool looking good as new! We kept working, until Jim called me over and said look at this black widow I found! It was another first for me in terms of the dangerous wildlife that Arizona has to offer. Jim sounded surprised when I told him it was my first one! He said they are all over my room and the barn where I'm living. Apparently they only come out at night to hunt though. I actually found one tonight right out side my door. It had just caught a June bug.
I realized today while working in the garden there was something I forgot to write about yesterday. Yesterday, I over heard Jim and Carla talking about how the garden sometimes makes them all itchy dealing with the prickly squash plants or sneezy from the pollen or whatever. And I realized that aside from my first day in the garden, I have had completely harmonious experiences in there, no itchiness or sneeziness or dehydration! I am very grateful for that.
Around 10:45 am, after a couple hours of nothing but shoveling for me, Jim said he was going to run into the house to get some water and talk to Tina. He told me to take a break, but my barn was to far away and I had my water with me. So I had a classic Farmers cat nap, eyes under my hat, back propped up against the metal composting screen. It was wonderful, my body was so happy to not be working that it put me straight to sleep. One of my readers asked me a couple nights ago, after reviewing one of my first post's, if my bed was comfy, and I replied, "Yes sorta." I explained to her that the "bed" wasn't inherently comfy, in fact it is to short for me by a few inches, and is really just a small futon that won't fold out, so the width is reduced to about 3 feet wide, but it doesn't impact my sleep at all, because I'm soo tired, physically and mentally that at the end of a day, falling asleep at 8pm is going to happen no matter what, no matter where, and because I happen to have a nice little futon I sleep there, and I sleep quite well. That is what "Yes sorta" means. And that same principle, was applied to my Farmers Nap today against the compost screen. During my nap the sun heated up the metal gromits on my double thick carhartts so when I stood up and they all touched me, it burned me in 8 spots all up and down my legs! It was pretty funny! That'll teach me to not fall asleep in the Arizona sun. Not really though, I still will. :)
Not sure if you can tell from this picture but my face got some sun over the past week and I actually caught my reflection today for the first time in a while and realized it!
By the time 11:30 rolls around everyday, my oatmeal has been worked off, and all I can think about is my delicious turkey sandwich that I make for lunch! It is most definitely a highlight of my day!
Ever since my Permaculture Design Certification course when I learned some facts about water, I have started doing a little mini ritual in my head for every sip of water I have through out the whole day!
Here is the break down of the facts about the water on our planet:
On the whole planet 97% of the water is salt water and 3% is fresh water.
Of that 3% fresh water, 74% is frozen in polar ice caps, although unfortunately that percentage is shrinking which is bad. Still of that 3% about 14% is in deep aquifers (750 ft. below sea level) 11% is in shallow aquifers ( 250 ft below sea level) and then 0.3% of the original 3% is lakes and ponds around the world, another 0.3% is part of the worlds biology (plants and animals) and soil, and then 0.2% is in rivers, and 0.2% is in the atmosphere. That is a pretty well broken down look at the world's available fresh water. Now lets have a look at how the modern world at large uses that sacred fractional percentage of fresh water.
8% = Municipal/Residential
23%= Industrial (mainly to cool off engines)
69%= Agriculture (Big Ag)
So having a look at that break down effectively tells us that we personally only use a tiny bit of water when we shower and brush teeth and flush toilets. So even if we all reduced that water usage by half, we would only be marginally helping the overall reduction, but it would still be good to reduce our personal use to 4% or lower if we can. My aim is not to discourage that, but to put in perspective the large, disproportional amount that Big Ag uses. And as I have said before, we can change that, we must change that! If everyone were to shop and eat as locally and as seasonally as possible, and only buy from farmers markets or other small time producers for even just a year or two, it would probably have a huge impact on the the demand that Big Ag is supplying. With out demand there is no supply, at least their shouldn't be if our nations economic principles are still in effect. So with out you and me demanding dirt cheap produce, at all seasons of the year, we would essentially get rid of the need for the massive import that we do as a nation as well as get rid of the Big Ag production.
Just a few more facts about some areas of the worlds water situation is, bear with me.
20% of the world doesn't have safe drinking water, and another 20% must walk a 3 hour round trip for water. If that statistic applied to the U.S. that would mean 1 in 5 people that you know would not have drinking water, and another 1 in 5 would be walking miles to get it. That's a total of 40%, almost half of the world, that has inadequate water. If that statistic applied to the U.S. there would most likely be an uproar from the people, you and me, demanding action from our government to make sure our brothers and sisters got water, to make sure that 40% was taken care of. But that statistic does not apply to the U.S. the ones a couple paragraphs up apply to us. Most of our nation is oblivious to the struggles of our global brothers and sisters.
All that being said, when I am drinking, In my mind I am just giving gratitude for my water, gratitude that it is clean, and that I don't have to wonder if I will catch some disease from it, gratitude that it is easy for me to access and that it is keeping me healthy. And then I also say a little prayer for those in the world who do not have clean water or easy access to it. I do this every time I take even a little sip of water, it doesn't take more than 10 or 15 seconds, but it is sincere. My only hope is that by the end of the day, all my little prayers have added up and some good for those in the world with out water. I invite everybody reading this to do what they can, in their own way to recognize how blessed we are to have the quality and quantity of water that we do. I urge you not to fall into the trap of taking things for granted, things like water and food. Fact is, the average person is made up of 70-90 percent water, and if you go with out it for 3 days, you would die. It is not something to take for granted, it is something to be cherished. And although there is not a whole lot we can do as individuals to give water to those in need of it across the world, the least we can do is give them our prayers.
I took a nice relaxing lunch break, devoured my turkey sandwich, and started watching Age Of Stupid, it is a good film for making us realize the dire straights we are in, as well as the unhappy future we have headed our way unless some serious action is taken. It is worth watching, or at least taking a quick look at if you have time! Here is the youtube link to part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACMZp67CE8E
The family was gone for the afternoon so I had the farm to myself for the first time! It was an amazing afternoon of working! I grabbed my head phones and started jamming out while working! I was singing along to my favorite songs to Cristos at the top of my lungs and he was looking at me with the classic dog smile on his face! It was a good bonding moment for us. Afternoon work was loading lumber onto some steel lumber racks, it was fun methodical, mindless work, so I was completely absorbed in my songs and the beauty around me on the farm! After that I checked irrigation and had my camera with me so a snapped this picture of the flood pipe:
It looks like that but for a whole field. I would say the whole field is covered in about 4 inches of water, it takes about 7 hours to do one field. I actually got the cart stuck trying to go over a bump that was too steep for the golf cart to straddle, and neither set of wheels had enough traction to get me off the bump. My first thought was, "Oh no! I hope Jim won't be mad!" and then my second thought was, "I bet I could lift this cart."
So I went with thought number two and gave lifting it a shot. I grabbed under the bumper to make sure I was grabbing something solid, and then heaved and the whole front end of the cart came up surprisingly easy! I pivoted the front of the cart about 90 degrees so when I put it down the wheels were all on level ground again. It was pretty fun actually, and it only helped that right as I first got stuck, one of my favorite football days pump up songs came on!
During evening chores, when I was cruising around listing to my "Farm Life" playlist in the golf cart I was in heaven. A feeling of absolute bliss filled me up and I couldn't stop smiling! It was incredible. And good old Cristos was still trotting along next to me every where I went, giving me his doggie grin! :) He is such a good dog! The only hard part about evening chores was, once again, driving the Quad-bike with out gunning it! You have to understand that the last time I was Four Wheeling, before I came to the farm, was with these two crazy Tahitian brothers who were like my brothers, and our even crazier wrestling coach. We were tearing around these trails in Michigan having a blast going as fast as safely possible (and sometimes faster)! And now here I am, on this long straight dirt road begging me to rev it, sitting side saddle, steering with one hand, the other under my chin, elbow on my knees, looking off into the horizon, reminiscing about when one of the brothers didn't slow down in time at the end of one of our homemade race courses, crashed, and through himself over the handle bars! (He was fine, 4 wheeler, not so much). I realized it's like the feeling I used to get on tractor rides as a little boy, it was fun and all, but I wanted to go faster! Except now I'm both the little boy, and the responsible driver who knows what's best. I guess it's all irrelevant because like I said earlier, I'm towing a water trailer so even if I gunned it, I would probably top out at 15 miles an hour and then blow out the engine..
Here is me, on the 4 wheeler, taking a few moments to relax while the water tank fills up from the hose, enjoying the beautiful Arizona skyline:
Dinner was salmon rice and bean burritos again! :) yum! and my shower tonight was a moon lit one, I probably don't need to say it, but I will anyways, It was gorgeous!!
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