Farm Thoughts

Joey and I spent a month and a half at the Spanish Creek farm. I wasn't physically there that while time though. Ten days with Casey ans another ten days with my mom. I felt so peaceful and content at the farm, as though it was a home I never knew before. The every day is so fulfilling and exciting. Waking up to white crowned parrots cackling up a cacophony as soon as the sun has made it's presence well known. Starting the day by feeding the chickens, watering the gardens, coffee and a hearty breakfast- now that's the life. Most days on the Spanish Creek farm began that way- unless someone beat me to feeding the chickens. After breakfast, 7am, we start our am projects. The farm manager and the crew of locals show up and we get organized for the day. I preferred the food garden or organizational tasks as well as cooking. I can make whole wheat tortillas!! (A local woman, Idolly, taught a couple of us.) Lunch was usually around noon and afterward the rest of the day was fair game. Finish your morning project or just sit in a hammock and read. Feed the horses and sheep. Kayak in Spanish creek, walk in the jungle, yoga, trips to the store for snacks that weren't provided by the farm aka snickers. Those were the most common activities when not working. All the volunteers ate dinner together each night. The solar power didn't last long so we were usually without light come 8 o'clock. Most went to bed, although, during some periods with a younger crew music was on and the more common beer/pot session occurred. Joey and I always star gazed on the walk to our private thatched roof round cabana. The stars were incredible. You could see perfectly any time of the month, if the moon was away the stars guide your path in their luminescence.

Staying on farms definitely helps to fine tune what I will do and will not do when I have my own land. Many differences were frustrating and in my opinion not okay. For instance the garden was watered with meter tall sprinklers. The sprinklers are so incredibly inefficient! Most the water would be collecting on plastic ground tarps or pathways or on the outside of the garden boundary. I really would have liked to see a drip system to grow the roots but it's not my farm and my opinion only counts so much. Similar situations arose constantly, especially since there was a wide variety of volunteers. Joey and I were asked to construct a compost toilet but then never got the go ahead with materials from the owner... who lives in Florida. Strange and such a let down. I was super excited to build my own idea but it's okay because I can do it on my own land. The longer on the farm the more attaches I became so I had to just let go of all my priorities, clearly the manager and I have very different ideas of what living off the grid means. The final straw that basically turned into Joey and I leaving was when the crew took a tractor and chainsaws to rip a fell tree from the river. Again, in my opinion they had no right to do that in he first place. The tree looked beautiful, was providing food and shelter to countless organisms, and was part of the landscape. A hurricane ripped it from it's roots and another tropical storm will change the river scene again this year. The use of gasoline and loud machinery was upsetting. I lost it when the crew was ripping the tree without cutting branches. This led to the tree damaging and destroying all kinds of innocent plants that were in it's path. I yelled at the man driving the tractor to stop, he pouted he rest of the day. I knew I should have explained to Niri why that I felt it was so necessary to be so worked up by a tree being removed, but I just couldn't. Next time I will explain and not let my emotions speak so loudly.

Despite all said we left on good terms with great memories. We met some incredible people, had the opportunity to care for animals, and I learned so much in the garden.