Errata from Painted Valley Farm

I have now spent 53 days at Granja Valle Pintado and it feels as much like home as anything can to ol' itinerant me.

Night after night I slide into my sleeping bag liner into my sleeping bag under my blanket and don't worry about the the fact that I'm going to bed with feet the color of charcoal.  The morning wake up is always a little difficult and seems to come too early even though it's not that early.  I have moved out to my tent in a nest in the woods, which is tranquil and private compared to my former loft in the community kitchen.  The route to my tent, which in the morning gives me a hilltop view of the entire farm as sunlight creeps towards it, is also one of the preferred walking trails of the cow Rosa, which makes walking with my head down a necessity in terms of navigating the minefield of robust cakes she sets down wherever she pleases, wherever she pleases generally meaning in the middle of the already-too-narrow road I need to take to avoid being raked by thorny rosehip.  I'm used to cow manure now, though, and recognize it as a useful resource on the farm, but its easier to work with when its dry than when its squishing between your toes.

I wash my clothes every so often in buckets and have found that water left out in large plastic bottles all day gets warm enough for a great shower.  It's still preferable to go to the municipal gym in town, where a shower that used to be free is now less than a dollar.

The other day Jeremy and I were talking to this guy in town, and the guy looked down at Jeremy's battered, sandaled feet, then looked up at Jeremy, and, with a solemn, almost bitterly regretful tone one might hear in a conversation between two grizzled warriors discussing the casualties suffered in a particularly messy foreign conflict, said, "man...............your feet must get real fucked up out there."  His lips curled in in anticipation of forming the word "fucked" and then just whipped it out forcefully with a heavy emphasis on the "fu" sound.  I sliced my heel on some rocks in the river the other day and that's taken a while to heel, but my general biggest problem is thistle thorns as I walk barefoot around the garden.

Tao, our wonderful dog, kindly accompanied me to the river one day and, while I was stumbling into the icy rapids, stole one of my Croc sandals and then, on another day, another sandal before I realized it was her and not mysteriously rising water to blame.  She ripped up my Croc but I mended it with found items. I chastised the hell out of her but she just smiles and still steals peoples' footwear.  She also messes with the geese and the horse despite repeated admonishment.  On the positive side, she helps to run loose horses off our land, loves to play, and is generally a joy to have around.

Alex recently purchased several new chickens to increase our egg production.  One day after he brought them home we found one of the laying hens hanging from a nail on a post by her neck, apparently having fallen victim to some freak jumping accident.  To take advantage of the bad situation, we had to drain it, scald it, pluck it, and butcher it right then and there at 11 PM.  In the belly of the hen we found no fewer than 12 eggs at various stages of development.  We had chicken and rice stew the following day.  We then started to find eviscerated chicks in the coop and uncovered a sinister network of subterranean tunnels under the whole chicken complex.  Add to that the increasing incidence of local birds called Tero's being found deconstructed and strewn about the garden and its been a tough time for birds in these parts.

I have been fishing with an improvised reel, consisting of nothing more than a pvc pipe--design borrowed from a man met on a family trip to Alaska circa 1996.  I have not yet caught anything, but I have a great cast.

It has been great to see tangible progression on the farm.  The beer we made on my second day has been bottled and already tastes like beer, but needs a few more weeks to properly finish gasifying.  Radish seeds I planted exploded into bright red radishes the size of racquetballs (I was looking for something in between golf- and base-) and we have been harvesting them like crazy.  The beginning forms of tomatoes are sprouting and we will have solid zucchini in just a matter of days.  The pea plants are practically gushing crisp, sugary snap peas.  The goslings I met several weeks ago are adolescent GEESE.

Our one bee hive split into two hives and they stopped stinging us so much, but then one of the queens left and/or died and they started stinging us again.  One of the farm associates is a  bee cultivator and explained that bee venom contains two very powerful and beneficial proteins or something like that, and so now when I get stung I pretend I just got a shot at the doctor's office and say thanks and take a small but not excessive amount of comfort in the fact that the offending bee (or, in the mentioned metaphor, the doctor) is dying for having stung me.  Putting clay on the sting helps.

The Christmas season came and went without too much fanfare, the farm's isolation making dates something of an abstract concept.  We did have a lovely dinner and gift exchange at Pastor's house in town on Christmas Eve, however, and, the big kicker, a traditional Argentine asado out at the farm for my birthday.  A traditional asado consists of an entire lamb splayed out on an iron cross and slow cooked over a fire.  The tender, juicy meat was the best I have ever tasted and fed about 20 people.

It has been raining off and on for several days, but the system seems to have broken and sun is coming out in force just in time for the New Year, which also happens to coincide with a full moon.  In terms of the watering, which is my job, its a good thing we are about to line and fill and connect to 300 meters of tubing a 30,000 Liter spring-filled irrigation tank.

I am going to buy empanadas and take a shower.

Return to Patagonia: Down on the Farm

One month ago I arrived in Argentina, set to continue my journeys for as long as time and money and mind allow.  After a few days in Buenos Aires I headed back to El Bolson, situated along the 42nd parallel at the foot of the Andes.  Spring is in full swing with the sun shining hotter and longer and the greens growing greener than they did during my last stay, in Winter, but nights are still chilly and the surrounding peaks are still covered in snow.

I am currently staying at the Granja Valle Pintado (Painted Valley Farm) as a volunteer, working in exchange for food and shelter and knowledge.  My goal is to learn about sustainable living practices including farming, building, and community living.  We are three volunteers (two Americans and one Argentine) and the farm´s owner, Alex.  Alex is an American citizen but grew up in Indonesia and has lived for the past several years here in Argentina.  He and a group of several people from Argentina, Canada, Chile, and the US bought 20 acres in the wake of the peso collapse in 2001 with the goal of creating a small, self-sufficient community.  So far, the only one who lives permanently on the land is Alex.  He accepts volunteers during most of the year to help in advancing projects on the farm and to share his extensive knowledge about biodynamic agriculture.

He recently organized a community-supported agriculture program where people can pay the farm a regular contribution for a ¨share¨ of its produce: each week during harvest season each member receives a "basket" of the farm's goods.  CSA's have prospered in the US and can be found in every state (Manhattanites can even participate), but in Argentina the idea is still in its infancy.  The idea is to reunite people with local sources of food and rescue agriculture from large-scale production methods. Why? Because the methods used to produce, process, package, and transport the food we buy in supermarkets cast more than a shadow of doubt upon the quality and safety of that food.  Moreover, large-scale agriculture depends on an unsustainable exhaustion of natural resources and an unacceptable destruction of habitats for all living organisms.

We generally work from 9 to 8, with a healthy three hour siesta in the middle of the day.  The volunteers have one day and a half free each week and we use them to go into town (a 1 hour hike) or relax around the river.  Tasks we have been keeping busy with include weeding, watering, planting, transplanting from greenhouse to outside, applying mulch and compost, preparing earth for planting with a hoe, digging a 300 meter ditch for an irrigation pipe, putting in posts for a corral, caring for the chickens, making beer, grinding flour, making bread, and cooking meals.

Crops we have include carrots, rutabaga, kale, leeks, corn, garlic, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, parsnip, bok choy, quinoa, wheat, corn, millet, flax, potatoes, radishes, beetroot, basil, chard, arugula, squash, zucchini, cilantro, parsley, oregano, mustard.  There are fruit trees such as apple, peach, plum, and cherry, but many of them are too young to give fruit yet.  Rose hip grows like a plague everywhere and, while its fruit is good for everything from jams to vinegar, will cut you kindly if you forget its thorns. We share the farm with the cow Rosa, the horse Volcan, the dog Tao, 16 chickens, a family of geese, and a hive of bees for making honey.  The bees are exceptionally aggressive: After 25 years with only one bee sting, I have been rewarded with no less than 7 over the past few weeks.

On a final note, I recently celebrated the one year anniversary off my being laid-off from JPMorgan.

after a day in the fields

   

Steps from home

view of the farm from a distance (greenhouse on right)

"associates" of the farm came out for the corn planting; here after lunch in the community kitchen (i sleep in a  loft in this building)