Composting and spinning straw into gold

One of my first tasks at my new farm, Coldwater Gardens, was to thin carrots and beets. Who knew that thinning baby plants could be stressful? I found myself in angst as I had to decide which plants would live to see another day and which would become chicken treats. That day, I worked alongside Claire, a 35 year old woman traveling with her significant other, Pete. At CWG, there are a lot of couples. This took me by surprise at first and I found it hard to break into the rhythms. That, combined with the fact that we are camping, we prepare our own meals--largely non communally, and it has been unseasonably cold (really cold!!) made my first week a week of adjusting. And for that reason, I went into Pensacola for a martini and a steak one evening on my own just so I could feel normal. Or as close to normal as I could get given my farmer clothes and wild hair in the midst of decked out southern hotties.

Gardening can be tedious work, which I don't mind in the least. Claire said it best that day as she looked at me with uncertainty in her eyes as she watched me assessing the workload, "it's good to have an interior landscape that is really rich". Because my interior landscape can veer toward being too rich, I moved one step closer to being a happy farmer, but I spared Claire the details of my thoughts on that. Our relationship was too new. Tomorrow, maybe.

Coldwater Gardens aspires to be an agricultural tourism/eco resort that will provide tents on platforms or cool, off the grid cabins, for its visitors when it opens next year. As a result, there are a number of interesting projects in the works, including aquaponics, mushroom cultivation, greenhouses, fruit trees, bees, chickens, quail, composting, worm farming and nature trails all on 350 acres, part of which fronts the clear and beautiful Coldwater Creek. From an intern's point of view, CWG is an excellent place to be because of the diversity of activities it's educationally oriented mission. Work days have been punctuated with salve making, bread making and mushroom cultivation workshops, a nature walk, yoga and a stretching/sharing break. But truthfully, I can find even the mundane interesting. For example, I never knew how to harvest lettuce leaves (and how speedily they grow back), how to build a worm bed, or how to make a hot composting pile. At the moment, I'm madly in love with composting and worms. The creation of worm castings is a magical act to behold. There is something incredibly satisfying about processing waste into the finest fertilizer money could ever buy, like spinning straw into gold.

If it were not for the weather, this place could almost pass for a paradise. I came to Florida for the warm, knowing of course, that the northern part could still be chilly. But this spring has been fiercely cold and living in a tent when it is 25 degrees is no picnic. It has taken me a full week and a half to figure out the many things I must do to keep the chill at bay at night. As it turns out, my sleeping bag is not cold weather worthy, inevitably the wood-stove will go out, and arctic blasts hit at precisely 5 am through the bottom of the cot. Now, I wear two pairs of leggings, several shirts, a wool sweater, socks, and a wool hat to bed each night. Dressing in the morning is excruciating and I've perfected the art of wearing my sleepwear to work just to avoid bare skin touching the air. Luckily, anything goes in that regard around here--a kid's fantasy.

But once that warming sunshine hits, the days take on a whole new meaning as the hours pass with ease outside. I realize that there is little to miss from my old existence. And then the fun begins as I think about the things that I do miss, surprising myself at the answers. I guess I'm learning how to compost.

Exhaustion, restoration and mini miracles

Life has a way of changing in a minute. Especially when you are traveling. After extending my time at Serenity Acres, I found myself getting dangerously close to burning out. The rugged schedule of 10-12 hour days was tough enough, but what was more difficult was the sheer length of the days. After ascertaining that two eight hour days would not be acceptable, I left 2 days sooner than expected. My overall experience was quite positive, but I realized that the Wwoofing experience can vary dramatically from farm to farm, and in the future, I will be avoiding farms that require more than 40 hours per week.

I had two free days and after an invitation from Lani, I headed north to a farm one hour outside of Atlanta in an old railroad town, called Maysville, that looked as if it had stopped in time. It was the sort of town that makes my imagination go wild as I pictured the old historic homes renovated, the gardens planted, and the streets full of life as they once must have been. There are countless towns like this, places that have few options for a revived economy, unless they are gentrified as tourist hot spots. Later, when Lani and I ate in the Maysville Saloon, a lovingly restored historic building that featured simple food and live music, it was less of a stretch for me to imagine a future for this town, despite the fact that the "saloon" was unable to serve alcohol. Such is life in the bible belt. I can pick up wine and beer at the gas station, but I can't order a glass with my meal at a restaurant.

Knotty Pine Farms is a beautiful, even magical, property of undulating hills, acorn trees, a raised-bed organic garden, horse and pig pastures, a large pond, a main house and a storybook 2 bedroom cabin. I couldn't believe my good fortune! (Yes, as it turns out, I still enjoy the good life). In no time, we had the fire roaring and were catching up over dinner and wine. That night I fell asleep within eye view of the dying fire, in a beautiful bed nestled into an alcove, listening to ducks and passing trains while reflecting on how closing one door to something that did not serve me allowed this one to open.

The owners, Floyd and Kim, have a strong vision for Knotty Pine Farms. They are currently raising food for themselves and selling the meat of their heritage hogs (while maintaining a commercial real estate business), but the real goal is to turn the farm into a healing/retreat center. Kim is a hands on energy healer and uses a process called "energization". Generously, she offered me a healing session that we squeezed in just before I left on Saturday morning. It was a session unlike any that I've had before and I felt empowered, clearer, more focused, and stronger afterwards. Kim assured me that the effects will continue over the course of the next month.

After a full day of work planting potatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce, dill, cilantro, basil, and more, Lani and I sat on the porch with Floyd swapping stories and perspectives. On the way up, I had seen a Georgia Department of Transportation truck spraying weed killer on the highway. This was an incredibly disturbing site to see and I mentioned this to Floyd. Floyd acknowledged how challenging it is living in a conservative region having embraced a eco-sensitive lifestyle. The town of Maysville stopped their recycling program because it was not well received.

Our conversations covered a lot of ground and Floyd clearly wanted to talk about things we shared, but also, perhaps the things that we don't share. As he talked about his desire to move beyond polarization (as a nation) into healthy dialogue, I felt moved and deeply appreciative of him, Kim, and their family. It was abundantly clear to me that the farm is about so much more than farming. It is about healing in its highest forms and both Lani and I were benefitting from their vision and actions.

All good things must morph, so after my healing session with Kim, I gathered my things to hit the road. But not before Floyd handed me a jar of homemade granola and a blue marble. The marble, he said, is something he cannot explain until I come back.

So, I guess it's settled then.

Living communally and intentionally

One of the attractions to Wwoofing was to try my hand at living communally. I've always been attracted to the notion of intentional communities and communal living, despite my very traditional, nuclear family upbringing. Early in my marriage, my former husband and I explored co-housing. At that time, it was very popular in Scandinavia and was just beginning to arrive in California. It turned out to be more than we could figure out--we were in our twenties and the notion of securing property and developing it overwhelmed us. So, I spent my child rearing adult years living in a more traditional setting, even after my divorce.

I enjoy solitude, crave it even. But I'm also a social being. I enjoy company, particularly the kind of company that I can choose to enjoy or choose to ignore, depending on my mood. I have found communal living to be as rewarding as I had hoped. We share evening meals and each one of us takes a turn preparing the meal. Breakfast and lunch are on our own, but generally, the interns gather informally for those meals as well. There are many advantages to this arrangement. For one, I find the gathering as a "family" to be very nourishing. During that meal, we acknowledge one another in a really basic level. And while prayer before a meal is not a practice of mine, it is the custom in this household. I find myself enjoying that moment when we hold hands and Wayne or Julia give thanks for a litany of things including the hands that prepared the meal. On a practical level, I'm appreciative that I can count on others to share meal preparation, which frequently can be an opportunity for someone to try their hand at either creating or eating a new dish.

As an empty nester and a single person, I was concerned about a solitary lifestyle and the road ahead. Despite my many friends and extended family, my future was beginning to shape up as evenings out in restaurants, bars, or solitary evenings home. I had perfected the art of going out alone--to the movies, to dine or to certain "safe" bars. But all of this left me wanting. On all levels, it was not a healthy lifestyle.

On the farm, all of this gets turned upside down. Going out is not an option. (Although we did go to the local beer only/pool hall/juke box place called Betty's once). In this arrangement, all chores are shared, dinners are homemade and family style, we share living space intimately (there are 4 people in my bedroom), and socializing is always an option. At the same time, opting out for solitary time is easy to do and something that I do frequently.

I worried that my conversations would be superficial due to the transitory nature of the arrangement. This has not been the case. In fact, the transitory nature of the relationships may give rise to a type of intimacy that is enabled by the fact that there are no social obligations to one another. Whatever the reason, I have had some incredibly touching conversations with people here--the kind of conversations that can change the course of one's life ever so slightly. Perhaps this is what intentional community is all about.