MisAdventures

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted, but that's probably for the best because it's basically been business as usual for the past week. We got more pears from a nearby farm, so I spent a few days getting to know the juicing machine. There's now around 35 gallons of would be cider sitting in a tremendous blue jug in Peter and Julie's kitchen. We also found a ton of good mushrooms while out looking for pears. Some of which turned out to be slightly less than edible. I spent a morning pretty nauseous after a very shroomy breakfast. Oh well, considering mushrooms' potential for toxins, I figure I got off easy, and they did taste pretty good.
The project of today was leading the lamb to slaughter. The ex-sheep affectionately known as Fatboy has joined the chops and burgers of the world. The whole process was pretty interesting, of course, and it's well documented in my photo collection. It was all pretty straighforward, and made more interesting by the army of cats (all were present except for the recently sold Little Pretty Boy) who had to be constantly fended off.
My personal project has been of a crafty nature lately. Julie has a nifty little contraption for her clothes drying line which is essentially a bunch of clips on a wheel looking frame for hanging socks. It's easier than putting them all up on the line, and it's easier to bring them in if it starts to rain, you just take in the sock hanger. The problem with this specific sock hanger, is that's it's a cheap piece of shit, made of flimsy plastic. So, I figured I'd make a more rustic, durable version. The first version was a sort of success, but it was kind of typical of how a craft project turns out when I've gotten my hands on it, overcomplicated, and aesthetically wanting. Showing uncharactaristic perseverence, I set out to make another. I decided the problem with the first was that I tried to make it just like the plastic store bought one, which had spoke that all folded down or up on their little plastic hinges. After rethinking the whole idea I decided to make my spokes spiral down around a strong center column. I'm pretty pleased with the result, simple, practical, rustic, and not too sore on the eyes. In the picture below the left is my first attempt, the center is the upgrade, and the far right is the inspiration (cheap piece of crap that it may be).also...
http://tinyurl.com/yjesaaq - video of pretty impressive firewood chopping, i was kinda like that :-)

Great Adventures

The work on the farm is great and interesting projects, and one of my favorite things is the variety of projects I get to try. I spent a day working with cement and making tiles from the dirt i had quarried. Working with cement is not something I've done a lot, but it's pretty fun. With the extra I started rendering the wall; filling in holes between rocks.
The next few days I made pear cider. Great project, sticky project. First I gathered a load of pears, and then we got to the real juicing. They have a juicer, and then a press for the pulp. All in all, I pressed over 35 liters of cider, all of which is going to become hard cider, all of which will be awesome I'm sure.
Today was back to one of my favorite playing grounds, the wood. Today was different than last time, we got to actually fell trees instead of just pulling out dead ones. Felling trees with an axe is just loads of fun. I think I have a great future ahead of me as a woodsman.

Living the Dream

That's right, today I embarked on what is most certainly the dream of almost every young child (it was for me anyways)... digging a massive hole. Peter started digging a drainage ditch in one of his fields and discovered that the soil about 1.5ft down was a sort of sandy eroded granite. This was good news for him because he'd been hoping to find some way of making tiles and bricks from a local material, and this would be perfect. With 4 parts soil, 1 part cement and a little water he can make an attractive and serviceable tile, probably for flooring, and who knows what else.

This is where I come in, I get to mine from the quarry! The whole pictured was about half dug by Peter and half dug by me today. He said he dug another drainage ditch that was up to his shoulder, which would just be awesome, but right now it's up to my knee, so I have a lot of work to do. Fortunately, the weather has been absolutely fantastic for the very end of October, sunny and damn close to hot 3 days and counting.
I've also uploaded a ton of photos from the last farm I was at, la Vesvre. This [LINK] should take you there.

Long time

Bear with me this post, it's been a while since I've posted and it feels like loads has happened. Last time on Eric in France I was mercilessly attacking a woodpile. I'm proud to say that I fully accomplished my goal, all of the wood that Anette bought was cut, chopped and stacked, and I was totally exhausted at the end of the project. It took me up to 2 days before I left, then I kind of slacked off for the last of my trip.
There were two new faces, in addition to the 3 people who I already knew. Marcus was an adopted son of Anette, who was pretty cool. He works in a casino and loves techno music, he also had a sweet Audi. The other was a 65 year old woman named Trilby. Trilby was an absolute riot, she's had quite an interesting life, and was celebrating her birthday wwoofing. She was pretty familiar with horses and stable work, and spent some time helping me stack wood. She was also really personable in that way only old people can be. She claimed that the one thing she felt she could really look back on and feel that she had accomplished was forging the signatures of her bosses to double the salaries of every underpaid worker at her job in Jamaica. Pretty rad. She also was a mean Ping Pong player, and when she Marcus and I played, Marcus was the champion, but she still showed me what for in our game. It was all in her killer serve.
I also got to be a little bit closer with Thais and Amaldine. We played card games and watched movies (in french) and had a blast. I think we were partly brought together by Trilby's hilarious nature. Amaldine taught me a game that was classic 13 year old girl, there wasn't realy a point that I can tell, I think I lost though because at the end she was laughing and got to give my hand a strange indian rope burn sort of thing... it was wierd.
Anette was away for 4 days and the internet went down right after she left, which made blogging, and planning my train ride difficult. The french rail system is kind of frustrating if you aren't traveling to or from Paris because it is basically all spokes radiating out from Paris, and getting between the spokes is a real bear. In the end it turned out Anette was going for a long road trip up north (again) so I joined her for the first 3 hours and then took a couple of trains.
I'm happy to be back with Peter and Julie, I have been greeted by Hamish and Willow (their two dogs) everywhere I go, and I started my day with a nice cup of tea and swinging a machete at corn stalks. I've got reliable internet again and afternoons basically free, everything seems right with the world.

Workin' It

So, the game I'm playing right now is called Chop, and the goal is to turn the pile of wood you see to the left, into conveniently sized firewood in as little time as possible. First you cut the 1m logs in half with a huge saw that's run off the back of the tractor, and then you split it all and lay out nice piles. There were two piles of wood like the one pictured, and I'm happy to say that I'm gonna totally dominate this game. I've already cut one of the pile in two, and by tomorrow morning I should be finished splitting it all. Which means, I think I'll be able to finish both of the piles of wood before I leave. I'm pretty tired, but not too tired, and I think I can slow down a little bit and still finish. Anyone reading this should know that I'm having a blast, this kind of project suits me just fine, and if I finish it I'll be one proud (and strong) lumberjack.

Today was my last day of running the farm alone, and while it has overall been perfectly enjoyable, I can safely say that I am glad there will be others to help. This kind of work is just plain exhausting. No single part of it felt particularly tiring, and no one day felt overwhelming, but after 8 days in a row, I'm looking forward to my first full day off since I got here. I plan to sleep as close to 14 hours as I can get, and watch the new James Bond movie I got soon as I wake up.
Today I also had the experience of having a horse rear up on his hind legs while I was trying to walk him to the stable. There was half a moment when I thought I would have to just let go and wait for him to calm down, but it ended up only being half as terrifying as I expected. 3 weeks ago, I'm sure I would've freaked. Horses are big!

Home on the Range

Well, things are going well still, but there is a big ol' adventure to report. One of the paddocks that I drive to each day to feed the horses is a retirement of sorts. There are 4 old horses, ranging from old but mobile, to nearly skeletal. The trick of this specific paddock is that you drive up, get out of the car, open the gate, get in the car, drive through, then get out to close the gate before proceeding to where they're fed. The problem yesterday was that not only where they waiting unusually anxiously near the gate, but I managed to drive the car in on top of the strings that are the gate, so I couldnt' close it without pulling the car futher forward. Now at this point I probably could have come up with any number of genius solutions, but I figured I would just sort of shoo the horses away and try to move the car and close the gate real quick. Next thing I know there are four old geiser horses trotting down the road with me behind them trying not to totally lose it and scare them more. They eventualy walked past another field they liked the look of, wandered in and just started to graze like they did this kind of thing all the time. I'm freaking out and unable to call Anette because I purchased only 5 minutes for my phone and had used them up. Finally I was able to sort of close them in the field and drive all panicky to find Anette to help me. She made sure I felt a little foolish, and understood how serious of a problem it was (horses in the road are worse than deer), but then sort of admitted that these things can happen to anyone. Horses seem to be the sort of animal that is really easy to manage 95% of the time, but that other 5%, you just never know what kind of stunts they'll pull.

Rough night for Funky

Today has been a day I will always remember. Today one of the horses fell ill, apparently he has some sort of stomach problem. When horses get a stomach ache like this they tend to want to lay down, and occasionaly roll around. The solution is the keep them moving. The two girls who have been working here took turns taking Funky, the horse, for walks around his paddock during the day. We put him to bed for the night, thinking that he had started to look better, but still not giving him any food. Later, around 7:30, Annette called me out to help her walk him again, because he had been laying down in his box. So I walked him about for maybe 20 minutes until the vet arrived, and then got to be there while they treated him. There were a few shots, the classic, vet with his hand up a horses butt, and then they tried to put a tube up his nose. I was holding Funky trying to keep him calm, and he was beign a very brave boy, but they still didn't have any luck getting the tube into his stomach. They all decided that he didn't seem to be having as much stomach trouble, so it was best just to leave it be. I started to walk him back towards his box and his nose started to bleed like crazy. I was a little alarmed, but everyone assured me that this was perfectly normal, as was to be expected. What nobody expected was for him to sneeze. Blood went everywhere, which fortunately was mostly directed and my pants and shoes, and not any higher. After spending 5 minutes holding a very heavy horse head up in the air to try and slow the bleeding, I got to clean up and now I'm eating, and on horse watch for the next 2 hours.
This was the last day that Ina, who has been here since i arrived, was here, and tomorrow the two girls are leaving. So starting tomorrow I will be in charge of taking care of all 38 horses solo for a week. Tonight sure seems like an interesting start.

Like and Indian

The latest horseback riding adventure. Bareback. I thought it would be fun to try, and Ina thought that it might help me loosen up my back a little bit. As she says, I look like I swallowed a broom for breakfast when I ride. It certainly did help me relax, riding bareback is all about settling yourself into the horses rhythm. It's totally awesome, you feel just like an indian. We even tried trotting without the saddle, which turned out to be easier, because you just follow along with the horses rhythm, and dont' have to lift yourself up and down like in the saddle. The second time we trotted I did come close to falling off, but I was getting tired.

Helper

This morning chopping wood I had some great help. An Austrian family was visiting Anette, and they had a young boy about 7 or 8. He seemed to be interested in helping yesterday, and today he came up and started by helping me to stack and sort. Then he started to help me with the splitting, while I held the log and wedge, he would go to town with the hatchet. It was pretty amusing, and it was really funny for the two of us to try and communicate, because he only new German. All in all, I think we did a great job, and he even taught me about insects, they have six legs, all in German.
This afternoon I had a great riding lesson. I've been on horses not quite two weeks now, and today I got to try jumping! They weren't very impressive jumps, but at a trot I rode a horse over maybe a 12in. jump. Pretty fun. It was a good day for riding, Eric and I got along well, and it wasn't until the end that we both got tired and confused. It seems to me that when I ride I eventually end up getting fatigued and start talking gibberish to the horse. It's just a matter of how long he and I can keep it together.

Today was a hard day for no particular reason. Right now it's almost like there are too many cooks in the kitchen, and all speak French but me. There are 3 girls staying here who have become mostly responsible for the day to day chores. They do the stables and most of the feeding. I've been given the honor of chopping and restacking wood piles, which is a fine job, but after a few hours I need to do something else. Trying to help is difficult when I can't understand what they want me to do.
I'm starting to realize why people can't go abroad at brown unless they have at least 2 years of foreign language proficiency. It's kind of hard to get by. 2 of the girls are around 13, and they both seem to have to hold my hand through everything we do together. I doesn't help that they have all been here before, and have more experience with horses. I'm cutting myself some slack because I don't really know what else to do.
On top of everything else horse riding is hard. Today we had a lesson, and my horse, Eric (I know) was driving me nuts. We were each supposed to trot and gallop around the outside of the ring, but all Eric wanted to do was chill in the middle with the others. Also, pulling the reigns isn't as fool proof as you might think. I've found myself tugging on the right reign, and the horses head fully pointing right, but him running left, because that's just what he wants. I know that I'm probably giving him confusing instructions, but i sort of feel like he just doesn't want to listen.
Oh well, tomorrow's another day, and there's nothing to do but to get back on the horse, heh heh.

das Boot

Today we went to a French boot (garage) sale. I've got to say, when it comes to boot sales, the French beat Americans hand over fist. They are located in a reasonably sized town, and the block off like 6-8 square blocks of the street, and people line up all along the street. There's probably a couple hundred people selling, and 5 times that wandering the streets. They sell the usual sort of junk that they basically just want to get rid of, but because of how old all of these areas are, there's also loads of really great looking antiques and things.
I felt a little bad because we left all of the stable cleaning to one of the kids who works for Anette, but he doesn't seem to mind doing the work, and I figure there'll probably be some day when he has other things to do and we'll pitch in more. Taking care of horses is interesting because it can either be really simple, basically leave them out to pasture, or fairly work intensive. Right now there are 12 of them who are brought to and from the stables each night, which makes for a lot of horse shuffling, and also a good deal of stable mucking.
Riding has been going well, but when Ina teaches me it can be frustrating. She really emphasizes not putting to much pressure on the reigns, which I totally understand. The problem is that basically every-time I successfully get the horse to do what I want, she tells me it was too much reign, and when I can't get the horse to do anything, she doesn't really have any suggestions, so I end up using more reign, and she corrects me. All in all, I feel that I'm learning quickly, and my legs are gonna be mad strong at the end of all this.

Here's the past couple of days adventures. I've gone horse back riding twice, and supposedly I will have an official lesson today. The first time out horse back riding it was abudnantly clear that I never should have claimed to have been riding before. True, I've been on a horse, but it was one of those horse tour sort of things, so the horse just kind of follows in line like it's been taught to. As it turns out, you have to tell a horse to go, or it doesn't, and you have to tell a horse to turn, or it doesn't. I slowly got the hang of walking my first time out, and the horse, Celeste, was very patient with me. We tried trotting the first day, which was great fun, and a literal pain the butt. The second day there were 4 of us out for a long ride, with my legs already sore from the previous day. It was a really wonderful ride, and I got to try galloping. This time the problem was more trying to keep Celest slowed down. I have no ability to communicate how fast I would like her to gallop, so she just kind of took off. Fortunately the other predicted this and had made a wall or horse flesh in front of me to help do some of the controlling for me. It's a little frightening being on top of such a big animal with so little real control, but I know within a week it'll be no problem.
We also had an incident where the horses escaped from their paddock into a neighboring field. We had gone out in the morning to look for them and bring them in to eat. they came after loads of calling, and stood around just long enough for us to put on one halter, but then they just took off. When we went and looked for them they led us on a jolly little chase around the neighboring field. Chasing galloping horses is really an exercise in futility. Finally 2 of the 3 were in the correct field, and I managed to approach and bring in the other, which made me pretty proud. It was a pretty fun way to start the day if you ask me.

Change of Local

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Well, it's been a great few days, so we'll start with my last time on the old farm. Our last day of work started late and ended early, which I was glad for, because I didn't want to be exhausted for my day of traveling. During the day, I found a mouse in my glove, which was at first just plain confusing, and then really funny. I took it out, with some difficulty, and let it free near the plum trees. Kevin said he would pay us 1euro per mouse we killed, but really, who can do that.
The traveling day went very well. I caught all of my trains successfully, which i was very pleased about. I also had a 4 hours stopover in Paris, so I strolled my way across the city to my next train station, bought some great bread and and enjoyed the people watching. On my second train, the conductor made fun of me because it looked like I had changed the date on my pass (it was actually just me reversing the month and day). I didn't understand, and was starting to get nervous until the lovely girl next to me explained. We then spent the rest of the ride chatting about all sorts of things. She's a stage director working in Paris, and also a writer, although it was unclear how successful she was. The coolest part was that she's a member of couch surfing, so when I spend a few days in Paris at the end of all this, I'll likely stay at her place.
This new farm that I have arrived at is going to be excellent I think. The main woman in charge, Anette, is perfectly friendly, although a little bit distant. I arrived and was shown to my lovely appartment by Ina, who has been on this farm a few times now. I'm really looking forward to all of the time I can spend with the horses, and Ina is taking me riding later today. I haven't done alot of work today, the only job really was cleaning a few stables, and there were 3 of us working. I'm sure I'll begin to really put in my time later though, and I'm excited.

I finally did it, I did something touristy on my trip here. I went to the Palais du Beaux Arts in Lille, and it was quite an interesting day. I got started walking the museum backwards, which I now think is actually preferable to walking them forwards. I don't think I get much more out of an art museum from any sort of chronology and you get to see people in the clusters that they arrived in, so it improves the people watching too. I do think that I prefer to go to museums with people though, it's hard for me to stay engrossed in the art for hours on end, and it's nice to have someone to talk about the art with.
I tried to see everything they had, and I was suprised by the things I liked the most. The primary exhibit is alot of paintings with a few sculptures intermixed. Most of it felt kind of the same to me, lots and lots of dying Jesus, or chaotic scenes where it's hard to see any part of it for all of the noise in the picture. When something stood out as unique though, it was really impressive, and I made a small list of artists that I wanted to look up more about.
There was a room full of sculptures which was awesome, but I think I'm just more of a sculpture sort of person. The thing I like most though was in the basement, and a much smaller exhibit. There was a tour of really really old works, mostly statues and wooden engraving plaque sort of things. Some of them were just crazy old, like around 100AD old. That was cool, and I broke the rules and touched an awesome statue of a monk, just because I wanted to touch something that old.
Then there was an exhibit of these really awesome carved elevation maps. They were atleast 15ft across, and had the most incredible detail. If I understood anything from the descriptions, they were initially done as military maps of the border of frances territory, so that commanders and kings could make better defensive decisions. There were around 20 of them, and they were kept in this realy neat low light low ceilinged room, very cave like.
All in all, this farm has been alright. I'm a little worn out, because the working days have been long and hard, and I've tried to make the best of my days off. I'm excited for my next farm, and the next post will be after I arrive there on Monday.

Good Times

The days have certainly gotten more interesting here. The farming is sort of same old same old, but I'm figuring out the patterns, and the way Kevin likes things to be done. Which means not only that I do fewer things that make him have to talk to me like I"m 3, but also, I can figure out when I can go ahead and break the rules. Yesterday I was harvesting tomatoes with his girlfriend, and we both had a laugh about how he wanted us to do things in such a specific way, and we had both ignored his advice completely.
The day as always was long. We pulled up a row of onions, a row of potatoes, bunches of tomatoes, and we raked up the weeds that I had weed wacked the other day. These are all great big tasks though, because a row is 100m, and the weeds result in great big piles. I'm sad to say that these piles were then burnt, which to me seems like a huge waste. In some ways, it's carbon neutral, all of those weeds had pulled the CO2 out of the air in the first place, but on the other hand, it seems like a great oppurtunity to keep the CO2 out of the air. Kevin insisted that there were seeds in the weeds that he couldn't put in compost and then spread on his land. There seems to be some truth in that, but it also seems to me that there's no reason not to just chuck them in a compost heap dedicated to weeds with seeds. He's got the space for it, and eventually it could actually prove useful.
After the long day came an unusually long night (and the only actually interesting part of this post). One of Kevin's friends had just returned from a year long trip, and what I thought would be a quick "biere et frites" with him, was actually a great big reunion of everyone he knows in the region. We went to a bar which is a known hangout location for the anarchists in the region, and it was totally overwhelming and totally awesome. I argued, in french about nuclear reactor, genetically modified organisms, and capatilism for hours. I also had great fries, and a cocmonsieur, which is basically a really great grilled cheese with ham. Everyone was great, and they're all seriously interesting people, who organize local movements and the like. They also were very understanding as I struggled to understand a single thing they said. We were there for hours, and while I was totally beat from the day, it was in the end amazingly fun, and I'm really pleased with my time speaking french. Martin also said that he will be on the west coast of france, and that I should try to look him up when I arrive at my last farm. I don't know if it will actually happen, but I sure intend to try.

Here I am

Well, I've now put in another day of work on the farm. I sorted potatoes all morning, and in the afternoon I weed wacked fields, that's right, whole fields. With organic gardening where you can't use any herbicides weeds are a constant problem. They soak up all of the water in the land surrounding your plants, which severly stunts their growth, and they block sunlight. When it comes time to harvest, it's also a real pain because theres all these weeds in the way, so getting to things like onions is a battle, machete worthy. Unfortunately when people try to grow organically on this kind of scale weeding isn't really a very profitable option. Kevin uses alot of rolled out plastic to keep weeds down, and for most plants he has to throw it out every year.
He has some really nice friends who I've gotten to meet. Our haltered conversations have been a big help to me learnign french. Understanding is my biggest problem. The way people say thing in normal conversation is very different than the french in a classroom setting. The speak fast, and pronouns are the worst, especialy when I only have a vague understanding of what we're talking about in the first place.
The onl other exciting thing was me buying a bottle of wine for myself, and being unable to find the opener deciding that I should just force the cork into the bottle. Some of you may know what came next, a fountain of wine that hit the ceiling, wall, and alot of me. Kevin wasn't exactly pleased, and he may be stuck with a stained ceiling as an eternal reminder of that silly American who came to live with him.

Quite a change

Well, things sure are different than they were 3 days ago. I have arrived at my new farm, and it is quite a shock. First, was the travel. When I arrived back in Paris I thought that my train was leaving from the same train station that I arrived in, which turned out not to be the case at all. I ran off to Gare du Nord as quickly as i could; but arrived only to watch my train pull away. So I booked for the next train, then used the remaining balance on my phone card to get some internet time so that I could contact the next farmer ( I did not have his number, good planning I know) Then I arrived at a stop only to watch my connecting train depart without me (only a 5 minute change over and I could not read the signs or walk fast enough) So, i finally bought some more time for my phone and called Kevin to tell him that i would be later again. He was busy when I arrived so I hqd to wait at the train station for a while while he finished some other buisiness. It was all finally over and it was off to the farm.
As it turns out he does not actually live near his land. He lives in a flat in the city of Lille, and drives about 40 minutes to his far, each day. Because of this the working arrangement is a little bit different, I go to work with him every other day, so that he doesn't have to drive me home after the half day that is usually the arrangement. I worked yesterday harvesting onions and potatoes, we were away from the flat all day 13 hours, and today, I'm totaly on my own.
The farm is more of a traditional sort of plant lots of plants and try to grow lots of things sort of place, and not exactly welcoming, although he seems to do his best. When I arrived I got to start right in with preparing onions for market. I was working with two people who were also wwoofers, but one of them lived in Belgium and commuted to work every day, and the other was from Lille, and also just came to work some of the time. As a foreign wwoofer, I would be living with Kevin in his flat on the outskirts of Lille. I have a cot in the main room.
Which brings us to Kevin himself. I really can't make up my mind about him. Sometimes he seems perfectly reasonable, if a bit quirky, and sometimes, he seems slightly derranged. He is very motivated to be organic, which I admire, and he really wants to make his farm sucessful, he's very commited. But he's told me a few stories about finding wildlife near his plants, and how he "just doesn't think" and immediately tries to kill it. He's throttled a rabbit and a grouse, and the stories are complete with crazy arm gestures and dieing animal reinactiments. He really is a character.
Things are definitly going to be different here, his flat doesn't have internet, so I'm in an internet cafe thingy, and only half way through this post did I figure out how to change the keyboard layout. The a, q w and m where all out of place, and punctuation, just forget about it :-). Now the layout is fixed and I just have to type on instinct, because the keys lie.

I'm a Lumberjack

Today was great. We went to the woods, that Peter and Julie own, about a 20 min drive from their farm to work gathering firewood for the winter. They have a very interesting process called copicing. It's a form of woodland management where you cycle through a patch of land every 12 years. You choose and area (1/12 of the total), cut down all of the trees but leaving a substantial amount of trunk. The trunk then sprouts a cluster of new growth, which will grow throughout the next 12 years. This has the advantage of trees not having to start from scratch each year, the root system is already firmly in place. This drastically increased the rate of growth over the lifespan, and also makes the entire process much easier. Trees that have been copiced year after year eventually form a rather attractive, spread out ring of new trees. Peter pointed out that using a patch of land in this way, is not only incredibly sustainable, but also essentially carbon neutral. The new growth of each year should essentially equal the amount of wood that's being used in a given winter, thus recapturing an equivalent amount of CO2.
The days work was incredibly satisfying and equally exhausting. The patch of woods that they own was copiced years ago, but has been abandoned recently, so is somewhat in disaray. They are trying to establish the old patterns of growth, while also clearing out some of the overgrowth that has occured. It was my job to look for dead but standing trees and chop them down, and drag them to the clearing where they were chopped up with a chainsaw and stacked. The best part (haha) was that the didn't want me using the chainsaw (which I semi-understand, they dont' want anything to go wrong) so I did all of my cutting by hand. None of the trees were larger than maybe 7-8 in. across, but tree after tree added up, especially when I was dragging them 50 ft. or so through the woods. Basically, it was awesome, I'm totally caput, and totally enjoyed my woodsman time. Check out the picture of the huge woodpile I cut down and dragged on flickr. my username is, predictably, orionofthewings and this might lead to my photostream...
Tomorrows my last day, then, au nord!

Good times

I've had two wonderful things happen. First, I found out that I'm staying on this farm until Wednesday, I had originally thought that I'd be leaving Monday, and I have to admit, I was a little bit sad. This farm has been great, and I feel really comfortable and at home here. I suppose I should get to the feeling of departure though, because there are three more to come after this. I'm still happy to be staying until Wednesday though.
The second wonderful thing was that we went to the circus! Now I've never been to any sort of circus before, but I'm sure that nothing would've been like this. It's like a traveling gipsy show, they roam about in a caravan and set up their show for weekends in the small towns. There were really great acts ranging from juggling, contortionists, chickens riding a bicycle on a tight rope, and some really neat acrobatic type stuff. This girl had a bit where she would climb up and wrap herself around these two hanging pieces of silk, which was really impressive, especially when she'd wrap herself up in some special way and then just let herself fall and she'd come tumbling down. The whole thing was hilarious, all the more so because of how little I understood. I was really impressed not only with the show, but also the community. People get really involved in their areas here, and there's loads going on all the time. For a first circus experience, it was the tops.

Outings

I've had quite a day of outings today. The first thing on the list was to get the bit for the drill that I needed to spare my poor forearms. Julie took me out in the car, thankfully because it was another rainy morning. We went on a few errands, and saw a lot of people whom Julie seemed to know. This isn't uncommon in such a small community I came to realize, everyone knows, or know about everyone else. I also learned that when you see someone you know, you almost always stop to catch up. For a kid who knows very little French, I was introduced as the wwoofer to a lot of French people, who all spoke very quickly. It was good practice and a good reminder that I am indeed in a foreign language speaking country.
I started work on actually assembling duck house, and it went quite well. Everything was a little bit non-traditional in my opinion because of the tools, and materials I had, but I think it's going to work. After only an hour or so of work, I stopped for lunch, and soon after that ther was another outing. Julie had met a potter she rather liked at the eco fair we'd gone to, and we were going to visit her workshop to hopefully pick up a custom job. The largest tea pot size, but in a deep blue shade. It was a little underplanned however, and the woman was actually just about to leave when we arrived. She's quite nice however, and gave us a quick tour. Her workshop is this old church which she's had to heavily reconstruct, including rebuilding a few of the walls. Her house is a really impressive building she's made with the help of quite a few wwoofers. It's a round building, which a massive tree trunk right in the center supporting lumber in the round comign out like spokes forming the ceiling. She has a green roof and no electricity or plumbing, just a phone which she rarely uses (hence the difficulty planning the trip). She's a serious hippy, and has apparently spent time studying the spirit realm with some sort of guru in northern France.
After the tour we left and stopped by a strange little village where a man had done extensive stone sculpting on almost every building sometime in teh 1800's, which was all pretty impressive.
All in all, it was an interesting day, with very little work, and alot of wandering into adventure.

Stormy Beginings

Today became a vacation day. Last night there were some of the craziest winds ever, which while they didn't really keep me up all night, they certainly did have me waking up every so often, normally to imagine the worst case scenario and come up with a plan. If the caravan rolled over I was going to grab the ends of the mattress and roll myself into a protective taco. I had not plan for airborne sheep, which seemed possible at the time, but fortunately never actually came up. During a lull in the rain I ran out of my caravan to rescue a book that i remembered I had left outside under an awning. I felt a little foolish running around at 3AM in my underwear, but it was worth it, and hilarious.
Which brings us to why today became a vacation day. After a hard few days of working, and then an eventful night like last night, I was a total blob today. I've eaten, watched a show, read a lot, and let the internet entertain me for hours. I tried to start gathering some potatoes when it looked like the sky would clear, but it started raining almost immediately, so I just gave up. Peter and Julie said it's fine, today was a day off, and I'll just work Sat and Sun a little, totally fair trade. I certainly enjoyed the rest, my body was aching last night. I feel rested and ready for tomorrow though.
I've also figured out why I wasn't having much luck with the internet inside my camper. At first I thought it was the large thick stone building between me and the wireless box, but my computer had fine reception on the other side of the house, so that didn't quite make sense. It was the camper itself, essentially a big metal cage. Sitting just outside I have a great connection, which is of some comfort.

Tuesday

Today I woke up terribly late. As always, two alarms just isn't enough, as I snooze through them long enough that they eventually give up, and I don't wake up for another couple of hours. It's not like I'm not getting enough sleep, it's just so convenient, an when the mornings are chilly, I'm even less inclined to rise. I also was having the craziest dreams, where for some reason I had gone back home (a bizarre family event I think) and then I realized that i desperately needed to get back to France. I was all in a panic because I had no way planned for me to return, and no real budget, and I was going to be late for my next farm. The dream continued strangely for a while, and then I woke up panicky, only to realize and just sort of laugh and go back to sleep.
I started the duck house, which is basically planned out. I was excited to use some building skills, but I didn't anticipate the basic lack of power-tools. Not having a drill bit for screwing is going to be a problem, because I really don't think I can screw this thing together by hand. Not having a saw as been kind of fun though, I've nearly finished making all of my cuts by hand, which although tiring, is really satisfying. It's been kind of rainy here, so I'll likely spend the rest of the afternoon reading, and maybe attempting a few more screws by hand (not that I've successfully completed even one, they get pretty difficult about half way in).

Monday

Today was potato day. I gathered nearly 100lbs of "baking tattys", and bagged them up. I also tried something new while dong them, listening to a book on tape, Alice in Wonderland. I'd never read it, and man is that book strange, intersting though. After potatoes I did some planning for the duck house, and then read for a bit.
There's a pond sort of thing near the farm, I don't think they actually own it, and they own a kayak, so the next thing I did was try that. I carried it over, got some strange looks from a farmer on a tractor, and dropped it in. It's one of those kayaks that's mostly designed for white watering I think, and it was a tight squeeze. On top of that, it's very tippy. I wobbled about madly for a while as I started to explore. It's only a medium sized pond, but the other side is obscured by trees, so it was fun to explore. It's quite pretty on the other side, but very shallow from years of silt accumulating. When I got over there, I must have disturbed some big ol' fish, and when it thrashed about it scared the shit out of me and nearly knocked me over, which would've been no good as I had my ipod in my pocket (not very good planning).
Once safely ashore I went and picked blackberries for a couple of hours while finishing Alice, and by then it was dinner and bed. A tiring day with all the potatoe digging and kayak balancing.

Vroom Vroom

Blog
Today was my second day off, and was as relaxing as the one before it. I slept in, had a light breakfast, and then bummed about during the morning. In the afternoon I went for a motorcycle ride on the Honda Rebel they have. It's a tiny bike, 125cc, which is half of the one at home, but it was still pretty fun. I rode out with no real direction in mind, and with great confidence that no matter what I could make it home... because I had a GPS. After getting turned around just going for a bike ride I figured that it was best not to take any risks.
I'm planning on building a duck house tomorrow and in the following days. It'll be a good activity to get me a little more busy, and it should be a fun project to work on. The past few days have been nice, but I'm realizing that I really need to try and make an effort an get myself a little bit more busy. By setting up projects and outings for myself I'm sure I'll feel like I'm getting more out of this experience. There is a castle that would be really interesting to try and visit while I'm here, and I've heard about some ruins in this area that are estimated to be 5000 years old.

French Hippies!

Today we went to an ecofair in a neighboring town. It was pretty fun, and predictably similar to an ecofair in the US. Bunches of well intentioned people getting together to basically sell their wares. It's a tad bit commercial, and there are a few really over the top crazies. There was an abundance of wine and we had a decent tabouli and pizza lunch (strange combo). I went for the run that I had told myself I woul do this morning, and it was marvelously tiring. I'm hoping to start running regularly, and maybe even time my runs to try and improve... novel.
I'm starting to wonder if I packed appropriately for the weather, the evenings have been down right chilly every night so far, and while reports say it'll warm up next week, I'm here well into fall, and my next stop is hours further north. Oh well, therere sweathers all over this country I'm sure I'll find one.

Crate of Carrots

Blog day 3
Today was another excellent day filled with adventure and excitement... or atleast carrot picking. They had a row of carrots not much smaller than the row of beans, and it yielded 34kilos of carrots... over 70lbs. After that we had a great lunch and then i just relaxed and went for a bike ride. The ride was fun, despite a seat that was too low and not adjustable without tools, and getting lost. It's very rural here, and every road looks the same, and for some reason I find it harder to remember street names in a different language. I got turned around just enough to make the ride a proper workout rather than just me touring about the country.
So far I've really enjoyed my free time here, but I know that in the not too distant future I'm going to need to ask them for the odd afternoon job as well. It's nice to have free afternoons, but I've felt a little bit anxious about spending my time just lazing about. We'll see, maybe I'll just suck it up and do whatever I want.
I'm honestly incredibly impressed by the extent to which Peter and Julie have worked towards being sustainable and green. They put in time every day both preparing for the winter, (harvesting, canning etc) and they put in some time working towards improving their home and their farm. Peter is working on a stone retaining wall which will go around their porch. I've learned a lot about simple ways for people to bring themselves closer to nature and a simpler healthier way of living. With some education and modern technology, being close to self sustainable seems not only possible, but more fun and relaxing. It'd be interesting to see how pared down this whole process could be so that it practically run itself.
Tomorrow we're going to an Eco-Fair being held in a neighboring town. Should be fun.

First Farm: First Day

Just as soon as I arrived I was wisked off to the first job. Peter was at their neighbors helping to clean the wheat they would buy. There was this great old machine, which I hope to get pictures of that had a few stages to clean the wheat. It blew out the husks with a large wooden paddle fan, then ran the wheat across a serie of gratings to remove the shell and grit. We ran 200 kilos through this ol' machine, which went suprisingly quickly, and it was my job to keep it full with new wheat to process. Pretty cool overall, if a little old and ineffective, some small stones made it through.
Then we got to the farm and I got a tour. I'll have pictures of the whole compound posted once i've both taken them and uploaded them. It's a really amazing little farm, that had been abandoned for around 20 years before Peter and Julie moved in and started work. There's loads to do, but they're making realy incredible progress, and they've only been here a little over one year.
Today I'll give an overview of the farm, saving more detailed stories for future posts.
They've got two awesome dogs named Willow and Hamish. There's 2 litters of kitten for a total of 12. They have 6 sheep an 3 goats, one of the goats is used for milking. There's a small pond where some ducks live, and they also have a dozen or so chickens and 5 geese.
They have a pretty good sized garden with the standard variety of vegetables, also some fruit trees mixed in. Alot of the agriculture technique they use is called companion gardenign, where certain plants help each other, with pests, nutrients, or support.
They have an awesome composting toilet system, that's probably one of the cleanest and nicest smelling bathrooms I've been in, period. There's also a 125cc Honda Rebel which they said I can take for a ride whenever I like, maybe tomorrow.
That's about that for an overview. This morning my project was to pick beans, and my best guess is that I picked about 4500 of them in 4 hours. Not bad for a days work, look for the picture of the wheelbarrow full of beans on flickr. My afternoon is now mine, and I plan to take some pictures and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Traveling Tales

First on the agenda is to reveal how I made it to my first farm. It was all pretty straight forward, flight, airport, another flight, airport, and train to Paris. Then it was time for me to find my hostel, which, in my infinite wisdom, I had neglected to write down the address of... or even the name. I stayed optomistic assuming that I remembered the general area well enough, and could locate my lodgings from memory of looking at it on street view. This turned out to be as impossible as it sounds. Unfortunately every street in the area looked promising, so this adventure led only to sore legs and a decreased moral. Fortunately, I had passed a bar that advertised free wi-fi, so I returned there (after more confused wandering) and ordered a large Leffe. I hadn't had much to eat that day so the beer went right to my head, and the internet ended up not even working, so I just read and finished my beer, and then rallied to head across the street, where another Wi-Fi was located. Finally success, I had another beer and a bite to eat, and was on my way to the hostel, which was not to far away, but still not anywhere near where I had planned to look. The hostel was fun, and the people were nice, altough one of them snored louder than anybody I had ever heard, which made for a noticably restless night. The next day there were a couple of train rides and I was picked up by Julie, the Scottish woman from my first farm.

First Post

This blog will be temporarily dedicated to my travels in France. After much prodding from my dear friend Shannon I have relented, and decided to spill all of my trials tribulations, adventures and emotions out into the interwebs. I'll try to keep in touch with people on a more personal basis but this will be a great way for everyone (me included) to keep track of me, and get a feel for what's been going on "avec moi". Next post from France (fingers crossed)