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).