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.