Last night I did go to bed at a reasonable hour and had the brainwave to spray my mosquito net with bug spray. Surprise, surprise I was able to get a good nights sleep as well as minimize bug interaction! Definitely a marked improvement to the bug bites of my first night here.
My day started in the same as yesterday. Woke up, got ready, and listened as the days activities were discussed. Today’s tasks included feeding the pigs and cleaning their pen, harvesting the greens and cilantro for the restaurant, weeding, and collecting nuts. I will say that the weeding I found particularly amusing. But first I need to explain a bit about my younger self.
When I was a teenager, my Mom used to offer us a lot of money (well, for a teenager anyway) if we weeded her garden. I know she will argue that the garden was enjoyed by all and thus we should have all put in some work. However, I would argue that because I had little/no input in said garden, it was really my Mothers. Being a particularly stubborn kid I weed that garden only when I was strapped for cash but I would hate every minute of it. I complained of the mosquitos, about how sore my legs were, how uncomfortable it was, how early I had to wake up for it, etc. Considering all my bitching and complaining, it really is a wonder why I decided to go work on an organic farm in the first place.
After I fed the pigs, I ended up going with Pablo to harvest limes. And I knew that we were harvesting today, however I had little idea as to what exactly we would harvest. So Pablo sort of just comes up to me as I’m working and says “vamos”. But I don’t really know where we are going. So we wandered to the “fruit” area and started looking for lime trees. We managed to find two trees with limes to harvest and Pablo found a handy stick with a hook at the end to bring down the limes. I learned the lime tree is thorned, and therefore very difficult to harvest. Plus they don’t use ladders here. Human power only.
The other amusing part of harvesting the greens here was counting them up. Apparently it is necessary to prove the productivity of the farm, however you feel a bit silly counting 110 leaves of Okinawa Spinach, or 100 Hibiscus leaves. After I harvested these items, and more, I took them up to the restaurant in the Lodge to be used for that evenings meal. I was rewarded with passionfruit juice, which was heavenly after the hike up the hill.
That afternoon I didn’t get up to a whole bunch except for reading more of the Organic Gardening book and making myself lunch. After I had finished my work for the day I looked forward to the vegetable trucks arrival. With new produce I was able to make peanut satay sauce with broccoli! I don’t know about you, but the combination of peanuts and broccoli is absolutely heavenly. It was so good in fact that I ended up making it for dinner as well. And it was good I did because we had the arrival of a new volunteer. Finally I wasn’t the only one Pablo can laugh at!
Sara actually has experience however WWOOFing as well as working on organic farms, community collectives, and with school programs. I sort of envied her knowledge. However I guess that is what I am here to acquire. Poco a poco.
And it was an early night once again.
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