Partly the cold grey weather, partly the "pre-vacation" jitters, partly other things, things feel strange on the farm. People are ready for a vacation.
Helene, the volunteer who also lives in the garden room with me (two rooms in the "garden room") is leaving to go to school in Germany at the end of the month. She had a 6-month contract and unfortunately she is very cool, so we will all miss her.
Last week the whole farm had lice. Ahh, childhood memories. I can't wait to take my teddy bear out of its plastic bag in a week.
Things will also change come January after our break. The two farmers who were hired in April are now fired. I wonder about the responsibility shifts. I requested having even one of my farm workshops change to an indoor craft workshop where I could have time to be creative once a week, but the boss didn't sound super receptive to that. I would also like to stay in my current room and continue the "floater" position, but despite my request may be moved in January anyway. I will stick to expressing my opinion and continue to lay out the pros and cons I see, and we'll see if that works.
Sometimes I have doubts about this place. Blogs are not the best medium to express them, but a decent way to show my mood.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
(in)sane in the membrane
What unusual weather lately - this morning I took a long walk in a t-shirt to dim sunlight and 4 days earlier it was snowing tiny little balls (you could hardly call 'em snowflakes at how round and compact they were!) on a crisp and very windy day. That crisp and windy day I was helping to build a garden coop (like a greenhouse), standing on the very top edge of the tractor scooper, holding on to the plastic cover for dear life while the workers down below wired the plastic on. I would say staple gunning the coop for a few hours was the highlight of that day...felt like a real farmer woman.
So it's been a while since my last entry, guess I have been choosing sleep and socializing over publicity. But I'll try to remember what's happened since...
-had a really fun weekend with volunteer Natalie and Macalester friends (Jen Agans, Emily Heckel, Sara Gottlieb, Kate Ganong) dancing in Boston. It was a little strange having a Mac crew in such a different part of the country, but just as good as the old times :) We even ran into Emily the next day at a Lush store and I got to talk with my sister Heide from Honduras for her 15 min free phone call! We stayed late enough to see white christmas lights brighten up the night streets. This made me crave a Christmas tree lighting service, like in Chapel Hill where people would sing, eat free cookies and hot cider and see an enormous tree get lit. I'm excited to go home for winter break and maybe see the Nutcracker with my small family crew of 4 this year.
-Marc visited me at the farm and stayed over Sunday night. He got to eat a delicious home-cooked meal, meet some of the characters here (including the volunteers), go for a walk in the woods/get a tour of the place, and eat at the Peterborough diner. He also gifted me a "sudoku for dummies" book which has already commenced to drive me crazy, but nonetheless keep me busier :)
-i'm learning how to knit, learning being the key word
-i've started singing Christmas carols with three other people (a couple and another volunteer, Helene) Monday nights. The idea is that we'll walk around from house to house with a recorder/pitch pipe and sing them for people before vacation starts Dec 18. We're practicing "In the Bleak Midwinter," "Lo, How a Rose 'Er Blooming" (in German), "Noel Nouvelet," and "Gloria" (or is it called hark how the angels sing? I mostly recognize it as Gloooooooo-ooooooooooooooo-oooooooooooooo-ooooooooooooooooooriia!).
-a while ago I saw this cool movie, I think it's just called Temple Grandin, about Temple Grandin, a woman who has her phD in Animal Behavior and was the first Autistic person to really explain what it meant to be Autistic. Because of her, the majority of American slaughterhouses have been redesigned to fit her more calming and logical model of how to move and kill cows. I highly recommend seeing the movie.
This week is Thanksgiving week so we have 7 new residents taking holiday here, but it's not overwhelming because about that many of our residents are spending Thanksgiving with their former caretakers or friends. We have no workshops that day (just helping to cook) and we each eat in a house instead of in the main building as they did last year (which WAS overwhelming, trying to arrange for 70+ people). We hope to play a couple rounds of (tag?) football to bring in a taste of America. And I hope to jump on into the giant hot tub right outside of the farm's founder's house to finish the day off. At the end of the week, I get to go to Trish and Owen's (Owen went to the peace corps with my mom, and they've been family friends since) in Hartford, Connecticut. No specific plans on my end - the refreshment of just being somewhere new, even if I'm just relaxing at their house, is plenty satisfying for me :)
Reading a blog entry like this makes it sound like I'm always busy and always doing something. It is true that I'm lucky to have access to a car (though it's dying by the day, with every new fix it needs) and live only a state or two apart from my brother and friends. That said, there is a lot of down time, time to be by yourself, time to try to come up with a motivational activity, time to think, time to feel lazy. At school, at least half of that time was taken up by homework and studying, or planning the social moments when you weren't doing that. I would feel like I needed more time to myself, more time to reflect. Now I feel like I could go crazy with my thoughts and being by myself. I think about rituals that I can do by myself to keep me focused, like reading or sudoku. I never thought I would say this, but I miss having to do some homework to keep my mind a little straight.
The nice thing is that a lot of the volunteers feel that way and we talk about it. They're a good group of people. Between them and the woods, I remain more sane.
***If you'd like to check out some photos of the farm and us, go to this site: http://www.fredgoldsmithphotography.com/gallery/PlowshareFarmAutumn2010/
So it's been a while since my last entry, guess I have been choosing sleep and socializing over publicity. But I'll try to remember what's happened since...
-had a really fun weekend with volunteer Natalie and Macalester friends (Jen Agans, Emily Heckel, Sara Gottlieb, Kate Ganong) dancing in Boston. It was a little strange having a Mac crew in such a different part of the country, but just as good as the old times :) We even ran into Emily the next day at a Lush store and I got to talk with my sister Heide from Honduras for her 15 min free phone call! We stayed late enough to see white christmas lights brighten up the night streets. This made me crave a Christmas tree lighting service, like in Chapel Hill where people would sing, eat free cookies and hot cider and see an enormous tree get lit. I'm excited to go home for winter break and maybe see the Nutcracker with my small family crew of 4 this year.
-Marc visited me at the farm and stayed over Sunday night. He got to eat a delicious home-cooked meal, meet some of the characters here (including the volunteers), go for a walk in the woods/get a tour of the place, and eat at the Peterborough diner. He also gifted me a "sudoku for dummies" book which has already commenced to drive me crazy, but nonetheless keep me busier :)
-i'm learning how to knit, learning being the key word
-i've started singing Christmas carols with three other people (a couple and another volunteer, Helene) Monday nights. The idea is that we'll walk around from house to house with a recorder/pitch pipe and sing them for people before vacation starts Dec 18. We're practicing "In the Bleak Midwinter," "Lo, How a Rose 'Er Blooming" (in German), "Noel Nouvelet," and "Gloria" (or is it called hark how the angels sing? I mostly recognize it as Gloooooooo-ooooooooooooooo-oooooooooooooo-ooooooooooooooooooriia!).
-a while ago I saw this cool movie, I think it's just called Temple Grandin, about Temple Grandin, a woman who has her phD in Animal Behavior and was the first Autistic person to really explain what it meant to be Autistic. Because of her, the majority of American slaughterhouses have been redesigned to fit her more calming and logical model of how to move and kill cows. I highly recommend seeing the movie.
This week is Thanksgiving week so we have 7 new residents taking holiday here, but it's not overwhelming because about that many of our residents are spending Thanksgiving with their former caretakers or friends. We have no workshops that day (just helping to cook) and we each eat in a house instead of in the main building as they did last year (which WAS overwhelming, trying to arrange for 70+ people). We hope to play a couple rounds of (tag?) football to bring in a taste of America. And I hope to jump on into the giant hot tub right outside of the farm's founder's house to finish the day off. At the end of the week, I get to go to Trish and Owen's (Owen went to the peace corps with my mom, and they've been family friends since) in Hartford, Connecticut. No specific plans on my end - the refreshment of just being somewhere new, even if I'm just relaxing at their house, is plenty satisfying for me :)
Reading a blog entry like this makes it sound like I'm always busy and always doing something. It is true that I'm lucky to have access to a car (though it's dying by the day, with every new fix it needs) and live only a state or two apart from my brother and friends. That said, there is a lot of down time, time to be by yourself, time to try to come up with a motivational activity, time to think, time to feel lazy. At school, at least half of that time was taken up by homework and studying, or planning the social moments when you weren't doing that. I would feel like I needed more time to myself, more time to reflect. Now I feel like I could go crazy with my thoughts and being by myself. I think about rituals that I can do by myself to keep me focused, like reading or sudoku. I never thought I would say this, but I miss having to do some homework to keep my mind a little straight.
The nice thing is that a lot of the volunteers feel that way and we talk about it. They're a good group of people. Between them and the woods, I remain more sane.
***If you'd like to check out some photos of the farm and us, go to this site: http://www.fredgoldsmithphotography.com/gallery/PlowshareFarmAutumn2010/
Monday, November 1, 2010
hee hee ee ee eee...
That's the closest impersonation I can do of one of the resident's witch cackles. She has short grey hair and is nearing her 50s, is a witch every year for Halloween, and does the cutest witch cackle. She'll be mid- "blahblah" (repeating sentences), I'll start to do Halloween noises and for 5 seconds she'll break out into them with me. I also love chasing her with these small felted ghosts around the house, particularly the night before Halloween when our power went out :)
Halloween was fun - on Friday the whole community went to a Halloween party at Lucas community (similar to ours, but with less capable residents). It was great to see everyone in the outfits - Elvis, the costumes where it looks like you're piggy back riding on an ostrich or person, cleopatra, Groucho Marx's (I was one of them), etc. I was a little creeped out by two residents who were completely covered in masks and robes and would stand very close and still to you. heh. There were first a couple games (tie a balloon around your leg and pop everyone else's before yours gets popped, musical chairs), then good dance music, and lastly desert and a play of the children's book about "the little old lady" who wasn't scared of anything.
On Saturday the volunteers went to a house party in Peterborough that was like a small college party. We had considered driving to Keene to crash frat parties afterwards (putting the Germans in the front line so their accents and foreign appeal would get us in), but decided we would do that another weekend.
This week seemed pretty busy since on Thursday night the whole community also went to a professional Eurythmy performance in Keene. At first I had to mentally calm down to try to take it seriously - all the women were completely straight-faced, but their bodies were SOO expreSSIVE and Rudolf STEIner, mOOOVing to the poems that were being read, that it was hard for me to access it. But as the performance went on, there was a little more music and a few humorous pieces that I ended up really enjoying it. I remembered how much I miss being a part of and seeing musical/dance performance and how easy school has made it for me to access that. I occasionally drum in one of the houses when people aren't around to make it a private performance, and I often dance in my room, but I could always use more music.
In other news, my brother Niels' family is expecting a baby boy in March!! I'm so excited for a new cute nephew :)
That's all for now, I don't have Thanksgiving off but I might see Marc a few days later. Time is going by pretty fast here, and before I know it I'll be back home for Christmas (which I am already looking forward to). Stay healthy as the weather turns cold and VOTE tomorrow!
Halloween was fun - on Friday the whole community went to a Halloween party at Lucas community (similar to ours, but with less capable residents). It was great to see everyone in the outfits - Elvis, the costumes where it looks like you're piggy back riding on an ostrich or person, cleopatra, Groucho Marx's (I was one of them), etc. I was a little creeped out by two residents who were completely covered in masks and robes and would stand very close and still to you. heh. There were first a couple games (tie a balloon around your leg and pop everyone else's before yours gets popped, musical chairs), then good dance music, and lastly desert and a play of the children's book about "the little old lady" who wasn't scared of anything.
On Saturday the volunteers went to a house party in Peterborough that was like a small college party. We had considered driving to Keene to crash frat parties afterwards (putting the Germans in the front line so their accents and foreign appeal would get us in), but decided we would do that another weekend.
This week seemed pretty busy since on Thursday night the whole community also went to a professional Eurythmy performance in Keene. At first I had to mentally calm down to try to take it seriously - all the women were completely straight-faced, but their bodies were SOO expreSSIVE and Rudolf STEIner, mOOOVing to the poems that were being read, that it was hard for me to access it. But as the performance went on, there was a little more music and a few humorous pieces that I ended up really enjoying it. I remembered how much I miss being a part of and seeing musical/dance performance and how easy school has made it for me to access that. I occasionally drum in one of the houses when people aren't around to make it a private performance, and I often dance in my room, but I could always use more music.
In other news, my brother Niels' family is expecting a baby boy in March!! I'm so excited for a new cute nephew :)
That's all for now, I don't have Thanksgiving off but I might see Marc a few days later. Time is going by pretty fast here, and before I know it I'll be back home for Christmas (which I am already looking forward to). Stay healthy as the weather turns cold and VOTE tomorrow!
Saturday, October 16, 2010
¡arriba!
Having fun with other people is always nice of course, but this alone party I´m having right now is highly satisfying. My brother, Marc, is on dorm duty right now and I decided to arrive at his mansion apartment before he got back home tonight. (Marc is a Spanish teacher and assistant soccer coach for Tilton High, a boarding school whose dorm halls look 5x nicer than any Macalester one). After having dropped my things off at the apartment, I took a crisp fall walk around the campus (seriously, Marc, how did you land this one again?). Now I am listening to his latin pop, sipping on Newcastles, and excitedly using technology. What a party! Seriously.
Ok, it´s not like I don´t see computers or TVs on the farm. In fact, I started watching Glee last Tuesday and go online every few days. I´m just saying that they have become a little more exciting since I´ve been here.
News from the farm:
-my favorite dog on the farm, and one of three total (a 1-yr old black and white mutt cutie pie) bit the finger of the resident who occasionally hits people and curses like it´s tourettes...though the dog has never bit anyone else, she had to be taken away, by law, immediately. I´ll miss you, Bailey :(
-I went out last night with two volunteers and a house mother (she´s the hip one). She was probably the loudest hollerer for the cover band and did not hold back dancing one bit. After a fun-filled night at the bar (mysterious butt-grabbings and all), we pulled a classic move and ate fried food at the diner. Good times.
-I got my hair chopped off one night when the volunteers and I were particularly inspired. I essentially got a bob cut and my neck even had to be shaved! It´s the shortest I´ve ever had it, and I think it´s growing on me...ha, literally AND figuratively.
-I´m still excited for Halloween but don´t know what to dress up as...any ideas?
Sending my love,
Lisa
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
crunchy:
The leaves, the granola, and many of the people here are that.
I'm already getting excited about Halloween. I hear that we go to Lucas community (a similar one to Plowshare but in Temple, NH) for a Halloween party and it's really fun to see everyone in costume and getting excited about candy and spooky things. I really enjoy being silly with the residents but have to control myself in the work place (occasionally), so I'm looking forward to that not mattering at all. I also look forward to playing more jokes on the volunteers, considering I went to bed last night with rocks from Portsmouth stuck under my pillow. Vengeance is mine.
Four of us went to Portsmouth yesterday and it was ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. The town is cute and has a lot of nice shops with samples (tribute to Mom and Dad). It was so freeing to smell salty air, walk along the beach and nearly jump into the water. I started thinking of my grandpa (Opa) and how he (and mom) grew up with the sea and delicious fresh sea food. As much of a mountain girl as I am, I can imagine loving spending more time by the ocean.
What a contrast to earlier in the week which was rainy, cold and a little dramatic. I switched one of my shifts to see my brother Marc help coach a soccer game at the high school nearby - despite the constant downpour, I was very happy to see him in his element. The other coach seems like a Marc-kinda guy, with Marc-kinda humor :) When I got back, though, it turns out I had upset someone because I hadn't told every step of the chain that someone else was covering my shift. While many of you are probably confused by my whole work situation and schedule, the gist of it is that there are many people involved and the chain of commands confuses me. I'm pretty sure miscommunications like this will happen the rest of the year, like they do in life, but here it starts to become the biggest newsflash of the day :)
Speaking of small-town/small-community things, I also went to Milford's Pumpkin Fest this past weekend (one is in Keene next weekend - yay!). Basically what that means is: 1 pumpkin per 30 min is shot out of a 20-ft long gun/tube to splatter half a mile down into a corn field (oo, ahh!), food like hot dogs that are "oh so gross" to Germans used to brats, music, a few booths, and 5 GIANT a** pumpkins that won "biggest pumpkin of the year" contest. I think the largest one weighed in at 1,800 lbs! A friend and I were fantacizing about carving one of them out for a jack-o-lantern, and then hanging out of the mouth pretending to writhe in pain when kids get their candy. Or, having two small children rest their heads poking out of the eye holes. I hope they do something good with those pumpkins.
I'm already getting excited about Halloween. I hear that we go to Lucas community (a similar one to Plowshare but in Temple, NH) for a Halloween party and it's really fun to see everyone in costume and getting excited about candy and spooky things. I really enjoy being silly with the residents but have to control myself in the work place (occasionally), so I'm looking forward to that not mattering at all. I also look forward to playing more jokes on the volunteers, considering I went to bed last night with rocks from Portsmouth stuck under my pillow. Vengeance is mine.
Four of us went to Portsmouth yesterday and it was ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. The town is cute and has a lot of nice shops with samples (tribute to Mom and Dad). It was so freeing to smell salty air, walk along the beach and nearly jump into the water. I started thinking of my grandpa (Opa) and how he (and mom) grew up with the sea and delicious fresh sea food. As much of a mountain girl as I am, I can imagine loving spending more time by the ocean.
What a contrast to earlier in the week which was rainy, cold and a little dramatic. I switched one of my shifts to see my brother Marc help coach a soccer game at the high school nearby - despite the constant downpour, I was very happy to see him in his element. The other coach seems like a Marc-kinda guy, with Marc-kinda humor :) When I got back, though, it turns out I had upset someone because I hadn't told every step of the chain that someone else was covering my shift. While many of you are probably confused by my whole work situation and schedule, the gist of it is that there are many people involved and the chain of commands confuses me. I'm pretty sure miscommunications like this will happen the rest of the year, like they do in life, but here it starts to become the biggest newsflash of the day :)
Speaking of small-town/small-community things, I also went to Milford's Pumpkin Fest this past weekend (one is in Keene next weekend - yay!). Basically what that means is: 1 pumpkin per 30 min is shot out of a 20-ft long gun/tube to splatter half a mile down into a corn field (oo, ahh!), food like hot dogs that are "oh so gross" to Germans used to brats, music, a few booths, and 5 GIANT a** pumpkins that won "biggest pumpkin of the year" contest. I think the largest one weighed in at 1,800 lbs! A friend and I were fantacizing about carving one of them out for a jack-o-lantern, and then hanging out of the mouth pretending to writhe in pain when kids get their candy. Or, having two small children rest their heads poking out of the eye holes. I hope they do something good with those pumpkins.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Poopy horns
The title of this entry is an example of what makes this farm "unique," or nonconventional, or hippie, or integrative...at Plowshare, there's always something odd, funny, or quirky going on.
So this past Wednesday was St. Michaelmas Day, celebrating the coming Autumn season and representing courage in the face of change. St. Michael is an Aarchangel and is brought up in secular and Christian settings. There's a whole lot about Plowshare, anthroposophy and the spirituality here that I don't understand (yet?) but basically on Wednesday the Plowshare residents and a few neighbors paraded around the farm, following the beat of a drum, 4 guys in a dragon suit, someone dressed as a princess, a prince, St. Michael and the narrator. A play of the dragon being (gently) wounded and the princess being saved by St. Michael ensued, along with being (accidentally?) pelted with flower bulbs that we would later plant in front of our houses.We ate a big fall harvest feast, after having all shoveled a little bit of soil over horns filled with fresh cow poop.
I was in that morning workshop. It was hard for me not to chuckle the whole time as the residents sat down on buckets around freshly shoveled poo. Apparently it's a common biodynamic practice, to fill cow horns with manure and bury them in the soil until spring time when they've produced this (apparently wonderfully smelling) compost to be spread over the crops. One of the residents "Mike" is this hilarious, loud New Jerseyan who looks like he could be a pizza boy and DJ, and he kept asking "Lisa is this poop? Is this poop that you're spilling all over my hands??" as I would attempt to precisely scoop spoonfulls of it into the horn. There are pictures, don't worry.
In other news, I went to the White Mountains this weekend with two volunteers and had a lot of fun. We first struggled with the fire and slept in a freezing tent (thankfully I had a real sleeping bag). But, it was beautiful there. We hiked and sat along rivers to eat, though the trail we picked happened to be really confusing and we got lost, marching through marshy waters --> cold, wet feet all day. When things like that happen, I imagine all of the people who thru-hike and backpack for long periods of time, and I feel very comfortable :)
I think that's all for now. I'm going to try to visit my brother, Marc, either this weekend or soon (he works at a boarding school in Tilton, NH) which I'm really looking forward to.
Love,
Lisa
P.S. We've finally started making pizza! We made 20 (and a little heart-shaped bread dough, made by moi) last Thursday...can't wait to start getting fancy with 'em.
So this past Wednesday was St. Michaelmas Day, celebrating the coming Autumn season and representing courage in the face of change. St. Michael is an Aarchangel and is brought up in secular and Christian settings. There's a whole lot about Plowshare, anthroposophy and the spirituality here that I don't understand (yet?) but basically on Wednesday the Plowshare residents and a few neighbors paraded around the farm, following the beat of a drum, 4 guys in a dragon suit, someone dressed as a princess, a prince, St. Michael and the narrator. A play of the dragon being (gently) wounded and the princess being saved by St. Michael ensued, along with being (accidentally?) pelted with flower bulbs that we would later plant in front of our houses.We ate a big fall harvest feast, after having all shoveled a little bit of soil over horns filled with fresh cow poop.
I was in that morning workshop. It was hard for me not to chuckle the whole time as the residents sat down on buckets around freshly shoveled poo. Apparently it's a common biodynamic practice, to fill cow horns with manure and bury them in the soil until spring time when they've produced this (apparently wonderfully smelling) compost to be spread over the crops. One of the residents "Mike" is this hilarious, loud New Jerseyan who looks like he could be a pizza boy and DJ, and he kept asking "Lisa is this poop? Is this poop that you're spilling all over my hands??" as I would attempt to precisely scoop spoonfulls of it into the horn. There are pictures, don't worry.
In other news, I went to the White Mountains this weekend with two volunteers and had a lot of fun. We first struggled with the fire and slept in a freezing tent (thankfully I had a real sleeping bag). But, it was beautiful there. We hiked and sat along rivers to eat, though the trail we picked happened to be really confusing and we got lost, marching through marshy waters --> cold, wet feet all day. When things like that happen, I imagine all of the people who thru-hike and backpack for long periods of time, and I feel very comfortable :)
I think that's all for now. I'm going to try to visit my brother, Marc, either this weekend or soon (he works at a boarding school in Tilton, NH) which I'm really looking forward to.
Love,
Lisa
P.S. We've finally started making pizza! We made 20 (and a little heart-shaped bread dough, made by moi) last Thursday...can't wait to start getting fancy with 'em.
Monday, September 27, 2010
smack into a Boston weekend
Now I'm sitting in the Tufts library, eeking out a few hours on the computer to respond to emails and watch an episode of Glee. Last time I was in a college library was at Macalester, and it makes me chuckle at how similar smaller college libraries can be (every two minutes doing a scan of whether you know anyone, someone across the room saying "bless you" when I sneeze, and a few people loudly talking about their wild weekends). Makes me miss Macalester a little, but not enough to want to do another academic year there...you can do it, Seniors!
This weekend I spent in Boston visiting Jen (my roommate and friend from Mac) and walking around downtown with 3 of the Plowshare volunteers. I had mentioned to them how I always have this secret desire/expectation to run into someone I know in a US city, though I know they're huge and it's unrealistic. 10 minutes later I run into another Mac grad! And on our way back to the Commons park, we pass a Quidditch game! As if that weren't epic enough, a huge orchestra was having a concert at the park playing that composition that sounds like conquering the American frontier (it's really peppy but I unfortunately can not type out my singing syllables), so as the Quidditch game was ending and everyone cheered, the piece was climaxing and oh how you had to be there :) I'd only been to Boston once before, so it was really interesting to have new imagery for it. I still sat on one of the duck statues and had a picture made of me, hoping to put it side-by-side with the one of me when I was 8.
I needed to get away from the farm this weekend more than the other weekends. The week started off fine and beautiful, but come Thursday things started to get tough. I caught a cold and had my first few mornings at a newly settled house with a resident as recent to the farm as I am. "Claire" is about 20, super hyper and switches moods and actions very quickly. She usually does and says the opposite of what you say, and you have to have immense patience and space with her. However, there isn't the whole day to wait for someone to come around, so when it comes down to actually leaving the house (having not accomplished tooth brushing or bed making) she can get panicky...and slaps people. So I had my first series of smacking Thursday, then the subsequent days. Not the best way to start a day. She does this with many people and it is something we're trying to deal with, but I don't know...she stresses me out way more than any of the other residents. I'm not sure that it's the best for me or the farm to assign a new volunteer like me to her at all at this point. We'll see how that goes.
In other news, I really wanted to go to the Common Ground Festival (a local, huge and exciting agriculture fest) in Maine this weekend, but I was so exhausted come Friday/Saturday (my days off are Sun/Mon) that I didn't have the energy to drive 5 hrs to a camp site and perk on up Sunday morning for a full day's worth of activities. It is something I'm determined to attend, so maybe next time. Instead I went to Boston and saw a wonderful happy friend of mine :) Next weekend, though, I'm going to the White Mtns to camp with a volunteer or two - should be one of the most beautiful weekends in the mountains with the freshly colored leaves and before the first frost. Definitely looking forward to that.
On the farm, turns out I won't get to learn milking until the Spring when more cows will hopefully be giving milk and they can train me on one or two who will get used to me. So far I've massaged a cow's utter - a funny experience with a few tail whackings (I'm just getting beaten up, aren't I?). Those veins are huge and I feel like I'm kneading dough. I have helped heard cows which definitely takes practice (in my own body language and what spots on the cow give them what signals) and when I give the pigs water, their enormous bodies finally rouse to sniff me out. Little joys of life :)
We've also started something called Eurythmy once a week (they do this in Waldorf schools) where we do fluid motions with or without these metal poles to vowel sounds. haha, a little weird to explain and I'm not the best person to ask, but imagine a yoga teacher asking you to do some basic dance moves and catch poles you throw. The instructor used to live in Asheville and is Russian with his long white hair in pony tail. One of the residents is obsessed with him and says "THANK YOU VADEEM!" whenever he sees him for no reason at all. (This guy is also great at bird impressions and likes to beat box quietly in the background a lot). So now, we've all started saying "thank you" in that way whenever we're done with Eurythmy :)
If you made it through this entry, congratulations, you three people following this blog!
This weekend I spent in Boston visiting Jen (my roommate and friend from Mac) and walking around downtown with 3 of the Plowshare volunteers. I had mentioned to them how I always have this secret desire/expectation to run into someone I know in a US city, though I know they're huge and it's unrealistic. 10 minutes later I run into another Mac grad! And on our way back to the Commons park, we pass a Quidditch game! As if that weren't epic enough, a huge orchestra was having a concert at the park playing that composition that sounds like conquering the American frontier (it's really peppy but I unfortunately can not type out my singing syllables), so as the Quidditch game was ending and everyone cheered, the piece was climaxing and oh how you had to be there :) I'd only been to Boston once before, so it was really interesting to have new imagery for it. I still sat on one of the duck statues and had a picture made of me, hoping to put it side-by-side with the one of me when I was 8.
I needed to get away from the farm this weekend more than the other weekends. The week started off fine and beautiful, but come Thursday things started to get tough. I caught a cold and had my first few mornings at a newly settled house with a resident as recent to the farm as I am. "Claire" is about 20, super hyper and switches moods and actions very quickly. She usually does and says the opposite of what you say, and you have to have immense patience and space with her. However, there isn't the whole day to wait for someone to come around, so when it comes down to actually leaving the house (having not accomplished tooth brushing or bed making) she can get panicky...and slaps people. So I had my first series of smacking Thursday, then the subsequent days. Not the best way to start a day. She does this with many people and it is something we're trying to deal with, but I don't know...she stresses me out way more than any of the other residents. I'm not sure that it's the best for me or the farm to assign a new volunteer like me to her at all at this point. We'll see how that goes.
In other news, I really wanted to go to the Common Ground Festival (a local, huge and exciting agriculture fest) in Maine this weekend, but I was so exhausted come Friday/Saturday (my days off are Sun/Mon) that I didn't have the energy to drive 5 hrs to a camp site and perk on up Sunday morning for a full day's worth of activities. It is something I'm determined to attend, so maybe next time. Instead I went to Boston and saw a wonderful happy friend of mine :) Next weekend, though, I'm going to the White Mtns to camp with a volunteer or two - should be one of the most beautiful weekends in the mountains with the freshly colored leaves and before the first frost. Definitely looking forward to that.
On the farm, turns out I won't get to learn milking until the Spring when more cows will hopefully be giving milk and they can train me on one or two who will get used to me. So far I've massaged a cow's utter - a funny experience with a few tail whackings (I'm just getting beaten up, aren't I?). Those veins are huge and I feel like I'm kneading dough. I have helped heard cows which definitely takes practice (in my own body language and what spots on the cow give them what signals) and when I give the pigs water, their enormous bodies finally rouse to sniff me out. Little joys of life :)
We've also started something called Eurythmy once a week (they do this in Waldorf schools) where we do fluid motions with or without these metal poles to vowel sounds. haha, a little weird to explain and I'm not the best person to ask, but imagine a yoga teacher asking you to do some basic dance moves and catch poles you throw. The instructor used to live in Asheville and is Russian with his long white hair in pony tail. One of the residents is obsessed with him and says "THANK YOU VADEEM!" whenever he sees him for no reason at all. (This guy is also great at bird impressions and likes to beat box quietly in the background a lot). So now, we've all started saying "thank you" in that way whenever we're done with Eurythmy :)
If you made it through this entry, congratulations, you three people following this blog!
Monday, September 20, 2010
This might be a distracted blog because the people around me are talking about the recent egg crisis - we need 10 to bake cookies tomorrow to sell and there are only 5. Someone already cried about it today, and our hens must not be in the mood because they sure aren't producing enough. Since coming to Plowshare, it is topics like these that dominate many conversations :)
This week our schedule was beginning to fall into place, though several days started off with me running around trying to find out exactly which house I could have breakfast in or what chores I was supposed to be doing. I'm in a weird position where I don't live in a house with residents so my responsibilities are more scattered and focused on the farm/animals, though I still have a good amount of interaction with the residents. My off days are Sunday/Monday and other free times are Tuesday morning and Saturday evening. Since there are more volunteers than in the past, there are more free times.
This past Thurs-Friday I went to the world fair in Vermont with the Red House residents (the house I'm "attached" to). One of the residents grew up on a dairy farm near the fair and wanted us to meet his family and see his background a bit. And, I'm not going to lie, a big added bonus was eating delicious home-made ice cream and drinking some of the best hot chocolate milk I've ever had :) But seriously, I've been so spoiled on the food front. I had some fries there and for the rest of the car ride I was aching - your body really responds to what you put in it. After not having unhealthy snack food for a while, it took a toll on my body. Now I don't really desire eating that kind of food for a while.
The weather this weekend was so beautiful that I went with some of the volunteers hiking around the farm, laying by a lake, and doing our frequent nighttime pond hang outs. Coming recently from MN, I know I have to take advantage of every outdoor moment before frostbite starts to ATTACK!
I also feel like I'm starting to be friends with some of the residents. Not only is it fun, but it's important to develop connections so that you develop mutual respect and have an easier time understanding each other, particularly when someone clearly isn't in the mood to work or doesn't want to listen to you. I figure that will become easier as time goes on, but here, as much as you can predict (what phrases the residents will say 100x a day, for example), there might be just as many things that you can't. Changing seasons, new environments, a personal crisis, all of that can flick a switch for someone that you just have to ride out with them. Makes me think more about just how many waves of emotions and experiences we all have as individuals, and how beautiful it is that we can still live together on this planet. Everything's harmoniously crazy in a way.
I'll leave you with one of the prayers we sing before eating a meal. Til next time!
"For Sun and Rain,
for Earth and Grain,
for all who toil
on seed and soil
so we may eat
this daily food
We give our love
and thanks, dear God....May the meal be blessed!"
*Devour food*
Love, Lisa
This week our schedule was beginning to fall into place, though several days started off with me running around trying to find out exactly which house I could have breakfast in or what chores I was supposed to be doing. I'm in a weird position where I don't live in a house with residents so my responsibilities are more scattered and focused on the farm/animals, though I still have a good amount of interaction with the residents. My off days are Sunday/Monday and other free times are Tuesday morning and Saturday evening. Since there are more volunteers than in the past, there are more free times.
This past Thurs-Friday I went to the world fair in Vermont with the Red House residents (the house I'm "attached" to). One of the residents grew up on a dairy farm near the fair and wanted us to meet his family and see his background a bit. And, I'm not going to lie, a big added bonus was eating delicious home-made ice cream and drinking some of the best hot chocolate milk I've ever had :) But seriously, I've been so spoiled on the food front. I had some fries there and for the rest of the car ride I was aching - your body really responds to what you put in it. After not having unhealthy snack food for a while, it took a toll on my body. Now I don't really desire eating that kind of food for a while.
The weather this weekend was so beautiful that I went with some of the volunteers hiking around the farm, laying by a lake, and doing our frequent nighttime pond hang outs. Coming recently from MN, I know I have to take advantage of every outdoor moment before frostbite starts to ATTACK!
I also feel like I'm starting to be friends with some of the residents. Not only is it fun, but it's important to develop connections so that you develop mutual respect and have an easier time understanding each other, particularly when someone clearly isn't in the mood to work or doesn't want to listen to you. I figure that will become easier as time goes on, but here, as much as you can predict (what phrases the residents will say 100x a day, for example), there might be just as many things that you can't. Changing seasons, new environments, a personal crisis, all of that can flick a switch for someone that you just have to ride out with them. Makes me think more about just how many waves of emotions and experiences we all have as individuals, and how beautiful it is that we can still live together on this planet. Everything's harmoniously crazy in a way.
I'll leave you with one of the prayers we sing before eating a meal. Til next time!
"For Sun and Rain,
for Earth and Grain,
for all who toil
on seed and soil
so we may eat
this daily food
We give our love
and thanks, dear God....May the meal be blessed!"
*Devour food*
Love, Lisa
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Day off
Thank you, library, for your bounty of internet signals. Amen.
Ok, so that's not how all our prayers before and after every meal go, but I find myself saying "thank you" more nowadays than maybe I have ever in my life...perhaps minus Thailand. Also, the weather is friggin delicious and I'm going for a long hike on my second day off tomorrow.
As I went to work hauling logs around this morning, the other informed volunteers went to an orientation in which they were told their lodging and probable tasks for the year. Well, I eventually found out and...I'm going to be living in what is known as the "Garden House." It's actually not a house with a house parent, co-workers or residents - it's pretty much a basement where they store some garden supplies. haha, ok it's not as bad as it may sound. In fact, I can imagine having my own space will be my saving grace down the road, and I still am "attached" to two houses during which I'll have to do morning rituals with the residents. I'm also facing the garden/farm, which will be my main set of tasks this year (caring for animals and plants). I was then told I'll probably be the person they train in making PIZZA! every Thursday and delivering baked goodies twice a week with the residents, meaning I get to do more variable tasks and get off the farm more often than other volunteers. I'd say I got a deal :)
Ok, so that's not how all our prayers before and after every meal go, but I find myself saying "thank you" more nowadays than maybe I have ever in my life...perhaps minus Thailand. Also, the weather is friggin delicious and I'm going for a long hike on my second day off tomorrow.
As I went to work hauling logs around this morning, the other informed volunteers went to an orientation in which they were told their lodging and probable tasks for the year. Well, I eventually found out and...I'm going to be living in what is known as the "Garden House." It's actually not a house with a house parent, co-workers or residents - it's pretty much a basement where they store some garden supplies. haha, ok it's not as bad as it may sound. In fact, I can imagine having my own space will be my saving grace down the road, and I still am "attached" to two houses during which I'll have to do morning rituals with the residents. I'm also facing the garden/farm, which will be my main set of tasks this year (caring for animals and plants). I was then told I'll probably be the person they train in making PIZZA! every Thursday and delivering baked goodies twice a week with the residents, meaning I get to do more variable tasks and get off the farm more often than other volunteers. I'd say I got a deal :)
Thursday, September 9, 2010
I'm connected!!
The internet can work, the internet can work! After having tried a total of 1 1/2 hours over the course of the week to get online, this slow dial-up process on the one communal computer on the farm has proven me...OK. But it's working now so I'll update you on my first week here...
Wow, what a whirlwind. I thought I would be coming to this quiet, peaceful, "try to keep busy" farm and here I am in what is apparently a very rich, "full" place: rich with unique people and experiences, full with laughter as well as chores. To laugh at simple things, develop patience and meaning in simple tasks (cleaning is a biggie), and enjoy life's simple pleasures is good. To summarize, the volunteers, co-workers and residents (those living with "special needs") are wonderful.
To give you an idea of the days I've had this week (remember it's more of an orientation week and we're not yet in our groove):
Wake up 6:30
Morning chores/breakfast 7am-9am
Workshop (on farm, kitchen, bakery, woodwork, or crafts) 9-12
Lunch 12-12:45 (and if you're on cleaning duty, until 1:20)
Rest time until 2pm, then some snack (cookies!)
Workshop 2 2:15-5pm
Dinner prep/some rest 5-6pm
Dinner 6-7
Clean-up and bedtime ritual for residents 7-8
In other words...I am TIRED by the end of the day and usually just want to take it easy and go to bed by 9:30. Oops, past my bedtime already.
The area is beautiful (mountains in the background, but not the White Mountains), the weather is getting crisp, and the food is always wholesome and delicious. Who knows, I'll either get strong candy cravings in a month or I'll get over my cravings through this experience.
I'm thinking of you all and want to say that I will probably not be great about communicating, particularly via internet, unless I find out a way to speed up the system. Please write me letters anytime, though, and I hope you all are taking each day at a time as well.
Love,
Lisa
Quote of the week from one of the residents: "It's good we don't know everything. Life would be boring if we did."
Wow, what a whirlwind. I thought I would be coming to this quiet, peaceful, "try to keep busy" farm and here I am in what is apparently a very rich, "full" place: rich with unique people and experiences, full with laughter as well as chores. To laugh at simple things, develop patience and meaning in simple tasks (cleaning is a biggie), and enjoy life's simple pleasures is good. To summarize, the volunteers, co-workers and residents (those living with "special needs") are wonderful.
To give you an idea of the days I've had this week (remember it's more of an orientation week and we're not yet in our groove):
Wake up 6:30
Morning chores/breakfast 7am-9am
Workshop (on farm, kitchen, bakery, woodwork, or crafts) 9-12
Lunch 12-12:45 (and if you're on cleaning duty, until 1:20)
Rest time until 2pm, then some snack (cookies!)
Workshop 2 2:15-5pm
Dinner prep/some rest 5-6pm
Dinner 6-7
Clean-up and bedtime ritual for residents 7-8
In other words...I am TIRED by the end of the day and usually just want to take it easy and go to bed by 9:30. Oops, past my bedtime already.
The area is beautiful (mountains in the background, but not the White Mountains), the weather is getting crisp, and the food is always wholesome and delicious. Who knows, I'll either get strong candy cravings in a month or I'll get over my cravings through this experience.
I'm thinking of you all and want to say that I will probably not be great about communicating, particularly via internet, unless I find out a way to speed up the system. Please write me letters anytime, though, and I hope you all are taking each day at a time as well.
Love,
Lisa
Quote of the week from one of the residents: "It's good we don't know everything. Life would be boring if we did."
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
My attempt at blogging
For those of you who know my humor, Plisashares makes sense. Please Lisa, share about Plowshare --> Plisashares. ha...ha...
So I'm not even at Plowshare right now, but I look forward to attempting to keep this up. Pressure me if need be!
My mailing address will be:
Plowshare Farm c/o Lisa Bruckner
32 Whitney Road
Greenfield New Hampshire 03047
Their website is: http://www.plowsharefarm.org
My mailing address will be:
Plowshare Farm c/o Lisa Bruckner
32 Whitney Road
Greenfield New Hampshire 03047
Their website is: http://www.plowsharefarm.org
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