¡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

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.

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.