Three years later

Monday 31 December 2007

One thing I like about living in a place for a while, is getting to see certain dates come more than once. This is a poster advertising the big march yesterday for the people who died in a nightclub fire three years ago. We saw the same big march pound through our neighborhood last year. The poster this year features pictures of all the kids who died, and was up everywhere.

Apple Orchard

Sunday 30 December 2007

Well, we've had a great time on the farm. There have been some frustrating moments, but the overall experience has been a positive one and we learned a lot. Here is the sun rising over the neighbor's apple orchard, my last glimpse of the farm.

Tomato Flowers

Saturday 29 December 2007

A tomato flower. We've been spending most mornings weeding and mulching tomatoes, so this little flower, and the tiny little green tomato bubbles that are popping out on a very few plants, are what we love to see!

The World's Happiest Dog

Friday 28 December 2007

Patch, a fellow volunteer, holding Pacha, making her the World's Happiest Dog. You see, she is Panchito's (the adorable puppy) mom, and gets really jealous when people pay attention to the puppy and not her. She will push him out of the way, shove her head under your hand, even sit on her baby, whining and wagging her tail in pathetic, eager anticipation. So, Patch finally did what she wanted - he picked her up and cuddled her. So, who's the cutest baby in the world?

Green Spider

Thursday 27 December 2007

A not-so-little spider in a bottle.

Paloma

Wednesday 26 December 2007

This is Paloma (whose name means "dove"), the little girl who lives on the farm. She was helping us mud today. Those are some eyes, huh?

Christmas Rainbow

Tuesday 25 December 2007

It rained all day today, which actually helped make it feel more Christmas-y, as it was cooler and you couldn't go outside. But it stopped late afternoon, and we got this magnificent rainbow over the neighbors' apple orchard.

Christmas Eve

Monday 24 December 2007

Here is our big Christmas dinner (they celebrate the night before in Argentina - Christmas day isn't nearly as special.) We had a huge storm tonight, which cut the power. It made for a cozier, more old-fashioned candle-lit Christmas, however, which was nice.

Ah, Sundays . . .

Sunday 23 December 2007

The farm was about a half-hour walk from town, so we basically only went in on weekends. Therefore, weekends became time for internet, beer, and beef. This is a lomito, a wonderful sandwich with steak, eggs, spicy sauce, and all the toppings. Washed down with Andes, the local beer, it is the perfect Sunday dinner after a week of vegetarian/vegan food!

Saturday Market

Saturday 22 December 2007

This is Anna, Azucena's mother, at the market for which we baked all that bread yesterday. She has a farm as well, which is a little more established and productive. They sell greens and veggies, fruit, apple juice, preserves and jams, spices and herbs, and other yummy stuff. All of it fresh and organic. Ryan and I went today to help sell for the farm we are working at, and had a pretty good time.

Baking day

Friday 21 December 2007

This is Azucena, the mother/wife/farm manager/head cook/driving force at the farm. (She is also the founder of an organic bio-cooperative, and a homeopathic doctor.) Every Friday she would bake dozens of loaves of bread to be sold at the market in Mendoza on Saturdays. You can see the oven in the background there, which is an oil drum suspended in a mud oven, powered by firewood. Yet she somehow seems to pull out perfectly browned bread every time. I disagreed with many of her beliefs, but man, she was one amazing woman.

Panchito

Thursday 20 December 2007

This is Panchito (which means "little hot dog"), an adorable puppy new to the farm. When he came a week or two ago, he was tiny and immobile, and I honestly thought he might not make it. Now, with some loving care and mother's milk, he can walk a full two meters before he needs a nap and falls over. Today, I picked him up and he promptly fell asleep. He slept in my arms for hours as I trudged around in the mud pit, mixing. Isn't he so cute???

Making jam

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Ryan and I pitting cherries, preparing to make jam, listening to Radiolab, a science radio program. This was our third, and largest, batch of jam, this one just sour cherry.

Goatito

Tuesday 18 December 2007

These are the goats on the farm. The little one looooves headrubs. (Those horns probably hurt coming in.) I dubbed her "goatito" which in Spanglish means "little goat," although in Spanish it means "little drop."

Kambucha

Monday 17 December 2007

This is kambucha, a live-culture drink we have discovered on the farm. Basically, you take a mother, a piece of this fungus-like thing, put it in some tea, and in a week or two you have a vinegary drink that is supposed to have all kinds of healthy, cleansing properties. It's evidently a big thing in California, in all the health-food stores. I like the taste, and if it's healthy, all the better!

Chuck the Duck

Sunday 16 December 2007

This is Chuck, Chuck the Duck. Paloma, the farm owners' daughter, jokes that when you're here for a month, you get two pets, and when you're here for two months, you get two pets. Well, one of our fellow volunteers, Patch, has been here for two months, and so now has two pets. A white mouse named Sancho Panza, and now a duckling named Chuck. He's absolutely adorable (Chuck, that is) and loves cake. He had trouble sleeping for a while, so Patch put this stuffed animal in with him so he has someone to snuggle with.

Another pretty dandylion

Saturday 15 December 2007

Manteca

Friday 14 December 2007

This is Manteca (which means butter), the farm's mare. She was funny - if you were in her area to collect firewood or pick sour cherries, she would follow you around like a little puppy. She even got to know me and would come and say good morning when we went out to the gardens. Here she is following Ryan and I through some bush that is a little too low and crowded for horses.

Muddy Feet

Thursday 13 December 2007

I am dirty pretty much all of time here on the farm.

Jam! Guida y Mora

Wednesday 12 December 2007

Ryan and I went out the other day and found wild mulberry trees. And then some sour cherry trees. What does this add up to? Jam! Lots of home-made, organic jam from fruit we picked ourselves! It took a long time to make, but was absolutely delicious and did not last long on the breakfast table.

A break

Tuesday 11 December 2007

Another fellow volunteer taking a break from weeding.

Shovelin'

Monday 10 December 2007

One of our fellow volunteers, shoveling at the end of the day.

Mountain Sunset

Sunday 9 December 2007

We have an excellent view of the Andes, and the sunset is amazing nearly every night.

Garlic Flower

Saturday 8 December 2007

Farm Food

Friday 7 December 2007

For the first week especially, the food on the farm was absolutely fantastic. All vegetarian, mostly vegan, and sometimes organic (their own crop hasn't come in yet, so we had to buy veggies. Sometimes they'd find organic stuff, sometimes not. It's not a very big trend down here in Argentina yet.) Here is a typical lunch. You can see potatoes, beets, beet puree, greens (a kind of weed we went out and picked), olives, homemade bread, mashed sweet potatoes, and zuchinni salad. It was simple food, but really good.

Pisando

Thursday 6 December 2007

In the afternoons, we usually work on building a little store for the farm to someday sell its products. The building is being made out of sticks and mud, using an age-old method. The mud is made of clay, horse manure, sand, straw, and water, and takes an awful lot of mixing before it's done. Here we are, mixing the mud!

Dandylion Sunset

Wednesday 5 December 2007

Weeding Work

Tuesday 4 December 2007

This is the work we've been doing in the mornings on the farm. We take the completely overgrown and weedy line on the left, cut down the stuff in the middle, pull out the weeds, dig out the irrigation ditches, and surround the little plants with mulch (so no sun can reach the soil, deterring future weeds). It feels so good to look back a completed row and see it neat and clean, and feel good about working hard to finish something.

Hail

Monday 3 December 2007

Our first day of work. We worked in the vegetable garden in the morning, and were constructing a mud building (that will someday be a store) in the afternoon. As we were smacking and smoothing the mud onto the walls, a wind came up and we heard a strange roaring sound, a loud white noise that we couldn't quiet place. A little uneasy, I asked Jorge, the farm father, what it was. He said it was hail, coming up from the south. We could hear it on the pavement and cars in town. Sure enough, within two minutes we were being bombarded by huge hailstones. It only stopped work for about 15 minutes, but it was quite the storm.

Madre Tierra

Sunday 2 December 2007

We arrived at the farm today, a small family-owned organic farm named Madre Tierra, or Mother Earth, an hour south of Mendoza. Here is the volunteer's cabin, where we will be living. The vegetable gardens are beyond. For animals, the farm has a mother and daughter goat, a horse, three cats, three dogs and a puppy. The family consists of a father with a badly broken foot, an overworked mother, and two cute kids. When we arrived today, there was one other volunteer, named Patch, who is here for the whole season, and a girl on her way out tomorrow.

Soccer in the Shire

Saturday 1 December 2007

I've really enjoyed my time here in El Bolson. It's one of those lovely little towns, sleepy but full of some kind of magical undercurrent. Full of fruit, surrounded by organic farms, hand-made everything for sale at the thrice-weekly market, local beers, friendly locals. Later, we found out that in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Shire is translated as El Bolson. It seems like a fitting name to me! So, signing off from the Argentine Shire, this is one happy camper.