You may notice that I skipped a day… Day 11 was just more of the same with nothing much of interest to report. It was Larry’s last day of teaching, and we will miss him. He’s an incredibly thoughtful individual and has a very “live and let live” attitude. He spent a lot of time living in Japan in community settings and has a unique perspective on permaculture and the world.
I took that night off and with no regrets as I heard the material wasn’t very substantive.
So, you may get the idea that I’m totally hating this whole class, but that is not the case. The hardest parts of the course for me are a) the regimented structure, b) the fact that the bed is so uncomfortable for me, c) the extremely long days and d) the lack of variety in the food. The course material itself is very good – in fact, I wish I was less tired all the time so I could appreciate it more.
Leaving my comfort zone has been good for me, but I will be happy to be back in my space. The people I’ve met here are very cool, and I know I’ve made some close friendships that will sustain long after this course is done. It’s given me a deeper appreciation of my life and the advantages I have that others do not. It has given me a great desire to take meaningful action.
Today we were gone for about 11 hours on field trips. We started out at Sunbow Farm. We took a tour, helped do some weeding and listened to Harry McCormick (apparently the father of organic farming) talk about the state of the world.
I was seriously dragging all day due to a terrible night of sleep. I could barely keep my eyes open at times and actually did drift off on several occasions.
We then went to MattCyn Farm, which is owned by two former HP executives. It wasn’t as high-tech as I thought it would be. They are working on a small scale, growing mostly a wide variety of dried beans which they sell almost exclusively at the local farmer’s market. I got to pet one of the chickens they are supporting in their (the chickens’) old age after a long life of providing eggs. I didn’t know you could tame chickens to that extent. Looking even more forward to getting some!
After that, we went to my favorite stop of the day… a food co-op. As the automatic doors opened in front of us, I caught the distinctive smell of natural food stores. I can’t explain it, but it’s something I love! We all kind of looked liked escaped convicts as we drooled over the variety of foods available. I was delighted to find a tuna sandwich, which I quickly snatched up. My dinner also included salt & vinegar chips and a clementine Izze. What heaven!
We rolled back into the course site around 9:00 p.m., and I immediately went to bed… after taking a little something to help me sleep.
