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Also, by the way, I've been loving your comments! Keep them coming! I'm sorry if I haven't responded to all of them yet. But, relatedly, if you comment anonymously, please sign your name if you wouldn't mind. I love the comments, and I love them even more when I know who said what. Thanks everybody!

First groups!

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've updated. Last week I had my first groups, and I've spent my days off this week (Tuesday ad Wednesday) napping, grocery storing, (finally) finishing Harry Potter 6, and cooking for the folks who are working. (I made, by the way, a savory sweet potato pie involving curry powder, coconut milk, and sauteed onions, to go with Ivy's pumpkin soup and blueberry muffins.) But here is a run down of my groups so far.

Last Wednesday I had my first tour. It was a group of 16 nine graders and one chaperone participating in the "Humans and Habitats" program. They arrived, I introduced things briefly, then we watched a video about what Heifer Project does around the world. After the video, we went on a tour of the farm, beginning with the garden and barns, and culminating in a tour of the Global Village. After the tour, we prepared and ate lunch at one of the GV sites. This group got to eat in Thailand. They had a little trouble getting the fires started, but once they did, the food prep went fairly smoothly. Here is the Thailand house:

It is made of bamboo and is representative of homes in the Akha region of northern Thailand. The meal consists of rice boiled in one pot, separately sauteed kale (a leafy green we harvest out of the Thai garden), and two separately made sauces. The first sauce involves toasting sesame seeds, then grinding them into a paste in a mortar and pestle with raw onions and garlic, salt, and vegetable boillon. The other has you roast a tomato (also harvested) then grind that with more onion and garlic, and a couple of (harvested) hot peppers. To serve, everyone gets a bowl of rice, then puts kale and the sauce(s) on top. Here is a picture of fellow-volunteer Maggie when we made this meal during training (and didn't keep everything separate).

It's pretty delicious. After the meal, we sat and talked about what they just ate and the process by which is came to be and how they would feel if they ate like that every day. Then they cleaned up and we headed back to a classroom to do one more activity and then they left.

Thursday I didn't have a group, so I spent all day weeding the completely-out-of-control garden in Peru.

It's terraced, and the rock walls separating the levels have weeds growing up through them, which is difficult, but mostly it's really satisfying to pull out a whole section of garden. This garden grows potatoes, carrots, spinach, nasturtiums (edible flowers), quinoa, and amaranth, and you can finally see that stuff! It was rather buried by the jungle. I guess during the summer they're just so busy with groups that no one has time to weed.

But, speaking of groups, I had another arrive on Friday afternoon. They also saw the video, then we went on a tour of the farm minus the Global Village. After that, we ate dinner cooked by the kitchen together in the dining room, which was delicious, of course. Then we did an activity, then they went to bed in the platform tents. The next day, we got up, they did chores with us, we did a couple of activities inside, then we went and had lunch in a GV site. This time I was in Tibet. The meal there is tsampa. Tsampa is ground barley (which they get to grind themselves), cooked in whole milk (or yak's milk if we were completely authentic) with a whole stick of butter melted through and a bunch of sugar added. There is also a pot of green tea involved. The tsampa ends up tasting like really sweet, slightly chewy oatmeal. Here is the home in Tibet, by the way. It is a yurt.

Then we talked, cleaned, and then did our tour of the Global Village. When it was over, they got a break, then we got back together to tell them what was going to happen that night. They actually slept out in the Global Village. They chose numbers out of basket, each of which had been predetermined to correspond with a GV site. There ended up being five "families" in five sites. The lottery also chose which member of each family was "pregnant" (with a water balloon held under they shirt all night), which was injured (either wearing a glove preventing them from using that hand, or with a dowel behind one knee preventing them from bending that leg), and which was the head of the household (meaning they were the only literate one and the only one able to handle the money). So they went to their respective sites and we gave them dishes and things, but no food. The food had to be purchased at a market. Each head of house got the equivalent of a day's wages in their country's currency and then had to come buy food from me and Nic, who were not above haggling and making deals. Then we left them, they made their own dinner, and spent the night in their country. (We gave them all oatmeal for breakfast, by the way.) The next day they cleaned up, helped with chores (still with their babies and handicaps), then we all got together to talk about their experience and debrief with them a little. Then they left.

That's about all, but here are picture of the rest of the Global Village sites. This is Guatemala. It's was built by Habitat for Humanity in the same way they build houses in Central America.

There are goats, chickens, and rabbits behind the house. And this is Colonias, the area along the border between Mexico and the United States.

This is Poland.

And this is Ghana. You can sort of see Evander the ram looking between the fence.

Ghana and Poland are still being worked on, but they are both almost finished. I also didn't take a picture of Appalachia, but I will. I hope this update finds you all well, and I hope you talk to you all again soon!

Sort-of First Day

Today is the first days that groups are here. It feels a little strange to me, though. Here is why:

a.) We have had the farm to ourselves for two weeks and now all of a sudden there are a lot of other people wandering everywhere. I realize the whole reason we're here is to communicate about the farm to people, but it's like a bunch of random people just showed up at your house.

b.) We've all been together for two weeks with hardly a moment apart. It feels strange to be working more independently now.

c.) It feels weird, also, because everyone else is working and I am not. I was off Saturday and Sunday like the rest of the education team, but they're trying to get us in a more routine schedule for days off and mine will be Mondays and Tuesdays for now. So I get a four day weekend. Weird. So everyone else was nervous last night about their first day of groups and I still don't have to do anything until Wednesday.

d.) Relatedly, staying in, I miss all the farm drama. For instance, Henry the goat keeps escaping and I keep missing the excitement.

I guess that's all for now. Unless you want to see a picture of how brussel sprouts grow. Who knew?

Critters Part One

I know I promised Global Village pictures, but I wanted to show you some more of the critters that live here with me. I should also probably say right up top here that I am not a livestock expert in any way, shape, or form, and everything I know about these animals I've learned in the past couple weeks. So if I get anything terribly wrong, I'm sorry! Mostly, you should not listen to me and just get overwhelmed by cuteness instead.

Baby chicks you already know, but they're so dern cute, here's another shot.

The goats mostly hang out in this swanky barn with a world class view.

But everyday we take them out to a pasture or wooded area to eat. Whereas cows are grazers, which means they graze on grass, goats are browsers, which means they browse around and eat other stuff, too, like leaves. Poison ivy is apparently one of their favorite foods. Here are some gals browsing.

And this is an alpaca. Pretty much all I want to do is hang out with them. And then steal their fleece.

And speaking of animal hair, check out Clementine! She is a Scottish Highland cow. I think she looks like a part-Muppet cow.

And here are Stephanie and Rufus having some amazingly cute Mama/Baby time.

This, by the way, is the view off the porch of our house. The cows graze rotationally, which means they graze in one spot for a few days, then get moved to the next patch of pasture. That way they never graze one section down entirely, and by the time they make the whole loop the grass has regrown, helped, of course, by the cow poop dropped all over fertilizing the ground. Another reason to move them around, relatedly, is to get them away from all that poop they dropped, therefore keeping them healthy. Rotational grazing helps us stay sustainable. So, anyway, they are currently hanging out right outside our porch. It makes for good spying on Molly and Rufus, who have definitely become BFFs. Here's the view.

There is one cow, though, who is not in the pasture yet. His name is I.M.O.U. Imou. Sounds like Imoo. Imou is a few weeks old, but his mama died soon after he was born. She got mastitis, which is an infection cows can get in their udders. So Imou lives in the barn with the goats and gets a bottle three times a day. He has a lot of goat friends and really loves his bottle. Hi name, by the way, stands for I'm My Own Uncle because his mother was unintentionally bred with his brother. Remember when we were all surprised by Rufus? Because the bull was in with the cows one day and nobody realized anything had happened? Yeah. IMOU! He is a Randall Lineback, of which there are only about 200 of left in the world. They were first bred here in New England and are one of the few breeds that work for milk and meat and draft power. There is a push to increase their numbers, and Overlook is helping. Anyway, here's the cutie pie.

And last, but certainly not least, is Pudge, the sort-of farm dog. He actually belongs to Donna, the livestock lady, but he is here with her every day. He pretty much runs the place and gets whatever he wants, as you may be able to tell.

So those are some of the animals we have here at the farm. Be on the lookout for Critters Part Two!

Global Village

Well, sorry it's been a few days since I've updated; we've been busy finishing up all our training so we'll be good to go on Monday when groups arrive. As a Learning Center, Overlook Farm's main objective is, obviously, education. So starting on Monday, the rest of the fall will be filled with field trips, church groups, college kids, etc. who want to come and learn about hunger and poverty around the world and about what Heifer does to fight it. If a group comes for the day, they take a tour of the farm, do some activities, have some discussions, and might eat lunch here, too. If a group spends the night their activities get a little more involved, since they get to sleep in the Global Village.

The Global Village is a fairly large chunk of the farm. Spread out in that area are houses that represent dwellings from various places around the world. Several of them (but not all) have kitchen gardens growing staple foods and things that would typically be grown in that region. The sites also all have farm animals usually found there. I don't really have pictures of the sites yet, but they will be coming soon. For now, here is a description of each site:

Thailand--We have a bamboo house raised up off the ground representative of the northern region of Thailand. There is a fish pond outside as well as a garden growing rice, hot peppers, tomatoes, kale, scallions, cilantro, and parsley. We also have a couple of water buffalo that hang out in Thailand.

Peru--There is a one-room mud brick/adobe house with a dirt floor typical of the Andean mountain region of Peru. It is built on the top of a hill with the garden down the slope. Because of that, the garden is terraced (instead of a smooth slope down, it was carved into a stairstep pattern) to protect from erosion. Growing there is amaranth, quinoa (both grains), potatoes (lots of varieties), carrots, onions, spinach, and other root vegetables. As far as animals go, there are a few guinea pigs that live in Peru, as well as two llamas (names Llightning and Llily) and two alpacas. Here is Llightning (the big brown one) with one of the alpacas whose name I don't know yet.

Guatemala--Guatemala has a two room cinderblock house with an indoor stove. (The others had outdoor firepits for cook fires.) Its garden grows corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, fava beans, green beans, winter squash, and lettuce mix. There is a small flock of chickens there, as well as three rabbits, and two Nubian goats (named Ruth and Jessie). Here I am with Ruth:

China--This site represents the Tibetan region of China. There is no garden because the people there tend to be nomadic. Likewise, the dwelling in Tibet is a yurt--a large tent made of yak hair. It's super warm and is one of my favorite Global Village homes. Predictably, there are two yaks in Tibet. Our bull cow hangs out with the yaks, too.

Colonias--The Colonias site refers to the area on both sides of the US/Mexico border. There are two houses built to look like an urban slum or "shantytown." It is representative of those people and families who have traveled up through South and Central America to come to the United States but were unable to cross the border, as well as those who have crossed but have been unable to leave that area and establish themselves anywhere else. There are no townships or infrastructure, so poverty is a pretty big problem. There is not a garden there now, although we may start some container gardening. There are also no animals, but we are going to add some chickens, rabbits, and goats.

Kenya--Kenya is a work in progress right now. We are working on both a cinderblock house and a mud-wall, thatched roof hut. There will be pigs and a cow in Kenya.

Poland--This house is significantly larger than the others in the Global Village. It is made of timber, which is abundant in the Carpathian Mountain region of southern Poland. This site is also new and will have a garden planted in the spring. It will have rabbits, a draft horse, and.....something else I can't remember.

Ghana--This house is sort of similar to the Guatemala house. It doesn't have a garden, but it does have goats!

Appalachia--The last site is representative of the rural Appalachian Mountain region of the United States. The house is an old construction trailer which is easy-to-obtain, low income housing used all over the US. The garden is made up of raised beds which let you fill them with compost or healthy soil so things will grow even if the soil around the beds is poor. Raised beds can ever be put on top of concrete or asphalt. Growing there are green beans, peas, collard greens, tomatoes, bell peppers, okra, and sunflowers. There is a guinea hog in Appalachia named Petunia. Here is my friend Susan feeding her one morning. She gets very excited about food and can be hard to move around until she is eating.

That's about it for the Global Village! I'll tell you more about what you can do there next time!

Hey! It's Hay!

Well, I was going to tell y'all all about the animals here at the farm today, but I've decided on something else! This afternoon we moved hay! We'd borrowed a couple of hay wagons so we had to take the hay out of them and stack it in OUR wagons. It was itchy, yet satisfying. Here is a photo journal of this project.

This is Sam on a wagon to be unloaded. I believe he is disco dancing.

This crew is starting to unload.

And here is my team! Sarah, Jason, and Sarah are all expert hay stackers.

I got the hang of it, too.

We are victorious!

Time to check on the other crew.

Sarah is helping.

Check out our enormous wagon of hay!!!!! Times two! That's Donna, the livestock coordinator lady-in-charge, showing off her tractor skills.

And Jason and Elizabeth hung out on top while we got everything squared away to drape an ginorous tarp over both wagons to keep out the rain and snow.

We tied the tarps under the wagons, which made Jen look like the Wicked Witch of the East.

That's it for the hay! But I know I promised baby animals, so to keep certain some of you happy, here are some chicks! Can you tell which of these things is not like the others? Apparently when you order more than 20 chicks from this particular chick company, they send you an extra, SURPRISE, chick! You never know what you're going to get or what it'll be when it grows up!

And here is Rufus! He was born just a couple of nights ago. The next morning everyone was shocked to see a calf in with the cows! No one was really sure whether or not his mama was pregnant, so he was sort of a surprise too! Isn't he adorable????

And last but not least, this is Molly, next to her mama, Mabel. Molly is a few weeks old and she and Rufus are already best friends.

That's it for now! We are headed to a local Rutland eatery for dinner. I'm starving and excited!

Greetings All!

As most of y'all know, I am spending the next few months of my life working at Overlook Farm in Rutland, Massachusetts. This will be quite an adventure for the southern city girl that I am! Overlook is a farm owned and operated by Heifer International, an organization that works to alleviate hunger and poverty all over the world through sustainable development. You can learn more, if you want to, at heifer.org.

This 270 farm is a learning center where groups come to learn about what Heifer does and about the problems of hunger and poverty around the world. As a member of their education department, I get to facilitate these groups, teach them what I know, and help them draw their own conclusions.

So far, though, I have just been training. It's been fun and I've taken some pictures I want to show y'all! So first.....

This is why it's called Overlook Farm! Isn't it gorgeous?!?!

And here is the garden! We have a two acre organic vegetable garden. There will be much more about it coming soon.

There are really pretty roads and paths all around. Most of the 270 acres of the farm is woods, so there are lots of nice walks to take.

And this is a view of the barn from down the hill. One of my favorite things is how much the barn looks like a barn. It's even red!

There will be many more updates to come, including plenty of pictures of animals and food. I hope y'all will have as much fun reading about my adventures as I will have having them! Enjoy!