Fair Trade

Raise your hand if you've heard of "alternative gift giving". Good.

Ok. Raise your hand if you've "bought an animal" from Heifer International for Christmas? Really? That's all? Selfish.

I don't know the history of the alternative gift giving buzz, but it seems to have really taken hold in the past few years, probably in response to the Christmas commercial buzz. You know, instead of joining the Tickle-Me-Elmo herds on Black Friday, you give money to a non-profit and help a needy family for Christmas and get a few star stickers on your karma chart. It's definitely more in tune with the Baby Jesus spirit that flies around during the season.

This past weekend, we had our own alternative gift market on the farm. The Celebration of Living Gifts we called it. People came to the farm, looked at goats and water buffalo, and symbolically bought animals. We raised about $6,700 in animal gifts.

It's a happy thing for the world that alternative gifts are becoming popular. Heifer definitely benefits from the alternative gift rage (the majority of your fundraising occurs between November and December).

However, this Christmas season, I had a bit of a dilemma, as I stood in the Overlook gift shop, wondering what to buy. Ought I buy a few symbolic animals for my family? Support Heifer and give everyone little cards that read, "You bought a goat!" Or, ought I buy Fair Trade gifts? Giving to non-profits and charities is great. But, truth be told, Fair Trade has a more direct impact (http://www.fairtradefederation.org/). The money for a goat share goes through Heifer, then to a country project in, say, China, and finally to buying a goat or bees or medicine. But, if you buy, for example, a Fair Trade scarf, the majority of that money goes to the person who made the scarf, and, guess what, that person is probably impoverished but picking herself up by building a business. Eventually, if organizations like Heifer are successful, there will be no alternative gifts, just fair trade. Eventually, every needy person should be able to support his or herself without help from non-profits. Buying a lot of Fair Trade helps move everyone in that direction.

I have doubts as to whether that will ever happen, and in the meantime, organizations like Heifer still need support. So, hey, go either way this year. Just make sure you get those gold stars on your karma chart.

Northern Exposure

Holy Hell. I just saw more snow fall in 12 hours than I have ever seen in my life. Something like 10 inches between 4:30 this morning and 10 o'clock this morning. In December. Do you realize how weird this is for me?

Woke up this morning and walked outside to go get coffee, only to be greeted by a world totally covered in snow. I sunk my foot into it, and it swallowed my ankle. Dry powdery snow, untouched by anyone except me. Not being able to control myself, I let forth a really loud, somewhat creepy laugh and started kicking snow everywhere. The whole world has changed. That's what a foot of snow feels like to me right now. Everything is new and different.

Especially doing chores. I had to take a five minute trudge down to Ghana to feed the two buck goats. They were huddled in their waddle shelter (it's plenty spacious. Don't worry), with a pile of snow on the roof, snow everywhere outside their shelter. Their water bowl was frozen over and topped off with another foot of snow. But, by the time I left, they had a pile of fresh, warm hay in their shelter, as well as fresh, not-frozen water, safe from the snowfall. They'll be OK.

Another new experience was shoveling snow. Apparently, you have to do that up here a lot, or else you get veritable Great Walls of Snow that are totally impenetrable. That was exhausting, but probably new enough to still be a good time.

The highlight for my first big snow day has been moving the cows. We figured it might be about time (or way past time) to get those poor ladies out of the pasture. So, we led them 1/4 of a mile through deep snow. Imagine watching a herd of big cows plowing through pure white snow, right towards you. It's majestic/scary. But, once again, they are now well taken care of. Now, sitting in front of a fire. People are making pumpkin stew, and my clothes are in the dryer. Sa-weet.

Morning Chores

Every morning on the farm kicks off with chores. By now, it has settled into my daily routine. I barely notice it anymore. But, really, it's pretty bizarre and entertaining on most mornings. Thought I'd share a glimpse into my world every morning.

8:15 a.m., random morning: I am by the red barn with two paint buckets, filling them up the water to give to the buck goats and rams who have, once again, knocked over their water/polluted it with something ungodly. Across the way, a few volunteers are milling out of the hay barn, aka: chore central, grabbing wheel barrows, throwing hay into them, swinging buckets of feed. Two little dwarf goats named Ren and Stimpy run by, because they never stay in their pen, chasing Maggie with a bucket of swine grain. In a few minutes, Maggie will be trying to water the pigs and simultaneously throwing Ren and Stimpy out of the feed bucket over and over again. Those two live off of every other animal's food.

Off down the dirt path, Nic is pulling Henry, our spastic buck goat, on a leash, because Henry has escaped from his pen for the second time that morning. In a few minutes, Henry will escape again. Ashley rambles by on the big tractor, earphones in place, happily nodding her head to music, on her way to move the cows' water. Jen comes around the corner of the barn, leading Abu, our giant camel, on a leash. He's being slightly obedient, which is better than most days, but making very deep grumbling sounds that surface as camel burps. Pretty soon, he will lie down and refuse to get up for five minutes.

Behind me, Sarah is happily bottle feeding Imou, our Randall Lineback calf. Out in the sack pad, Jason is surrounded by some sixty goats and sheep, who are all desperately trying to swallow the 50 lb. bag of sheep grain that he is attempting to open and put in the feeders, which would be easy to do if Artemis, a black goat, weren't punching her front legs into his stomach trying to get the feed. In a few minutes, Evander, our massive pony-sized ram, is going to butt me in the leg while I'm trying to retrieve his feed bucket. It is going to hurt like hell, and I'll have a bruise for weeks. After that, I am going to meet up with some of my fellow volunteers next to the coffee maker and badmouth Evander over a leisurely cup of coffee. Chores are over. It will be time to start the process all over again at 4:00.

Ok, not every morning is this crazy. Just most of them.

Thanksgiving

You know what is good in small doses? Doing nothing. Or as close to nothing as possible. I went to visit Robert and Molly in Boston for Thanksgiving. For three days, I sat in their comfortable living room, happy to play video games with Robert, or watch movies, or spend time with Molly in the kitchen cooking delicious food. The busy world outside passing by, while time within the cozy apartment stood still, or ceased to exist. I hatched no master plans, did no scheming about my future, did no dwelling on things beyond my contentment. I don't think a single important thought registered in my brain. Isn't that great to do from time to time? Settle in, relinquish all worry and control, and just exist. When that happens, a day can be like a lifetime, unchanging and unwavering, far beyond time's touch. Despite the fact that I am back on the farm and back in the ebb and flow of work and bustle, I like to think that part of me is still sitting on Molly and Robert's couch, passing the time away with them, or sitting at the kitchen table back at home on Christmas morning, eating scrap biscuits and sharing some obnoxiousness and joviality with the family.

By the way, Molly, Robert, Theo (a friend of Molly's), and I had a badass Thanksgiving dinner. I made pumpkin pie from scratch (my first try at p.pie; didn't turn out too bad), Molly made her first turkey (which was scrumptrulescent), complete with stuffing, cranberry sauce, and gravy, Robert made creamy mashed taters, and Theo made green bean casserole, butternut squash casserole, cole slaw, and pecan pie. I put myself right into a food coma, from which I am still emerging. Who knew Thanksgiving in Boston could be so nice?

Now, the Christmas season has officially begun, and I am too poor to be summoned by the call to shop. Bonus. I will have to be creative with gift giving this Christmas. Until then, time to enjoy some of that cheer and decorating and movie watching. Not to mention Hal's famously hard egg nog.

By the way, we have a few new additions to our farm family. Petunia, our beloved guinea hog, is now being kept company by two more guinea hogs. They are both piglets, and look like little black chicken nuggets scampering to and fro. Happy pig family.

Here's to Christmas season.

Millard Fuller

Here is a quote from Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity. It's a good follow up to my last blog.

"What the poor need is not charity, it's capital. They don't need caseworkers, they need co-workers... This whole concept of not giving things away, just giving people opportunity, is designed to preserve the dignity of the recipient. I don't think anybody likes being thought of as a charity case. All human beings need to have a sense of dignity."

-Millard Fuller. He said it better than I did.

White Liberal Bleeding Heart Do-Gooders (WLBHDG's)

Last weekend, Overlook Farm hosted a Heifer University, which is a weekend retreat for Heifer community volunteers. I of course am I Heifer volunteer, but I get paid and live on a learning center, and there are only twenty of me in New England. There are a good deal more community volunteers who contribute their spare time, without monetary compensation, to Heifer's mission. So, Heifer University was a chance for all the Northeastern volunteers to get together and talk shop, share stories, plan for next year. I had the weekend off, so I sat in. Everything was great and very informative. This blog entry, however, is not about Heifer U. It's about white liberal bleeding heart do-gooders.

So, there was this one particular woman at Heifer U that drove me insane. She was the quintessential WLBHDG (see title). With this label, I mean that her contributions to Heifer were motivated solely by guilt and a savior mentality. She talked constantly about how guilty she felt that there were hungry African babies, and she lived so comfortably. Whenever someone mentioned a man who couldn't afford to send his kids to school, she sighed deeply, her sweet heart brimming with pity. How many people have you met like this, honestly? They feel so guilty for living their rich American lives, while there are poor children in Honduras. They pity the poor, who have to do such unspeakable things as live on dirt floors and own only a few articles of clothing. Pity and guilt. What great emotions to operate by.

All I have to say is, living on a dirt floor is not the end of the world, and owning only two sets of pants is not the ultimate form of suffering. It's just a different standard of living. Just because you grew up with four SUV's, and two televisions, and bathrooms and shopping malls, it does not mean that everyone in the world who lives on less is miserable and poor. Guess what? Rural people living in mud brick huts in Thailand can be happy. If they have food, and clean water, access to medicine and education, they can be happy. Are rich people always happy? What makes you happy? Two t-v's and shopping malls? Or is it family and relationships?

I suppose what really gets to me about WLBHDG's is how they label and use "poor people". In their eyes, poor people appear to be this class of person that is perpetually suffering, miserable, weak, and desperately in need of help and sympathy from the rich. So, they can get this high from saving "the poor", meanwhile stripping all impoverished people of their dignity and self-respect. People like this tend to do more harm than good. What classifies a "poor person"? Who are "the poor"? What makes them inherently different from every other human being on earth? Look at "the poor" as people, with a variety of needs and interests and personalities just like everyone else. I don't want pity. I don't want someone whose sacred mission is to save me, because I'm so helpless and downtrodden. Why should the poor be different? I do want someone who cares about me as an individual, who is receptive to my needs, to what I have to say. It seems to me that WLBHDG's only hear what they want to hear, and see what they want to see, when they consider poverty, and "the poor" become some sort of midlife crisis that can give meaning to their lives. "Visualizing hungry people as so oppressed as to be ignorant and immobilized makes us think our responsibility is to go in and set things straight," (12 Myths of World Hunger). My advice is, don't visualize the hungry, poor people at all. Help where help is needed. Do your part. You can help a community in Honduras get on their feet, and provide for themselves, without labeling them "the poor". Who died and made you ruler of the poor? Ok. Rant over.

Why I Don't Play Football

Today, my relationship with sheep, which was not good to begin with, took a downward turn. To put it delicately, I got freaking leveled by a sheep, twice. In my defense, they are stronger than one's eye might deduce.

Once again, we had to wrangle a few sheep away from the herd for breeding. What a miserable task. Once again, several volunteers, trying over and over to corner a bunch of sheep who all think that we are plotting to kill them, or worse. We might as well carry butcher knives and chant Satanic hymns when we wrangle them, the way those stupid sheep react.

So, we cornered them, and the particular sheep we were going for, a big ole' Jacobs, broke for it, just to my right. As I lunged toward her, she took flight. Right into my face. Glasses fly, I'm on the ground, and the sheep is upside down, next to me. She gets up faster than I do.

Second try, we have them in the opposite corner. This time, we do a good job of cornering the whole flock, so that I am able to wade in and grab the sheep before she can wedge away from the rest. I get a nice hold of her wool. She, of course, thinks I am seconds away from throttling her and, I don't know, doing something horrible like casting her sheep soul to eternal sheep hell. She's kicking like hell. I hold her, but we don't have a harness. She calms down momentarily. Someone suggests I just try walking with her. I slacken my grip. BAM. Off she goes, and, somehow, I am on the ground again. Stupid, stupid sheep. No injuries, except my pride. After the second fall, I quietly excused myself from the paddock and went to go nurse my emotional bruises. Sheep: 2, Sam: o.

Funny side note. We were wrangling the sheep in part to inject a few with hormone shots to get them in heat. Well, we found out the hard way that one of those sheep was not a sheep, but a castrated ram. So, some poor ram got a nice estrogen shot surprise. Whoops. At least we didn't put him in the breeding pen.

Bananas for Guatemala!

I write a lot about the quirks of living on a farm. Crazy stories about farm animals, and so on. It's entertaining, or at least more entertaining that writing a lot of long paragraphs about my actual work as an ed vol. But, most of my time on the farm is spent doing the education programs, so I can't leave it totally out. I think I'll share an example of a conversation I typically have with kids during the Global Village tour. It's kind of my baby, because I sort of pieced it together over the weeks. Here it goes.

[Setting: At the Guatemala village site, a little white concrete house with a goat pen, chicken pen, and rabbit pen out back, as well as a bio-gas digester. Across the way is a little Guatemalan garden. I am out front with a group of 15 6th graders.]

Sam: So guys, here we are in the Northern Highlands of Guatemala. This house is an example of a family of subsistence farmers who live on the steep mountain side. To help us understand what's going on with this family better, let me ask you guys a question. Who here has eaten a banana recently?

Steve: Oh! I have! Bananas are sweet, dude!

Sam: Ok. We all like bananas. I know I do. Did that banana happen to be grown by Chiquita or Dole?

Mumbles of "Yes" from the crowd.

Sam: Well, if it was, there's a good chance it was grown in Guatemala. Dole and Chiquita own a lot of farm land in Guatemala, where they grow us tasty bananas. Unfortunately, because all of this farmland is owned by these companies, there is very little land for small, low-income families like the one living in this house. They've been forced to leave the fertile farming lands by Dole or Chiquita and to try their luck in the hills, where crops don't grow as well.

Pause.

Sam: About a month ago, the Guatemalan government announced a food crisis due to drought. Some 10,000 families don't have enough to eat. Does that strike anyone as strange?

Suzie: But isn't Dole growing a lot of bananas there?

Sam: Yeah, Suzie. So how can there be a food shortage, if so much food is being grown there?

Pepper: Because it's all being exported (Pepper's a smart kid).

Sam: Where's it going, Pepper?

Pepper: To countries like our's. Rich countries.

Sam: Exactly. Nice work, Pepper. Yeah. So Guatemala is an example of how starvation often occurs in countries where a ton of food is being grown and exported. Do you think Dole or Chiquita is terribly concerned about providing food for the subsistence family in these hills?

Steve: No.

Sam: So that's something to think about, isn't it? Especially when you eat your next banana. Ok! Let's go to China!

So, that's an example of the kind of conversations I have most days. It's heavy stuff. I do my best to keep it light in between the big points. But, it's rewarding, to watch these kids/teenagers start thinking.

Big Dave

FARM ANNOUNCEMENT: As of 4:14 p.m. today, Overlook Farm increased its family in number (and size) by one buck goat. We bought him for a few grand and 40 bales of hay. His name is Big Dave. He is absolutely huge-mongous. A 300 lb. buck goat, he is double the size of Quentin, our previous heavy weight. Seriously, guys, I can't believe the size of Big Dave. I predict that he will butt down the entire barn by morning. Size of a small horse. And in full rut (aka: heat) which means he's going off crazier than usual. Nevertheless, he's now part of the family, and already peeing on his own beard! How nice. Here's to family.

However, poor Quentin has been knocked down the totem pole. No longer the alpha male, I'm afraid. I saw him. I don't think he's excited about the change.

Bee Keeping

There have proven to be a few benefits to the slower season. One benefit is that I've had more time to spend with my fellow volunteers, as well as more time to devote to projects that interest me. Last Sunday, I was finishing lunch and getting ready to go lay down wood chips in my Thailand garden, when Ivy mentioned that Emily Strobus (another volunteer) was taking her to see the bees. Ivy kindly invited me, and I thought, "Hell, why not?"

We have two hives on the farm, though we've only actively gotten honey from one, and Emily has been their primary caretaker. She knows bees. So, we suited up in bee suits and gloves and bee helmets, lit our smoker, and headed to the hives.

It was bizarre. The minute we took off the top layer, out came the swarm. Hundreds of bees everywhere, crawling all over your arms, buzzing around your head, so that the only sound you hear is, "Bbbbzzzzzz...." Probably the most bizarre part is the lack of fear. It's almost peaceful to be so immersed.

Our mission was to make sure the bees had enough food for winter. So, we took out shelf by shelf ( I don't think thats the right vocab; I forgot) and saw all the honey they had made. Delicious smelling stuff. And all these bees, so busy and hardworking.

After we put the hive in winter order, we decided to check out the other one, which we hadn't been harvesting from because the hive was a little weak. Note: At this point, I had not been stung once. Well, we opened the hive and realized that our smoker had run out. If you don't have smoke, it's a lot harder to keep the bees calm. Well, they got pissed. Emily got stung and had to go off with Ivy, leaving me to put the top back on the hive. Amid the swarm of pissed-off bees, I calmly put the lid back on and then noticed that the buzzing sound was a little louder than normal. I turned my head a little to discover that three bees had gotten inside my net helmet. Calmly, I ran the hell away, flung off my helmet, and tried to not get stung. There was a lot of yelling and flapping of arms. After running halfway across the farm, the last remaining bee stung me on the head. Bastard. I was out there for two hours and didn't get stung until the last two minutes. What's that about?

Even after that, I had a big smile on my face. Bee keeping is cool stuff, and I plan to go to Bee Keeping School with a few other volunteers in the spring.

John Lewis and Andrew Bird

It is nearly Halloween, which means that Satan is coming to attack.

On a lighter note, John Lewis came a'visiting! If you know John Lewis, you understand what a momentous occasion this must have been. If you don't know John Lewis, your life is sadly empty. [He's one of my best friends from Sewanee. Remember that school?]

Ah, to see a familiar face again. And to feel reconnected to my old life as a Sewanee student. John and I went to Vermont, bought cheese and beer, hiked, watched Face Off, and.... SAW ANDREW BIRD! If you don't know Andrew Bird, he is one of my preferred musicians, as well as an accomplished awesomeness-guy/violinist. I've been wanting to see him live for many years, and he didn't disappoint. The show went above my expectations.

Also, it was good to be in a city doing young-people things again [the show was in Providence, RI, bringing my New England states-visited count to five]. Providence is a cool city, and the theatre was full of people my age who don't live/work with me. Nice change of pace for an evening. Consider me refreshed.

Side note: John Lewis milked a goat. He's a teat toucher now, too. Don't let him hide what he has become.

The Stove

What has happened to time? Seriously. Last I checked, it was September, and I was walking over a big, life-transitional hill into Massachusetts. It is nearly November, and whatever mind-altering transition I meant to undertake has gone by so mildly that I feel totally the same. Adventures are funny that way. You never notice the change.

Life on the farm is taking the hint from autumn and slowing down. We're having fewer groups coming to visit the farm. My Thailand garden has been reduced to stripes of dirt. Everyone seems a little more relaxed, a little less rushed, their "to-do" lists less cluttered. Maybe that's how autumn/winter should be.

However, we have had the SEEDS program for the past two weeks. SEEDS = 150+ kids and chaperones divided into 12 groups, touring the farm/global village, walking from site to site, each of which is manned by a different volunteer, in fifteen minute increments, except for the hour long village meal scheduled into their map and time sheet that informs the group chaperones when and where to go next. It's more than a little bit chaotic. Every employee/volunteer on the farm drops everything. SEEDS becomes all that matters. Making sure everyone has enough firewood, and the groups are on time, and that we have enough bowls, and that I have rice to cook, not to mention having to say the exact same spiel 12 times every 15 minutes, etc. It's like a huge marathon, two days in a row, two weeks in a row.

Health Note: Imagine standing beneath the Thailand house for five hours, keeping a fire going the entire time, breathing in wood smoke. For two days straight. It wreaked the worst kind of havoc on my lungs/body in general. Nose running constantly, eyes burning and red, total absence of appetite, vague crap feeling. I am so happy to be away from camp fire a few days. Bless the person who invented the stove.

Turkey Slaughter

Rough title.

Yesterday, I killed a turkey. Actually, two turkeys. I helped pluck, gut, and clean several more. We processed ten total.

Last year, I decided that I needed to reconnect with the meat I eat by actually taking a part in the slaughter process. It became important to fully understand that, when I eat meat, a life is taken. Something has to die in order for me to live, essentially. Believe me, I've never looked forward to killing an animal or thought that it would be easy or fun. Just important.

Yesterday I got my chance, as it was time to kill our meat turkeys for Thanksgiving. I was pretty terrified leading up to event. And then... I did it. After our livestock manager Dona demonstrated the first slaughter, I took a breath and volunteered. Without much thinking, I just did it. It was actually disturbing how mechanical the killing process was. How easy my mind could make it by concentrating on the details and ignoring what was happening. I don't need to go in much detail; it's all gory stuff. Basically, the turkey was held upside down, which put it in a sort of daze, and then I cut its jugular on both sides of its neck without severing the esophagus and held its head while it bled out. I was surprised by how forceful you have to be when you cut. The blood was so warm I felt like my hand was burning. Finally, after the turkey's muscles stopped spasming and its feet went limp, I cut its head off (The second killing was rough, as the turkey jerked loose and fell on the ground in the middle of bleeding out). Then, I dipped the body in scorching water to loosen the feathers. I plucked it, cleaned it, set aside the valuable parts (gizzard, heart, liver), washed the body cavity out, and put it in a bag to be refrigerated for 24 hours and then frozen.

Overall, it was a meaningful experience. No doubt, when I eat the turkey on Thanksgiving, I'll be thinking about the meat a little differently. I have to admit, the killing process was not the moral battle I thought it would be. I don't feel like an awful person, or a murderer, or really any different. But, the killing wasn't good in any sense of the word. In a way, it was horrible to have that kind of power, and to watch these turkeys approach their deaths. There is a sense of regret. And a sense of fear. Witnessing a living thing dying, and holding its head in its last moments, filled me with awe for life and death. To hold a turkey breast that was a breathing, living animal less than an hour ago, before I killed it, can't really be expressed in words. Animals get killed to feed other animals. A fact of nature. And killing the turkeys was a good opportunity to take a long, hard look at nature, and life. From this point on, I am deeply linked to those dead birds, through the blood that took several minutes to wash off my hands.

I think Donna said it best. As she killed the turkey, she said, "Thank you." As I understood it, she was thanking the turkey for its life. Makes me think about Thanksgiving. About all the lives that have contributed, in one way or another, to my being me, alive and well. Parents, friends, animals, farmers, factory workers, teachers. The lives are too many to count. For most of the year, it can be easy to forget all those lives and what they've given for me. Perhaps Thanksgiving is the time to remember those lives and put forward a respectful quiet.

Satisfying

Also, just to make note, it is really satisfying to throw snowballs at farm animals. No animals were hurt in the process.

Snow

Our second snow this fall/winter arrived today. Can someone check the date? Oh yes, October 18th. Second snowfall, meaning there's already been one this week. The snow flakes are the size of golf balls.

Really, though, I'm not complaining at all. Snow on a farm is wonderful. The usual craze slows down as we all retreat indoors to do indoor things, like painting a world map (as we did this morning) whilst listening to Lark in the Morning's Christmas album. If you don't know Lark in the Morning, let me do a quick bit of advertising and tell you that they are my best friend Cane's parents' celtic band. The music is awesome and extremely efficient at getting me into the Christmas spirit. I know, it's only October, but the sight of snow immediately triggers a Christmas-like excitement, even though in Arkansas/Tennessee, I never saw snow before Christmas. Go figure.

Snow on the farm is a time for us to be inside, warm, enjoying each other's company, keeping each other's spirits high against the cold, having a pie contest (as we are having tonight). It's a time for the animals to crowd close together in animal piles and share body heat. It's a time for them to bundle up in the hay and watch the snow pass by. No big plans or worries. Just the timeless fall of snow on the farm.

I'm a Monster!

So, I made five kids cry. Not even kids. Teenagers. I am a monster.

It happened on the second night of a Global Gateway program (the one where the kids stay for two days and spend the night in different global villages). The night begins with a lottery and orientation. Basically, every kid draws a number and is randomly assigned to a village site. So, after everyone draws a number, I say, "Numbers 2, 41, 25, and 7 stand up." The kids with those numbers stand up, and I say, "Congratulations. Tonight you will be the Garcia family of Guatemala." Then, those kids come forward to find out their different roles in the family. This part is usually fun. I've already assigned certain roles to numbers, so it's all predetermined and random. Number 2 becomes pregnant with a water balloon baby. Number 25 loses his/her hand (literally. Hah!) Normally, all the kids giggle and freak out, and it's all in fun.

Well, this time, five kids cried when each of them found out he/she was either pregnant or handicapped. Cried! It was awful. I'm standing there about to tape a water balloon into a kid's shirt, and she is crying. Multiply that five times. It sucked.

To make it worse, all of those crying kids had parents there as chaperones. So, another kid is crying because he's got a wood rod tied to his leg to prevent the use of his knee, and his mother is hugging him and looking at me like I'm the devil. Great. So much for a fun lottery.

You really aren't supposed to bend when this happens. The lottery system is impartial, and no one is allowed to choose because, after all, in life you can't choose where you're born or what you're born into. However, I bent a little, and there was some baby trading. I'm apparently a big softie. Well, here's to the hope of a better day, or at least a day not filled with crying kids.

Well, I stole some pictures from fellow volunteer Emily's blog. Cheating, I know. If you want to see more, check her blog out. These are pictures from the Harvest Festival. We've got me in my Tibetan outfit, contemplating the high mountain peaks, our garden stand, our hay maze, some fresh veggies from our garden, and me, modeling my find Thailand garb and rice pounder (check out my huge pants).

Vegetarian

Vegetarian. What a loaded word.

Some thoughts on being vegetarian:

I am a vegetarian.

Ok, what came to mind, when you read that? I would guess a variety of generalizations that are usually associated with vegetarians. Skinny white liberal dude. Self-righteous. Judgmental. Elitist. Weird. Since becoming a vegetarian, I have been amazed with how many assumptions come with the label "vegetarian".

But, let us consider what being a vegetarian actually means. Eating vegetables. Not eating meat. I'm guessing it's the last part that gets people. Not eating meat. Gasp. In this particular country, meat has become such a crucial part of the staple diet. By that, I mean eating meat two to three times a day. When that is the norm, it's pretty understandable that a vegetarian sticks out like a sore thumb. And, truth be told, being a vegetarian tends to marginalize you a wee bit, because, as so much meat is eaten, you have to pick your way around food a lot.

But, lets consider a broader picture of the human diet, over, say, the past few thousand years. Have people always eaten meat two to three times a day? No. Not even close. Up until the invention of the factory farm, where cows can be raised and slaughtered in a few years, meat has come at a higher price. Think about it. If you kill your cow, you get a ton of beef. A few questions: what do you do with the leftovers? Do you have refrigeration? Billions of people around the world today lack refrigeration. So, killing a cow presents a bit of a problem. New question: what do you lose when you kill that cow? A source of milk, a source or muscle and work, a source of manure, a source of income. You lose all these things that minute you kill your cow. Of course, most of us don't have to think that way, because we buy small meat packages from the store, and the death of a cow has no impact on our sources for milk or manual labor. In a vague sense, it is from a cow, but we barely recognize that fact.

All this is to suggest a different way of looking at meat. It's a lot more than a hamburger. It's an animal (or was), and, more importantly, a domesticated animal, meaning that it provides a number of services for human benefit, only one of them being meat. Not to mention the fact that, for most of human history, a person got meat by killing said animal. Not by driving to the grocery store. By taking a life. Too sentimental? Have you killed a pig? I hear it's quite unpleasant, and most of us would think differently about eating pork if we did the slaughtering ourselves.

Ok, I'm climbing off of my podium now. I don't like preaching. But, I do like considering different perspectives on things that are usually accepted as normal. Is it normal to eat as much meat as we do? I'm not sure it is. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent to my identity as a vegetarian. Nothing to do with politics, or morality, or self-righteousness. Just reconsideration.

Thailand Priest of Loneliness

As of Saturday, this has become my official title. My ordination occurred beneath the Global Village Thailand house site, a grandiose bamboo house on stilts, with a lovely pond (of dead fish) next to it. The audience who witnessed the ceremony consisted of five girl scouts. A rice pounder was provided for musical gusto. The only piece that misfit the puzzle was the presence of rain, a gloomy forecast upon such a significant day.

Oh, what am I talking about? Yes. Well, the Overlook Farm's Harvest Festival was this past weekend. The farm's annual celebration of the harvest of our garden. A few thousand people usually come, and there is a lot of "to-doing" all about. Animals and games and hay rides and bigwigs and food. And the Education Volunteers, stationed at the many Global Village sites, dressed in ethnic traditions, demonstrating different crafts and whatsis. All week long, we've been preparing for this weekend. Sprucing everything up. The poor livestock team had to build a hay maze over a span of three days. It's all a big deal.

But, Mother Nature was at odds with the farm's mighty plans, apparently, because it rained all day Saturday. The thousand visitors we expected were condensed to sixty visitors. I was stationed in the Thailand site. I wore a ceremonial Akha headdress and colorful jacket, as well as this pair of humongous pants. I prepared to demonstrate our Thailand rice pounder. I had a veritable army of girl scout volunteers to assist. And I sat beneath the stilted house all day, rain and fog surrounding, listening to the chatter box girl scouts tell me rambling stories about barracudas and birthday parties, while the headdress itched my scalp, and my giant pants got wet in the mud. Occasionally, we all pounded some rice, just for the hell of it.

Not the best Saturday for a Harvest Festival. But, today (Sunday) more than made up for it. Beautiful sunny day. A lot of visitors. I sported an intricate Tibetan robe, complete with fake leopard fur, and ground barley to make barley tea. 'Twas a good day. And there are a lot of leftovers from the kitchen.

Side notes: I baked my first homemade loaf of bread today. I have decided to never buy another loaf of bread again. And, I observed today, it is amazing how easily I've accustomed myself to life on the farm. I just stopped today, on my way out of my house, amid a sea of people, big mud boots on, about to help catch a goat, and thought, "This feels normal. How's that?"

Goats

We all know how I feel about sheep. However, I will add that I have developed a good relationship with one sheep. A gigantic ram, named Evander. He is calmer than usual, and sort of like a big labrador. By big, I mean he comes up to my chest. Unlike all the other male animals on the farm, Evander doesn't pound his head against every surface and terrorize the female animals. He just wants some attention and some grain, and he's good to go. However, a downside to his affectionate nature is that he "lovingly" butted his head into my ass last week. Not a good feeling. Once upon a time, my dad had a snowboard wipeout on a pile of ice, and described the sensation as an "ice enima". Well, this was like a "ram enima".

I also seriously hate the turkeys here. They are not the majestic brown wild turkeys of our pilgrim forefathers. They are white and pasty and foul (pun). Picture them as huge, overgrown chickens that look ripe with disease. And smell worse. That's how our turkeys are. I can't wait to eat one.

Goats. Goats are an exception. Bless the day that man domesticated goats (except buck goats, who are freaks). They are easy to handle, incredibly easy to feed, make great weed eaters/lawn mowers, give you milk (around the world, more goat's milk is drunk than cow's milk), tend to have a wide variety of personalities, and get into goat mischief all the time. They have a certain "je ne sais quoi" about them that is very likable. Take Ren and Stimpy, for example. Baby dwarf goats who wander around the farm all day and get into trouble. They're practically a cartoon in the making.

However, buck goats (male goats) are sick freaks. Maybe only in breeding season. When they aren't peeing on their own beards, they're knocking down walls or making strange monkey noises or doing this horrible thing where they lick their lady friends' necks and sneeze on them and butt their horns against them. Weird. Which has brought me to the conclusion that, in the wild, all male animals are dick heads (pardon my language). Total dick heads.

Common Ground Fair

Let me paint the picture for you. 8 o'clock, Friday morning. Maine. Standing on the edge of a forest, clinging to a $2 cup of coffee and huddling with six other Overlook volunteers against blasts of 30 degree wind. In the forest through which we just walked, there are horses harnessed to felled pine trees, led by men with long beards and plaid flannel shirts, an image straight out of the 1800's. Before us, a gate leading into a giant fairground that doesn't open for another four. I'm wearing four layers and still freezing. I'm clutching a program that lists MOFGA's (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardener's Association) Common Ground Fair's Friday workshops. As the wind blows the pages every which way, my fellow volunteers and I are trying to map a mental schedule of the workshops we'll be attending for the day. 9 o'clock: Permaculture and Medicinal Herbs. 10 o'clock: Sustainable Agriculture in Central America. 11 o'clock: Intensive Gardening, starring Will Bonsall, who, if you're in the sustainable ag/seed saving culture, is quite the celebrity. Noon: Sheep Dog Demo.

By the time the gates open at 9, I am beside myself with icy pain. As the crowd that has been building for the past forty minutes (some 60,000 people visit the fair every year) move into the fairgrounds, a variety of white tents splay out before us. Boot Root Kitchen, featuring organic, home grown carrot soup and eggplant sandwiches. A stand selling hot apple cider. A huge tent devoted entirely to alpaca fleece. A barn demonstrating heritage breeds of chickens. Men with giant oxen mill about. The marketplace is buzzing with people selling handmade crafts and sweaters and composting toilets and a million other things I can't afford.

As I walk through the fair on my way to Permaculture, I am surprised by how normal everyone there is. Having very little exposure to the New England organic farming culture, I have been expecting a sea of dirty hippies and barefoot children covered in flowers. Not really the case. Mostly, just average people bundled up, talking about the summer's tomato blight, or their success growing a certain variety of faba bean, or the prices of apples (Ok, perhaps not ordinary topics of conversation). I am reminded of my grandparents, Nana and Harry. Imagine a sea of them, and that's what the Common Ground's crowd is like. Of course, there are a few exceptions. Freegans, for example, were around. People who only eat free food. Pulling plates of food from trashcans all over the fair.

So, this is a glimpse of my experience at the Common Ground Fair in Maine this past weekend. It was an amazing time, and I learned a lot. As soon as I have the land, I'm ready to grow my own organic commercial garden. And I definitely caught some of the excitement about everything that is happening with organic farming and gardening. It was a lot of fun. I highly recommend you go next year. I don't know how to end this entry... LOOKOVERTHERE BYE!

Cow Rollick

Is Overlook Farm a real farm? Yes, and No. If you brought in a commercial farmer (the real sustainable kind, of course) who had livestock and crops, he would rub his stomach and laugh heartily. Mostly at our animal husbandry. This is not against the livestock folk who work here at all. But, we're a farm of young volunteers who come and go every few months, who aren't working experts, who lack forty years of animal experience. It is a farm run by amateurs. Not to mention the random variety of animals here. Cows, pigs, goats, all standard. Then, there's a camel, water buffalo, alpacas. Where are the experts on those animals?

This came to mind today, as five of us tried to move six full grown cows. Big debacle. They get lose [switching to present tense], so we move them to some old pasture, but, Uh Oh, the bull is close by and looking ominously through the flimsy fence at the nice lady cows. So, we move them again, except Stephanie gets in the chicken pen and starts eating the chicken feed, and Clancy is over by the woods, and the rest of the cows are figuring out that the electric fencing isn't ON, so plow, plow, no more fencing, more loose cows. Thirty minutes later, we've got a bucket of feed to lure Stephanie, while the other volunteers, knee deep in manure, are yelling at the other cows to keep them at bay and trying to move fencing. Big mess. And it's raining.

Truth be told, however, it was an entertaining adventure. And, all in all, no harm was done, and we volunteers are laughing at our own misadventures.

Ok, this is a farm, sort of. You do have to consider that there are farmers/animal husbanders whose cattle obey verbal commands, who don't need to use buckets of feed to control their livestock, who run things more smoothly, who take things more seriously. I mean, they are trying to make a living. We, the Overlook Vols, are a lot more ragtag and haphazard, and the whole point of this farm is education, not production.

So, for the naive like me. When you own cows, teach them some damned obedience.

Gateway to Difference

The absence of my updates (did you notice? Oh how touching) is due to the BUSY-ness of my week. Man, oh man, it has been a week. By week, I mean four days. Monday, I had a five hour program with a group of 6th graders, and then, on Tuesday, straight into the Global Gateway program. It's the biggie. A group comes in and stays for three days. As the facilitator, you spend nearly all of those three days with the group, and in the spare moments, you spend your time getting ready for the next step. It's a whirlwind, I tell you.

So, The Sharon Academy (TSA) of Vermont brought 36 kids Tuesday afternoon. I took fifteen of those kids under my wing, while two other volunteers took the rest. We had a busy time together. There were tours, chores, three different activities (Survival, World Map, Identity) that helped the group focus on issues of poverty, chronic hunger, and community, meals in the Global Village, and lots of debriefs and discussions. I think I worked from 8-8 yesterday. I am tired.

But, my group (who named themselves "Breta") was full of unbelievable kids. Truly, they are an example of why my job is a good one. They were all very open, very engaged in everything, unafraid to talk and discuss. In a lot of ways, they did my job for me, getting their minds working without my help. I had so much fun with them. I'm starting to cry. Oh boy. How emotional. Someone strike up the band. It's singing time.

But in all sincerity, it was an excellent first Gateway program for me. The highlight might have been the orientation we did before they spent the night in the villages (2nd night). During the orientation, we use a lottery to assign different roles to the "families", aka: the groups of kids sleeping in different village sites. So, a few became handicapped, and I put gloves on their hands and taped their fingers together. A few became pregnant, upon which I had them put full water balloons in their shirts, and then promptly taped them in. One of my guys, Ben, became pregnant, which was hilarious. And then, after dinner, each gave birth and had a new baby. Ben had a particularly loud and dramatic labor.

So, I think the Gateway program is perhaps the best of all. Because it gives the kids some authentic, different experiences. I don't know. I'm not crazy about throwing out statistics for starving people, or lecturing about inequality and injustice. It's all abstract. But, when a community of kids have to live in a Tibetan yurt (nomad tent), pretend to be pregnant and handicapped, build fires, buy food together from a market, and haul water from here to there, they really learn something. Poverty and hunger move from the abstract to the detailed. A teacher can't teach you that stuff. Experience is a far better teacher. And, the thing I love about experience is that it involves feelings. Not just rationalizations. Experience is about more than coming to conclusions or making ideas neat and tidy. It complicates things, and helps you to hesitate before you make your mind up. At least that what it does for me. So, I feel good about the role I play here. I feel good about what this place provides. I got that going for me. Which is nice.

I'm about to go to Maine for an agricultural fair. Very excited. Should be a cool experience. Stay tuned.

Dark Day

I'm sad to announce the experience of my first animal death today.

The death count has actually risen to three by lunchtime.

The first dead animal was found this morning. We were down in the pasture by the driveway, moving the sheep to some fresh grass. In the middle of the flock, a little white lamb had died. I didn't realize it at first, as one of the livestock vols picked the lamb up and carried her outside of the fence. Then, I noticed how limply her head hung, and knew what had happened.

Two goats also died today. None of them was a surprise. This past summer, the farm received an absurd amount of rain, which led to a lot of parasite-related illnesses among the sheep and goats. The three deaths today were related to something parasitic.

I guess I have to wonder what my reaction is, or what it should be. I live on a farm now, with a lot of livestock. Death happens. Animals get sick. And they aren't pets. After living here a while, the way people romanticize their pets almost seems childish, I guess because animals are such an ever day part of life. That, and as a farm volunteer, you tend to look at all animals as resources.

But, still, I was sad to see that dead lamb. She was so small. As time goes on, I'm sure I'll become desensitized to the whole thing, the animal birth and death cycle. Maybe a part of me will always dislike it.

On a lighter note, in response to John Lewis' comment, Abu kicked one of our vols in the mouth, because he was agitated. She is fine. A tooth got knocked loose, but has been repaired. And she has a whopping bruise on her arm. I didn't see the camel kick, but I heard it was a frightening sight to behold. Camels are usually quite gentile and not to be feared, unless you piss one off, apparently.

Freakin' Sheep

Freakin' Sheep. I hate freaking sheep. Almost as much as meat turkeys.

Oh sure, they're woolly and go "Bah" and have provided the human race with domesticated service for thousands of years. Besides that, though, sheep suck.

Mostly, sheep suck because they are the most flighty, nervous animals imaginable. Everything freaks them out, and when sheep freak out, they run like crazy. Everywhere.

This tends to be a problem because we have to move the sheep out to and back in from pasture every day. In an ideal world, they run in a neat pack, following someone holding a bucket of textra, i.e., "sheep crack". This hardly ever happens. Most of the time, half of the pack gets nervous and ends up running the other direction. Last week, three sheep ran about a half a mile into the woods.

My disdain for sheep came to a peak about three days ago. It was late afternoon. I was exhausted. I get a radio call to come help in Abu's (the camel's) pen. I run over there, to find out that Abu has kicked one of the volunteers in the face. Don't worry, she's ok. Apparently, the vol's had been trying to catch a few sheep in the pen who needed to be pulled aside for breeding (the sheep share Abu's pen at night). Abu had gotten upset. So, we have three sheep running around with the pack, and we need to catch them. Thirty minutes later, two have been caught. The last one is totally freaked out and, every time we try to corner her, she bolts. There was a lot of diving onto solid ground, and volunteers making a line with their arms outstretched. At one point, the damn sheep actually lodged her head in the fence, and still we didn't catch her. Finally, Susan made the dive, and we got her, and then had to wrestle her the thirty yards to her pen, which took three volunteers and ten minutes. I hate sheep.

So, here's a joke. How many volunteers does it take to catch a sheep? Answer: seven. Ha? On the next edition, find out why I hate meat turkeys.

Sustainability

This is a buzz word if there ever was one. Sustainability. You hear those young hipsters saying it all the time. It's definitely become part of the new "green" fad, and I am one of those people who tends to distance myself from fads. I haven't been opposed to the idea of it, but I've avoided diving right in and proclaiming its glory. What you are about to read is a conversation I've been having in my brain, between two different perspectives.

But, as one of my fellow volunteers pointed out to me, fads often lead to something bigger. If you think about it, most cultural/literature/artistic revolutions probably began as fads. The Renaissance. Big fad.

In any case, I find myself using the word "sustainable" regularly these days. It happens to feature very prominently into the tours that I have to give. Several aspects of the farm are aimed towards sustainability. We have an organic garden, a gigantic compost mountain, composting toilets, low-flow shower heads, etc. We also rotationally graze our sheep and goats, which allows our pastures to regenerate and keeps our soil healthy. Several of our Global Village sites demonstrate sustainable technology, like a methane converter that collects methane from composted manure.

As I give tours and educate kids more about sustainability, my attitude towards it is changing. (I'm still wary of preaching about it, and definitely don't preach when I give tours.) It was my boss Todd who changed my mind, when he described sustainability as "taking care of the present to protect the future". I think that's what he said. For those of us with some privilege and luxury, the future is not of great concern. We will have access to food, we will have good health (or medicine at the least), and we don't care that much about what we leave our children. Dammit!

But, as I'm starting to understand, if you're a subsistence farmer in the highlands of Guatemala, your worldview is a little different. The future is precarious. You barely have access to food as it is. Health is limited by malnourishment, and determined almost solely by what you eat (whereas I hardly ever link my health to the food I eat). You have a little land, the rest being taken up by agri-businesses like Dole and Chiquita, and your land will be divided among your children. If you want to promise them a future, you need to leave them good land. When you live like this, it is unbelievably important that you sustain. That you take care of your resources. Because when they run out, you run out of options.

Does it make sense to use organic fertilizer (and not chemical fertilizers) if you're a subsistence farmer? Yes. Does it make sense to buy into sustainable practices (that are culturally appropriate)? Yes. Is it a fad? No. Not to them.

I am not playing a pity angle here. I don't pity the Guatemalan subsistence farmer. Actually, one of my favorite parts of giving tours in the Global Village is leading the kids to the realization that living in a bamboo hut in Thailand is not necessarily miserable, or that the point of the Global Village is not to take a poverty tour. Different cultures, not worse-off cultures.

Anyway, I don't pity the subsistence farmer, but I do recognize that help is needed. And that there are solutions. Like sustainability. To shrug it off because it's a fad is bordering on arrogant. You might say that I'm thinking in a different person's worldview. You might say it's part of my job. So it is.

When I'm on the Job

This morning, I officially became "on the job". When this guy is on the job, watch out. It's like a hurricane of trouble... and good looks. Good lookin' trouble, they called me, in high school. Glooble.

So, today I gave my first "tour". It's not really a tour, but I am lacking a better word. The word

"tour" brings to mind lots of fake smiling and memorized information and bad jokes. What I did today was more of an "experiential educational program". An EEP. I'm abbreviating all over the place tonight. At 8:45, 48 9th graders from St. Peter-Marian arrived in a school bus. Catholic school. I inherited a group of 16 and the sacred duty of guiding them through the "Humans and Habitats" program. Here's the basic layout: Introduction to Heifer's Mission, and a video about Heifer' work around the world. Then, a tour of the farm and garden, followed by a tour of the Global Village, followed by a village meal at one of the sites, and topped off by the World Map game. My group of kids were fine. Very, very 9th grade-ish. Pretty nice, somewhat interested, but not enough to be uncool, and flirty flirty. Nevertheless, they did their best to learn about Heifer and livestock and stuff, and I didn't have much trouble with them. We had our lunch in Thailand, and I was actually quite impressed with them. Our fire only took twenty minutes to get going, and they liked the Thai food.

The conversation at the village meal was probably the most meaningful. They went through the wood collecting and fire building and food preparation and cooking over an open fire. And then, we all sat down after we cleaned our bowls, and I asked a few questions, such as: "Did you like the meal?" "Would you eat it every day?" My personal favorite part was asking them how long it usually takes them to make lunch. Answer: three minutes, for a pbj. How long did this meal take? Answer: an hour. When you think about the labor, the smoke, and time, would you want to cook this meal two or three times a day? Answer: Hell no! But, if you lived in this area of Thailand, you would have to. So, food for thought. A very good conversation.

Anyway, the ball is now rolling. From this point on, things will be busy busy, and I will be working working. Ready as I'll ever be.

More pictures. (1) Our farm garden. It's about 2 acres, and produces 10,000 lbs. of produce a year. Not bad. (2) The view from our farm. You can see the Boston skyline on clear days. This is why the farm is called Overlook. (3) Sugar Road, a road that runs by the farm. It's where our maple syrup harvest takes place... hence the name. Hah! (4) RUFUS! Yes, this is Rufus, and yes, he is incredible. We have all agreed that there is now a romance going on between Rufus and our other calf, Molly. Young love.

Pictures

Here are some pictures that I stole from a fellow volunteer's blog.

(1) All the vols, baling hay.

(2) This is me, atop a mountain of hay. We moved 600 bales of hay. Woo boy.

Big Days Ahead

So, training ended yesterday, officially. I have to say, it was a welcome end. I couldn't take any more meetings and sitting in classrooms and pretending to be a whiny kid on a field trip while my fellow volunteers practiced their tours.

I do have to say, however, that we education volunteers had a pretty good time pretending to be students visiting the farm. If you're confused, let me explain. This week, every edvol (education volunteer) got to practice facilitating a tour or program. Meanwhile, the other edvols pretended to be a visiting group. And we made many a character in the process. One day, I was Timmy the troubled boy whose parents were getting divorced, and I kept alluding to my mom's "happy pills". Sick stuff I know, but this is my blog, so suck it. Yesterday, my name was Jixby, and my favorite food was sausage oatmeal, and my favorite activity was protecting my house from dinosaurs. So, all in all, that was pretty fun.

But, training is over. All the edvols went into Worcester (pronounced "Woostah") last night to celebrate over mexican food and beer. We have two days off, and then it's the real deal. My first tour is on Monday, with a school whose name I forgot. I will be taking them through the Humans and Habitats program, which is about a five hour tour. Part of the tour, a part that will no doubt be difficult, involves a "village meal" in Thailand. Basically, I will provide the kids with cookware and food, and they will have to build a fire, prepare the food, and cook it at the Thailand site. It will be an authentic Thailand meal. I don't imagine that the process will go smoothly, but that's part of the fun. I have two other tours next week, and I am really excited about it. Today, a rainy day to do nothing. Ah.

New England Climate: A Fierce and Fickle Mistress

You know, for the past two weeks, I've been very taken with the weather in Massachusetts. Every day has been sunny, in the high 70's, and beautiful. I've been secretly laughing at all the poor schmucks boiling away in the southern, 100+ heat back at home. Hoorah New England summers!

And then, New England turned on me. In one day. Yesterday. Rain came, and with it, temperatures that are reminiscent of winter in Tennessee. Oh, look Sam! It's 40 degrees outside! And raining! Too bad you have to spend the entire day outside feeding livestock and touring the Global Village. Yesterday afternoon, as I was trying to restore feeling to my numb fingers, I realized that I was wearing three layers and fantasizing about hot showers, in September. If I went off my 22 years of experience with September, I'd make the mistake of guessing that it'd be another month until I could start wearing pants. That's how it is where I come from.

In Massachusetts, not so much. It's another cold, wet day, and it's all downhill from here. For the next six months or so, this little farm boy is going to freeze his balls off. Stay in tune for that.

Practice Tour

So, I gave my first practice tour with Ivy, another volunteer, today. The education volunteers are getting geared up for the real stuff, which starts next week. The tour I gave is our most basic tour. A video, brief discussion, and tour of the farm. The objectives: to describe the work, mission, and history of Heifer, to explain where food comes from, to describe several sustainable agricultural practices used by Heifer in developing communities, and to identify the benefits of livestock. Most of them are fulfilled during the visit to the different Global Village sites.

All in all, Ivy and I did well. The rest of the education vols pretended to be our audience. Once you really get the ball rolling, things comes easily. As guides, our job is to "facilitate", a very good teaching technique in which you simply ask a lot of questions and get the students to find the answers themselves. For example, say I take a group to the Thailand house.

A kid asks, "Why aren't there any toilets? Where do they poop? Hee hee?"

"Well, little Timmy, where do YOU think this Thai family would use the bathroom?"

"Outside!" says Timmy.

"Probably so. But why don't they have a toilet?"

"I don't know they should get one AHHHH!"

"Do you see any plumbing in this house, Timmy? Or pipes? Or electricity?"

Then, through Timmy's answers, the group will discover that this Thai family cannot afford plumbing, or lives too far out in the country, or lacks access to the government services that we Americans enjoy. And they figured it out all by themselves.

Anyway, the tour was enjoyable, and I think it'll be even more enjoyable when I have a real group. Plus, it was exhausting. 2.5 hours of talking! Whew! Too bad our other programs usually last 5-7 hours, if not 24 hours. Here we go Heifer!

Daddy Goat Horny, Michael

Ah ha! It's breeding time! And I thought people were crazy about sex. We at least mask our rotten intentions with manners and romantic poetry and such. These livestock animals go straight for the "gold", if you will.

For the past week, we have been giving our goats and sheep hormone injections, so that the females get prepped for some conception, and the males go ape-shit with horniness. It's a pretty strange system. We number some girl goats "ones" for example, and they get put in a pen with the buck goat "ones". The reason, if you're curious, because it's not the most natural practice in the world, shooting your animals up with hormones, that we do this is because we are trying to control the time at which our animals breed. We have a birthing program that women participate in, in which they assist a female goat/sheep in the birthing process and help care for the newborn. I imagine there is a deep connection that occurs between the females. Perhaps. I'm not really sure. In any case, we need our animals giving birth at the right time fore the program.

Anyway, right now, we've got a handful of goats (female) and buck goats (male), and sheep and rams locked up behind the barn. The females and males are still separated, but their pins are adjacent to one another, to get them thinking about some sexy time. I imagine that there's a little bit of flirting and passing notes going on right now.

But in seriousness, the buck goats are freaking nuts. All they do is fight one another and try desperately to break into the girl goats' pin. Quentin Tarantino, our biggest buck goat, just stares at them and makes menacing grunts, occasionally knocking his head into the wall. It's kind of horrifying. Funny how sexual desire looks a lot like a murder threat with these guys. Meanwhile, Rumple Stillskin, our smallest buck goat, has decided that he can't wait until mating day. So, he has taken his sexual frustration out on our third buck goat, Henry. Poor, poor Henry. Henry has spent the last week sticking his butt resolutely in a corner, trying to protect his innocence from Rumple's advances. A few nights ago, he actually broke down the wall of the pin trying to escape Rumple. Meanwhile, Quentin broke down the other wall of the pin trying to get the ladies. Come on buck goats!

Also, the buck goats urinate on their own beards. On purpose.

Don't get me started on the poor lady goats and lady sheep. I think they just want mating day to be over. It's certainly no picnic for them.

So, welcome to the Animal Kingdom, I guess. I'm glad evolution gave us humans wine and music and dating. Otherwise, I might just cop out of the whole breeding experience.

Birth Announcement!

I am happy to announce the birth of a new calf! Last night, one of our beef cows by the name of Stephanie gave birth to a little boy calf. You would have thought that we would have heard a cow giving birth right outside out house, but Rufus went unnoticed until after chores this morning. He is huge. Probably about the size of a labrador. And very woolly. I did not know that cows could be woolly. My image of a cowhide has always been something smooth and only slightly hairy. We have some cows that are downright shaggy, and it appears that Rufus is one of these. He has a full body of tan cowl curls, and a big white stripe down his mid-drift. He is amazingly cute. Very awkward, with long gangly legs, a very pink nose, and a butt that sticks up about half a foot over his head. Go figure.

So, tonight, the volunteers will throw a party in honor of Rufus. Stephanie appears to be a happy mother. When we left them, she was giving her baby a hearty tongue bath. Unfortunately, we won't be milking Stephanie, so no extra milk for the starving volunteers. Anyway, be sure to make a toast to Rufus at least once today! Bon anniversaire!

My address is Sam Hedges, Overlook Farm, 216 Wachusett St., Rutland, MA, 01543.

Send me anything!

Also, went to Boston yesterday and toured the Harpoon Brewery, a micro-brewery based in Boston. Good tour, lots of delicious beer tasting. Let me do some quick advertising on behalf of Harpoon. Try their Saison Royale. It's part of their Leviathan series, and it won't be around forever. It's more than good. Maybe the best beer I've ever had. Seriously. So delicious and flavorful. Saison Royale, Leviathan, Harpoon.

Write Me!

My Schedule Today

Today was an exceptionally good day, so I thought I'd share it with you. Maybe it'll give you insight into life on the farm.

7:00 a.m- Woke up and made breakfast. A tasty mix of flax and Harvest Wheat with some blueberries that my roommate Ben picked. And coffee, of course. If I'd been lucky, I would have had some milk from our dairy cow, Mabel.

8:00 a.m.- Chores and check-in. The staff met in the barn to check on weather and what the schedule was today. Last day of full orientation for all the volunteers. Good, sunny weather, in the high 70's.

8:15 a.m.- CHORES! One of the best parts of the day. Before we did any chores, however, we had to "run the goats". This fun little activity involves leading the goats out to pasture in the morning, and back to the barn in the afternoon. It's part of the rotational grazing process. One person leads them with a bucket of "textra", the goat form of crack, and everyone else kind of runs with them to the pen. I had the crack, and I ran them out to pasture, where, instead of going into the fencing, they ran into the nearby woods and started going to town on the undergrowth. It took ten people and fifteen minutes to wrestle all of them back into the pen.

Then, we had to do the same for the sheep. And I helped feed the guinea hog, the buck goats, and the pigs. It involved carrying to buckets full of water a ways. Ouch. End of Chores.

9:30 a.m.- A little free time! I went to our two acre garden, where we're doing a lot of harvesting, and helped pick green beans and snow peas.

10 a.m.- A little orientation in the farm's kitchen, where all the food for guests is prepared. Liz the kitchen lady taught us how to pickle/can vegetables, a useful skill indeed.

11 a.m.- Back to the garden! This time, Maggie and I picked tomatoes. There were about three different varieties. To pass the time, we talked about Islam, the Middle East, and the U.N. She's a very interesting person to talk to. And finally, we picked raspberries! So delicious. But picking raspberries, a pain in the butt. The plants are huge, close together, and prickly, so you really have to work to find the bastards. In the end, we had a good sized wheelbarrow full of produce. In a year, the garden produces about 10,000 lbs. of produce.

12 a.m.- Lunch. Sandwich featuring goat cheese from out goats, and tomato and basil from our garden.

1 p.m.- Meeting with Donna, our livestock manager. Fascinating woman. We mostly just shot the breeze about the different livestock on the farm.

2:30 p.m.- Orientation close. Next week, we begin orientation in our different volunteer groups. Education volunteer orientation for me!

3:30 p.m.- CHORES! I had to run the goats back in, and then milk a few of them. Then, more harvesting from the garden. This time, we harvested produce just for the volunteers. WOW! It was exciting. We gathered carrots, potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, mustard greens, kale, arugula, lettuce, and green peppers.

5:30 p.m.- Dinner time! About eight of us cooked one hell of a meal. Most of it was made from our garden, with the exception of some flour and such. There was mushroom and gouda quiche, potato casserole, green bean salad, goat cheese and beat salad, carrot muffins, gingersnap cookies, rhubarb crisp, and homemade ice cream made from our cow Mabel. It took 2.5 hours to cook, but a lot of that cooking was very social. Twas a grand dinner.

11 p.m.- Went out for a walk before sleep, only to find that Abu our camel had gotten loose. It's not easy moving a stubborn camel. While I pulled and pulled on his harness, Susan tempted him with a bunch of hay. Ten minutes later, we moved him about twenty yards back into his pen. Damn camel.

Then, sleep. We have the day off today, so a bunch of us are going to Boston. Peace out, dawgs.

The Violin

So, you knew it was coming. You had to have known. Here it comes. Time to play the violin (is that the phrase?) BILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE POOR AND HUNGRY, DON'T YOU FEEL GUILTY YOU RICH AMERICAN FOR YOUR EASY AND COMFORTABLE LIFESTYLE!

Sigh. There it is. Nobody really likes hearing it, and the guilt trip gets old and/or doesn't actually change your life in any major way. Except maybe you give some money away. But, white Americans, as my sister will agree, are good at taking a snapshot of hunger and poverty, feeling bad about it, and moving on with their lives. In all honesty, what more can you do?

Why am I talking about this? Well, during orientation at Heifer's Overlook Farm, the discussion on hunger, poverty, and injustice has to come up. Why? Because the purpose of Overlook Farm is to share the experience of hunger and poverty with its visitors, to broaden their perspectives on the conditions in which people around the world live. The main way we do this is with the Global Village, a program through which I went yesterday. I must admit, all cynicism aside, it's a wonderful program.

And this is how it works.

On Overlook Farm, there are six "Global Villages". Each global village is essentially a working model of a house site in a particular developing country. We have Guatemala, Peru, Tibet, Thailand, the Mexican/United States border... and I forget. So, for example, in the Thailand village, there is a typical Thai household, raised on stilts and made out of bamboo. There is a Thai garden full of staple Thai crops, a pond for tilapia, and a pin featuring two water buffalo. Everything in the village is modeled after an actual household in Thailand that Heifer has done work with.

In the Global Village program, a group of people, usually students, live in one of the Global Villages for a night. And, boy oh boy, they do it about as authentically as they can. The program begins with a lottery, in which you pick a random number and get placed in a village with a few other people. My family was placed in Tibet/China. Immediately, things got sticky. One member of my family was disabled (me), another was pregnant, only one could read (and let me just say, if you're disabled, then you actually disable yourself for the night. I had to do it; not easy). We received a limited amount of money, the equivalent of a day's wages in our village, and had that money to go to the "Global Market" and purchase food for the night. I, personally, expected to share a decent meal with my family of four. I was wrong. After haggling a lot, we managed to get a baby bottle for the baby, a small bowl of beans, 1/8 of a cup of rice, 1/4 a small onion, and a handful of kale. Split four ways. Then, we had to build a fire, prepare the food, cook, and eat it. What we ended up cooking is best described as "warm bean water". It was hot, tasted vaguely of beans, was very watery, and bland. So bland.

But, it was all we had. I admit, it was not representative of a Tibetan meal, but that was mostly our fault. If we had been realistic, we would have bought barley and yak milk.

At some point in the night, our "mother" gave birth to a water balloon baby, whom somebody to take care of at all times. So, while we cooked breakfast, for example, someone had to hold the baby. If it died (aka: popped), we had to have an hour of silent mourning.

Then, the big event for the night. Our family had an arranged "crisis". Read from a sheet of paper, the crisis we received was based on true events and forced us to make a decision as a family in regard to our future. Briefly put, our crisis was this: In the year of 2005, the Chinese army invades our territory and threatens our nomadic way of life. We must move. Do we: (1) Stay in the mountains and farm on steep land that will only be good for a year because we must use pesticides and chemicals to grow crops there?, (2) move into a refugee camp for Tibetan nomads, in which we would probably starve, not to mention sacrifice our nomadic way of life and civil liberties beneath the hands of the Chinese, or (3) move into a large city in order to find work, though none of us have any marketable skills because we've been nomads all our lives, and we'll probably end up homeless and starving.

So, we had to make a decision as a family of what to do. OK, you may be thinking that this is awfully dramatic. It is. But, in 2005, a lot of Tibetan families had to make this kind of decision. The kind of decision with no good options, where death and starvation seem to be a end result of every option.

For the most part, that's the Global Village program. We went to sleep around the fire. It was freezing and wet and quite miserable. We made some oatmeal for breakfast, packed up, and moved out of Tibet.

What's the point? To feel guilty every time I think of Tibet? No. To experience what it's like to feel truly hungry? Yes. To know what it's like to make impossible choices? Yes. To experience the difficulties of a life guided by hunger and poverty? Yes. For me, it was like trying on a new pair of old shoes (my phrase). In other words, receiving a new perspective, in someone else's shoes, when that someone else is hungry and poor and, guess what, is YOU! It's one thing to sit in a classroom and learn about poverty. It's another thing to live in a poor household for a night, with a poor family, eating a poor person's meal.

Here's a quick example. So, we have an expecting mother, whose baby will need milk. The mother can't breastfeed because she is too malnourished, and the baby will probably die. We need to buy good milk at the market, but the milk costs 1/3 of our daily wages. This is a decision we actually had to make. Should we buy the milk for our baby, or spend that money on food for the family, essentially sacrificing the baby's life in the process?

Again, it's dramatic. But it makes you experience something. And experience is really what it's all about right?

Ok, time for more Orientation. I haven't totally answered the question of "Why?" Why experience this at all? What does it change? I'm not sure. But I'll get back to you.

The Boy's a Teat Toucher!!

What ill-repute! And disrepute! Dare I say it? I have become... a teat toucher! Oh heavens! What will the bridge club think?

Yes, today, for the first time in Sam Farm Boy History, I milked a goat (or, for the strong stomached, milked a goat's teats). Her name was Jesse. She never even asked for my name, didn't even give me the time of day. In fact, I had to lure her over with a bucket of feed, and THEN I had to lock her head between two wooden posts, so she couldn't escape. How humiliating. I must be quite unappealing to the mother goat market.

Now, this is how it's done. Grip the base of the nipple, right at the udder, tightly with your index finger and thumb. It really does work best if the goat is distracted with food, and secured in place. Otherwise, she just might kick the whole pail over. Once you've gripped, bring down your middle, ring, and pinky fingers one after the other, in one fluid motion, so that a healthy jet of white milk sprays against the bottom of the pail. Don't grab the nipple too low and make sure your index finger and thumb squeeze tight. Don't worry: you'll be able to tell when the milk is running low. The nipple becomes thin and droopy. Better make sure you finish before the feed runs out, or else the goat mama goes crazy.

"HEY SAM!" you might say. "Why are you giving me advice on goat milking?"

"Because it's gross and makes you uncomfortable," might be my usual reply. But, there's another reason! I began my first day of orientation with Overlook Farm, owned and operated by Heifer International. I am an Educational Volunteer, which means I will be working with a lot of visitors, educating them about Heifer's mission and facilitating them in various activities on the farm. I also, however, get to feed and care for the livestock here, along with the twenty other volunteers that live here, and tend to the gardens. And just enjoy myself in general.

So, Day 1: fed a camel, milked a goat, cuddled with a goat, tried to attack a chicken, and learned about Heifer's general mission.

A tiring day indeed.

Something I learned/thought about today. Heifer's vision is a world where communities co-exist in peace and harmony with one another and with the earth. Now, does anyone actually expect this to happen?

"No," I say.

Why not? Obvious reasons. Human beings are violent and stupid, for one. Of course, it's a nice vision, and something worth hoping for. But, honestly, if we don't believe it will happen, why do we keep trying?

Food for thought.