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.