I had a weekend when I got there, so we did a few fun things before the workweek started. The two friends I know here were gone and one intern hadn't come yet, so it was just four interns and Elan, who manages the farm with Jonathan. Saturday it mostly rained, so we sat in the lana'i (porch) of our cottage and played games (mainly Cards Against Humanity) and got to know each other a bit. It rained hard all that night and I slept terribly, imagining that the spiders I was seeing in the common areas were probably seeking shelter in my hut. My hut, by the way, is a raised wood deck with screen walls and a corrugated metal roof. Inside I have a bed with a mosquito net and some basic furniture. Soon I'll have a couple of plastic bins to keep my clothes in, which will help keep the mold down.
Sunday, Elan drove us to Secret Beach on the southwest part of the island and we all burnt to a crisp and got pummeled in waves. Had some pretty funny moments seeing people who were floating around get hit by huge waves that would just sneak up on you! One of the girls lost her bracelet and decided to snorkel around looking for it and ended up seeing a big sea turtle. I didn't have her luck. We also drove down to the southern tip of the island and saw the last lava flow from 200 years ago, pretty much all broken up rubble now. The coast is really pretty there, we walked around a bit and enjoyed the view. We were so wiped after the day, we all slept really well despite the bugs. Oh, saw the centipedes that day for the first time. They're the only thing we really have to worry about biting us. That'll hurt.
Our first workday was a general orientation, going over the schedule and house rules. We also did a little writing and group sharing about where we're at in general, what we want to get out of our experience here, and how we could use each other's help on our journey. It's really cool that they put so much effort into creating a community feeling here. Every morning we'll have a check-in and let each other know how we're doing, before we start our day. Our days will consist of classes on organic farming, tilling the plots, planting, weeding, and harvesting. Saturdays they take the harvest to the farmer's market to sell. We don't have to do that, but we can if we want to. This weekend, we're talking about going camping. That will probably involve more swimming, and hopefully snorkeling too. I think this place will keep me busier than I expected, but it'll still be nice and relaxing.
Day two, I awoke again to rats on my roof (brawling I think), and we started the day with a class on soil composition and cultivation. The rest of the day was hands-on training of tilling two rows of weedy garden and planting little seedlings of kale and bok choy. I'm excited to see them grow, as the rows are right outside of my hut. They're in the largest garden plot of the four that we'll be working. The plots are very weedy, and we'll spend a lot of time managing that. After we finished planting and cleaned up the tools, we hiked down the property to a beautiful and huge waterfall. We jumped in the pool before the falls and swam to the edge and just hung out, enjoying the view. Then finally a bit of down time to write this and do laundry. Later we're going to pile into Jonathan's room and watch Lilo and Stitch. Oh and my friend Erica arrived after her little vacation today! Lots of hugs and silliness occurred, of course. Feeling very relaxed and happy right now.
Our cottage kitchen (and one of three fridges)
The cottage door, complete with farm kitty (Vice Chancellor Pomeroy), pulley and rock to keep the door shut, and beekeeper's coveralls.
Just outside the cottage, our fire pit and a few garden plots.
The packing shed.
Walkway over a coy pond and into the Villa, one of the nice guest houses right next to Jonathan's house.
Tables of seedlings and the area I walk past every time I want to go to my hut. This is right in front of the largest garden, Grace Garden.
My hut! I really need to weed wack around this thing. In front of it is a mulberry tree that I walk under to get to my door and it's always got ripe berries to snack on.
View of Grace Garden from outside my hut.
One of the water cisterns that give us our water. We have filters for drinking water.
Our cottage (common house), with kitchen, lana'i (porch), common room and Erica's room (the loft).
There are chickens and also ducks on the farm. The chickens are only for egg laying and the ducks were rescues, maybe they'll have good meat for Christmas.
There are a lot of apple banana trees on the farm. They're small, fat bananas and very sweet.
The walkway up to the nicest house on the property for people to rent out called the Jasmine. It's got an incredible ocean view from its deck. There are several areas on the property to see the ocean from though.
Deck with hot tub and sauna and ocean view (that we can use!)
The cabana house (LOVE the color), where Elan lives and there are guest rooms as well. It has a salt water pool (that we can use too!) and more coy ponds with brilliant purple lotus flowers. Tilapia too and the ponds feed a hydroponic bed with turmeric and basil.
Chickens hanging under their new barn building. They really just built it to get more rooftop space for solar panels.
A partially tilled bed. Still needs to have compost added and mixed in, then to be raked and tamped into a nice bed. We ended up planting kale here.
Lauren and Dani spreading compost.
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