There is something rather unsettling but also exciting about arriving in a totally new place in the dark, not seeing quite where you are going, then waking up to see it in all its glory. I was blessed to wake up in a cosy little wooden house in the rolling forest and farmland of New England. After a magical week in Iceland I have made my way over to the USA to see a dear old friend of mine who I met in India ten years ago. We had been talking about this trip for years but things never quite seemed to come together to make it happen. I now realise that was because it was meant to be now.
Aitan has lived and worked on a Jewish organic farm and retreat centre for six years now, and has almost single handedly established a little goat farm, from whom he milks to make cheese. They are very happy goats who amble around in the forest and come back to the barnyard for home comforts. Chickens cluck around the place too and seem to lay a phenomenal amount of eggs. After a day resting I got to work helping Aitain make improvements to his barnyard, which involved laying a new drain and rewiring some electrics, and a alot of drilling. And of course collecting the eggs. After several hours of physical work in the sun, it was irresistable to jump in the lake for a swim and wash the day off my body.
I am so happy about how much I am learning here, and it really fits with where I am in my life right now. I love the sense of community here – how everyone has certain skills and they are happy to have help and so you learn through participating. Today I spent the day in the field planting cucumbers, which will be pickled and sold to support the farm. Sinking my feet and fingers into the soil and having the sun on my back, knowing that this thing I was doing would become something that would feed someone…that is rewarding work. I know how good these pickles are, and a myriad other goodies they produce, as the fridge is full of it. It is invigorating to eat food that has grown only metres away.
And of course at the end of the day we jumped in the river at the bottom of the field to cool off, and I was happy to have spend my hours this way and made new friends. As today is Friday, Shabbat in the Jewish community, where people scrub up and have a meal together and sing and meditate on the week passed and the week to come, we did a mikvah which is a kind of reflection on yourself before plunging three times into the water – the first part of the cleansing. It was a good moment to be able to share my thoughts and feelings about what I am learning whilst standing naked in a river with new friends!
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[…] experience I do have were at farms or small holdings such as The Lammas Project in Wales and The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Centre in USA, so perhaps I could not visualise a small scale operation! Still, growing anything here is […]