Two Weeks In

Hello everyone!

Please allow me to regale you with some meanderings regarding my time at Pope Valley Fruits.

My first thought is about when I arrived here. After an epic 4-day drive across the country, and after nearly losing my mind driving the hilariously curvy roads around here, I made it to the farm. The driveway was no less windy, but as I drove further up, I saw flashes of blue Lake Berryessa beneath the mountains in the distance, and I knew I'd picked the right place. As I turned down the driveway, I saw various small tents and buildings sitting in the sun, and after some confusion about which split in the driveway to go down, I was greeted warmly by my fellow WWOOFers, whose names I remember promptly forgetting in my excitement to have arrived. I re-learned them very quickly, however. (If all else failed, I could have known them as The Couple, The British Lady, The Frenchman, The Fellow New Yorker, The Daughter, and The Boss.)

I remember Katrina showed me around, and we went swimming in the lake. It was a perfect way to settle in after a long day of driving. As we walked down to the lake, I looked around the little inlet that the farm is situated in. I was progressively more blown away with every step I took. I expected this place to be pretty, but as I walked behind Katrina, my eyes popping out of my head, I saw that 'pretty' didn't even come close. For those who haven't seen it, the farm is on a hillside, one section being Nancy and Terry's trailer/laundry room/tool room/sleeping tent (really amazing place to sleep, so jealous)/bungalow. On the other side, just across the way, sits the WWOOFer housing and the goat/chicken sheds and the goat enclosure. I knew very quickly that I wanted to sleep outside in the field just outside the house (which I now dub Schneider Pastures). The path down to the lake that Katrina introduced me to winds its way through knee high grasses that turn gold in the evening, swishing this way and that, the hillsides dotted with green treetops. Sometimes I forget that I'm in California and think that I'm in some otherworldy Tuscany, even though I've never been to Tuscany (or even Italy) and I think the landscape is probably quite different there. Maybe it's the light here (that California light!) At any rate, this place looks very much like the Tuscany of my mind, though that's probably no help to anyone. The path manages to eventually make up its mind and get itself down to the sadly-sinking lake. The view from the lake is amazing. You're in this small inlet surrounded by jaggedly-rolling hills, grasses and trees, and at the time of the day that I was introduced to the view it looked like something out of an old photograph of unexplored country.

That's the quality that I so cherish here, actually, that feeling of unexploredness. Nancy and Terry have managed to create a real home here without impinging on the beauty of the land, and I admire their committment to that ideal. Solar power, composting, using home-grown food as much as possible, an emphasis on less waste--less of a footprint, really. It is an ideal to live up to, and I won't forget it. I may not be able to do much about it now, as I don't have my own house and even if I did it most likely wouldn't be on a farm, but here I have come to see the importance of finding a piece of land to connect to and then treating it with love and respect.

I came here to do hard work. My view on my ideal job here: the more grunt, the better. And after two weeks here I can still honestly say that that is true, which is satisfying to write. To put not-too-fine a point on it, I like digging ditches. And clearing brush, and sawing stuff, and using the pickaxe, and...While those jobs are really tiring (manzanita trees are just too damn tough), they are not at all tiresome. I came here to get away from that feeling of needing to fulfill any image or goal that I set for myself. That's why I like grunt work, or something like painting, too. It is routine and monotonous and it frees my mind. I get to concentrate on a task, and then by occupying my hands I get to just wander in my head, without trying to. Thoughts become very cloud-like, passing by naturally and dissolving or combining. There's nothing here that I should be doing, nothing I should be thinking. I just consume my mind with whatever I'm doing.

Some of the work, both grunt and not:
-Like I said, clearing brush. Saws, loppers, pickaxes. I had to create a path from the goat pen all the way down to the ravine. It was blocked by endless branches, and in conjunction with Nicholas (The Frenchman) and Kai (he arrived after I did, so no nickname) I cleared it out.
-Using pig rings (I love that they're called that; it makes me hungry) to connect our fence to the government's fence that runs along the boundary of the property.
-Digging ditches for water-drainage pipes. The soil in one spot was absurdly rocky, so Nicholas, Kai, me, and Mike (1/2 of The Couple) all took turns blasting away with the pickaxe. It felt good.
-Driving fenceposts for further fencing. You use a thing that looks like an upside-down combat mortar, and slam it on top of the fencepost. That thing is heavy.
-Harvesting sea-weed in the lake to be used as fertilizer. Denise (The British Lady--really, she has the best accent) perfected a method of using your foot and wrapping it around the slimy, creepy-crawly sea-weed and pulling it up to your hand to drape it over the boat.
-Painting the WWOOF house. Really hurts your brush arm after a while, but it's so hypnotic and fun.
-Milking two of the three goats, Jada and Wanda (named by Katrina). That was daunting at first, and I kept squirting myself in the face with goat's milk. It doesn't cool you off, either, because it's quite warm. So it was both embarassing and fairly uncomfortable. Denise did a good job trying not to laugh too hard. But after a while, I found my grip and was able to almost keep up with her. I don't think I'll ever be as good as she is, as I think she's the master milker.

I'm sure there's some other stuff, but those are the ones I can think of at the moment.

As for my off-time, I've gone into town with everyone a few times and gotten sushi/ginger ale/scooby snacks (I love them so), and I bought a few books at the local bookstore. There's a lot of quiet time to read around here, so that has been pure heaven. We also went to the gay pride parade in San Francisco this past weekend, and that was great fun.

And this is all just two weeks in! It feels like I've been here for much longer, and while I am sure some a little civilization might be nice after three more weeks, I am not aching to get there and am very much cherishing my time here, now.

Charlie