May 3 & 4

May 3^rd the walk to the lake was lovely, and the lake is beautiful! I went with Hanna, Jorge and Larson—quite an eclectic clan were we. Jorge is 35, from Madrid. He’s incredibly patient and humble and kind and a good worker and Hanna and I LOVE him. Larson was born within a half-year of Hanna and I, he’s from Portland and hates working…most of the time I want to roll my eyes at him, but Hanna and I love him all the same. The lake is very calm. Everything here is so quiet. Hanna and I may take a row boat out on a nice day. It stays light here until 10 pm (well, I assume as much, I crash every night by 9). Oh! And I tended to the fire, which heats water that is circulated around the houses—I was responsible for the fire until I went to bed. Fun!

May 4^th I watered the greenhouses and helped make lunch with Karin. I did the dishes and then watered one of the greenhouses again. The first round of watering took a good 2 ½ hours. In one of the greenhouses with onion sprouts we have to use water mixed with “chicken shit pellets”. This meant I had a long quest for chicken shit. Never have I desired to find chicken shit so badly. Never have I said ‘chicken shit’ so often.

“Hanna have you seen the chicken shit?”

“The chicken shit is in the greenhouse.”

“Which one? There wasn’t any chicken shit in this building.”
“One sec, I’ll help you find the chicken shit.”

CHICKEN SHIT.

Hanna made curried potatoes for dinner. Yummm. I ate it with some nettle soup and homemade yogurt. The yogurt was made from milk that had been salvaged from a dumpster by Dan (pronounced Dawn). This brings me to dumpstering…

DUMPSTERING! The event in which Dan (see below) goes in a dumpster and finds food and other items for the farm. Well, I guess that’s it.

DAN! A 25 yr old man who look like a 13 year old boy. He has one pair of socks, but don’t worry! he’s knitting a second pair. Dan is vegan, unless it comes from a dumpster. Dan sleeps in a tent by the farm instead of the available room here. Dan has the piercing blue eyes of a Siberian Tiger and wants to know why you used so much water. Dan, Hanna and I have determined, is pure. Hence the Dan-Purity-Level (see Gundi-Cankle Level), a scale by which to base the purest of the pure. Britta water filter? That’s Dan purity level. Dirty dish? Dan will lick his clean! Fantastic.

I pooped in the woods today!