May 9 & 10

May 9^th, aka our glorious day off! Hanna and I set no alarm-Why would we? We could wake up as late as our bodies would allow—which ended up being 7:00… Can’t win ‘em all.

I read Veronika Decides to Die for an hour, and then we made cheesy potatoes for breakfast. Afterward we walked to the lake, Hanna with her journal, and I with my book. I tried valiantly to flip a capsized boat for a quarter of an hour, employing an ingenious lever system as well as my brute strength to flip the vessel. No success…

I found a little blue boat!

trying to flip the boat using math

Miss new booty

PANORAMA 

Skipped stones. Read. Found a toy boat. Read. Stretched sore legs. Read.

Kerstin and Hans were coming to the farm to pick Hanna and I up at 5:30, so when we got back from the lake I decided it was time TO TAKE A SHOWER!!! Yes, I broke the 7-day no-bathing streak and cleaned up for my family.

At 5:30, Hans, Kerstin and Kristoffer came to the farm to get the low down on this Björklinge farm, and drive us to Uppsala for dinner. It was fantastic seeing them, especially Hans, because immediately I remembered him from my grandparents wedding, and not only that, but I remember thinking he was great, too. The five of us went to Uppsala, which is really a university town, and we walked to the old church there. Cherry blossom trees are in bloom now, and they reminded me of my campus back in Portland, which I will see soon (weird).

Dinner was at this nice Italian restaurant, and my food was a.m.a.z.i.n.g. We got dessert afterward as well, and Hanna and I almost couldn’t handle the rich, delicious Tartufo Nero (I think it was called) after eating primarily cabbage this past week. Dinner was wonderful, and it was so good catching up with family. That is something I always find interesting. You can go 7 years not seeing someone, but knowing you are family gives you this automatic bond. It was so good to be with family! and, of course, Swedish family is the best.

After dinner, coffee and dessert (SO full), they drove Hanna and I back to our little Björklinge farm. It was around 9pm, which meant we would sleep very well on full stomachs.

BEST DAY OFF EVER.

EVER!

Finished Veronika Decides to Die...hm

May 10^th

Watered the plants and made lunch with Hanna. Another girl is here now, her name is Paulina and she is originally from Poland, grew up in Vienna, and lives on the farm here in Björklinge. Today we worked until 6:15 planting onions from the back of the tractor.

Farm

Dropping little onion bulbs into the earth. Larson is in the beanie, Dan on the far side

Hanna being fancy in the greenhouse

ANDERS!!

It was fun//hard on the back//nice in the sun//need.to.stretch

Larson’s quotes of the day:

“Oh hey, a rock!”

“Alpha Alpha Alpha Bro-mega”

“I’m hoping to dumpster a hat.”

May 7-8

May 7^th

Hanna and I spent most of the day shoveling soil into this machine that made indented sheets, which we then dropped seeds into, and covered with fertilizer. Later we watered all the sheets, covered them in plastic, and stacked them in the warmest greenhouse. Towards the end Dan and Jorge helped as Larson stood uselessly in the corner, whistling fragments of The Simpson’s theme song.

After work the four of us went out to pick nettles for soup. Dan talked about the health benefits of good nettles, and the dangers of bad ones. He also showed us how to pick them so it is slightly less painful. Hanna, Jorge and I burned our hands diligently, pulling up the useful part of the weed as Larson talked about the shooting in Clackamas by ‘a Mexican.’ 

May 8th

Today Hanna and I dug up leeks and green onion. At first it was HELL. Bending over again and again to dig up the stubborn leeks deep roots, row after row...but we switched to green onion and had fika, and pretty soon time flew by. After work we walked to the store and bought some LAKEROL.
Tomorrow is our day off and we have big plans. Stay tuned.

Larson's quote of the day:

"You guys wanna get some pizza?"

The sky. Gawwwwhhhhhhddddd.

May 6th

Hanna, Jorge and I live in this house--it was here when Anders' parents lived here, over 50 years ago!

The sun sets around 10, rises around 4

Aaaand here begins my tale

Hanna and I are sitting at the kitchen table now. She is flipping through Jorge’s Spanish dictionary, I am writing on my laptop. Jorge is cooking, and we were just talking to Jorge about his first dumpstering experience. Jorge is so great—he is the most humble, nicest, hardest working guy ever. My nose is going crazy with all the dirt and dust around here but I’m all whatever, ya digg? Larson is a useless lump of hair, but slightly endearing. Today he played dj with my ipod while Hanna and I cleaned the kitchen.

“Do you have Pink Martini?”

“Yes…but you have my ipod…why don’t you check?”

“I don’t want to scroll down to the p’s..”

“Yes, I have Pink Martini.”
“They are super Spanish.”

“…(in this moment I contemplated throwing the mold-covered cheese plate I was washing at Larson’s face)”

Larson begins playing Elohai N’Tzor, a song in Hebrew

“Super Spanish.”

It was hard not to laugh.

Today I sorted through vegetables, peeling off dirty/moldy bits and composting rancid cabbages/carrots/celery roots. It doesn’t sound glamorous now that I wrote it out, but it was fantastic. Sitting in the sun with a bag of produce and a dull knife. Part of the time I sorted through vegetables with Dan. He talked more about working in Greece and we discussed veganism a little. Dan said 1/3 of what is produced is thrown away. Next year I’m going to try dumpstering, at least a little. I also plan on subscribing to CSA baskets, and Hanna and I talked about finding a place in the house to store cabbage and potatoes. Even if my dumpstering/sustainable habits don’t stick, I may be able to write a story about my adventures for the Beacon in the Fall:
 “I went in the dumpster at New Seasons!” Hard-hitting journalism, folks.

I helped spread horse shit in the new greenhouse today. Hanan and Jorge loaded up wheelbarrows of horse shit and I spread the horse shit along the rows of raised earth. The horse shit didn’t smell bad at all. We will finish spreading the horse shit in the second half of the greenhouse tomorrow.

HORSE SHIT.

Hanna and I tried to make ice cream out of some of the expired milk here. It was DELICIOUS, except it never thickened into actual ice cream, so it was more like sweet chocolate milk with a pungent aftertaste. Will make more tomorrow. Such a treat!...seriously.

In the late morning I went to deliver some orders to a preschool with Anders. Anders is awesome. I will have to put up a picture so you can see what I am trying to describe. He’s old enough that any hard personality traits that he may once have had have softened and sagged along with his face skin. We dropped off the potatoes and beets at the Waldorf school and then drove to the store. Anders has diabetes and today was my fourth day on the farm.

The Swedest thing

Best crotch shot ever

Le Han

bertz

Greasy hair

bed

The Loo

First night at the farm

LOOK at that sky

...

As you can see, the farm is pretty picturesque. I'll get some shots of our fellow farmers/other stuff later. yay!

May 5th

May 5^th Sundays start at 10:00 am. Karin and Anders do a prayer/mediation/guru-inspired thing at 8 am in the main house, which Hanna and I were supposed to attend, but we slept until 8:30. I made a grilled cheese for breakfast and it was so.frickin’.good. Hanna made potatoes--a common theme in The Brain’s life.

After breakfast Hanna went off to do the watering, and I went with Dan (who had nettle-soup for bfast) to sort onions. The farm does CSA baskets in the community, as well as vegetable deliveries to two preschools, so they are always making up orders for something. Dan talked a lot about hitchhiking, farming in Spain, working on a boat in Greece, and sustainability. He is a very interesting person. Then we had Fika, and I started preparing lunch. Hanna was my helper today and we made rice and curried vegetables. SO good. Top it off with a little homemade yogurt and nettle-soup and voila! a delicious lunch for the troupe.  

Did dishes. Hanna went out to do her last round of watering. Washed some clothes in our sink. Washed potatoes with Dan and moved them. We’re going down to the lake in a moment—wish it was warm enough to swim as it is day 3 no bathing.

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!