Work and fun

---

So I've just completed my first week of farmwork, which was definitely a little labor intensive prepping this area for growing. We planted beans (lots of varieties), cucumbers, eggplant, passionfruit, basil, lettuce mix and arugula, and we've still got lots of room to plant. Everyone here is great - we have family dinners on wednesdays and jen made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream with the mint we've got (not vegan...but delicious).

A few days ago we had some excitement in the morning when some pigs were wandering on the farm (introduced species...but so is almost everything else). So ben got his gun and killed them, and then a guy who's working on a house on farm came down and gutted them...so now we've got pig galore (and those were BIG pigs), our freezers are all full now. I guess it means we don't have to buy meat now, we're taking whatever we can get, and because we have chickens we don't need to buy eggs, which saves a lot. And we're all off the grid with solar power so that's pretty cool, and have water cisterns to catch the rain. And has it been raining....the ants have all got rained out of their homes. If I thought it was bad when I first got here, it's ten times worse, and lucky for me they decided to get in my bed last night...

I've still got like 200 mosquito bites. Some remedies I've heard to keep them from biting is to eat a raw food diet (probably won't happen for the most part) or to overdose on one of the B vitamins (I don't know which one). For the latter, apparantly you'll smell a little bit, but they won't bite.

Another woman came to the farm the other day, although I'm still the only woman out in the fields working. This farm used to be woman dominated a few months ago, but now there are mostly men. It's fine, but nice during family dinners when there are more of us present. Rey came back to the farm too. He's from Colombia so I can practice my spanish!

There's lots to do here, we're always going off the farm everyday or every other day. Yesterday I FINALLY went to the beach! The water is warm and clear! And last night we all went to Sunset Jazz which is every 3rd Friday of the month where everyone gathers in F-sted to listen to music and dance and drink (oh yes, drinking is a past time here). This morning I'm going over to the neighbor's for brunch and to say goodbye to Kae (a woman who's leaving the farm), and then tonight I'll be waitressing the Slow Down dinner. There's are 3 birthdays tonight, so it should be a party.

Observations
-We keep bees here, and eating straight honeycomb is DELICIOUS!! Put some in your mouth and chew down the wax til all the honey is out...so good...
-I did not know that loofahs were a type of plant, they look like squash or cucumber when green, but if you want it as a sponge, just let it dry out on the vine.
-I brought lots of material to knit here, but I have not tried yet due to the humidity, although right now it's not so bad.
-i harvested 150 pounds of mango the other day. We have SOOO many mangos. Because we don't have tomatoes right now, we substitute mango in the guac (which is really delicious). I think I'll make some mango juice today...
-you will get pulled over by the cops for talking on the phone, but not for drinking

Alright, I'm out for now. Take care!
Mon

---