another day, another real

Raining off and on again today. Had to start the fire in the kitchen to heat up water to make coffee. No gas again this morning to use the stove. Everyone but Dario got up late. He always makes so much noise, banging pots, tromping around (thank goodness they have a cement floor in the house!) and barking on the telephone. He is a giant of a man, probably 6’5” and husky. His fingers are the size of a carrot and hands equal the leaves of the cabbages we pick. A gentle giant. I think of him as a Jolly Green Giant. He wakes up cheerful and is much more animated with his brother around.

Diego and Eva are from Germany. He speaks German, Spanish (some family lives in Argentina) and English though he is too shy to talk with me. His girlfriend is the same age as Taelor. She is a bit lazy, concerned about painting her nails and not helping out in the kitchen. I think today I will ask her to wash dishes with me. She is spoiled and seems to get her way every time with Diego. An eye-batter.

We made bread in the bread maker, green papaya gnocchi, eggplant hummus and everything took forever since we were using the fireplace burners to cook. By the time the gnocchi was finished it was 10:30pm. I had eaten too much hummus and crackers to savor the gnocchi. One glass of beer later and thorough kitchen clean up (the boys made such a mess, using nearly every available pot) I was ready for bed.

With the rain, I doubt we will go to the waterfall. It is a long drive and muddy path. Too cold to swim. I will wait for a hot and humid sunny day so I get refreshed in the bubbles.

Ana came with me to work on the Excel Spreadsheets I organized for the farm. It is so difficult to see how little they make on the few clients that pay upon delivery. With more up-front expense if they have more volunteers, it could put them in jeopardy. I encouraged them to put aside a percent of the receipts for future purchases. The seeds are exceedingly expensive. For the time being, they are not saving them since most of the veggies are sold.    

Told the story about the DVD History of the Chicken. Hard to describe this film in Portuguese, while planting this afternoon in an area that was left untilled for a year. We unrolled a large piece of plastic (black on the bottom, white on the top) over the tilled soil after placing three black tubes to act as the water source. I think they have holes throughout the tubing. The plastic is held down with cut pieces of bamboo, about a yard long. Punctured holes with a piece of PVC about three inches in diameter. Placed the small plants that were holed-up in the greenhouse. Ripped a bit of the holes to make them wider and accessible to arrange the soil around the plants. We planted a total of 600 cabbage plants in an hour with four people, in the rain.

Today we took a jaunt through the forest. It was hardly an “Over the Hills and Through the Woods” journey. Vines trapped my rubber boots, muddy streams to cross, open areas of swamps that required large bamboo trees to be cut so we could balance our way to the other side. I slipped one boot off the edge and saturated my socks…sloched my way along. Nothing worse than wet socks!...until tomorrow.