Today's tasks were much gentler on the body - they required less strength than yesterday's branch-lifting, but also needed gentleness and precision.
I woke up at 6 at my alarm's bidding, and after some purposeful rug exercises, I made breakfast, put the remaining soaked beans I'd left in the fridge to slow cook until lunch time, ate breakfast, and left for the field. There I met Mario and Ramón, and soon after Adán, who retaught me how to "escardar" the chile plantations. Basically, remove all plants near the chile plant (tiny leaf sprouts at this point), careful not to hurt the chile itself. We were first helped and accompanied by Adán, Ashley, Félix, and Mariela, but after about 10 minutes, Félix wandered off and his family followed him out of the field and back to their houses. Mario and I weeded for the rest of the day. I ate my cooked beans for lunch, and after having weeded the whole day (til about 4PM), he asked me to pick up the chicken eggs and put them in the fridge. 30 eggs went in.
Then I saw Adán, and he very nicely asked about my stay and my needs. I asked for a screwdriver, a ride to Los Alamos on Saturday, and some oatmeal, and I got two out of three. But we forgot about the screwdriver only because we began talking about other topics, such as the state of the farm, the importance of weeding, and an email that Josh sent me, which Adán printed out for me. I felt welcome in this farm.
Then I peeled, chopped, cooked, mashed, and ate 4 potatoes out of the 6 that I picked out of an old bag (2 looked too rotten to eat and went into the compost). They turned out delicious, even using only water, and a cup of Earl Gray tea was an uplifting accompanying drink.
I saw a gently dimming light out, and decided to walk out to see the sunset. So I did - I walked into BLM, and found a nice nearby hilltop, made a seat with three nearby rocks, and watched the orange sun behind the smoky clouds slowly lower into thicker nebulous drapes of gray and white, slowly colored to yellow, orange, gold, and dark grey again. The view around the sun glowed with warm colors, and in comparison the rest of the sky seemed calm and peaceful; large smooth clumps of that dark blue grey only admired near twilight shared the sky with smoke-grey clouds, and through a few patches that neither cloud had claimed one gleaned windows to the "distant heaven" on the other side, painted in what seemed, in contrast to the rest of the darkening sky, as light baby blue, lined by cloud corners of white and light grey. And the colours of the sky were all mine to see at that point, and I felt happy.
At that time I also realized that if writing is what I Will, I will not detain it, for the Will is a powerful guide.
I woke up at 6 at my alarm's bidding, and after some purposeful rug exercises, I made breakfast, put the remaining soaked beans I'd left in the fridge to slow cook until lunch time, ate breakfast, and left for the field. There I met Mario and Ramón, and soon after Adán, who retaught me how to "escardar" the chile plantations. Basically, remove all plants near the chile plant (tiny leaf sprouts at this point), careful not to hurt the chile itself. We were first helped and accompanied by Adán, Ashley, Félix, and Mariela, but after about 10 minutes, Félix wandered off and his family followed him out of the field and back to their houses. Mario and I weeded for the rest of the day. I ate my cooked beans for lunch, and after having weeded the whole day (til about 4PM), he asked me to pick up the chicken eggs and put them in the fridge. 30 eggs went in.
Then I saw Adán, and he very nicely asked about my stay and my needs. I asked for a screwdriver, a ride to Los Alamos on Saturday, and some oatmeal, and I got two out of three. But we forgot about the screwdriver only because we began talking about other topics, such as the state of the farm, the importance of weeding, and an email that Josh sent me, which Adán printed out for me. I felt welcome in this farm.
Then I peeled, chopped, cooked, mashed, and ate 4 potatoes out of the 6 that I picked out of an old bag (2 looked too rotten to eat and went into the compost). They turned out delicious, even using only water, and a cup of Earl Gray tea was an uplifting accompanying drink.
I saw a gently dimming light out, and decided to walk out to see the sunset. So I did - I walked into BLM, and found a nice nearby hilltop, made a seat with three nearby rocks, and watched the orange sun behind the smoky clouds slowly lower into thicker nebulous drapes of gray and white, slowly colored to yellow, orange, gold, and dark grey again. The view around the sun glowed with warm colors, and in comparison the rest of the sky seemed calm and peaceful; large smooth clumps of that dark blue grey only admired near twilight shared the sky with smoke-grey clouds, and through a few patches that neither cloud had claimed one gleaned windows to the "distant heaven" on the other side, painted in what seemed, in contrast to the rest of the darkening sky, as light baby blue, lined by cloud corners of white and light grey. And the colours of the sky were all mine to see at that point, and I felt happy.
At that time I also realized that if writing is what I Will, I will not detain it, for the Will is a powerful guide.
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