I’m really watching what I eat now and its value in my body. I’m afraid this whole WWOOF-ing thing is ruining me for the general mindless way we operate in the city. I’m becoming addicted to stepping outside to collect the ingredients of my dinner: peppery, deep green rocket leaves that feel like fireworks exploding over your taste buds; juicy, mellow tomatoes; knotty, firm parsnips (the earth shaken off and roasted until it becomes caramel-y and sweet); crisp apples picked right off the tree, with a perfume you would want to bottle. The garden guides your meals and your imagination. Working the land gives you time to think and to dream: allowing space to develop you body, mind, and spirit. It builds your observational skills, allows you space to mull things over, and puts you into close contact with living, growing things: those sprouting out of the earth; and those crawling, creeping, sowing, seeding within it. Slowly, you begin to realize how you’ve been denied the earth, caged in a concrete jungle: a way of life that fillets you from nature and the things that sustain and renew you.
We have for centuries maintained the notion that human kind is set apart from nature. That we inhabit a higher ground: a special, hallowed niche in the universe. Yet our forefathers still lived in the world, sensitive to its rhythms and trying to adapt to make cultivation and their lives as easy as possible. It is only in the last century that we have managed to truly erect barriers between the world we inhabit and ourselves. Our bare feet hardly ever touch the earth, our knowledge of produce is limited to the few varietals that are commercially viable and carried by our grocery shops (whose square footage is primarily devoted to processed and packaged goods rather than fresh food anyway). Our meats come on Styrofoam trays – chunks we only can decipher thanks to the labels on the plastic wrap. Most of what is available in cities should really be called “food-like,” because once the produce goes through the industrial processing mill, it bears little resemblance to how it is or how it should taste.
How did we let this happen? Why was it so easy for us to relinquish our link to the land? We’re not all farmers, and we’re not all interested in agriculture, which is perfectly fine, but it’s like we don’t even have a sense of living in a physical, biological environment. It is getting so that a fair number of city children don’t know that cheese comes from milk, or that milk comes from a cow, or what a cow even looks like. And let’s not make any bones about it: we are creatures of this world, inhabiting it as animals that have their place in the wider scheme of things, and as much as we think we can do whatever we want to the planet and it be damned, we need it. There is a symbiotic relationship at work here which we’re forgetting, or denying, or whatever the hell we’re doing, but we’re certainly not doing ourselves any favours in not acknowledging it. There’s a restorative quality to the land, one that works on a cellular level, which I believe we need. It’s like we’re shutting ourselves up in our own prisons, and wonder why we’re going crazy.
I’m not trying to slag urban life, because there is certainly a vitality, and energy, and creative focus that exists in cities that make living in them thrilling. But I also know that life needs to be lived in balance, and the animal side of us, as well as the soulful side of us, needs a connection to nature. I can hear Adam’s voice in my head right this second, challenging this statement: “no, you believe this, you don’t know it as irrefutable fact…!” (Who says I wasn’t paying attention in class?) I’m happy to stand by my statement as fact and will debate it happily with anyone who cares to contend it. This world-view was cemented for me while at Bountiful, a biodynamic property in South Australia.
I set my sights on staying at Bountiful with proprietors Ruth and Tresh back in February when I was planning my route. I was curious about biodynamic farming (as in: what the hell is it?), and their little paragraph in the WWOOF book was so full of warmth, that I jumped off the bed to the computer to shoot off an email asking to stay with them. When Ruth responded, her email was equally warm and inviting, and she signed it with a “love” rather than any of the other polite terms one extends to strangers, and I distinctly remember running to Mom and telling her that I found people belonging to my tribe in South Australia. Then I Googled where Yankalilla is.
It’s on the Fleurieu Peninsula, about 64 km south of Adelaide, nestled amidst breathtaking hills and valleys. Sitting on the SeaLink bus, gazing out at the receding city, gradually replaced by bits of suburb, then snaking through countryside largely hidden from view by gum trees, the bus comes around a bend and the gum trees drop away, and your breath gets caught in your throat as you realize you’re high above sea level, and the ocean stretches in front of you, vast and glassy and calm, and these massive, gently sloping, rolling hills look like green waves undulating to meet the sea. It’s a loveliness I cannot do justice with my words, and in its lush, green, fabulous way, is every bit as spectacular as the raw wilderness of the Outback.
Yankalilla is snuggled in a valley between the rise and fall of these hills, built in a strip along a main road, a few minutes from the coast looking right over to Kangaroo Island. It’s a charming little town of about 1,000 people, and as you branch off the main street onto the little town arteries, you start entering country-side, with homes having an acre or two attached to them, where they either graze sheep, or grow produce, or keep livestock. There’s a winery, and a dairy, and hobby farms on the outskirts of the town, though the outskirts and the inskirts (so to speak) are hardly distinguishable.
The bus dropped me off in front of the local supermarket, where I was to meet Ruth. It’s funny – you go to a place without any inkling of whom to look out for; but invariably, even in a crowd, you spot the person (or people) you’re supposed to meet. I just look for those with a warm, smiling expression. The hosts don’t have a hard time figuring out whom they’re supposed to pick up because let’s face it, I’m pretty easy to spot. Especially in small towns in rural Australia!
It was drizzling, and she was waiting under an awning, this lovely petite woman with gorgeous, gold-flecked forest green eyes. It was so nice to get a warm hug, and we went over to the car to put my bags in. Inside was another surprise: a caramel coloured toy poodle named Phoebe, who plunked herself in my lap as soon as I sat down. It’s lovely to be around animals again – I am also developing a network of furry little friends around the world.
The trip from the grocery to the house was no more than five minutes, but up an incredibly steep and winding road. Dusk was falling as we pulled up to the house, a bungalow-style structure that burrowed between the garden and fruit orchard on the right, and the citrus grove on the left side. Flowers and lavender bushes and beautiful vines with hot pink blossoms wound their way up the front veranda trellis making the house seem like it grows symbiotically with all the plants and trees: a part of the gardens rather than a structure forced upon the land.
Inside, the kitchen and the lounge flowed into each other lengthwise in an open-concept design, and into the veranda, which had a view of the sea in the distance. A gorgeous wooden daybed (which Ruth got from Gumtree for a steal) was in one corner at the far end near the veranda doors, as was the round dining table, so that if you had to eat inside, you could still gaze out at the water. A little black wood-burning stove warmed the house to a cheerful, cozy state, and a stately, fluffy lady cat would warm her bones by the fire in the evenings. The kitchen had a very long island, where Ruth or Tresh and I would chop and peel and dice our dinners picked fresh from the garden.
My kingdom was to be their son’s old hangout, a little room Tresh built on the back of his toolshed. Wood paneled and carpeted, a tall vintage double bed with a super cozy doona, it had its own little covered porch and the doors opened into the citrus grove. I loved picking the oranges and tangerines directly off the trees as a snack before bed, peeling the fruit inside, the smell of citrus filling the room. It wasn’t until my last few days there that I noticed he had also carved little hearts into the supporting beams of the patio. I was sitting on a little fold out camp chair just outside my room, gazing out over the citrus trees and the valley in the distance, when I happened to look up and see those hearts, and just the attention and care that goes into putting in little details like that, put a smile on my face for the whole day. It’s such a Tresh thing to do too; the man is just a wonderful bundle of energy and warmth and soul.
He has such a gentle way of explaining things, and never impatient that he had to instruct the very fundamentals of a project. He works as a contractor and builder, but was home one weekday, and upon reflecting on the various things there were to be done around the property, we decided to build a shed. Now, as you may or may not know, I am not what you would call handy. In Hungarian, loosely and politely translated, I am known as a person with two left hands. I very nearly chopped off two of my fingers (stiches and a 9 hour emergency room wait fixed that). I am fairly certain I’ve narrowly avoided electrocution a few times. So building a shed – or anything beyond a fort of pillows – is a thing of magic and mystery to me. Nothing daunted, Tresh pointed out the tools we needed and off we went to build.
It was awesome.
First, we surveyed the land where we wanted to set up, and cleared it of logs and debris. A tree limb was growing into what was destined to be the roof, so Tresh got the chainsaw out and pruned it back, and I dragged the branches to the big woodpile that will be one incredible bonfire when it gets lit. We then got the necessary wood from a stash at the top of the paddock: big round poles to establish the corners of the shed and the vertical mid-beam, and then flat panels to establish the walls. In the process we discovered several geckos and a family of huge roaches, and I’m proud to report that instead of screaming and running for the hills, I just scrapped them off and dragged the wood to where it needed to go. It was really interesting to learn how to measure the distance between poles, first taking measurements between them, and then on the diagonals, making sure that everything was spaced equally. If the distance between the top left and bottom right poles was x, it should be the same between the top right and bottom left. Then we had to dig out the holes for the poles, and considering after about 6 inches of topsoil all we had was clay, it was damn hard going.
He did have this round digging tool that looked like a bottomless bucket attached to a long pole that had handlebars at the top. You would put the bucket part over the center of where you want the hole to be, and then twisted the handlebars round and round, while the teeth at the bottom of the bucket ate their way into the ground with each twist. Let’s just say it’s hard to twist through clay. Once we dug our 8 holes, we had to lift the 7 foot wooden poles and put them into the holes, dumping as much of the clay soil we dug out back in to lock the poles into place, and then use an enormous solid iron thumper (looks like a 6 foot nail) to compact the earth around the wood so that it would not move. You have to use your arms and your core to lift one of those things and then ram it back forcefully into the earth, working fairly fast around the perimeter of the pole, so that it won’t lean in any direction, and that you compact the earth before it dries and locks into place with air bubbles. Tresh was incredibly quick with the thing, as we took turns between digging and thumping, and I managed to rub off a good sized piece of skin on the side of my thumb lifting the iron pick and letting it fall back. I also gained a hell of a lot of respect for Tresh’s level of physical fitness, for though he is older than I am, he is fitter and leaner and in better shape than most people I know my age and younger (including me).
The neighbouring plot was under construction at this time as well, and while we were building the shed, he was pointing out details of the new house, and how it could be improved to better make use of the environment surrounding it to be more efficient. For example, north facing windows with deciduous trees planted in front to provide shade in the summer and be bare in the winter (to allow maximum light in) would cut down on energy bills. Having a brick wall run the length of the inside of the house, parallel to the windows, would allow the wall to act as a heat sink: soaking up heat from the sun in the day and slowly releasing it at night. I never thought of housing in those terms, or at least only in passing (though Jan did show a video in Critical Issues in Design about what it means to build and design structures in an ecologically sound way). It gave me an idea for an app, which will eventually find its way on candiednuts.ca.
But, after about 5 hours of getting our sweat on, Tresh called a halt. We went for lunch, and then he told me we were going to go dancing. I asked a several times, just to make sure that I wasn’t mishearing him. So I scraped off my boots, put on a clean pair of jeans, and slapped on some lip gloss (putting on makeup would have been like putting lipstick on a pig at this point), grabbed the dog and jumped into the car. The party – a fundraiser for Nepal – was being held in Port Noarlunga, a small seaside suburb. I think the drive there is where I really and truly fell in love with Australia, and South Australia in particular. It is one of the prettiest, and most inviting places I have ever seen. I would live here in a heartbeat. Those deep, deep green valleys and domed hills and that endless stretch of sunlit ocean, with mobs of kangaroos hopping along and grazing sheep making wooly tufts of white against the grass…it’s out of a storybook.
Ruth’s nephew, an intrepid young man on a bicycle journey through southeast Asia, was in Kathmandu during the earthquake some months ago. Instead of evacuating, he and two other young men stayed in the city and started organizing relief efforts, also galvanizing friends and family from their respective countries to donate money and send supplies, which they then helped distribute. I cannot applaud actions like this enough; and for every one who points at a millennial and shakes their head at their (insert negative quality associated with young people), there are examples of extraordinary sensitivity and proactive action and engagement that allows you to have hope for a better future. He is then planning on cycling through Kashmir and Vietnam, camping along the way, and I stand in awe of him. I think he’s only 23 or 24, and the stones this young man has! I do not think I’d have the courage to do what he is doing – I clearly don’t for I am not on a bike with a tent strapped to the back, now am I? But, people have their own story, and I suppose mine is not meant to be on a bike with a tent. (Yet).
I ended up buying two illustrated herb postcards, having a couple of nibbles and some chai and then cutting the rug with Tresh before piling into the car and heading home. Ruth was already home from seeing clients about an hour outside of Yanks. She is a wonderful listener and has turned asking questions into an art – and even though I’m a chatty open book, I found myself telling her details to my stories I don’t usually leave in the general retelling – so it is only natural that she works as a therapist. I loved being in a household with two very emotionally aware people, and who are very honest about how they feel and about the ups and downs in life without judgment. The whole house had a vibe of awareness, I guess is the only way to really put it.
Both Ruth and Tresh are meditators, and it’s just really nice to be among people who actively seek spiritual and emotional balance and enlightenment. Ruth’s had experience with Vipassana, so we had a bond over that experience. I’ve done a ten-day retreat, which led me through hell and back, and it seems it was a very intense experience for her as well. Some very hard emotional things came up for the both of us during and after our practice, and though I would not change the experience for the world, I recommend that new practitioners have a therapist lined up for right after, because you will need some support for some of the things that will come up.
Tresh is a Siddha practitioner, and a very dedicated one at that, rising early every morning to his practice. Ruth and I are a little more delinquent in that regard, and she’s organized a weekly neighbourhood meditation gathering at the house to make sure she’d get to it at least once a week. It was an arrangement I happily took advantage of, and joined them and a neighbouring couple in a 30 minute mediation, which was so restorative and felt so good, it made me resolve to make time for the practice on a regular basis.
Their friends were very lovely too, and I wanted to go visit them and their little farm, though it turned out that I ran out of time before I could. They had two cows, a mother cow and her daughter (named Caramel), but the mother passed away, so they bought Caramel two little male cows as companions! They had turkeys and geese, which the foxes got to, but still keep chooks. They also have sheep for keeping the paddock grass mowed, and an alpaca. They actually just bought an alpaca, because their first one, Fritzy, developed a mysterious illness and died. But Fritzy was best friends with one of the sheep, and the sheep was so dejected at losing his friend, that they got him another alpaca. Though this alpaca is not as friendly as Fritzy and seems to be taken aback by how friendly the sheep is, either questioning what kind of a short-necked alpaca this weird creature is, or wondering why a sheep should be so friendly to him. In any case, people who buy their sheep companions are my kind of people. Next time I’m there, I’m totally going to go visit Caramel and the rest of the menagerie.
Though Ruth and Tresh have opted not to have animals, there is no end of kangaroo mobs that lounge on the paddock across the track (driveway) or the birds that flitter around the gardens and orchard. During garden work, I’d take out the radio and weed and prune and pick listening to shows on ABC (like the CBC back home or BBC in the UK). My two primary tasks for the week were to weed the garden, and to paint a few pieces of the verandah furniture. Ruth has hurt her neck a few months back and cannot really tend to the weeding in the garden, so the soursob and a few other intrusive plants have really run amok. After learning to prune in Daylesford, I now learned to weed. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
First, which is a weed, and which is a baby plant? Quite a few spring onions and spinach leaves have been sacrificed to the untrained eye. And then, which weeds do you cut from the top but can leave the roots as compost in the soil, and which ones do you have to dig out by the root before they choke the growing veg? And you can’t go trampling all through the garden bed; but must try and get to everything from the edges, so that you don’t compact the soil. And then try get the weeds from around the carrots, for example, whose bushy, entangled tops make getting the weeds separated and pulled out a little tricky, to say the least.
But I loved it. I loved being out in the sunshine, in Ruth’s purple overalls, my hands in the soil, the wind in my hair. I loved teasing out the weed from the budding plant, either cutting it just below the soil with a sharpened butter knife (a bit of a contradiction in terms, I realize) or pulling it out by the root. I loved hunting in the soil for broken roots, which, if left alone, would just sprout more weeds next year. I loved stopping for a few moments here and there, listening to the birds chirping, or the buzzing of bees in one of the flower bushes, or to throw a stick for Phoebe to collect. I was so sore the second day though that I could scarcely move, but adjusted fairly quickly after that.
My second major task was to sand down and repaint four wooden chairs that lived on the veranda and a wooden bench. Ruth and I went to the local hardware and picked out a range of blues, to reflect the tones in the distant waters of the strait. One chair was a lovely teal, two a bright turquoise, and one a soft, heather-blue. Tresh showed me how to store the brushes between painting sessions (swish them through water to get rid of most of the gunk and then wrap them in cling-wrap or plastic bag, tight enough that they retain the bristle shape but not to warp them) so that they don’t dry out or the paint doesn’t crust on and damage them. It was so relaxing to just paint the furniture while listening to a book review show on the ABC – nipping indoors to tell Ruth when I though there would be something she’d find interesting as well. She’d be inside doing her research and work while I worked outside, and it was just so lovely and companionable. We would then prepare dinner together, and it felt just like being at home. Tresh would breeze in at around dinnertime, and we’d have a wonderful meal and talk about the day and odds and ends …and before you knew it, it was time for bed – another day wound up in a contented wholesome little package.
Cooking together was also a revelation, as Ruth is vegetarian. It was great to see how a varied vegetarian dinner can be made with minimal fuss without feeling like there’s something missing. No steamed and boiled veggies here, thank you. Instead, heading out into the garden with a basket and some scissors and a headlamp (it would be dark pretty much by 5:30) and collect the ingredients for dinner. I’ve developed a real tasted for roasted parsnips. And still a ton of cherry tomatoes on the vine, which I’d pick and then pop like candies from a huge dish on the kitchen counter. Then her multi-seed, no-knead bread recipe that had us finish the bread in an hour, or her individual ricotta and herb quiches with fresh salad on the side (handpicked fresh herbs from outside, of course). Or her fried rice that was just so flavourful and satiating.
This was a point Tresh had made while we were preparing compost activator by the light of the moon one evening: produce grown in a biodynamic garden are more filling and satisfying, more dense and nutritious than what can be sourced in regular supermarkets, even the organic produce. Though the produce at times may not be as big as from other properties, it is richer and denser in nutrient, as the plant draws its food from the soil, instead of being flooded with water and nitrogen fertilizers, which make the plant thirsty and make it engorge its cells with liquid, rather than have densely packed cells in a smaller fruit. When you eat fruits and vegetables produced the biodynamic way, you are not going to get that gnawing feeling an hour after you’ve eaten, that empty void in your stomach that still seems to be hungry even though you’ve just stuffed your face.
The way he sees it, he nurtures the soil, not necessarily the plant. If the soil is good, and provides all that a plant needs, then the plant will grow well, without the need of any other input from him. He sees his farm and its soil in terms of bio: biological, non-chemical; and dynamic: alive, active, interacting with each element and creating a vibrant ecosystem. “Each patch of land sings a song – some sing sad, mournful songs; others are asleep, so neglected that their voices fade altogether; while others are in tune, singing a harmonious, joyful melody.”
I loved hanging out with Tresh, listening to his philosophy on growing things and thoughts about the world at large. We were having dinner one day and he had brought home a bottle of wine, and he started reading the label. I don’t often read the label beyond looking for the grape varietal and the location, but for him, every bit of information gleaned added to the joy of it. “I love finding out about wines; where it’s from, how it’s made. It makes me enjoy it more, connect to it more, knowing exactly where it’s located in the world. And, if I visit, I can enjoy the place all the more for having drank the wine!” I never thought of it that way before, but now, that little piece of information, those tasting notes and thoughts on the back of the bottle, make or break the wine. I won’t really buy a bottle with nothing to say about itself on the back label anymore.
He’s a big outdoorsman too, and his approach to camping was another light-bulb moment for me. “I love camping. Every spot is an opportunity to create a new home.” He and a bunch of men in the area have gotten together and created a walking group (the Wollemi Walkers), going on hikes or weekend camping trips every few months, as a way to bond and relax and just get away from the every day. I would have loved to go along on a trip, especially as Tresh was relating some stories about earlier voyages, but there wasn’t anything upcoming that was planned, and trying to get people together on such short notice didn’t seem too feasible. He just got so animated when he would recount anecdotes, and he saw each good campsite or shelter from storm or discovered ruin as a gift, given to him and his fellow travellers. He is someone who lives with gratitude in his heart.
Though we couldn’t do an extended camping trip, on the Sunday I was there, Ruth had to go visit a friend in hospital, and Tresh took me on a whirlwind tour of the Peninsula. We started off in the morning, going to the Wollemi Tree across the valley from the homestead, driving along a rough track up through forest to get to a hilltop with a gorgeous view of the rest of the valley, and the ocean off in the distance. We drove past Tom Bombadil’s house; a charmingly derelict house nestled among trees in an overgrown paddock in the middle of nowhere. There was an old fridge in the front, and a rusted car I think, and the plan had been to trespass slightly and explore the abandoned home, but the plan had to be abandoned in its turn, as it had signs of occupation and renovation all over.
We stopped the car by the Wollemi Tree, and sat, contemplating the landscape, and Tresh asking me to find the house on the other side of the valley. It became painfully clear that I was blinder than I thought, and have to develop my observational skills immensely. But eventually I found it (I think), and as the wind was getting nippier, we went for a walk around, getting caught in Karoo Thorn bushes, which are a bitch, let me tell you. I found some lovely pink quartz shards along the way, which I slipped into my pocket as a memento. Tresh then drove to a nearby trail, with red, rusty sand, telling me of an Aborigine creation myth, when we came upon a huge grass tree, with browned and dead-looking “leaves” hanging down in a rusty mass. We went and pulled a few of the sheaves off, which were surprisingly tough, when I looked at my arm and noticed about 10 or so ladybugs marching up and down it. On closer inspection, the ground around the tree was practically covered with them, and when I looked at the tree trunk and all little recesses along its length, I saw thousands, if not millions, of ladybugs in every nook and cranny. What an amazing gift for us! It was astounding to see so many in one spot, and gorgeous.
We then went for a drive to a nature reserve – not sure if a park technically or not – where he’d gone camping with friends in the past. It was a beautiful, lush, densely forested land, with huge gum trees; their graceful and complex limbs curving and dipping, carving the light into lacework. Underneath the olive and hunter green foliage were clusters of little red-capped mushrooms, looking so inviting and comfortable, assuming you were a fairy or a gnome on a journey. I made the poor man stop several times along the way to photograph these little duplicitous toxic beauties, and then we were off to a new landscape, and one of the scariest drives I’ve ever been on.
It was also one of the prettiest. We drove up a track at practically 80 degree incline, or so it seemed, through sheep grazing paddocks and gum trees that practically looked like small bonsai, trunks blown by the wind to curve at unnatural angles, missing foliage on one side where space and light do not permit the growth of green leaves. At the top of one of these hills, you could see Kangaroo Island, and beyond it the vast ocean, and over to the right, endless rolling hills, and up above, enormous and endlessly plump white clouds. Writing these lines makes me really, really want a bag of marshmallows. There was an abandoned stone house on the hill, windows smashed in, and it may have been a radio outpost during the last war, but now only housed the skull of a long dead sheep. I should have picked it up, but where would I put it? I should ship it home and let mom deal with it.
Anyway, we tried to find geocaches around the site, as Tresh had heard or read somewhere that there was one about. But we looked for a good 20 minutes and pretty much left no stone unturned, and still nothing. It was getting on to two by this point, and tummies started rumbling, so we got back in the car and here’s something new I learned: 80 degree incline going up is not as scary as 80 degree incline going down. Holy shit on a cracker. For the first time (but not the last), I would have to put all my faith into someone else, and just trust that everything was going to be ok. I looked out the window at the ocean, at the sky, anywhere but down the slope, no matter how green and thick and inviting it looked or how comfortably the sheep were scampering up and down the damn thing, and just dug my nails into the armrest, with a prayer to God and an iron clamp on my tendency to shriek (and my bladder).
But we made it down safe and sound, and ended up in a cove by the sea, where we created a little fire pit, tossing on some wood we brought from home and augmented with wood off the road. Tresh stirred up a pot of chai, and I put on some pieces of bread on the rack over the coals to toast. We had left over chicken thighs we tossed back on the barbie to heat through again, and made ourselves roast chicken and tomato sandwiches. We had a few extra slices hanging out, and so we tossed them over the coals too, and when properly browned, we drizzled olive oil over them and had them with slices of fresh tomatoes and a sprinkling of soy sauce. I had tomato, olive and soy bread for two weeks after, and now, three months later, I still make those sammies, and think of the wild waters rushing onto the pebble beach in this protected little cove, and of Tresh. It was a little oasis, and we just sat against a couple of big boulders, the fire between us, the food in our paws and hot chai in our tin cups, looking over the water and the surf in companionable silence, and frankly, I could not want more out of life.
It’s easy to see that he is in his element in the open air and wilderness. In fact, Tresh had spent a number of years on a home made-river raft , and he and Ruth lived more like Robinson Crusoe than Martha Stewart for the first six years of their marriage, until they had their son, and then walls seemed like kind of a necessity. And so their adventure in establishing a more conventional life, and their foray into biodynamic farming. As Ruth once said, and which touched me deeply, “no matter what happens, we [Ruth, Tresh and Woody] have deep roots that are connected.” It is a perfect metaphor for them, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to shelter beneath their canopy.
…
A note on biodynamic farming:
A method developed in the 1920’s by Rudolf Steiner, it is an approach to farming that works with nature, instead of trying to control it or prune it or contain it. It is about providing optimal conditions for things to grow, and by providing those conditions, and closely observing the system in which you are growing your food, you give less room for pests and disease to flourish. It looks at life and growing things from the tiniest creature to the influences of the sun and the moon and the greater cosmos on our planet. Just as the moon rules the tides, there is a greater ecological system at work than the industrial approach to agriculture allows. In this system, one recognizes that pests and disease still exist, and have a place in the system, but by doing everything possible to nurture healthy soils, which produce healthy plants, those pests and diseases will be naturally minimized, while respecting them.
An illustrative example of the whole philosophy at work was preparing the compost treatment with Tresh. He was stirring valerian essence into a bucket of water (which was at body temperature), mixing it by hand, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, creating a vortex. The vortex draws in the energy form out there, from the air, the cosmos, activating the microbes and every little particle in the water; gets them all heading one way, then BAM! Chaos: the switch of direction. Kind of like life. But then, when the water is poured over the compost and earth, it’s charged, rearing to go, electrified, dynamic and active. This is both the philosophy and the action behind biodynamic farming, which respects the role of everything in the universe playing together in a grand concert.
………
I enjoyed the writing and the pictures. Made me rely want to visit the place.