Me and a little goat
Donkeys
Horses.
Boots.
Generally when asked about vacation, people talk about sunny beaches or glistening ski slopes, visiting monuments or big dinners with friends.
My vacation included sun and slopes, and dinner, but also involved hard work, rubber boots, rotting food, lots of dishes, vegetarians, LOTS of blisters and a few miracles.
Highway to Hell
I went to work on a farm in the south of France, about two tortured hours by bus from Nice. Remember my Highway 1 car sickness? Increase the speed by 20 mph (how ever many kilometres) and change the van into a bus, and there you have my horrible experience. It was a miralce I survived it without throwing up.
Soup's On & The Circus Task
My first task upon arriving to the farm in Sophia's freezing car with the vandalized broken window was feeding the animals. Hay for the horses, ponies, cow, mule, goats and donkeys; lettuce and hard bread for the rabbits; soaked stale bread and salad for the chickens, pigeons, geese, ducks, turkeys, and hens; and rotten, stale, edible anything for the disgusting pigs. They have a storehouse in a crumbling chappelle which is stacked with rotting vegetables and fruits that we load up into wheelbarrows for the pigs. The stale bread is loaded into a giant circus-like sac, and then (theoretically) dumped into the food trough for the pigs.
However, like a dramatic episode of "Legends of the Hidden Temple," the task gets much more complicated by the fact that the pigs live on the bottom of a dramatically-sloping hill (and the food is at the top) AND the two smallest pigs run at you like maniacs as you try to deliver the food to the trough, while the dogs chase after the pigs, making them crazy and totally unpredictable. The noise, the movement, and the necessary coordination create a whirlwhind of stress! Thus, I learned quickly that either you a) repeatedly WHACK the pig to get him out of the barrow, which made me laugh too hard to be possible, or... b) you run. FAST.
So I donned my rubber boots with the pretty colored polka dots, gripped onto the handles of my teetering wheelbarrow and sprinted down the hill, wheel barrow bouncing & pigs squealing, until I reached the bottom of the hill. I skidded to a stop and started grabbing for spoiled peppers, and rotting tomatoes, mold and liquid rot coating my hands and forearms, frantically throwing food into the trough. I threw the rotten feast in all directions, attempting to distract the pigs from my stock pile, leaving me alone with the task of manhandling the bread.
Oh yes, the bread. Baguettes and rotting ciabatta, rolls, and fancy knotted bread, football-sized loaves, and sliced bread -- it was a stale bakery delight. And if you consider the weight of a respectable dinner roll, then multiply it by 200, you might have a sense of the weight of this circusy grainy problem. I had the task of lifting the bag (taller than me, and made of canvas) and manoeuvering it so that the bread would pour out into the trough... like a very flimsy, unreliable chute.
However, my strength was not matched for the bag; when I tried to lift it, bread started flopping out uncontrollably -- everywhere except where I wanted it to go. I started to think it would just be better to flip it over, and kind of fling it about, hoping the most of it would end up at least near the trough. But in the process of trying this new process, a massive, disgusting, mud-covered, jabba-the-hut-like pig grabbed the other end of the circus bag!
So there I was, panicking, YANKING on the bag like a tug-of-war with a grunting, massive, walking porkchop. I think I might have screamed, I don't really know. Speaking French or English, I tried to use words that would discourage a selfish slob like him from fighting the fight, convincing him that I WOULD WIN and he would not have canvas for breakfast. And what do you know? Eventually I got the bag back. Oh, the power of language! :)
The Accidental Vegetarian
There are probably millions of things I have never thought about in my life. One of them, until last Monday, was how much food goes unsold at grocery stores and what happens to it after the expiration date.
I can tell you, now I know. At 6 am, Sophia and I dragged ourselves out of bed and loaded up in the farm van for an hour and a half drive to the nearest supermarket in Draguignan. Her fear of driving the van, plus her resentment over being forced to do the task and resulting extreme lack of sense of urgency made the trip MUCH more delightful than the hurried bus ride into town.
We watched the fog float out of the valleys and the sun slink up over the distant mountains, pulling a pink and purple cape with it that draped across the shoulders of the cliffs. In the brisk chill of the morning, I felt the excitement of adventure boiling inside my body, the beautiful feeling of something unexpected awaiting in the near future.
We pulled up to the back entrance of the sleeping supermarket, next to a Red Cross van that was already loading up its stock. We went to work first with a dumpster full of bread and pastries. We loaded up four giant sacs of baguettes and "pig bread", and set aside several shopping bags of pains-au-chocolat, croissants, and other delicious buttery things. The van smelled of a bakery, of indulgence, and breakfast and comfort.
When that was finished, we started loading up the produce. Vegetables and fruits with varying degrees of decomposition were stacked in a precarious tower, and our task was to divide and conquer: separate the still-fresh from the "pig food," group things at least generally together by genre, and stack as much as humanly possibly into the back of the empty van. I was surprised to see bags and bags of packaged salad tossed out, some not even having reached the printed date on the plastic, and fresh bananas, plump grapes and even happy clementines, bursting against their faible peels. There were also the others, the secreting, the decomposing, the squishy, the smelly, the moldy and the moving. But even that was okay... you just throw it really fast from one bin to the other. No problem.
All was well until the red bin of doom was delivered. We opened the top and should not have. There is a story I love about one of my dad's friends who encountered a skunk on the side of the road, intending to find a cheap way of obtaining skunk smell for hunting and instead, instantaneously, instinctively, vomiting. I had a very similar experience with the small mountain of spoiled meat we unveiled with the lifting of the plastic lid.
Various parts of animals, horses, tongues, I don't even know what else; at some point I tried to lose consciousness of what I was smelling, seeing, and -- ugh -- touching. And at some point I quit helping.
When we slammed the back doors shut, the van filled to the brim, there smell of breakfast was gone, and the smell of decay was profound.
In protest of the task, Sophia suggested we delay our return by going for a "petite" tea; I would have done ANYTHING to stay out of that van for even just a minute longer.
Needless to say, even the sight of meat -- cooked, or not-- afterward, immediately took me back to that horrible parking lot and unmistakable smell, and I have not touched a morsel of it since. In that moment, I think I became a vegetarian.
Blisters of all shapes & sizes
This farm is called a "pedagological farm," which basically means that it is not a "producing" farm but rather a place where people can come and learn (I think you could call it a "petting zoo" maybe). Kids can come for camps and ride ponies and horses, go on hikes, learn about gardening, and sleep in tee-pees under the stars. Families come visit the farm, help out with the feeding, and put their miniscule children on the backs of stubby ponies to walk the trail that leads to the nearby chateau. It's a pretty cool idea.
It's also A LOT of work. The animals need to be fed daily (and the horses, twice daily) and then their pastures need to be cleaned. I had the joy of cleaning up the impossible mounds of "crottins" in the donkey/pony/cow pasture and the horse pasture. It is heavy, and my hands are covered in blisters. But I actually didn't mind it so much because a) my feet were well-protected in cheerful rubber boots, and b) the animals (or other workers) never failed to make me LAUGH!
One day I was in the donkey pasture, and the oldest boy in the family came in search of two donkeys, Manolo and his girlfriend whose name I can't remember. I was watching this 13-year-old boy struggle with the reins, yelling, "ça suffit! ALLEZ!" and all of a sudden, this giant, furry, snuggly thing was nuzzling my waist. I turned around and it was Cachou, the other donkey. He proceeded to stick by me the whole time I was in there, raking and shoveling enormous quantities of excrement into the "remourke" to be pulled by the 4x4 into the mountain of composting crap.
It was one thing to load up the stuff, but it was a bit annoying that we then had to go over to the compost pile and UNLOAD the remourke, just so we could RE-LOAD it, and unload it again. Even this turned out to be not so bad, because watching Sophia battle the quad and try to line it up just right made it pretty funny anyway. She is ridiculously patient, but I think this is her Achille's Heel. I played cheer leader for a bit, because suddenly it was not about more work to do, but about seeing someone else overcome a challenge.
And then she succeeded. And I did more work.
Attaquer la blette!
One morning, Rosie & I went in search of la blette, from the garden. Supposedly this exists in America, but I had never heard of it before... it's an enormous, green leafy plant that is pretty delicious when cooked. We had instructions to pick five plants and then make a "gratin" and I jumped on the chance to help out.
My first surprise came at the size of the blette. It was probably two feet tall! My second surprise was the weight and resistance of it. Our task was to dig up the plants from the roots, and carry the entire things back to the back porch for cleaning. Using a shovel, we freed the tiny trees from the Blette Forest and eventually yanked out all five, like stubborn teeth in a giant, dirty mouth. My third and worst surprise came in the form of spindly spider legs crawling out from the Blette leaves and onto my blistered hand. Being the well-adjusted, nature lover that I am, I, of course, screamed and dropped the plants.
Rosie & I spent a few hours separating leaves from stalks, and then slicing and dicing them into enormous mounds that would eventually become dinner.
I later assisted in the cooking of a béchamel sauce (simultaneously learning how to make a good roux!!) and reducing the blette, then creating a delicious gratin with melted emmental and parmesean cheese on top. Dé-lic-ieux! Julia Child would, and should, be proud. (And Julie Powell.)
Me VS. Cachou
In a moment of kindness, the Farm Mother offered for me to take one of the donkeys with me on a hike. I thought that was totally amazing, and took her up on it right away, completely excited about the thought of hanging out with Eeyore all afternoon.
However, there was a complication in the plan, in the form of a remourke full of hay just outside the pasture. When I opened the gate to get Cachou, he came right up to me! Haha how foolish of me to think he wanted to see me. But he won my heart, that little ass, and I happily led him out of the electric fence. He stopped for a minute to eat some hay while I reconnected the wire, which I thought he deserved. It was way easier to get him than it was for the boy to get Manolo and his girlfriend, so why not let him have a little treat?
The problem was that one little treat wasn't good enough for this little monster. Rosie pulled with all her might to get him to start walking up the trail, and he resisted with every kilo of his stubborn donkey self. We talked to him and I asked him nicely to come on a little walk with me, and gave some very convincing arguments for why he should accompany me on an afternoon stroll, which eventually seemed to work; after a few minutes, we finally got him to leave the remourke.
Just as he was starting to walk back towards the sellerie to get ready, Rosie noticed that the bridle wasn't tight enough and stopped to try and make it fit better. Taking advantage of the split instant that she let go and handed me the lead, Cachou sprinted off back towards the hay, effortlessly DRAGGING me behind him! It was as if I wasn't even pulling at all, despite the fact that I felt like a cartoon character, my heels digging inches deep into the soft dirt.
Seeing as how my strength pathetically didn't even come close to his, I decided that it wasn't worth it to continue. Surely, my afternoon would end in (more) rope burn and useless frustration. So, instead, I left him and went on a hike by myself. Ass: 1. Me: 0.
Afternoon ascent
It was my second day there when Rosie told me about an awesome and very steep trail that we could take up the side of the mountain to a plateau with an incredible view of the Alps. This became a daily routine, and probably one of my favorite parts of the day.
The trail took about 50 minutes the first time we went up, including numerous breaks which were necessary as a result of a combination of mountaing climbing and not being used to the high altitude... or not being used to hiking after eating enormous lunches. Every few minutes we would stop and look at the landscape, see the farm get smaller and smaller, and marvel at the incredible contrast of the autumn colors. Then we would return to the trail and swear to never do it again, huffing and puffing and -- worst of all -- sweating.
At the top, after traipsing through a bit of forest, there is a place where the land levels out. As I walked out into the open field the first time, just beyond where the trees overlap and form a sort of veil of leaves, I literally COULD NOT keep myself from gasping at the sight. It was absolutely breath-taking!
And it was silent. I liked to go up there and lay down in the grass, letting the sweat evaporate and make me cold again, just listening to the birds and breathing, feeling so happy and so lucky and SO alive.
Les gens
One of the best things about my week on the farm was meeting my fellow WWoofers, Rosie from Colorado (originally from North Carolina!) and Pascale and Stefan, the couple from Belgium. They were all so fascinating and full of life, and FUNNY! Ruthie has one of those laughs that just echoes throughout the house, and makes you feel a real sense of happiness. And she taught me how to cook a bit, which I loved loved loved!
Pascale and Stefan are searching for a new home in France. They are interested in living in close contact with the Earth, and are using Wwoofing as a means of discovering new regions of France and learning what they do, and do not, want in their lives. Pascale gave me a Mom hug right before we left, and it made me seriously almost cry it was so nice. Stefan always made me laugh at his impatience with our French and his sassy, sarcastic mouth. He would often repeat things totally unnecessarily (and hilariously), and he is so obviously IN LOVE with Pascale (who doesn't love her, though, really?) that it was fun to see him around her. You could almost see little hearts floating around. :) Adorable!
Sophia has been working on the farm for 3 years, having spent the last 20 years working with horses & ponies. She was interesting to talk to, and it was kind of reassuring seemingly no one knows what they want – at age 24, at age 28, or at age 40. Haha “bienvenue au club” she said. :)
Bienvenue, indeed.
