Global Village and Training

Hello all! The past few days have been incredibly busy and interesting. First, Nic and I did our overnight experience in the Global Village. I stayed in Tibet and Nic stayed in Peru. Instead of being assigned/given our food and trading amongst each other to eat, like the Global Village experience in Perryville, we are given money and then go to market to buy products. As migratory people, of course, us Tibetans did not get too much to eat. Basically, we had some black beans and less than a handful of rice. Our dinner consisted of bean water, basically. It was incredibly bland. I ended up spending the whole night just with those of us that ended in Tibet. We set up two fires and spent several hours storytelling, listening, and talking. Everyone crashed out around midnight, but during the middle of the night, our big fire went out. I was freezing, so instead of just sleeping outside (where I had started) I ended up sleeping inside the yurt. I was the lone in-yurt sleeper, but it was pretty alright. The moon was full, the sky clear (I saw two shooting stars), and the grass was tall, wet, and soft. I awoke to rooster's crowing. In a funny twist of some kind of fate, Nic and I were both pregnant. My baby's name was Monteque. I don't know the details of Nic's GV experience, so I can't write about it here, but he had a great time. Overall, I think my GV experience was interesting.

We have also started haying here at the farm. The farm makes all of its own hay. They cut it, let it dry for several days, then all of us volunteers go out for the baling and stacking. I am not sure how many bales we did yesterday, but around 180 was the estimate we were given. It's amazing how heavy bales of hay get when you are constantly lifting, moving, throwing, and pushing them for an extended period of time. After the process of baling and "barning," I was so insanely itchy and sneezey. It was the first time in my life I think I actually had real hay fever.

I have also learned quite a bit about the livestock here and the farm itself. I asked Stephen's question about where our camel is from, and as it turns out, Abu is from a petting zoo. He simply got too big for the zoo that he came from so he came here. There used to be a camel, Jasmine, that was actually the offspring of the Perryville camels, but it has passed away. Now, we only have the petting zoo camel Abu.

In addition, I have learned that Overlook itself is a public water system. They are registered with the state and everything. All of our water comes from our own wells, and it is not chlorinated and does not contain any chemicals. It is pure clean natural water that is minimally processed. It tastes delicious, and really different from Arkansas water. I feel lucky. The farm is completely independent in terms of it's meat production, water, eggs, vegetables, and has its own sewer system. The place also has some composting toilets.

Nic and I went to trivia night at the local tavern and had a blast. Our boss loves trivia, and so we are all getting pumped and going out to represent the trivia team/s. Hard questions, though. I think Nathan and Noah would be amazing at this particular type of trivia because the clues are songs, and usually the name of the song/band name/lyrics will help you figure out the answer to the trivia question. If one is a music buff, one can get most of the trivia questions correct or close.

So here are some pictures!




There was a pretty awful ice storm here a while back so there is damage all over the farm from the storm. This is a picture of some of the damage, but I think it looks pretty cool.



Here's a photo of a gorgeous stranger sitting on the wooden back porch of my house. The house I live in is pretty awesome.




This is the inside of the animal barn. It's harvesting time, and the gardeners have been busy harvesting garlic and onions. Here are some of the garlic cloves hanging in the barn to dry. The smell is intense. The heads of garlic are huge and the garlic itself is a beautiful pearly yellow-white. Everything that the farm grows is completely organic.