Before Farming...

Before there were farmers, there were hunter-gatherers. Theo and I have successfully joined the latter (having not yet had an opportunity to do more than walk around the farm and get a sense of the place). When we turned up here to an unfurnished room and a second room with a bed and a chair, it felt rather nice to have so few belongings after moving all of ours. That lasted until this evening when we found out that the attic was a furniture graveyard of past students who hadn't packed their room's contents when they left. We got: two bedside tables, a dresser, a bookshelf (homemade by the looks of it), two mattresses arranged as a couch and two lamps. A bucket of dirty water, four rags, one huge spider and an ant colony later, we are much more moved in and beginning to hang up pictures and imagining when our first guest will arrive to sleep on our couch/bed.

The farm is huge and amazing and really rainy- I found out today that my rain jacket failed its most simple task of being waterproof and keeping me dry. While standing looking at the cows I watched the rain bead up on the shoulders of my fellow students while it slowly seeped through my jacket, my sweater and my shirt beneath it. Needless to say, it was a chilly and damp three hours walking around the fields. I at least had boots, courtesy of my mom as her 'going to school' gift while I think Theo's feet resembled prunes in his sneakers. Gone are the days of dashing from building to building in the city while it pours. Instead we talk about how sandier soil is much dryer than heavier, clay types and what that means in drought years like this one. This has been the first rain here in months and the crops and fields have been feeling it: the cows and sheep can't remain on pasture much longer without exhausting the grass and the raspberry plants are feet shorter than they would be otherwise.

The good news is that the pumpkin crop was a good one and after exchanging some with a brewery, we have pumpkin ale with dinner tonight when we meet up with the rest of the farm staff for a BBQ and games.