Saying Good Bye to the Rancho

Today I worked my last day on the farm. For a nice change time has passed pretty slowly here and, rather than just one month ago, it feels like ages since I left the freak snowstorms on Vancouver Island for the sunshine of Mexico. So before I head on to begin the rest of my adventures in Oaxaca I’ll give you a brief update of life on the farm. Since I last wrote we have worked away to create seven new garden terraces (the beds are on a hill) and have begun planting them with little arugula, leek, broccoli and lettuce seedlings. We have shucked bags and bags of dried corn (the kernels will be used for animal feed and seed). We also started a pit of what is called “biochar”. Basically biochar is ground up bits of burned wood which is then mixed into the garden beds. It acts to hold water and nutrients in the soil. To make it we dug a big square pit about four feet deep in the ground and then filled it with alternating layers of logs and dry brush. Then we had the fun job of lighting the whole thing on fire. When it had been burning furiously for about ten minutes we quickly smothered the fire with brush and earth until no smoke emerged from the ground. The fire will burn slowly under the ground for about two weeks before the biochar is dug up.
Sadly the goose eggs whose hatching we were eagerly awaiting turned out to be filled with rotten goop and not sweet baby geese at all. The pigs continue to eat ravenously, and we joke that a French chef was brought over specially to cook for them because a wwoofer from France is often the one stuck with making their food. Three of us wwoofers are leaving tomorrow and two more just arrived…things never slow down! I am sad to leave all the great friends that I have made here.
But I am also so excited to start my study abroad program in Oaxaca that I can’t sleep at night. Tomorrow another wwoofer and I are heading to a small town about four hours away to see the winter home of thousands upon thousands of monarch butterflies. Then I am taking a long bus ride on to the city of Oaxaca where I will meet a whole crew of new faces with whom I will study and travel for the next four months. So off I go!