A Day in the Life

Hello Family & Friends :)

After an incredible month at Rhiannon, our time is up & has come to a close. There really are no words to describe the gift & blessing that was February. We're sad to go, but know that all things must change & that we will carry the people, the place & the experiences forward for the rest of our lives. We're currently on our way to the coast of Ecuador to wrap up our time in this beautiful country. It will be 3 months when we exit on March 17th (ish? that's when we're offically kicked out of the country haha) & it is insane how quickly that time has flown. Starting in Pedernales, Ecuador we'll make our way South until we hit Peru. We're excited & traveling with a new friend, Agnes, who we met on the farm :) She's great & the three of us have a lot of fun & vibe well together. We'll be meeting back up with Kevin as well, which will be awesome. The four of us predict to have a wonderful time flouncing around in Ecuadorian sunshine, eating delicious seafood & getting a new persepctive of the Pacific :)

Although we've left, we had the fun idea to give you all a break down of what a "typical day"at the Rhiannon farm was like. After being asked several times, "Sooo what do you DO during the day??", we realized that even though we stay in touch enough to let you know how we are & how things are going, we don't exactly paint the best picture of what we do. Each day is pretty different, but we'll do the best we can do break it down & give you a glimpse of what our life has been for the last month :)

7:00 AM: Wake up. There's a huge metal bell outside that we ring at 7AM for breakfast. If you're on breakfast duty you wake up at 6AM to make it, boil hot water for everyone, do some AM watering & ring the bell. Every morning we have porridge (or oatmeal? We've tried figuring out the difference between these two for a month and gave up haha), & if the person/people on breakfast are feeling up to it, something else on the side like vegan pancakes, panela tortilla crisps or fried bananas. Regardless, there's always a huge pot of porridge/oatmeal & some fruit cut up in everyone's bowl. I'm not sure why but Jackie & I loved the porridge... to the point that we'd go to bed excited to wake up to eat porridge haha We, naturally, got made fun of for this, but our love for porridge has yet to falter :) jaja

7:45 AM: Community meeting. If you're working, you have to be done with breakfast, washed up & ready to work by this time. We sit for 10-15 minutes in the living room to discuss & assign our duties of the day & address anything people have questions/concerns with. Super casual & straightforward.

8:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Work. For the first hour we typically care for animals. There are always at least four people needed to physically move the pig pen every morning. Aside from that there's usually just one or two people on each animal. The pigs, Michael Jackson (half white & half black jaja) & Morgan freeman (all black, of course) get fed twice a day, once in the morning & once in the evening. Outside the kitchen are four trash bins assigned to chicken food, pig food, organic compost & non-recycable items. If you don't finish a meal, you give the left overs to one of the animal bins. We found this to be lovely as we felt we were never wasting food haha In the morning whoever is on pigs, which was a lot of times Jackie, would grab this trash bin, take half of the left over porridge from breakfast, pick a wheelbarrel full of weeds, made a specific "pig porridge", and fix this all together to feed the pigs. We'd also bring a couple jugs of water out to them each day & shovel up their poop. Once a week we move the chicken pen & clean out their house. Somehow Jackie got assigned to cleaning out the chicken poo every week, soon claiming the name "Poop Lady" haha We check for eggs in the afternoon & make sure they're back in their house by dark. If you're assigned to dogs (Valentina, Suerte, Matt, Choclo & Ila!) you divide up the dog food & make another batch. It takes about 45 minutes to cook on the stove & consisted of dog rice, quinoa, oats, a little bit of pig porridge, salt & lard. You had to mix it often because it would burn quick. You'd give them half the caldron in the morning & half in the evening. If you were on donkey (which I usually was!) you'd feed her twice a day, & move her twice a day. Her food was simple & she just got oats & carrots. While she ate I pet her, cleaned her eyes, cleaned her hooves & picked up her poop. I'd walk her out & tie her up to a spot that had good grass to eat, returning mid-day to move her again. Before dark I'd bring her in & feed her a second time. After everyone finished animals there were a variety of tasks that we'd be assigned: AM watering, mulching, digging, cleaning the fireplace, cleaning the bathroom, making citrus soap, washing kitchen towels, tree care, sweeping the house, planting, harvesting, cleaning out irrigation pipes, searching the surrounding fields for cow poop, turning compost, making compost, garden checklist, etc. Turning compost is one thing, but making it is a whole other. Luckily the day Jackie & I were both assigned to do it we were in giggling & good spirits because that ish can be nasty haha You physically mix together (with shovels) cow poo, donkey poo, pig poo, organic compost, urine, some weeds, some worms, some water & some fire ash. The fire ash is random, we know, we didn't understand that part either haha Jackie was one of the only people who knew how to do garden checklist & got assigned to it pretty often. She enjoyed it for the most part since you get to be in the greenhouse a lot but sometimes she would have to refill the wormery with donkey poo & water it, use decomposing onion & garlic as bug spray to protect the plants, & worst of all concoct chicken & pig poo fertilizers. For this she would have put chicken & pig poo in a sock with her hands & dunk it in water until it was nice & creamy. Yum! Different sections of the farm were named different things so it took awhile to learn but eventually we caught on. The majority of the digging was done in what we call the Cosmic Spiral, our garden in the front of the house. We would cut mulch for a variety of places on the farm in preparation for planting, especially a section called the Star Signs. The star signs are meant to look like the astological signs, which when dug appropriately, should be able to be seen perfectly from arial view :) There was one big swell called Douglas which we didn't work much with and a few orchards we knew simpy as "Left Orchard", "Right Orchard" & "Back Orchard". There was an area called the corner square too, & we mulched that area as well. Planting was always nice & relaxing & felt a bit more meaningful. We got to see some of the things we planted begin to grow by the time we left which is always awesome :) Going on hour long searches for cow poo in order to make compost was surprisingly enjoyable haha we'd just push a wheelbarrel around open fields with shovels, shouting outloud everytime we'd find some, feeling like we'd just found gold or something haha There would always be other random jobs too that would pop up, like fixing cracked doors with rubber, clearing corn fields, weeding the herb garden or greenhouse, etc. (Oh yeah! We had a little garden with all types of wonderufl tea! It was amazing to be able to just walk outside, pick some fresh tea & enjoy a warm cup of it in the morning :)

11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Break. The kitchen would rave with non-vegan eaters & eggs would be plenitful haha Pretty much everyone would have a snack, grab some water & relax for a bit.

11:30 AM - 1:30 PM: Work. You'd pretty much go back to whatever you were doing or switch to something else. If you were on lunch you'd stop at 12:30PM to start preparing the meal & do an extra hour of work later. If it was Tuesday or Thursday everyone would stop at 12:30 PM, regardless of if you were cooking lunch, because those were the two big, community watering days & we needed the entire team to hand water the farm.

1:30: Freedom! (Kind of. haha) Lunch would typically be served around 2PM ish & everyone would just chill & relax for the afternoon. If you were on animals, you had to be sure to remember to take care of them later in the evening, and if you were on evening watering, you had to do it before dinner. People assigned to make dinner would start around 5:30-6 ish & we'd usually eat between 7:30 & 8:00 PM. A secret most soon discovered was breakfast was the easiest meal to be on, since options of what to make were so limited & clean-up was so easy, and lunch & dinner usually took in total, 2-3 hours. You were never on a meal alone though which was really nice. And not to pick on men, but it was hilarious to cook in partnership with a man who had no idea what he was doing haha we loved it though, you gotta learn somewhere! And it's not like I have great cooking skills, so it was great to work with others & learn a bit here & there :)

After the work day, people would do various things. We had an awesome snuggle pit which everyone would cuddle up & read on. Sometimes we'd have guided mediations, sometimes we'd have yoga, sometimes people would go on bike rides or runs or take a cab into town for a few hours. Jackie & I led our first yoga class together, unexpectedly, a couple weeks ago & it was successful! Both of us presuming/desiring to one day be yoga instructors, we found a lot of joy & excitement in this experience :)

Just like on our last farm, time slows down significantly & "farm time" is created. By 8PM you're tired & by 9PM at least half the community has gone to bed. There's a pool table that got used a lot, and a few games people would play sometimes, but more than anything people would hang out in the snuggle pit & the couches/chairs surrounding it, either enjoying conversation or a good book. We've loved the simplicity of just sitting around & enjoying one another's company. Sometimes there'd be some drums or guitar going, often times accompanied by some singing. Jackie & I would take time each afternoon to do Reiki on ourselves &, often times, do a bit of writing.

Life was great. Hammocks, mountain tops, amazing clouds & incredible company. It's funny what you can discover when you actually take the time to step away from the chaos, the job, the traffic, the dinner plans, the TV, the ipod, the constant buzzing of events, objects & encounters. There is so much more to us than "what we do". Jackie & I met a girl in Argentina who, when asked, "What do you do back home?" replied, "Oh, a lot! I like to write a lot, I do... & .... &.... aaand then I have a little office job on the side, you know, just to pay the rent." We loved that she defined herself based off her personal interests & hobbies rather than her career title or job position, & have since tried finding a better way to ask people "what they do back home". Of course, careers & jobs have a solid place in someone's definition of oneself & in someone's life, especially if the person is lucky enough to be passionately & genuinely interested in their line of work. It's just our thinking that work is only a part of who we are & only one of the many reasons why we're here.

It's been fun to work each day & wonder what each of you are doing in your daily life at the same moment. We often laugh in amazement upon reflection of what we're doing. We're busy scooping poop & you're busy..... We're feedings the pigs & donkey in the morning & your morning consists of ..... We laugh at the surprise that is life, the beauty in discovering where life has led us & the unknowing nature that preceded each moment. Who knew this is where we'd be, this is what we'd be doing, this is what we would be loving? We are overwhelmed with gratitude for this gift that is life.

My loves, we hope we've helped at least a little bit in bridging the space between your life & ours. We send love & light to each of you, until next time y'all, we'll see you in Peru :)

XO
A & J
(aka your personal donkey & pig pooper scoopers)