So it’s been decided. The only thing better than 100 degree
days opening cans with your friends with frantic goat round-ups at hourly
intervals and pork breakfast lunch and dinner and a layer of grime and sweat so
thick you’ll never be clean again is… you guessed it, nothing. Nothing beats
right here, right now. I’ve said it a thousand times, I’ll scream it a thousand
more, I love this place, I’m enamored with this space, I’ve got tomato sauce
all over my face, did I mention I love this place? Here’s an update, assuming our
Internet bandwidth isn’t used up before I’m done writing.
Thursdays are my day for hospitality, which means I’m in
charge of the dogs, keeping the house clean, providing meals, and hydrating
everyone working outside. (Team, if you’ve somehow got Internet down in Lower
Barn and are reading this, don’t worry, Gatorade chews coming your way in 15
minutes.) It’s actually the hardest day of the week, because there are so many
moving parts to hold in mind, playing mom involves a lot of scrubbing and elbow
grease, and cooking is a hell of a lot harder than it looks. Kudos to all you
moms out there, and especially my mom, I don’t know how you do it and I don’t
think I’ll ever do it as well as you, so thank you, thank you!
Back to the farm work. We have been seriously crushing the
inventory out here. We’re four totes away from finishing all the Hard-to-Process
that’s been backed up since winter. We’ve sorted out a dozen totes of canned
goods in the past week. We’ve made so much pig slop, we’ve started dumping
buckets straight to compost because the pigs can’t keep up eating it all. And
we’ve completed a couple serious construction projects, including new nesting
boxes for the hens and an outdoor composting toilet. On that note I must add,
poop outside in a shelter you’ve built yourself, and you never poop the same
again. The animals are doing well too—the pregnant sow is weeks away from
giving birth, Ulysses the goat is annoying as ever but gets a new goat friend
from another farm this weekend, and the donkeys have been rounded up to the
pasture by the house.
Our little FPF family is funny and fantastic. I’m not sure
how I’m going to negotiate leaving this place, where the only way to fit in is
to out-weird the rest and where our idea of fun is greasy hair contests, which
I won, so y’all know. But seriously, not a meal goes by where we haven’t peed
ourselves laughing or catapulted bits of pork into each others water glasses
or come up with some new joke or bit or impression that we all think is
hilarious. I think our motto for this place should be: Future Pointe Farm, the
funniest people on earth! Because it’s true. And not only are we growing in
funniness every day, we’ve grown incredibly as a community. Our favorite topics
of discussion include what it means to be free, how important it is to ask for
what you need, what happens when creativity and work intersect, why it matters
that a person finds a comfortable place to live their own life, what it means
to participate in a system like FPF, and how creepy Tim looks with his aviators
and mustache living in the trailer just outside the house. (Answer to that last
one: SUPER creepy.) My trust, respect, and love for this group of people are
increasing by the minute. It’s wonderful place to be and is certainly
redefining how I plan on participating all my relationships and interactions
with others.
The only other monumental thing I’d like to add is that if I
believe things happen for a reason (which I think I do,) I’m starting to get a
sense of why I was called to this farm this summer. I’ve learned so much, about
waste and sustainability, about using power tools and meditating during work
and cooking, about caring for animals and managing heat and participating in a
community… the list goes on, but more than all these handy life skills, I’ve discovered
what it takes to live like you want to live. The word courage has taken on a
whole new meaning. I’ve learned it takes courage to be who you are, to ask for
what you need, to chase what you want, and to take yourself to great places
with great people. I’ve learned that’s
the secret of life, to run freely and madly in the direction you feel called. And
I’ve started the process of discerning where I’m called and how I want to get
there. It’s a long process, but a good start. I’m excited to see where it takes
me.
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