Oh goodness gracious.

Hello everyone,


I can write with a bit looser of a belt as Matt and I just bought library cards and can thus use the internet for free, every day if we want. (More like once a week, though.)

We will definitely be staying through the beginning of August, so if you can write real quick, and want to, I can give you our address if you would like.

***

It has been so wonderful to be able to sit in meditation twice a day with Gerd, a co-owner of the farm who has been meditiating for the last 26 years, and Angela, their charming and chatty guest who is full of fantastic stories from her native Switzerland, as well as her many Asian travels.

I have done a bit of meditating in the past but it has been far too sporadic to ever become something especially rewarding or even peaceful. In the last week it has been immensely pleasing to get incrementally (by the smallest centimeters) better at simply being, and "nothing more, nothing less," for an hour a day.

After meditating in the morning (each session lasts half an hour) we have a fantastic breakfast of porridge, toast, fresh milk, bananas (sometimes, !!) and a great medley of various pastes and jams. The breakfast is rife with conversation about nearly everything under the sun, from the habits of the Swiss Army to the Irish Catholic Church to linguistics, et al, et al. We have several similar principles and thoughts and many different ones, and interesting insights and experiences from our varied backgrounds.

The work, as Gerd might say, is Vanderful (so different from wonderful), full of flowers and stringbeans and weeds and fertile ground and funny dogs and wonderful meals inbetween. Yesterday was especially satisfactory, with Matt planting a cherry tree and strimming (weedwacking) and shoveling and me transplanting herbs and calendulas and tying up renegade peas and weeding and weeding and weeding. Renate (Gerd's lovely spouse) and her gardens are just so great, full of color and knowledge and flavor.

I have to go look up some books. Take care, everybody!

Love,
Jenny

Oh, PS! Those of you who are interested in organic farming in a big enough of a way should look into books by LR Miller and his publication, "The Small Farmers' Journal." He is so incredibly inspiring, encouraging, and a very great light for the American organic community.