An embrace of the intoxication poured out of Europe

Europe is a spill of coffee on the white saucer on the Spanish coast. Drinking the smooth, thick café al fresco and within view of the Mediterranean, it is also the sugar cube dropped in.

There are particulars of pockets and packing lists that could weigh down the traveler. But so often these are forgotten in dreams of Paella and the myriad possibilities of pâtisserie. (Chocolate ruffles, pain au chocolat, and croissants layered in stories of butter.) It is good to lose oneself, better than forcing too much thought on how many euros are in your hands and how much weight is (or isn't) on your shoulders.

All things in life rely on a good balancing act. Get carried away. Drink enough wine to follow the Italian banter at the dinner table. If you don't drink wine, induldge in panna cotta and try to savor it - one of the biggest challenges posed by Italian cuisine.

These infatuations (which often lead to ecstasies) can be healthily tempered by mindful preparations. Have a budget, make it limber. Decide what you'll pack, leave half of it at home. There is the essential - the water bottle, the pocket knife - and then there is the 300-page guide. Skim it in the months and weeks before your trip, tear out 15 pages that you really believe will benefit you, and relax.

The perfect packer will inevitably lose a pair of underwear (mine was eaten by a yellow lab in Southern France). When you forget something, or leave it on a train, you'll buy or find another. And if you don't need it, leave it for someone else. A woman biked up to me in Millau, France, gesturing to the book I had purposefully left on a bench - well-read and ready for a new pair of eyes. I took it and left it on another seat. Often WWOOF farms have boxes or mudrooms filled with trinkets, clothes, and occasional treasures gifted by past volunteers. From these collections I got a very pleasant farming shirt and to them left books and clothes of my own. You will meet people that may want that extra t-shirt, or an aspiring mountaineer who could use the extra layer that you'll never need while touring Holland in the summertime. Get rid of it and enjoy your lessened load.

Envelope yourself in the continent, the seas, the ocean. And keep your ears and eyes open for recommendations to the perfect tapas bar or a vineyard looking for workers to get their hands grape-stained. There are opportunities and extraordinary events and moments everywhere. Keep sniffing! Talk to people, watch documentaries, read guides if you'd like before you go. Once you're there, your senses - all six of them - will take you much farther than anyone's advice could.

The woes and wonders of the Schengen Agreement

Some of the more divine residents of Europe's Schengen territory.

Reader Annalis asked this concise question: How long can you stay in France? In the grand tradition of short questions, it requires a long, meaty response. This one has a lot to do with the Schengen Agreement.

I briefly touched on this subject in my last post. It is a beast of a topic, and one for which travelers to Europe have a lot to be thankful for, and maybe a thing or two to loathe. In spite of its importance, neither Matt nor I realized that the Schengen Agreement existed until Valentines Day of last year, which was at least two months after we had started planning our trip. It threw a pretty big wrench into our itinerary, and while lemonade was definitely made from those lemons, it was an inconvenience that this information will hopefully help you to avoid!

The Schengen Agreement currently involves 25 European states. Those countries are: Austria, Belgium, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, The Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.The agreement, a treaty that originated in 1985, allows for free travel within those member states. I can attest to the fantastic ease of border crossings that exists on the continent now - last March, Matt and I hitchhiked into France from Spain and didn't have to answer to anybody - quite a change from our experiences with US border control! Also, if you are an American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, or member of various other select countries, you do not have to have a visa while traveling to or within the Schengen territory - a big plus. (To see whether or not you need a visa to travel to the countries within Schengen territory, you may go to this site or check in with your nearest European consulate.

The only problem with the agreement is that it mandates that a visitor may only spend 90 of 180 days within the Schengen territory. To spend more than 180 days, you'll have to apply for a visa, which according to eurotrip.com involves "a heavy inquisition and mountains of red tape."

This means that if you are planning an eight month to trip to Europe (as Matt and I were), and would like to spend time in Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany (as we were), you will have to break that time up as such: Your first 90 days may be spent in the aforementioned countries, and then you will have to leave for another 90 days to spend in European countries that are not covered by the Schengen Agreement - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania and the United Kingdom. Of course, you could also look into visiting African, Asian, or Middle-Eastern countries! You may then reenter the Schengen territory, but only after those 90 days have passed.


To illustrate this further, I will rehash how Matt and I spent our eight months in Europe. Though we had to make some major changes in our itinerary, as you will see we still managed to make quite a few friends during our travels. For our first 90 days (mid-March through the beginning of June), we traveled through...

Spain,

France,

Switzerland,


and Italy.

Then we ferried over to

England, where we actually had got our passports stamped for six months, and visited with a good friend for a few days, before taking another ferry to

Ireland, where we stayed through September.

We then returned to the continent, and spent the bulk of our last sixty days in France, though we also visited Holland (The Netherlands), and Belgium, before flying out of Spain.

This equates to 90 days in the Schengen territory + (roughly) 90 days in Ireland and the UK + 60 days Schengen, equalling about 240 days altogether. This was done within completely legal parameters, which was comforting when faced with the possible consequences of deportation or future travel restrictions which may be imposed if you are found to ignore this agreement.

And so, though things are different from how they used to be (I have talked with people that visited Europe in the days where the 90-day limit still existed, though you could leave France on a Thursday and walk back in on a Friday, and find your 90 days completely replenished), it seems like the treaty has made Europe a much easier continent to travel in.

Answers!

WWOOF-ing can take you Here!

Dear Readers,

Thanks again for your patience. When I returned to Massachusetts from Milwaukee I ended up having a very short rest period before hitting the road yet again, this time to the Gorgeous Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, where we did some pleasant dog-sitting. Now I'm back in Boston, and have finally been able to take the time to answer some of the questions that I've been receiving. I have responded to Morgan and Lenafish's, and will specifically respond to Annalis's in the near future.

What was your monthly budget?

Oh, my. I must admit that keeping a budget was a lofty goal that we discussed a bit prior to and in the beginning weeks of our trip, but wound up being a pretty benign ghost that, as time went by, hardly came around to haunt us. My credit card was actually hacked into in late April (we arrived in Europe on March 11th), so that definitely threw us off and taught a few unexpected lessons about how to deal with international fraud. (I can go into these at a later time!)

Anyway, Matt and I spent about $5,500 while in Europe. When we were at farms we spent very, very little. Money changed hands on occasional indulgences such as Nutella at a town near our vegan farm in France and a Rum and Coke (with free peanuts!) during a trip to the sea in Italy. All of our farms provided us with room and board. This is one of the most basic tenets of WWOOFing - the farmer provides you with a goodly amount of food and shelter for an agreed amount of volunteer work. While searching WWOOF.fr I found at least one farm that provided one shared meal and encouraged volunteers to shop for the rest of their meals at the farm store. This is questionable and, in my opinion, shouldn't be tolerated by the organization or the volunteer.

Please keep in mind that exchange rates play a huge role in how much money you'll end up spending. We found that many things (i.e. cans of fish) looked like they cost the same amount in Europe as in the States (95 Euro cents, maybe), but due to exchange rates this could wind up looking like $1.50 being sneaked out of our pockets. Last year was a particularly sorry year for the American dollar....hopefully this will turn around for those of you who are American WWOOFers!

In-between farms we spent quite a bit on food, though as we primarily ate non- or minimally-processed foods, these expenses weren't too bad. We typically stocked up on cans of sardines, various fruits and veggies, yoghurt packs (which we always ate a few hours after purchasing so as to not meddle with spoilage possibilities), bread, cured meats (such as Catalan fuet, thin slices of jamón (cured ham) and France's wide range of charcuterie), and cheese and butter. (Butter was quite wonderful to travel with, as long as it was salted and there was an extra plastic bag to keep it in.) Matt loved having his café in the morning, and that typically set us back €1.50 or so. (It always costs more au lait or con leche - with milk - depending on where you are, though that's the way I prefer it.) Sidenote: the two most important things to know about drinking coffee in Europe are as follows: in southern climes, coffee is espresso, so you'll have to order café américain if you want it watered down (which, by the way, I do not recommend). Also, if you drink in a cafe and want to enjoy the open air and a view, you'll have to pay quite a bit more (an extra euro or two) than you'd pay for an indoor table or seat at the bar. Them's the breaks.

Catalan Fuet Sausage. Exquisitely ideal fare for the omnivorous backpacker. Photo thanks to www.arumicastells.com/

Cities were the places where we really spent a lot. We Couchsurfed with new friends for free in Barcelona, Paris, Galway and Amsterdam, and if we hadn't I hesitate to even consider how much more we would have spent. Those cities are expensive ones (though Galway's a bit more manageable than its cosmopolitan cousins!), and while certain experiences are Totally worth it (such as going to the top of the Eiffel Tower or touring the Van Gogh Museum), they definitely eat into your savings. It is good to create a mini budget while visiting a city. While you don't want to get too anal - this could be your Only time eating gelato across from a cathedral in Spain! - it is good to write down how much money you would like to spend, and possibly tweaking that amount to some more realistic sums. Keep in mind that while you are making your budget, you'll have no idea what perfect and spontaneous situations may await you. Be mindful.

As far as souvenirs are concerned, these were indulgences that we rarely enjoyed, which is one of the great things of traveling solely with a backpack for luggage. We certainly have several odds and ends from our travels, but didn't buy anything of much of anything that wasn't utilitarian until the last few days of our trip. We bought some nice glass teacups, a few Christmas presents and dried chilis to make hot oil from Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Other than that we pretty much only bought clothes and shoes when ours fell apart, and primarily did this at charity shops (which are never called thrift shops, but are definitely one in the same).

Did you find it difficult to arrange the WWOOFing trips? How much lead time did you generally give them before arriving?

In general, we didn't find too much difficulty. Certainly the easiest arrangements were those that we made while still in America. (When we left we already had our first three farms lined up - two in France (March-April), one in Italy (May-June), plus a trip to Cambridge, England to visit a good friend in June.) Where we did run into a bit of logistical trouble was when we were making plans to stay with farmers who wanted to give us a bit of a trial period before agreeing to house us for several weeks on end. This happened twice. With our first farmer we got along great and were invited to return any time we wanted (ever), though our second farmer wound up being a flake and his wife had to confess to us that there was another couple coming a week into our stay, which meant that we had to quickly find an alternate farm to stay at. Other than that one hiccup, though, we had a relatively easy time finding willing farms.

This is how we decided to stay where we did, and when: While we were planning our trip, we wrote down a master list of where we wanted to go, and the months in which we wanted to be in each country. This was later changed. (Beware of the Schengen Agreement, dear WWOOF-er! In summary, it restricts legal travel in most western European states to 90 days at a time. I will write more about this at a later time, but that link has a quick and essential synopsis for those interested.) Our list, and its (completely legal and doable) second draft, really helped us to know where we wanted to be and when. Our decisions were based on climate and farm cycles. We knew that the Mediterranean has a temperament that allows for outdoor gardening and farming year round, so late March found us at our first farm in southwestern France. (Our first two weeks of March were spent adjusting to the new time zone, gallivanting in Barcelona, getting to know our Couchsurfing hosts and exploring the Iberian coast on a GR trail.) March through June are very nice times to be in southern Europe, though as summer came on we headed north, spending June through September in Great Britain and Ireland (where we worked on three farms). It seems like summer is the perfect time to visit Ireland. It was very rainy (even more so than usual, apparently), so we were thankful to be there when it wasn't wet and cold. Knowing that things would start getting chilly in September, we made our way back to southern France, making pit stops in Amsterdam, Breda (Holland), Brussels and Paris. We arrived at our last farm around October 15th and stayed until November 6th. Then we took a Eurolines bus back to Barcelona, spent three wonderful nights there, before flying home on the 11th.

We tried contacting our farmers and hosts at least a month before our estimated time of arrival. The earlier the better is a good rule of thumb, as the really great places (both farms and couchsurfing homes) fill up fast. The last farmer that we stayed with told us of an American who had emailed him wondering about staying for the bulk of 2010. He was very pleased to be in contact with someone so interested and ahead of his game. While I do recommend planning ahead, it does tie you down a bit, and I know that that is not what everyone wants while traveling. For Matt and I, having a framework of places to stay was immensely helpful and comforting, especially while partaking in such a delightful, yet long journey. Often times we wouldn't plan how we were getting from one place to another (for example, we had two weeks of unplanned travel in between our first two farms), and this led to many of the most spontaneous of our adventures, fraught with hitchhiking, national parks, fantastic cities and villages and great views all around. When times got tough, and even when they were glorious, it was good to know that we would soon be living with a roof over our heads with someone that we were already somewhat acquainted with.

Comrades in WWOOF-ing. There were definitely some chickens that we could communicate with better than some Europeans.

How many languages did you speak between the two of you?

Woefully few. Matt, however, really got to hone his high school and college-taught French, and I got to say "hola" a few times. We had quite a lot of communication issues in the beginning, though, especially in France. Most young people there speak English, but many French people, especially older folks, are reluctant to, even if they are conversational or fluent. It seems like this is party due to being self-conscious and partly due to wanting a bit of give-and-take. The more that we tried to use our French, no matter how poorly we spoke it, the more people were patient with us and often times happy to share their bit of English. Confidence is the key here, and practice!

In any case, I definitely traveled Europe as a monoglot and still made many connections with amazing people, English and non-English speakers alike. I became quite good at miming and became a lot more expressive than I'd previously been. Hand gestures are great, as are a pen and paper if things really get difficult. A pocket phrase book (we used Rick Steves' French Italian and German, which I highly recommend) is indispensable, and helped us in situations from hitchhiking to pain au chocolate ordering. Rick Steves claims to be a monoglot himself, and has really chosen items that are helpful, and sometimes very necessary to know, including a handy page of body parts (with The David and Venus de Milo as models), phrases having to do with a whole slew of medical ailments, and a menu decoder. There are also three cheat sheets that you can tear out (one per language) featuring greetings, the translation of "do you speak English?," numbers, and the totally necessary Wo ist die toilette?

It was really nice to have our trip broken up in a manner that had us in English-speaking countries in between the French, Italian, and Spanish ones. Holland was lovely for many reasons, especially for its generosity, bike culture, and seemingly country-wide fluency in English. I am sure that less English is spoken in rural areas, but in the cities we had no trouble communicating what we needed and felt. We also learned how to say hallo (not quite a stretch) and dank u wel! (with the "w" pronounced as a "v"), much to the entertainment of our Dutch friends.

Another quick note on France - we spent quite a bit of time in the Mediterranean, Paris, and the French Alps, and Matt had the easiest time communicating in the south. People speak much slower there and tend to enunciate a heck of a lot more there than in the north. This means that people occasionally will say "voos" instead of "voo" when saying the French plural word for "you" - vous. There are also a lot less contractions.


That is all that I will write for now. Take care and check back for more info soon. Please feel free to keep the questions coming, too! I am thinking of writing a book about my experiences in Europe, and it is helpful to know just what information people need the most.

Yours,
Jenny

Hello from the beautiful Midwest!

Some of the Wisconsin machinery and livestock that I've been spending my time with.

Hello to friends new and old! I am happy to say that the last eight weeks have found me settling nicely back into the American swing of things. I am getting used to American keyboards again and have enjoyed a few (local and humane!) cheeseburgers with fries and ketchup. (Ketchup!! Definitely not a mainstay of European cuisine.)

I have been receiving a lot of wonderful comments lately from readers interested in specific advice regarding WWOOFing. This is great!! I am really happy to be of service. Due to the fact that I am currently traveling, I have not been able to keep much contact with readers, but I will be back in Massachusetts on January 19th, after which I look forward to writing back to those interested with a good deal of promptness. Until then, please feel free to keep questions coming.

I want to reaffirm my commitment to publishing various tips and information, such as my thoughts on packing and the best place to get tapas in Barcelona. However, I have been quite busy putting together the pieces for life post-Europe and have had less time for this than I'd anticipated. These things will come, though!

If you're interested in what I've been up to these past two months - it's been a whole lot of knitting, job searching (through the apprenticeship program offered by the Maine Organic Farmer's and Gardener's Association [MOFGA]), relaxing at intervals, and traveling around to visit family and friends. Currently I am having a wonderful, if somewhat stuffy-nosed, time in Wisconsin. Recently I spent a great day at my old stomping grounds of Growing Power, the only working farm in my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I had a wonderful time seeing my old friends - Will Allen and his internationally-acclaimed crew of people and red worms. I also enjoyed remembering that I have upper body strength whilst transporting dozens of pots of arugula and red mustard, as well as shoveling a lot of fantastic compost made from manure, Lakefront Brewery's spent malt, Alterra's coffee grounds, and many other food wastes donated by the animals of Growing Power and local businesses of Milwaukee.

I also had the opportunity to watch the excellent new documentary Fresh, in which I have a small and silent cameo! For those of you interested in WWOOFing, whether or not you'd like to do this in the States, I would highly recommend looking up this inspiring and brilliantly put together film. It does a great job of reminding one of what is essential in producing good food, as well as why it is so important to be respectful to various organisms on a farm, from a soil microbe to a chicken to a pleasant barbecue. It's also quite artistically pleasing, with a great soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography (especially whenever Joel Salatin is onscreen!).

Take care,
Jenny

Culture Shock and Culture Shocking

WE ARE HOME.

I cannot write right now, really, as I am very very jet-lagged and mixed-up from all the memory of velocity and my current, alien state of staying-put. But. I want to thank everyone for the kind messages and wishes for a safe journey home, and assure you than Matthew and I are very physically here, even if our brains are still somewhere over the Atlantic.


In the next few weeks I am going to be putting up posts regarding advice for WWOOF hosts and guests, reflections upon the farming methods and infrastructures which we experienced in the last eight months, a review of the restaurants we visited and the hostel that we stayed at in Barcelona, as well as general tips for people planning to backpack through Europe. Plus our own little aftermaths here in Boston.

Happy Thursday!
Jenny

Ahoy!

This is just a wee little hola to say that we are happily and hungrily in the good city of Barcelona. A night of good food with friends and a red-eye busride south brought us to this lovely little hostel, Apt. Ramcat, full of a cat and poppy motif and friendly, quiet people.

We have spent today with Gaudi, and I must say that he is an excellent traveling companion.

Anyhow, we are on our way to tapas in the Old Quarter. Have a good night!

Over and out,
Jenny

A tiny little sprout.

The end is very near.

Garlic is all planted, their sprouts, les poussees (named after pousseur, "to push") sticking up hopefully from their bony bulbs, thrusting out new, long roots into the dirt that we planted them in two weeks ago. Most of the onions - red and white and yellow - are planted as well, tucked into their plastique by many hands - WWOOFers, pros, and apprentices alike. It's been raining, and my throat is a tad bit sore, and my nose a bit stuffed after running around yesterday picking the last of the beans, planting more bulbs, and shoving stakes and flinging mud onto the plastic to make sure that it doesn't blow away. all of this while being rained on, both torentially and lightly. Matt and I looked like we were wearing cement shoes, only they were made of mud, weighing us down dopily and making it quite difficult to leap over a vegetable bed with success.

Since I began writing this post on Tuesday the ground has become more and more waterlogged and it is impossible to put out a foot without becoming completely drenched. This is both an annoyance and a vehicle for epic mornings, full of bareback and high speed tractor runs down the highway and mad dashes to pick and shave the roots off the last of this week's celeriacs. In short, a lot of fun, though it leaves you looking and feeling like a sad water rat after awhile. The best part is coming in for lunch and having piping hot soup and chicken - ooh la!

Apart from the good social and down and dirty life that we have been living here, the Toulouse area has been a great place for us thanks to its climate. The autumn here comes pretty close to resembling the Eastern Woodlands', what with rain, colors (though typically dull) and cold nights - truly cold, where you can't sit watching stars for longer than a handful of time. We even experienced the kind of cold that goes right through you, completely disregarding your skin and bones, wool and down, when some friends took us out for a day at the Pyrenees. We arrived at a good time, during the second week of October, allowing us to experience the major undressing of the trees and the seed-harvest and reaping of the corn. Heavy-duty field work and frost have turned the corn patch into stubble and the shriveled tomato plants into nursery beds of spinach seedlings and fennel.

As the days pass Matt and I both think more and more about our homecoming. It will be something else entirely to be living in Boston after such a prolonged ramble throughout eight different countries and a whole lot of homes. We are very excited to see everyone and I wonder often about the ways in which culture shock will hit us hardest. I know that we will find ourselves suddenly in a world full of Christmas songs and holiday commercialism, which will be strange after being in a place where Halloween isn't celebrated in the slightest and Christmas itself is treated far more subtlety. But perhaps it will be the small things which strike us most, and I can't begin to consider what will be most affecting.

Anyhow, we are about to off to the home of one of the apprentices, as he and his girlfriend will be treating us to a massive cheesy dinner full of fondues for all and wine for those that partake. It will be a good a way to begin our farewell to France, and a welcome event of warmth after a day of wet wet wet harvesting and AIMAP box packing.

Before I go I'd like to give a hearty hello to Pete, a good friend of Matt's Grandma and a devoted reader of Beauty and the Cheese. Thanks for your support and I look forward to meeting you in a few weeks!

Talk to (and See you!) real soon! (We return to the continent on the 11th!!)
Jenny

Up up up! Image thanks to http://www.cci-fed.org.lb

Bon soir from a mouth full of grape seeds and fingers full of garlic - and KIWI!

Just a quick hi from our new, and hopefully (! - ?) last, European home: a CSA (known in France as AIMAP) in the south of the country, near Toulousse.

Our good friend Chelsea just sent an email asking about where we are, what we have most recently learned, and what this place is like generally. I will use this forum to respond.

The countryside is gorgeous, with highways lined with plain trees with bark that recall sycamores, and our countryside surrounded by fields of corn and newly reaped stubble and rock, yappy dogs, young horses, chickens and, if you are lucky, one lone peacock.

One of the highest truths that I have learned in my time abroad is that nothing in western Europe comes close to a flattering comparison with the conflagration of October's Eastern Woodlands. But autumn is beautiful here, and in other ways surprisingly and strangely similar to those spent in Wisconsin and New England in recent years.

Namely, we spent our first two days here mashing, pressing, siphoning, drinking, pasteurizing and bottling cider made from the 48 different varieties grown in our farmer, Phillipe's, orchard. Oh, the amber mellifluous. Cider for breakfast, lunch and dinner, covering our pants, sticking to hair, and scenting our hands (already apple-colored from handling the hot bottles) sweetly.

And today filled us up with another smell likewise reminiscent of places like Overlook Farm and Potomac Vegetable Farms down in Virginia - garlic! Loads and loads of bulbs, beautifully feathered, splashed in violet, dusted in dirt, which we pried and broke with our hands into what the Spanish call dientes - teeth. (The French word, gousse, translates less attractively into "pod" or "legume.") Each little clove - a clone of its mother - will be planted into the earth, quietly and slowly sending up a sprout which, come spring, will break the surface and meet the sun. It will gain in strength, eating sunlight and sending it underground, eventually growing a new bulb, plump and swollen with moisture and bite, which will be harvested in high summer.

Today also found us in the grove of espaliered kiwi trees! A frost is predicted for this evening, and Matt and I worked with our two fellow WWOOFers (hailing from Wales and England) and two of their friends, picking the last of the hairy fruit. This was incredibly pleasant - beautiful weather and enjoyable company. The kiwi are still very hard and sour - in a word, unripe - but after being in storage with apples (whose natural and constant respiration of ethylene gas aids the maturation of other vegetables and fruits) for a month or so they will be soft and sweet with the kiwiness of the kiwi.

The computer is acting up so I will sign off for now. Love to everyone. As I just wrote in an email to the Warrens - Matt and I definitely have a count-down going to November 11th, and while we are certainly enjoying ourselves this side of the Atlantic, America feels better and dearer all the time.

With love,
Jenny

Itinerary

Today is nothing but a grey watercolor wash in the sky, with muted grass and sheep just beginning to stir, and our last day in Ireland.

We are taking a bus from Cork City to Dublin, another from Dublin to London's Victoria Station, and then a last to Amsterdam - !

We will then proceed to visit friends in Breda, Holland before returning to Paris for a few days. And then we WWOOF at our LAST FARM before trekking back to Barcelona, and then flying HOME!

Unfortunately I can't write anymore now. Thanks to all the comments and emails regarding the last post. Love you all!

Jenny and Matt

Reflections on Ol' Ireland

Dear readers. I apologize for being so long in writing, and wonder if anyone is still out there?

We are still in Ireland, caught up in the middle of a delightful morass of gorgeous days. This is one of the best - puffy with white and wide cloud shadows, ultramarine inbetween, green and smooth and sheep-mown and voluptuous below -

I wrote to my father that this part of Ireland reminds me very much of Wisconsin, the driftless region along the Mississippi. The first time that I woke up here I thought that that was where I was - in the midwest, mysteriously redeposited, and I was confused, but glad.

Before going into particulars, I would like to begin with an explanation of why I've not written. The underlying reason is The Future. Both Matt and I have been very preoccupied with searching for people to stay with in Amsterdam, arranging dates to be in Paris, and attempting to find farms to WWOOF at in France. We must still find a place to fill out our last few European days in Barcelona...

And this is not to mention how consumed we have been by the sorting through of the excess of opportunities regarding 2010 farm apprenticeships, internships, academia, living arrangements, etc!

And of course, weeding a place like this:

the raised vegetable beds

Or, triumphing in a place like this -

the pond garden

Plus, attempting to resurrect some semblance of correspondance with the people back in the Old Country, which is in no way Europe, but indeed America. And not only with the people, but with the zeitgeist itself. It has been very strange to be on this lovely property full of Time magazines and cable TV, to try easing myself back into a little bit of knowledge about what is going on in the States, and seeing that politically everything seems in quite a tangle and the recession is still on (though getting better, at least for some?). Part of me is glad to be in Europe in a time like this, though after much thought, the current events also encourage me to return home.

* * *

There is always such a fine line between August and September, and I have actutely felt this line for many of the days that we've been here. School beginning, the air sharpening to a crisp, pungeant companion. The silence brought on by autumn's arrival.


Sometimes when I am in the vegetable garden, spreading rotted manure or weeding, I can feel the preparations into autumn, eventually into winter. There is literally nothing to be heard, the atmosphere stagnant but for its clean chill, and only occasionally is there the flutter of one bird, or the gust of a sparrow flock.

It is dragonfly season. Sitting around the pond having tea, we watched them hitch upon each other, flitting, darting, curling their tails. When I go walking around six, just at the crease of afternoon and evening with Cosimo, they fly above me and swallow up the midgets (this is what the Irish call midges).





Maile asked me if I am constantly happy and meeting with good adventures at every turn. I realize that I have been incredibly optimistic in these blog posts. As travel tends to be, these months continue to be concentrations of life. Very exciting, rather over-whelming, full of human drama and joy and longings. I miss "home" (in spite of the allusiveness, for me, of this word, as I've been such a transplant for so long, between Milwaukee and New England, finding that word in people oftentimes moreso than in places) - I miss that concept, that aggregation of places and friendships, and I miss it far more than I thought that I would. I think part of the isolation is due to the difference in this sort of travel to the sort that I had done before. Though I've lived in a few different places, it was usually for enough months to establish some sort of a community, to become involved and see fruits of labors.



Thinking back, we have left many legacies. Potatoes in Alpine France, Coffee stains in Italy, lettuces in West Cork and a corrugated iron roof in the Mediterranean. But when we left France the potatoes and their leaves and stems were still in the ground, and we hardly got a chance to witness the absurd miracle of the roof that Matt and Isaac erected down south.


On the other hand, we ate cheese from the milk that we kneaded out of goats and had soup from the lovage that we harvested with Francoise's gorgeous Opinel knives from the Savoie, and here we came upon surpises of potatoes while turning the soil up, after weeding it faithfully, which gave gumption to a good omelet and now fill the kitchen with their small and plump bodies.


Being in Ireland has leant itself to a wealth of revelations and contemplations. Brilliant books, old friends, new friends, the grace of an immaculate landscape, the change in complexion after days of rain. And being on this small holding has been a welcome respite, a cloister of flowers and plans, and I think that when we'll be in Amsterdam on the 29th, and America in November, our time in County Cork, and our 180-some days (and counting) on this continent and its islands will have helped us be ready for it.


With that, I will leave you for now. It is too rare a day (as Jane Austen would put it) to spend it inside.


With love,

Jenny

These, and more pictures, can be found here.
Also, I have finally gotten the chance to upload some of the various little films that we have taken, which can be viewed here.

Again, little time.

Just wanted to let you all know that we still exist, and that we are still doing so in Ireland. I just had a really, really lovely week with the Taylor family up north in County Donegal, and I highly recommend to anyone the music festival in Kilcar that they put on every August. It was beautiful to spend time with so many pub sessions, a tatooed harper, various cliffs, waves, surfer children and, most of all, very good friends all sidled up by the turf fire.

Speaking of turf, while in Kilcar I read an editorial in the Irish Examiner and learned that peat bogs are basically carbon sponges, as they retain ten times as much carbon as any other land area (including forests). These fires are so ubiquitous in Ireland that when we were driving home from Donegal the whiff of them would visit me inside our stuffy rental car.

Anyhow, we are quite ready to move on to our next farm, and while there it seems that I will have much more time for blogging. It is only a 45 minutes' drive from where we are currently living, but worlds apart, and Matt and I are looking quite forward to it.

I really wish that I have had more time for the blog, but I have not given up on it! And I do hope to breathe some new life into it in the next few days, once we are resettled and proper.

Take care,
Jenny

Buckets of rain, Buckets of milk

As the rain "lashes down" on this amazingly grey and blustery day I figured that I would share some of the work that we are doing.

With Gerd and Renate on a rare, few-days' holiday, I have been the sheep milker and tender, which is pleasant with such well-loved, clean, kind sheep. Renate is their usual shepherd, and they certainly are "one-woman sheep," leading to a bit of kicking and recalcitrance in the sheep house/milking stand. But I think that we are all coming to a bit more of an understanding of each other. It is amazing, the difference in different sheeps' udders. These sheep are far more full of milk, are milked only once a day, and take me about ten minutes to finish off. I get most of it out in the first five minutes or less, but spend quite a while trying to knead and punch out the rest. (When I say punch I refer to an imitation of what lambs do when they milk their moms - hitting the teat in a way with their nose to urge out more milk.) I am getting used to them, though, their pink pink teats and varied attitudes, and it will be too bad when I have to hand them back over to Renate tomorrow.


In the grand tradition of my friend Emily I have also nearly triumphed in a skirmish with a terraced herb garden, attempting to uproot and unscrew the legions of morning glory vine and grasses, while trying to preserve the poppies, cosmos, thyme, chives, rosemary and marjoram etc in the process. Some nasturtiums and poppies unfortunately ended up in the weed pile but the compost will be all the better because of it, and the slugs hopefully more pleased to be in the pile rather than the garden.


Matt has been doing various grunt work involving the digging of gravel and the strimming of polytunnels and will be doing hedge trimming once the weather clears.


In the polytunnel many bushels of beans have been picked and mold removed, tomato offshoots pried away and grape vines trained to the piping. There is quite a lot of mold in there, reminding one of the importance of ventilation, which perhaps could be utilized quite a bit more in their polytunnel. Most of the polytunnel onions and garlics have been harvested and crocheted in baling twine for storage in the winter cow house.


Lettuces have been stepped up from their initial germination flats and more seeded, along with a flat of fennel. Next week we will be transplanting the bigger seedlings into the greenhouse where the peas used to be, and harvesting and freezing ever more beans, and dealing with a big onslaught of new guests and their children for "children's days."

Our friend Angela has left, leaving us with more time alone, which is both good and sad. And a calf was finally born! The day after its birth it escaped into a nearby wood causing much anxiety and confusion, but happily the rascal was found and now enjoys a pasture with its mom and aunt in our backyard.

That's all for now. I am going to return to the pile of National Geographics, farming literature, and wool at the house. Take care and love to all,

Jenny

A home!

Well, a home until August 25th at least. Matt and I officially decided that we will be here until then.

I will write more later today or tomorrow, but now I have to go weed an herb bed. Take care!

Love,
Jenny

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.

Hi everybody!

We are still in the neighborhood of Bantry, on a retreat center/farm that is run by two good friends of Tim and Sandra's. It is good, with pregnant cows, a jumping pony, a cat with a boxer's jaw and some very nice dogs. And so many nasturtiums.

Thanks to everyone who wrote helpfully about places that we could look into farming on or living in. We hope to stay here for the next few weeks, and then look forward to seeing some very good friends who are about to be in the neighborhood.

Bantry is very charming...not as touristy as Kilarney, quite tiny, with plenty of friendliness and pubs all over. Last Sunday we went to the last night of the Chamber Music Festival, and it was fantastically Kronos Quartetish in sound and completely fancy in look, taking place in the rich, bayside, gardened and marbled and velvety Bantry House. The last piece was played with candlelight coming down from the chandelier. Mmm.

We unfortunately cannot post any pictures because I lost our card reader. (Shortly before losing our phone, though happily that found us again, through a very kindly Irish medium.) In lieu of actual pictures, I can quickly tell you about a few of the colors and patterns around us lately...

But sounds: the gong at the beginning of sitting meditation (did I mention that this is also a meditation center, right here on this farm?), the horseshoes against the road as the farmers' daughter takes her pony out for performing

There are windmills that turn in the valley beside us, and all we can see are the very fingertips of the blades as they go slowly round. The ubiquitous nasturtium are going to seed, their little plump lumps begging to be pickled in a caper kind of way. The thyme is struggling to take a stand in the herb terraces, and the calendula is bursting and crowding in orange and yellow.

And the rain. When first we arrived in Ireland there was very little of it, but now it is with us several times a day, streaming down the sides of the polytunnel (in American English "hoop house" - like a greenhouse made of plastic), thumping rooftops, huddling the sheep.

And the sheep are everywhere, just as you hear that they ought to be in Ireland.

Anyhow, I ought to run. I would like to leave a longer message, with reflections on our just-passed four month anniversary here, but there just isn't the time. Soon I will try to be in town and use a computer at a cafe, but for now, we miss and love all of you, and oddly, being in Ireland makes us far more homesick, I think, than we were before. But we are still happy to be traveling.

With unedited love,
Jenny

SOS and Hullo!

Hi friends!

Well, here we are, in west Cork County, listening to "world music" in a cafe in Bantry town, hustling through emails and wwoof postings and water and about to hurry back to the farm to do more "bits and bobs" of bee keeping, tidying up, cooking, dog petting, sheep admiring, et al.

Again, unfortunately, I have no time to write, but can list off a few more things. The farm is perfect, with its roof teeming with grasses and flowers and ghosts of guinea pigs, and the dogs are that sort of dog in the Disney movie "The Shaggy Dog," and Tim is the only bee keeper in Ireland to study and survey bee populations and Sandra is a social worker when she is not riding the horses and weeding the onions et al et al.

Ok the major IMPERFECT thing about this farm is that we unfortunately will only be able to stay through this weekend, as there were booking miscommunications and forgettings and assumptions and, well, we might be between a rock and a pretty hard place very soon, so if anyone has a suggestion about a place that might need some pretty able folk such as ourselves, please don't be shy and hollar to us good and loud!

In any case, we are very happy and better at doing all kinds of things than we ever were before, and we are healthy too and all of those other things.

I will write SUBSTANTIALLY as soon as I can - no internet at Tim and Sandra's, and town is a long walk or a less long bike ride from the homestead, so I don't know when next I'll get the chance to connect and scribble but hopefully it will be soon.

Miss you all and thanks for the various kindly messages that have indeed been received. Hopefully we'll be somewhere for long enough to be able to actually receive LETTERS - so lucrative!

Much Love and Rain and Green,
Jenny

The beginning of the island life

Ireland. Ireland, Ireland Ireland. 

Growing up I often felt extreme jealousy of the obsession of my church and schoolmates with all things Irish...green and orange, shamrocks, fonts and unfortunate attempts at a Gaelic inflection. Ireland seemed very nice and quaint and lush but, well, nice and quaint and lush could be found in Wisconsin if you looked hard enough, and why brag about being Irish when I am primarily German in ancestry and hardly know anything but a meager polka to take pride in. 

Ok. Now that I am here I am, I do believe, far deeper in love with a place than I have been since we arrived in Europe, and more comfortable, trusting, et al, of the general populace and environment. 

I will give a few reasons before handing the laptop back to our barber, Paul, one of Matt's relatives whose hospitality, as seen below, is overwhelming us constantly and standing as a perfect example of the unexaggerated kindness of the Irish. 

We arrived a week and a day ago, taking a ferry into Rosslare, traveling the sea in the night and waking up early to see the sun blinding the water, a pure white lighthouse on a lonely rock, its light doing a two-step on the ship, guiding us into the port. At customs we had the sweetest official ever, who gave us a 90-day stamp and assured us that we could extend our stay if we talked to a police officer, and gave us hearty wishes for good travels. He was the kind of person who, if he didn't actually have pictures of his kids in his office, you could imagine them and know that he was a good father. 

We took the bus to Tipperary and wandered about a bit, gathering some canned sardines and strawberries and filling up our water from a natural spring, talking a long while with Mrs. Ryan, as well as a visiting Catholic nun, before being invited into a pub for a drink. 

So, that was us, just a few hours into the island and already four pints down, all paid by our kindly benefactor, a bartender on his day off. 

We had a devil of a time following the trail trail which we were attempting, the Ballyhoura way, and it began to rain on us as we tried to remain cheerful, with very pained soles, shoulders et al. Amazingly, a woman who owns one of the only campings in the area saw us as she was driving home, pulled over, and asked us if we wanted to sleep on her land for the evening. We told her that we weren't very well off financially, and she said that she and her husband would try cutting us a deal, which they did. And so, we got to sleep in a lovely place overlooking the Majestic Glen of Aherlowe (pictures soon forthcoming). 

(I wouldn't recommend adhering to that trail, though the towns that it claims to follow are amazing and if you were interested I would offer you a simpler, more reliable route.)

And, that was only our first day. We have had our trials, specifically in Matthew waking up in a puddle after a freak rain storm, but happily that was when we were at the camping and we were able to use their driers. 

I will write more soon, but I don't want to hog Paul's computer for long. Take care, and really, come to Ireland and visit, okay? You'll be so glad that you did. 

Love,

Jenny

We are in Cambridge, entering into our last full day here. Living in university housing, eating crumpets and Indian food, stretching our muscles, resting our muscles, and most importantly walking along the river and punting along the river and watching musicals and children's stories with our dear friend, Erin.

So much has happened in the last few weeks, but of course so much has been happening since we left the relative calm and habits and cold of Boston in March.

It feels good to be in English-speaking lands again, to worry a little about pronounciations and some different nomenclature and phrases, but generally to feel confident in being with old friends in the only language you have ever been accustomed to.

Cambridge is a very pleasant place, and I am enjoying it, the strawberries and raspberries and street performers who sing as African choirs or small Reggae outfits or don a gown and recite very old verses in front of a church. It is interesting, 800 years old this year, and Darwin, one of its students, is 200 now. In the zoology museum are displayed his finches and box of beetles, slides of whatnots, and first, old texts, alongside a massive skeleton of a land sloth and downstairs from a dozen stuffed birds of paradise.

On June 11th, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the priests and worshipers and blessed sacrament were walked through the street, the followers behind singing sad atonal hymns behind. The bells ring with a rapidity I'd never heard before, impossible to match in whistle or hum, a bit mad.

We have been walking, smelling along the river the disposable barbeques sold at the co-op and in town the hot sausages for sale at wagons peopled by vendors with striped shirts and straw hats, and through a fair on the green dirty smoke from steam engines that you could ride on the grass for a fee.

We also went punting, more or less gracefully (if not always steering so clearly as Erin) through the waters tread by moorhens, along the route of ducklings and mothers, with other punts with other students, a baby beneath a black umbrella, and jocular British families. When we stopped to picnic we came upon an unruly gang of geese, thick necked and orange footed, hollering at the river, the ducks, their comrades and finally us, though we had luckily finished our meal by the time that they began their saunter close, honking and craning and distracted by the bits of bread that Erin threw in a diversion.

I always forget how peaceful it is to be on a watercraft down a gentle river. Erin said we ought to have been reading poetry and turning parasols in our hands, but we were happy. It was like the feeling of drinking champagne with something salty even though you are not doing either, which is also how I feel while reading Hemmingway (which I do in the mornings here, and feel fantastically thirsty and hungry and generally content with his words and characters and stories of Paris in the twenties, in cafes and pages and Ezra Pound's flat).


Tomorrow, per Betsy's suggestion, we begin our hike through the Cotswolds, and at the end will ferry the Irish sea and finally arrive on that island of which I have heard more stories and presumptions than I have about any country other than America. I look forward.

Love,
Jenny

Paris, is perfect!

Yes! It is true!

What are we doing?

Staying with the winner of France's equivelent of the Pulitzer, playing snakes and ladders (but the Strawberry Shortcake version) with the sweetest sunniest girl, getting all windy-like from Notre Dame's roof, eating croissants (duh), seeing Chagall on ceilings, buying Hemmingway books from the store that he spent his time at always, as well as suspenders with flowers on them.

Oh, Paris, how will we leave you?

Matt suggested that we wwoof here in September, and my dear friend Anja suggested that I propose a green roof on Notre Dame. So our questions are answered.

The chunnel tonight, Cambridge tomorrow,

With thoughts of arugula-covered gargoyles,
Jenny in a happy hurry (across the street from Quasimodo et al)

A Ridiculous Announcement!

Here are links to more Festa pictures, as well as snapshots from Cascina del Finocchio Verde.

In other news, Matt and I are still confused and amazed and delighted to share the article published in Italy's national democratic newspaper, La Repubblica, about Mario, Cascina del Finocchio Verde, Isa, and....us! It hasn't been published online, but I put photos of it on Facebook. It is written by one of our number one heroes, Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food, a fantastic movement that encourages, promotes, and supports local cuisines and producers throughout the world, and puts on an amazing event bi-yearly in Bra, Italy, called Terra Madre, which brings these cuisines and people together from their homes in Siberia, Sierra Leone, and Wisconsin alike.

Oh, my god.

Also, we have made some wonderful friends in Luke and Cayla, who reign from the suburbs of Boston. While I am so happy to be in Italy and am sad to be leaving on Saturday, it has also been really good for us to be able to speak fluently with peers, discussing Anna's Taqueria and the disappointments of Boston's "Wonderland" T stop.

In our time here Matt and I are have become fairly expert milkers, pretty good shepherds, amateur cheese-makers, and enthusiastic wine tasters (well, Matt was already). The baby goat, christened Pistolino (a name which I will leave for you to translate), is getting bigger every day, the dog that we thought was paralyzed is beginning to walk (!!), the kittens' eyes are open (from the mama named Obama), and the wild strawberries are ripe ripe ripe and fill us with sweetness at pasture.

Love, Jenny