Vistas de Valle Azul

A view of the southern end of the valley Azul

Granja Valle Pintado. The community kitchen on the left, garden in the center, and grain field to the right.

Further up the valley. Our farm is the little green patch furthest to the right.

This week I had a chance to hike around a bit. I spent yesterday afternoon exploring the umarked network of trails on the eastern ridge. I found some beautiful views of the valley and a wild cherry tree full of sweet ripe fruit! There´s a lot more to explore. Just a few kms up river from us a fork of the Azul turns up a steep gorge towards Hielo Azul, the glacier at it´s head waters. Further south the river empties into Lago Puelo, a beautiful lake sitting on the Argentine Chilean border. I´ll explore both in the next few weeks.

It´s been a busy week on the farm. I´ve been focusing on pest managment, and construction of the new invernadero (greenhouse). Aphids are starting to show up in our brasillicas, and pilmes are reaking havoc in the favas and potatos. We don´t use any chemicals on the farm, so our pest managment strategies involve strategies like not weeding in well established beds to create pest habitat, and hand removal. When we make sweeps through a bed to remove pests, we dump them in a bottle containing water and a little bit of oil. We leave the bottles full of the pests near hot spots. Within a few days it begins to ferment and the bugs clear out. Usually u can protect a 10-15 meter radius with one well filled bottle. Other strategies are the use of ash, crushed eggshells, and fermented herb solutions. Every pest/plant combo requires a unique solution.

I´ve been reading a lot since I´ve been here. I just finished One Straw Revolution by Mirukami Fukouka, the Japanese farmer famous for achieving very high yeilds with a very passive approach. He talks a lot about the infiriority of human developed systems in comparison with the complexity of nature, pointing out the inherent instability of a cultivated ecosystem and the many advantages of farming methods with mimic natural ecosystems and allow plants to follow thier natural form or life cycle as closely as possible. Some pretty interesting points. My favorite being "the farmers greatest tool is observation". I´ve also been reading about how to hatch and raise a new batch of chickens. We´ve started to allow eggs to stack up in a few nests to stimulate brooding. We aim to hatch 60, hoping to raise 30-40 new hens, and harvest about half of our current flock. Yum!!!

Another thing that has really peaked my interest is fermentation! I´ve been reading a couple of books on culturing, brewing and other fermentation processes (Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Elix Katz, and Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation by Stephen Buhner). Did you know humans were making a primitive form of mead (fermented honey and water) well before we´d figured out how to manage fire!? The world of fermentation is super interesting! I love the idea of using all sorts of tiny creatures to render unique artisan brews, breads, preserves, cheeses, and other things. Fermented food posses some amazing probiotic properties, and are really darn good. I´ve already had a chance to help with brewing some lemon rose-hip wine, an IPA pale ale (the locals pronouce it "eepah pawleh awleh"), and some ginger ale. I have also started keeping kefir! I´ve had some experience with a different form of kefir in the past that eats milk and renders a yogurt-like superfood. This is a different kind though. This sort of kefir eats a sugar water solution, and creates a slightly carbonated, very refreshing, and nutritious drink. I am maintaining two jars at the moment. I´ve added slices of oranges and peaches for flavoring in the large one. Lemon, mint and sage in the smaller. We drink a bit every couple of days and refill the jars with fresh agua y azucar integral. It´s very simple.¡Y que rico!

My Kefir expierement!

Musica Americana del Sur

It´s crazy how easy it´s been to get by without electricity! I rarely think about it. Probably the toughest thing for me is the inability to listen to recorded music. Fortunately there are lots of talented musicians around, and we make our own. They´ve introduced me to some of their favorite South American artists. I really like a lot of them, particularly some of the old folksters. Here are a couple:

Siento el Ritmo de la Granja, de la Vida

Rachael, our cheese expert, preparing chives during harvest.

Last night I found myself sitting around a table with a group of 10, a single candle lighting the room, eating pizza after pizza and chocolate cake from our woodfire oven, drinking homebrewed beer and ginger ale almost till the dawn. Laughing, conversing (multilingual), singing everything from "Shady Grove" to Chango Spasiuk. There´s a guitar, harmonicas, clapping, stomping, and pounding on the table. We're a tight knit group from many different places, and many different backgrounds. ¡Que buena onda!

Daily, I am pinching myself. Moments like this really stick with you- and I´ve had so many already. I keep catching myself wondering "how in the heck did I wind up in this situation"? Take it from me, grass-roots traveling is the way to go! There´s got to be no better way to soak up the culture of a place. And what a culture this place has! The art, music, and community I´m finding here is so rich! Three months here are going to fly by.

Life on the farm is very rythmic. There is always so much to be done, yet it never becomes stressful. We do what we can, we apply ourselves and work hard. But we never over-work. The farm community generates an inertia which carries all of us on. Some daily tasks are recurring, but no two days are alike. The seasons progress, the crops grow. We work, and we enjoy the fruits, veggies, cheeses, beers, and breads of our labor. It´s a vital, tangible, and satisfying existance.

Un Dia Tipico:

We wake up just before the sun peaks over the eastern crest of our valley, about 8 am. The mornings are cold and damp. In a jacket and beanie I make the quarter mile hike from my log cabin to the community kitchen. On the way I fill the water basin for los gansos (geese), and top of the chicken feed, water, and whey at the hen house. The first person the the kitchen prepares breakfast, usually oatmeal, bread, or flatbreads. We eat, share a round of maté, and discuss our plans and goals for the day. Every monday we start by taking an hour or two to stroll through the granja, noting the state of all the crops, and making a to-do list for the week. Once the list is made, each of us can do whatever job we´d like whenever we´d like to do it. Alex really makes a point of involving us in the short and long term planning for the farm, creating a sense of ownership in the farm and it´s community. We´ve all traveled and worked quite extensively and each of us has a unique perspective to offer. There´s a lot of idea sharing, experiementation, and a lot of learning that happens as a result.

We start work at 9 and go about our tasks untill 1. Lunch and dinner are prepared for the group by one of us on a rotating basis. With anywhere between 5 and 8 people working any given day, you end up cooking a meal every third day or so. Food depends largely on whats available from the garden, if there are extra eggs, a batch of cheese that for one reason or another we won´t give out to the Associativa, ect. Beans and rice are staples. There are a lot of stews, veggie stirfrys, and polenta casseroles. Several of the weeds commonly seen in the granja are actually great for salads. There are wild turnips, lambsquarter (sp?), and something else... I can´t remember it´s name. Its leaves are very tender and have a lemony flavor. I´ve cooked 3 times so far. The first turned out asi asi (it´s a mud hut with a wood fire and camping stove, gimmie a break!), the second two though- muy bueno, if I may say myself! Butter is sparse though, which makes it a challenge for me... some of ya´ll know what I´m talking about.

After we eat we siesta till 5. Thats 4 free hours in the middle of the day, EVERY DAY! I go for short hikes, play guitar with Jeremy or John, go for a swim, read, do yoga by the river, whatever I feel like that day.

At 5 we resume working, and eat dinner shortly after sunset at 8. I love our free rein, task focused work method. I like to finish what I start, and this structure gives me the ability to either indulge that, or change gears and work on something different if a task isn´t jiving. Some tasks I´ve been involved with are caring for the gallinas, weeding and tranplanting in the garden, seeding in almasigos, I helped seed trigo sareceno with the horse drawn plow, construction of the greenhouse (so far that´s involved cement and rebar work, and some basic carpentry), making a lemon rose-hip champagne for our Christmas boxes, and of course harvest! We harvest every wednesday and send our boxes to all the families in the Associativa. This week´s boxes had lettuce, kale, chard, chives, radishes, turnips, parsley, eggs, strawberries, mountain spinach, an herb boque, and the member´s choice of jam, chutney, salsa, cheese, or beer.

We eat dinner at 8, and kick around in the kitchen socializing by candelight till 9:30 or 10, when people start retiring for the evening.

Wow, another novel. I wonder how many of you made it through, haha!

Hasta luego, salud y felicidad!

The new invernadero, in construction

A better angle of the farm... maybe. Still searching for the right spot to capture the feel of the valley.

Queso de vaca.

Freshly transplanted tomato plants. I did 60 plants on one of our hottest days and didn´t lose a single one!

The group playing totem. Ask me to teach you at home, its way fun! From front clockwise to back- Jeremy, Jillian, Partick, Jenna, Alex, y Sebastion.

Bottling the champagne! Mariano eating a lemon in back is a fantastic musician.

A weeded and mulched bed on the right, compared with an unweeded bed on the left. We weed, trim the flowers, and mulch the bed with what we pulled up. This inhibits regrowth and acts as a green manure! Pretty darn clever.

El camino a Valle Pintado

A photo I took from the trail on the way  to town.

Hola Amigos! It´s my first entry from the south! Pardon me if it seems rushed and disorganized. It is! By the way these computers have no spell check... just sayin'. The trek to El Bolsòn is quite a bit longer than I had anticipated. It´s only 3 km to town as the crow flies, but you must climb over a mountian. I´ve got a limited amount of time before the internet cafe closes, but I´ll convey what I can.

I´ve been at my farm since wI had a few canceled flights due to volcanic ash. Got stranded for a night in Houston, and was rerouted through Miami. Two and a half days after I left California I landed in a hot and humid Buenos Aires. I got there a day late, so I could only spend one night in the city. Lucho, my couch surfing host helped me make the most of it. We took the train from Belgrano, the neighborhood where Lucho lives, to Retiro. From there we meandered back through the city and the parks near the sea. There were art and craft markets, drum circles, and bands playing in several of the parks. It happened to be an Argentine holiday, so the streets were packed with people- an enormous block party! We ate empanadas under the raining trees in Plaza San Martin. The air was so saturated with moisture that it would condense and drop off the leaves. At night we were joined by some German travelers, aslo couch surfing with Lucho. We took the train to Plaza de La Republica, were we saw the Argentine capital and walked across the widest street in the world. From the we headed to San Telmo, BA´s old downtown, for a night of Tengo clubs and bar hopping.

In the morning I caught a bus that would take me to San Carlos De Bariloche, a 22 hour trip. All day we drove across the pampas, a sparely populated flatlands across the center of Argentina. As night started to fall you could see thousands of fireflies stiring thick grassy air of the plains, a living reflection of the night sky above. By day break we were in a mountainous desert. Jagged snow capped peaks could be glimpsed in the distance. I arrived Bariloche before noon and took the bus into town. A fellow traveler told me about a mountain climb trail that was a few km walk from the city center. I befriended a group Argentines at the top, and we shared a round of maté, the local drink of choice.

Wednesday morning I was on another bus to El Bolsón. A cab ride ride and a short hike later I was in Valle Pintado, on the banks of the Rio Azul. I hiked upstream through a pasture spotted with wild rosebushes until I finally spotted signs for the granja. After almost a week of touch and go traveling, I´d made it!

The farm sits on the easter bank of the Rio Azul, in the green and narrow Valle Pintado (Painted Valley). The glacier melt river is born roughly 20 km upstream- a long day´s hike from here. I will do it some time. To our east and west, forested valley walls rise steeply. El Bolsòn, a town of around 20,000 is just over the ridge to the east, while the western side of the valley rises all the way up to snow capped peaks of the Andes. The peaks aren´t visible from our farm, but climbing up the eastern side of the valley one can see they are quite near. On the floor we are at only 200 meters elevation. The air is warm and pungent. I´m told that all of the wildflowers came into bloom a few days before I arrived! My first few days here were in the 80s-90s F, almost warm enough to swim in the icy, icy river (I got in up to my waist, haha). The water is running swift and high. There are many deep, vibrant tourquoiz pools teaming with fish! We don´t have fishing poles here, but I think I will try my luck with a stick and line.

The farm is run by a guy named Alex. He´s a stand up dude! Alex was born to American parents in Indonesia, where he lived until he was 18. He went to school in the US near Philadelphia where he created a customized major composed of courses in sociology, environmental sciences, anthropology, and comperative theology. At 21 he and his brother bought the land where the granja now sits. He has been here farming it ever since. He´s now 29. Alex wakes, works, and grubs with all of us, and is a bountiful rescource or all things farm and homestead related.

Other characters I´ve gotten to know on the farm are Patrick, a 28 year old American who has been living in equador for the past 8 years. Nico, a farming in the making from Uruguay, a really facinating guy! Jilly and Jillian two American wwoofers. Jilly spent last souther summer working at the south pole station. Thats Antartica!! There is also Nacho and his son, Argentine farm residents, and Rachel the cheese expert. There are a few more, who so far I´ve only had sparse interaction with. All of us are 30 and under. There´s a great community vibe here, everybody teaches everybody. Almost everyone speaks a bit of english, but spanish is the default language. I´m getting a lot of practice!

Ok, running out of time! Here´s a quick outline of the farm. We have 1 hectare planted with staple crops: wheat, barley, corn, potatoes, and lentils. There another hectare beside it, which is essentially and enormous garden. Here we have all sorts of greens, squash, beans, berries, tomatos root veggies like carrots, radish, turnips, and more. This piece of land also has a green house. We will be constructing one more while I am here. The farm owns one milk cow, which currently has a calf. We milk her once a day, and make cheese every other. Most of the cheese we sell, but the cream we keep to eat! There is a flock of 28 laying hens, which I will soon be in charge of. We are looking to harvest this flock in a month or two and raise up a new flock of about 40. This will be one of my focus projects while I am here! The farm also owns one horse, but we have about 5 or 6 grazing on the land. Oh yeah there are also geese.

Ok thats all I have for now! I have to get back for a party tonight! It´s one of the wwoofer´s birthday. I didn´t even get to touch on the food, living spaces, and our rustic lifestyle, but there will be more to come in a week or two!

Looking over the farm towards the mountains in the north.

Rio Azul, at our doorstep.

Caballos. One has a baby!

Our community dinning room and livingspace.

Our orange kitten named Blu.

Oso, the crybay puppy. He´s constantly tripping over his overgrown paws.

Looking over Bariloche towards the Andes.