‘well, life on the farm is kindof laid back, it’s nothing that a country boy like me can’t hack,
it’s early to rise, early in the sack, thank God I’m a country boy…’      John Denver


I’ve got to admit, there are days out here when I actually wake up with this in my head (or maybe it’s because my suspender clad lumberjack is playing it on the ipod to wake him up at sunise so he can get to work. Either way, John Denver got it right. Life on the farm is pretty darn laid back, for me anyway. I’m not the one weilding the chainsaw 8 hours a day, feeding in the chickens and bring in in the eggs.  For me it’s a pretty fabulous place to read, sew, play my fiddle, make giant corn flapjacks  and go for walks to the nearby waterfall.

Last week we got a new batch of baby chicks. They are fuzzy, chirpy, and so darn soft. They live in a small incubator room in the farm, and life for them consists of cedar bark dust, a warm light, food and water, and frequent visits from the giants who love to play with them (that’s us).  It’ll be about 2 months before they get to join the big chickens in the family coop, and up to 6 months before they are join the ranks of the other egg layers.  When they start laying, the current batch will go into ‘retirement’ which is actually not as ominous as it sounds. They got to live with a grandma down the road who keeps them for a few more years. If you come to visit us at the right time, you might just get a door prize and leave with a chicken in your back seat… sounds like a good motivation to visit, hmm?   Morning and evening chores consist of feeding the chickens, letting them in and our of their condos to room the chicken yard, and collecting, washing and boxing the eggs. We get about 60-80h  brown  eggs a day. You are likely to leave with a few cartons of eggs as well as your new chicken when you come to visit.

We’ve been thinking about farms and food lately  with a keen awareness that outside our little haven of chickens and big garden plot there is a pretty complicated world of  agriculture and industry. We watched Food, Inc last week and felt pretty sad about  the state of agriculture these days.  We’d recommend it, if you’re interested. It was sad, but also encouraging in some ways, and it always amazes me how much the things we do here both big and small, affect the lives of people around the world.

The farm used to be a working nursery, so there is still plenty of soil, pots, seeds and greenhouses to play with. I’ve been planting herbs and delighting to watch them grow. It’s amazing to think that last year I was planting tomato seeds in vitamin containers and lugging water from the Nile across cracked soil  to make them grown. This spring could not find me in la more opposite setting, with abundant everything, and brilliant green everywhere I look , from mossy trees, to springing daffodils, to the bright green grass creeping up through all the nooks and crannies.  It does make me wonder where I’ll be this time next year, though these two years would be hard to beat.

Every time I open the green house door, fingernails full of soil, hands full of trays of new seeds

Trees in the lower meadow

waiting to grow in dark earth, I breath out a sigh of ‘thank you’. I know that the whole world doen’t live this way, with quite, birds chirping by day, frogs croaking by night,  and time, generous time to read, create, and think and play, and I know I won’t always either, so for today there is an extra measure of gratitude. Gratitude for strong bodies, living families, freedom from fear, a bed without mosquitos and creepy crawlers and abundance on all sides.  I wish that I could bring my friend Margaret here to live here with me, to enjoy these moments, to rest from all her hard work at the clinic just as malnutrition season begins again in Upper Nile, but I can’t. It seems to the next best thing is to love this enough for the both of us.

My favorite 'furry' trees on the farm

spring!

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