When Devon and I decided to learn about farming we knew it would be hard work. In fact, we were counting on it. And we got what we expected. Farming is, as the saying goes, “back-breaking” work.
Even though we try and avoid bending over too much, it inevitably happens. When we’re weeding we’re bent over, when we’re planting we’re bent over, when we’re shoveling, and hoeing…well, you get the idea. So, we unsurprisingly have sore backs and muscles, almost all the time. Since starting our journey we’ve done a lot of work in gardens and vegetable fields, which is where most of our back-breaking work takes place. Right now, we’re at a vegetable and fruit farm which does everything by hand instead of using chemicals, as it’s an organic farm. They use rather primitive machinery for some things, but all of their farm equipment was probably top of the line in 1950.
The difficult to move irrigation rig
Today is a good example of a typical day on the veg farm. First, we moved their irrigation system (read, very large sprinkler) from one veg bed to a neighboring veg bed. The irrigation system is comprised of 12 hollow metal poles, each about 13 feet long lined with little holes for the water to come spurting out. We walk 4 poles at a time with 2 people coordinating our steps so that we are moving at the same pace. This sounds like an easy task, and it is logistically. But, manually, carrying these poles 3 times across a football sized field can be tiring.
After we moved the irrigation system we went into one of their polytunnels (2,000 square feet of protected soil) and hand-weeded zucchinis. To do this, we’re squatting or on our knees picking out the weeds and placing them in a bucket. Then, after we were done with that (which took us about 40 minutes) we had to weed the walking paths between the zucchini. It sounds silly, but they also need to be free of weeds because eventually the zucchini grows so large it’s hard to get in there and weed. We get it all out while we still can. The walking path is much more packed earth, as we walk on it, and therefore harder to pull the weeds out. So, we use a hand fork or trowel — crouching, bending and kneeling all the while.
When we were done with that, it was tea time so we went inside for some toast and tea. A 20 minute break is welcome at this point as we’re tired of being on our hands and knees. But, we’re right back on them when tea is over because then we planted about 600 brussel sprout plants. The way we did this today was one person takes the plant out of the tray and tosses it onto the earth where the sprout will be planted. Then, following that person is a “planter” on each side of the bed (there are two rows) planting them as they’re tossed down. I’m still fairly slow at planting as my knees get bruised being dragged over the rocks sliding from hole to hole. I’m getting better, but to give you perspective, the paid farm worker here planted two sprouts for my every one.
After planting the sprouts, we headed over the to the lettuce beds where we hoed weeds. Then, we walked over to the broccoli beds where we hoed some more. Although we use an oscillating hoe (i.e. it sits on a hinge and moves back and forth with our forward motion) it’s still hard on the back.
So, basically, farming is a lot of bending over and crouching, especially if a lot of the work is done by hand (which is it here). It’s work like this that makes us see why farmers use pesticides and herbacides. If they didn’t, they’d never be able to create as much crop as they do and a lot of it would be eaten by critters like slugs, birds and flies.
How does one advocate for organic when it’s so much work, more expensive, and at times seems unrealistic? I don’t have an answer, and I’m hoping by the end of our 5-month trip I’ll be a little closer. I see why farmers would choose not to be organic. Where do we meet in the middle? Do we decrease farms in size? They used to be smaller. Do we have people grow their own veg? I really don’t have an answer. Instead, I have more questions. But, if anything, our adventure is bringing the issues to life for me which is a good place to start.
You’re on your hands and knees, a tray of seedlings by your side. You scoop a hole with one hand, and pop a seedling out with the other, push it into the soil, and press it down into place. Reach forward, balanced over your knees, do it again with the middle row. Push the tray forward, then crawl forward one pace. Repeat. In several months, each plant will produce one, sometimes two, corn cobs.
It’s lunchtime at the Big Pit coal museum. I’m a curious guy, so I ordered the faggots, peas, and gravy.
Faggots (I feel bad just using the word) does not mean the same thing in the UK as it does in the US. Here it means a meatball that includes liver (it also means a cigarette, or a bundle of kindling). How’d it taste? Mmm… like ground up liver. Not great to me, but I could see how if you grew up with it, it may be a comfort food. I was told it’s a pretty traditional item on the British menu.
We rented a coffee can-sized car (a Chevrolet “Matiz”) and drove around Wales this past weekend. We’re actually heading out again this morning to visit the Big Pit, a coal mine museum. So, in lieu of a full post, here are some observations:
Driving on the left side of the road isn’t as jarring a change as we expected. Shifting with the left hand, however, took some getting used to. I kept slapping the door with my right hand, reaching for the shifter.
We strongly endorse McVitie’s Digestives biscuits as an excellent energy source for hill-walking. We climbed to the second highest peak in Wales — it takes about an hour. It takes another twenty minutes to get to the highest peak, but we needed to get going.
Hay-on-Wye, the tiny town packed with books, is the most charming place we’ve been so far. Bookshelves are tucked all over the city: in alleys, on the decaying castle, from cafes.
This “bookstore” had no one around. It was a whole wall of books, with a box for people to put their money.
Ice cream made from sheep milk: not too bad! Very creamy, a bit grassy. We didn’t know it was non-cow milk until we were done. I had “cinder toffee.” It tasted like the top off a creme brulee.
We had Indian for dinner. Everything was heavy on the coconut milk, and too sweet as a result. In general, we’re finding meals in Britain to be heavy on the sweetness.
A “road” as indicated on a map could mean anything from a nice, two-lane paved and painted thing, down to a rutted dirt path squeezed between ten-foot hedges that may or may not be someone’s driveway. You just don’t know until you get there.
Also, the dashed white line separating lanes is more of a suggestion than enforced law, it seems.
Roundabouts make a lot of sense. Much faster than traffic lights. On the other hand, plopping a roundabout in the middle of a freeway — not as intuitive.
Tintern Abbey is picturesque and grand in a way I’ve never seen before: vaulted stone arches with nothing by sky and birds behind them; the knowledge that men walked these same stone paths 800 years ago. Birds flew in and out like the place was a new kind of forest. It was raining, which gave the whole place a weighty atmosphere — and emphasized the lack of, and importance of, a roof.
Now we’re off for the Big Pit: National Coal Museum! And later, of course, a little bit of work. We’re working. We promise.
I come all the way to Wales, and end up right back in Hollywood.
For context, take a look at this trailer for the upcoming, $26 million feature IRONCLAD:
Not too bad, right? I mean, it has Brian Cox and he’s pretty good. Paul Giamatti, too (but he’s not in the trailer).
But, did you notice the walls? I’ve touched those walls. Y’see, in a land full of castles, the production company decided to make their own. Shooting wrapped back in October of 2009, but the set still stands today, now a sort of local legend — the fake castle of Pencoed. Halbe and I set out yesterday to find it.
Hark! In the distance! What squat residence is this!
We drew closer to find the castle protected by a six-foot security fence. The irony of this did not hit me until just now.
At a break in the fence was a car and a small caravan housing a security guard. It looks like he may have lived there. We approached, said hello, then he invited us to take a look around. “Be careful, though” he said. “She’s starting to show her age.”
We breached the fortress! The walls were made of thin plastic in the form of stone bricks and painted as such. Everything iron (nails, hinges) looked authentically rusted, but that solid oak door behind me was hollow.
Here I am, puzzling over the existence of electrical cables in 12th century England. You can see neon green painted set pieces in the thatched cottage behind me.
The castle keep. You can see the scaffolding support structure through the window. The actual “stone” walls are that plastic stone stuff stapled to plywood. The weathering effect was pretty impressive. Everything looked authentic until you were about arms-length away from it. Or, if you went around the back…
The support scaffolding. You can also see the trailer of the security guard in the lower-right. The whole thing was pretty tall — maybe four stories high. Walking around inside was neat. If I squinted, and ignored the sound of the motorway over the hill, it did feel a bit like I was in an old castle.
The security guard came in to see what we were doing, and told us bit about the movie. IRON CLAD is about a group of mercenaries King John sent to reclaim Rochester Castle in 1215. When the time came to give the castle to the king, the mercenaries decided to instead keep it for themselves. The king’s forces lay siege, and 800 years later it’s all made into a movie. GRAPHIC SPOILER ALERT: King John wins. Here’s how: After being unable to penetrate the fortress for months, he forces a bunch of fat hogs to crawl up the sewage pipe that runs beneath one of the walls, locks them in, then sets them on fire. The intense heat created by the burning fat of the pigs brings down the wall, letting the army inside.
Generally, Britain is not unlike the U.S. but there are a couple of things that I’m noticing that are different. First, some of the names of vegetables are different here: they use the French name while we use the Italian. For example, they don’t say zucchini, but courgette and they call eggplants aubergines. The other difference we’re noticing in the homes we’ve stayed in is that they don’t use napkins nearly as much as we do in the states. We’ve eaten three meals with our new family in Wales and we haven’t seen a napkin in sight. I end up using my jeans instead. Good thing they’re already dirty and I don’t mind a bit more grit. They also put cream (whether clotted or double) on everything. Can’t complain too much about that though, cream makes everything better.
We’re at our new farm in Wales in a small town called Pencoed, pronounced “Pen-coid,” 15 miles from Cardiff. Today was our first day assisting them on their farm and we’ve already learned a bit about growing plants. Our schedule is not too different than our last farm except we’re done after lunch here and then have all day to putz around. We plan to take a few day trips and many walks in the area using their public footpaths, one of our favorite things about Britain so far.
Our day has us eating breakfast (porridge) with our hosts by 7:30 in the morning and out in the fields by 8:00 a.m. Today, we planted leeks into their fields (they have 23 acres and all plants are hand planted, weeded and maintained etc.). Then, we moved a number of french beans and squash into a cooler polytunnel (kind of like a greenhouse) to get them used to cooler weather. We’ll be planting those next week. As our host Yvonne says, “plants are like people, they don’t like to be too warm or too cold so you have to get them used to different temperatures gradually.”
By 1:30 we are eating lunch. Today we had homemade pizza, cous cous and amazing salad. The salad is the best part of the meals here since it’s literally cut from the garden and put into our bowls. Fresh salad greens make a huge difference. Devon and I plan to walk to the windmills tomorrow. You have to get creative with activities when you’re in a small town, that’s for sure. Windmills here we come!
Halbe digging holes and filling them with manure (1 year old poo) to prepare for planting squash.
First, I covered poop with straw, then I shoveled poop and then I forked 1 year old poop into holes. Fun was definitely had. Most of this is part of our daily routine which has been handed over to me and Devon.
We wake up around 7 and are on the farm by 8 in our wellies to tend to the poultry (ducks, geese and chickens) and the pigs. We learned the holy trinity of farming – food, security and water (FSW which I remember by thinking of DSW – once a city girl always a city girl). So, we feed all of the animals, give them clean water, look for any eggs (I found two this morning!) and then make sure the electric fence is turned back on. Can’t let the animals get out or the foxes in.
By 8:30 we’re in the goat barn just as Ann, our charming host, is finishing up her milking. She only milks the six goats who had kids this season and uses it to make soft cheese, hard cheese and milk for drinking (I put it in my tea each morning). She actually showed Devon and me how to milk the other day. We both successfully milked, oh, about 1 tablespoon. It’s actually pretty tough to do.
As Ann is finishing with the goats, Devon and I work to clean up the pen and finish the morning routine. We fill the troughs with hay, fill their water buckets with clean water, and lastly deal with all of their poop, of which, there is a monumental amount. First, we get straw and work to cover all new poop and moist spots on the floor with new straw. Then, we wet the floor of the milking area (it’s concrete) and scrub it with the “wet broom” to get all the poop off the floor. Next, we let the goats out of their pen to wander about in the fields and begin to shovel the poop. You’d think that all goats do is poop (which wouldn’t be totally inaccurate) based on how much we end up shoveling.
After our morning routine is over Ann gives us our tasks for the day which have included hoeing in the garden, hand weeding, weed wacking or “strimming,” and weeding with a pitch fork. Yesterday I worked in the garden getting a bed ready for squash. The dirt here is rocky and dry so they use a lot of manure, which is created from the shoveling we do each morning.
My task was simple – dig a hole about 10 inches across and 8 inches deep. Next, I go to the enormous pile of manure, which is really just 1 year old goat poop, and fork enough of it into a wheel barrow. I wheel that over (trying not to tip it onto myself, which I almost did) and then fill the hole with manure. Then, I cover the manure with dirt and repeat 9 more times. I actually did this over two days and Devon helped with the last four. He’s a trooper.
We’re usually done with our work around 4 or 5 (sometimes 6 if it’s a long project) but have lots of food breaks in between. The schedule looks like this:
0800 – begin morning routine
0900 – come in for a proper breakfast (usually eggs and toast or cereal and yogurt)
1000 – continue with our work
1300 – eat lunch
1400 – finish up our projects
1600 – afternoon tea when the boys (aged 12 and 14) get home
1900 – dinner
Today I’m picking rocks out of seeded dirt so they don’t get caught in the mower and splitting wood. My muscles are growing as we speak.
Here are some other pictures of the farm and our work for those who are interested:
Two saanan kids
A billy kid (i.e. a male kid) suckling on Halbe's finger.
How we stay warm in the living room.
Halbe weeding - we did it for most of the day to prepare for squash
Hearty and quick. Bread was made yesterday (wheat flour, salt, yeast, walnuts, water). Eggs were from our hosts’ hens. Butter was from Devon county cows up the road. Beans, well… they’re Heinz, but stewed with a few items from the garden. All in all, a pretty locally sourced meal, and I’m told one that is very traditionally British.
After, I had a “barley cup,” a hot beverage made from roast barley and milk. It’s considered an alternative to coffee (a result of the rationing in Britain during WWII) but has no caffeine. It tasted like well-roasted (maybe even slightly burned) wheat. Not bad, actually. Very wholesome.
I’ve officially had the most embarrassing moment to date on our trip and, unfortunately, it involved an impressionable English boy. Whoops!
Devon and I had the day off yesterday and we had a wonderful 8 mile walk through mid Devon county. While on the walk, we passed many beautiful fields with sheep, cows and goats as we meandered through the narrow, winding streets lined with hedges almost as tall as I. As you walk along the streets, you come across fields with animal grazing but no public toilets.
Now, anyone who knows me know that I drink a lot of water and therefore, need to go to the bathroom with frequency. Being on an extended walk without restrooms (or toilets as they’re called here) presented a challenge. And, once I couldn’t take it any longer I pulled aside on a beautiful, quiet road into a nearby field thinking to myself, “who would possibly pass by out here in the middle of no where?”
Once I was in position a few seconds pass and as I’m finishing, a young boy looking to be about 8 passes me on his bicycle riding alongside with his dog. Before he knew it, his innocent Sunday ride turned into an educational tour of how a woman pees in the wild. As he passes me his eyes pop out of his head, his jaw drops and he stops pedaling. Luckily the momentum of his bike continued him on his way past the field. Once I see him, I yell, “oh, excuse me.” He continues on his way with the image of my bottom seared into his memory.
The field where it all happened
Devon and I make eye contact. He gives me this look of, “oh yes, that just happened.” I burst out laughing until I have tears in my eyes. The look on that little boys face was priceless. Can you imagine, you’re barely learning how to read and you come across a woman peeing in the field? Now THAT’S an education.
I was hoping these guys would be my only witness
I was mortified enough that I put on the sweater wrapped around my waist in the hopes that it’d mask my real identity should we pass the boy again. It was more for my comfort than anything though because how many people walk the streets of Devon? Sigh. I guess this does prove that Americans are less civilized than the British.
Just a quick post to confirm that we made it to Devon County and the farm. We’ll update with details on the food and our first day of HelpX-ing soon. Until then, here is a photo of a three-day-old goat.
