Life on the Farm - Week 2

Hello everyone!

We now have two weeks at the farm under our belt and consider ourselves wiley veterans! We are now experts at scooping animal poop into buckets!

Marsh shoveling cow poop!

Shaina shoveling pig poop!

Marsh carrying the grass to feed the cows and horses

But seriously, we have settled into the routine of the farm and we are generally enjoying the work. Aside from our daily chores (poop scooping & feeding the animals) and garden work (weeding, planting, watering, hoeing, etc) this week we helped out with various construction projects on the farm. We helped build bamboo furniture, repair one of the farm’s fences, and Marsh helped with some cementing work while Shaina helped replace the roof over the pig pens!

Most of the people at the farm (volunteers and people taking a course in permaculture) finished their stay on Friday, so next week at the farm will be a lot quieter. We will be two of only three volunteers still on the farm so our workload will be going up! In addition to the farm work we are getting involved at the local school starting this week. Shaina will be teaching English for 2 hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, while Marsh will be doing afternoon activities with the kids (phys ed and the like) on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons!

Other notables from the farm last week were:

1) One of the pigs had babies! She started giving birth Saturday morning just before we left for this weekend. There were 3 piglets when we left but there will likely be as many as 16 when we return! A second mom was due any minute as well.

2) We saw a huge spider just outside our room! (luckily it didn't venture inside!)

3) We got to eat some of the chickens for dinner one night (population control never tasted so good!).

This weekend we enjoyed our time off. Shaina went on a candy/chocolate/milk shake binge and Marsh got a haircut in town and it cost a whopping $2.50.

Today (Sunday) we will relax on the beach, do some lesson planning, and maybe some surfing before heading back to the farm for week #3 of 4.

Hope everyone at home is doing well and we will check in again next weekend!

Having fun and dreaming of Burlington Ribfest,

Love Marsh & Shaina