Sevilla felt like storybook Spain. The streets are lined with orange trees. Strangers are friends. And, the city smells good – a mix of citrus blossoms, sunshine and sangria. If I could bottle the scent and take it with me, I would. Victoria and I arrived on Tuesday evening and found Sevilla bustling. This week … Continue reading
My last few days on the finca were spent zincing in the morning and cooking in the evening. Zincing consists of walking the terraces of avocado trees and sprinkling zinc on the roots of any tree with round leaves. The leaves appear round when the soil lacks zinc. Round leaves result in round avocadoes and … Continue reading
Here on the farm, teatime comes around 11am and it’s called SmoCo, short for “Smoke and Coffee.” No one smokes during SmoCo and only some of us drink coffee, but an ex-WWOOFer named Maria from Australia introduced the term and it stuck. SmoCo makes me happy for a few reasons: It divides our work day … Continue reading
It rained more this past week than it has the entire time I’ve been in Spain. This is to say, it rained three days in a row and the sun still managed to peek through the churning clouds intermittently. April showers bring May flowers…and a healthy Easter garden, I hope. The rain seemed to have … Continue reading
In sixth grade, I was Mary Poppins in the school play. One of my lines during the tidying of the nursery scene was, “You find the fun and spit spot…the job’s a game!” At that same time, my very favorite movie was National Velvet, a British film about a horse named Pie starring Elisabeth Taylor … Continue reading
There’s a large pile of horse manure not far from the stable. I learned how to drive the tractor so I could reverse the back end into the pile of dung and cart it off to our newly cleared plot of earth that is now our Easter garden. It’s surprisingly fulfilling work. The tractor moves … Continue reading
The theme of my trip has been, “Why not?” When opportunities arise, I take them. “Por que no?” This attitude has served me splendidly thus far. I don’t see why I can’t continue to live this way for the rest of my life until I’m “stiffy”, as Olivia would say. Olivia and Chris Littler … Continue reading
