Sunday is the day of rest, not on the farm though and certainly not in the tourism world. It was, however, a more relaxed day of work today and everything was moving a little bit slower today.
In the morning, I was supposed to go and clean up the cerdero (pig pen) but I think Tigre had already beat me to it and cleaned everything up. There was a little bit of shoveling and hosing down to be done so I went in cautiously and did what had to be done.
Having never eaten pig, I’ve always had this aversion to anything related to pigs. Being in the pen, hearing the pigs make sounds, moving around in the pens coming closer to me felt kind of scary. It’s like a feeling of mysteriousness and just not really knowing anything about pigs and their behavior. I didn’t even have any food, but they were all crowding around the gate I had to open to come inside the pen to clean it, I was very cautious to say the least.
Once I was done here, I went into the lecheria to help Max clean up in there. This job went extremely fast with two people and I felt like we were able to finish it in less than half the time it takes one person to do the job. It felt good working as a team to accomplish something and the job was mentally much easier as well. The lecheria was looking spotless after we finished.
After this, Max and I went to clean up the goat pen. There is a layer of sawdust on the ground to absorb the feces and urine coming out of the goats so it doesn’t have to be cleaned as much. Max was shoveling up all of the poop, leaving the sawdust in tact and I was filling it into the wheelbarrow and dropping it into the compost pile. We had a wonderful conversation talking about our respective stories, our passions and how we see the world. It’s so great to be able to connect with people on a deeper level and be engulfed into this community with shared values. Even more refreshing is the fact that it’s not just a discussion or something to talk about, we’re all here doing something about it, learning and charting a path for a different way of living.
After lunch, I went into the huerta, picked some tomatoes for the kitchen and did some weeding while having another enlivening conversation with Fred. He taught me about permaculture and showed me examples of it in the huerta and we talked about different projects that each of us has done, how we came to be at Rancho Margot and where we hope to go from here. Since I’ve been having this idea of a sustainable tourism ecosystem, I’ve struggled with finding the right words to describe this idea, now I understand what I’ve been thinking about is permaculture.
Before I came here, I thought I was just coming here to learn about the system and better understand how everything works here. I never really even thought about the community I would find here and the connections I would make and it’s barely even been a week yet. This is exactly the experience I need to have right now, I feel blessed to be here.