Christmas 2008 & New Year 2009 continued...

Written to Public Enemy: Universal Masters Collection [IMPORT]

New Year's Day--Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.
- Mark Twain, Letter to Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 1863

It has indeed been a busy holiday. It took the Organizator a little more than 72 hours to dispense with a half container worth of boxes and bring order out of chaos. In fact, despite receiving our furniture late on Friday, December 19th, we were ready to receive guests, Leonardo da Cunha Pinheiro and his family (wife, daughter and mother), on Christmas day. To celebrate, Lone set a lovely table and I cooked dinner. Leonardo's wife, Tamora, brought an INCREDIBLY tasty turkey and a number of other dishes, and together we all spent a most enjoyable evening at Alfheim.

On Saturday, December 27th, I picked up Pelle, our youngest son (19 years old tomorrow, January 6th), from São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport. He was arriving from London via Washington, D.C. after completing his first semester at the University of Leicester, where he is studying Geography.

After a relaxing weekend, Clair, Pelle and I began the week by moving all 21 gilts to their new digs. An arduous undertaking. Unlike cattle or sheep, hogs do not herd easily. In fact, there is nothing easy about moving hogs. We tried every manner of leading, cajoling...you name it...all equally futile. In short, if a hog does not want to move, there is little one can do short of dragging it kicking and screaming to the disputed destination. And hogs can emit the most bone-chilling of screeches. To paraphrase Brick Top in Snatch, the sound goes through 'bone like butter'. From 07:30 to 16:30 we roped, lassoed, dragged, pushed, bullied, walked and even carried the gilts one by one to their new pen. The next day we were all very tired, people and hogs alike, but both factions recovered nicely after another 24 hours and the hogs seem to be enjoying their new, larger surroundings and expanded housing.

With the hogs gone, Lone's garden-to-be is now ready to be sowed -when we return from São Paulo later this week. In the meantime, the chickens have been enjoying their own holiday treat, feasting on whatever insects and larvae that previously made their home in our makeshift hog pen.

After Monday's exertions, we decided to leave a day early for the beach. Most fortunately for us, our very good friends, John Tomizuka and Paula Zandomeni, had kindly invited us to spend New Year at their beach house in Maresias. After three and six months, respectively, in less than opulent conditions, Lone and I decided that a few days of holiday were warranted. Therefore, we packed up after lunch and departed Fazenda Alfheim on São Paulo state's most recently named road (Any similarities to real people or events, other than those specifically cited, are unintentional and are for purposes of illustration only).

Miraculously, we managed to arrive in Maresias -avoiding any significant holiday traffic- in just under three hours. The term “maresia” literally means “the strong sea-smell when the tide is out.” The term has acquired a slang meaning that refers to the pot smoke that is known to drift through certain public gatherings like rock concerts.

After a wonderful New Year's eve dinner, the core of which was a magnificent Red Snapper (fish is the only animal that does not move backward and so is a New Year's eve tradition in Paula's family), we celebrated the arrival of 2009 with 7 Waves and 7 Wishes. Both the weather and the company were perfect.

Besides jumping into the New Year, Lone and I decided to skip the otiose activity of making New Year's resolutions and concentrate instead on evaluating our progress towards meeting our fourth-quarter farm objectives. In sum, we did pretty well. We managed to complete all of the pending construction tasks from the Q4 and establish the core of our future hog production. We also managed to fence the first two pastures and are, therefore, ready to purchase both cattle and sheep. And finally, after moving the gilts, Lone's garden is ready to be sowed. I expect that we will have wholly ticked off these objectives by the end of January.

In parallel, we worked through our Q1 2009 farm objectives:

• Animals: Breed all 20 gilts (and Miss Massey) with Duroc boars.
• Plants: Sow the first two-three hectares of medicinal herbs, probably citronella.
• Administration: Schedule first visit from Instituto Biodinâmico (Biodynamic Institute - IBD) to formally commence the process of organic certification, establish basic accounting processes for Fazenda Alfheim Ltda., hire one additional farm laborer and identify a slaughterhouse to partner with for organic slaughter activities.
• Beautification: Landscape the gardens around both houses.
• Complete our few pending objectives from Q4 2008.
  

Based on progress from the first two quarters, it appears that a four-month planning cycle might be more appropriate than a quarterly, though we will wait to collect more data before making any changes. TTT: Things Take Time and/or Too early To Tell.

Just as I was putting this draft blog entry to bed on Sunday evening, Clair and Rosana returned to Alfheim and informed us that a day earlier Clair had been bitten by a snake while working at their sitio near Vargem Grande. Being Clair, he, of course, managed to kill the snake that bit him and thus could take it with him to the hospital in São Luiz do Paraitinga. Without doubt this reptilian evidence aided the doctors immeasurably in determining the precise anti-venom to administer. Nonetheless, they kept him overnight for observation, but other than a swollen right foot it thankfully appears that he will make a swift recovery (note to self: NEVER work outdoors without boots or Wellington boots).

That same night, our electricity went out. After an hour or two we called Elektro and inquired as to whether the outage was local or specific to Alfheim. We were informed that it was not local, and that we should wait for Customer Service to contact us. To our surprise, our phone rang within the hour and the rep inquired about directions to Alfheim. Even more astonishing, she informed us that they would be sending a truck out shortly -at approx. 23:00 on Sunday evening! And indeed, two very helpful service reps showed up and fixed the problem. Now that's customer service!

Finally, we are constantly amazed at the variety of flora and fauna we encounter on an almost daily basis at Fazenda Alfheim. One can only marvel at the latest and most spectacular example (hint: it's a moth not a butterfly).