Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Out of the wild

Written to Innervisions by Stevie Wonder

Never mind about 1066 William the Conqueror, 1087 William the Second. Such things are not going to affect one's life ... but 1932 the Mars Bar and 1936 Maltesers and 1937 the Kit Kat - these dates are milestones in history and should be seared into the memory of every child in the country.
- Roald Dahl

Lone and the boys left Alfheim for São Paulo on Thursday morning, and I joined them in the world's third largest metropolis that same evening. The next day Lone surprised me with a box of chocolates from Chocolat Des Arts, a boutique in Vila Nova Conceição. Enclosed in the box was a veritable and overwhelming affluence for the senses. Observe the craftsmanship (1, 2, 3). And in case any of you are still wondering, the answer is unequivocal: yes, it tastes as good as it looks. Well worth the price, which is not for the feint of heart.

After a four-hour lunch on Friday, dominated almost entirely by a discussion of Alfheim present and future, Lone and I decided to swap our cogitations of the real world for those of the imaginary, moving forward our plans to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by a day. Esben, Pelle and Brian joined us for what proved to be a most enjoyable cinematic experience. Like the books, each film has improved appreciably in almost every respect. We are even warming to Michael Gambon's portrayal of Professor Albus Dumbledore -after the almost impossibly high bar set by the late, great Richard Harris.

Following two hours in the dark, we reentered the Muggle world and dined as planned at Fogo de Chão (fo-go dèe shoun), where we celebrated Brian's 20th birthday. As always the food was exceptional. That said the price has risen considerably in the three-plus years since our last visit. Assuming Brian is a reasonable proxy for Johannes appetite-wise, a not altogether absurd jumping off point in spite of the difficulty of imagining a world in which there are two bipeds not named Michael Phelps who can consume 12,000 calories per day, the final bill was approx. 75% higher than I remember. On the other hand, there is simply no place like it in Brazil or abroad -except, of course, at one of the 16 locations in US.

Given the inclement nature of the weekend weather in São Paulo, we decided to continue our cinematic odyssey on Saturday and see Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. The Hollywood Reporter summed it up well when it opined: A missed opportunity to make gangster picture with flesh-and-blood characters.

In scouring for movie reviews, I discovered a fun website called Rotten Tomatoes. The site uses a simple methodology in which users categorize each film as either Fresh or Rotten, resulting in a summary score tongue-and-cheekily called the Tomatometer. In the case of Public Enemies, the Tomatometer was 66%. By comparison, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince earned a Tomatometer of 83%. The weekend's third film, Slumdog Millionaire, which Lone and I watched on Sunday on my Macbook after I rented it from the iTunes Store, achieved a Tomatometer of 94%. In all cases, the Tomatometers were consistent with my own opinion of each film.

Back at Alfheim, construction on the new house raced ahead in spite of the weather; Marcos and his crew were limited to only three days of work because of the rain.

Finally, Lone and I returned to Alfheim on Sunday to receive M.V.Ms.Sc. Leslie Almeida, the homeopathic veterinarian, who we had asked to visit so she could examine the sick heifer. Her diagnosis: pneumonia. She prescribed a treatment consisting of Silicea terra and Ferrum metallicum. While on the premises, she also examined a piglet which appears to have suffered a concussion, probably from being kicked in the head by one of the larger hogs. For this she prescribed Nux vomica. And for all of the animals, from cats to cattle, Sulphur 30CH once a month to strengthen their immune systems, particularly against all types of parasites.

Monday, July 20, 2009

2 beds, 1 bath

Written to You Were Here by Sarah Harmer

Everyone has a photographic memory… some just don’t have film.
- Steven Wright

A number of readers wrote last week and inquired about the end use for the new house at Fazenda Alfheim. The short answer is that it is being built to house a new family of workers who we hope to hire in the next several weeks. In brief, we need more help; there is so much work still to do.

When complete, the house will comprise a large outdoor patio and service area, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms -and spectacular views of Hogwood and beyond.

In animal news, Chiquina is bigger, better and hungrier than ever. She is without question the most rambunctious of all of the piglets. A real marvel.

The ill heifer continues to struggle, but on Sunday she showed some signs of life and was eating well. We continue to treat her with a variety of homeopathic remedies, principally a cream consisting of calendula or pot marigold (for clsoing open sores), zinc oxide (a disinfectant) and citronella (an insect repellent). We clean her sores with water and coconut soap, apply iodine and then the aforementioned cream. 7-9-13.

Even though the fencers have yet to start work, the remaining cattle inaugurated pasture 7 on a misty, cold Sunday.

Negão is currently serving time after attacking a piglet, which, thanks to Pelle's quick reaction, we were able to save. He is allowed out of solitary during the day, as long as he is accompanied by the guards. Fortunately, the piglet, seen here after being treated by Esben, does not look worse for the wear.

In between moving fence posts (Brian and Pelle) and cooking for the workers and washing up (Esben), the boys have managed to relax, even traveling to the beach in Ubatuba a second time.

This week's fauna is a three-way tie among members of the order Lepidoptera (1, 2, 3).

Finally, we will all be heading to São Paulo on Thursday for an extended weekend of visiting friends, dining at a couple of our favorite restaurants, Fogo de Chão (fo-go dèe shoun), Galeria dos Pães and Ofner, and watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which set a worldwide box-office record for its opening week, grossing nearly $400 million U.S. dollars in the five days since its release. Lone and I also have plans to enjoy a massage at Amanary, the spa at the Grand Hyatt São Paulo. Life is pretty good!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

A perfect house

Written to The Best of by Radiohead

His house was perfect whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley.
- J.R.R. Tolkien

Construction of the new house picked up steam this week. Marcos placed the initial order for building materials and 48 hours later the material was delivered -a day after the delivery of 5 m3 of road paving material. The fact that Marcos & Co. paved the driveway and built a storage shed prior to commencing construction helped immeasurably. As a result, Marcos, his father and their new companheiro were able to accelerate their progress tangibly. In truth, Marcos was relieved to get started. It took us several weeks to choose the location for the new house...much longer than anticipated. Prior to this job, all other construction projects at Alfheim have involved improvements to or extensions of existing buildings. Lastly, construction is synonymous with the moving of cinder blocks, and here Pelle and his friend, Freddy, pitched in in a big way.

Progress on Hogwood also moved ahead rapidly. The four pens should be completed in the first half of this week. When complete, Hogwood will comprise an initial holding area, a large area for the boar(s) and the breeding sows, a feeding area which we can enter unencumbered by the descendants of Sus scrofa and a finishing area. Until we discover the holy grail of safe hog birthing, we will breed smaller numbers at a time...and continue with our open-air approach, which sustained its 100% success rate. The eight newly-christened Corinthians (for their coloring) returned to the hog pen...as did all but one gilt, who mysteriously disappeared. She seems to have escaped from the hog pen, and no one has been able to figure out how. Hopefully she will turn up in the next week or two with a litter of healthy piglets in tow. The open air approach involves releasing the pregnant gilt/sow from the hog pen just before she bursts, her finding a suitable birthing locale and building a nest, the birth itself, four-eight days of nursing and her returning to the main hog pen when the piglets are sufficiently hardened.

And speaking of hardened, Chiquina continues to amaze. Her daily intake has been reduced to two times two bottles of milk, supplemented with organic corn, which we keep in the laundry room, close to the kitchen door, where she arrives like clockwork twice daily for feeding. Muninn is keen to play with Chiquina, who except when crawling on him when he is lying down, shows little interest in canine companionship.

Somewhat less hardy were the boys, who after an initial spurt of activity curtailed their workload considerably: Esben hurt his knee so he was relegated to kitchen detail...Martha Stewart beware, Pelle and Freddy relaxed by playing Dungeons & Dragons and Brian got in touch with his inner seamstress.

Less hardy still is one of our heifers, which has become very weak and has been lying down a lot. We lost a heifer a couple of weeks back after it suffered from similar symptoms. Unfortunately, we basically have no clue as to what happened, though our lack of solid data has done little to diminish the speculation among our workers, which is rampant and ranges from poor pastures to poisonous plants. Márcio, who certainly knows cattle, visited us for lunch on Sunday and was kind enough to take a look at the heifer in question, but his conclusion was equally inconclusive. On Monday Lone called M.V.Ms.Sc. Leslie Almeida, our homeopathic veterinarian, and she recommended isolating the animal and supplementing its grazing with napié, a species of of tall perennial grass, and organic corn.

Ironically, the various problems with the hogs, e.g. miíases, and cattle, e.g. malaise, have strengthened my belief in biodynamics. The reason for my buttressed conviction is that we see the impact of the forces that regulate life and growth on a daily basis -and the importance of taking a unified approach to agriculture. For example, while all of our caipim limão is healthy, the plants that are local to our property suffer no rust whatsoever. The Duroc hogs are infinitely more robust than the F1, a cross between Large White and Landrace; the Durocs have never suffered from miíase, while they are common in the F1. Also, the darker, thicker-haired Duroc do not suffer from sunburn. Our future hog breeding stock will be chosen exclusively from the red-orange and black piglets.

In the case of the Nelore, a breed known for its hardiness, I am convinced that our herd will improve as the cattle acclimatize to our pastures -and we improve the soil- and through selective breeding.

Finally, Lone and Esben, bad knee and all, completed measuring and marking pasture 7 (404 fence posts required, approx. 6.3 hectares), so the boys have their marching orders for the week.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Here an oink. There an oink. Everywhere an oink oink.

Written to Let's Stay Together by Al Green

The best way out is always through.
- Robert Frost

7-9-13 it seems as though our new birthing strategy is working. Since we began releasing the expectant gilts into the wild, so to speak, we have experienced a 100% success rate. As noted in last week's blog post, The sons of his seed and his blood, gilt 8 gave birth to seven piglets, and now gilt 9 has given birth to 12, gilt 10 to 11 and gilt 11 to eight piglets...bringing our haul thus far to 60 piglets! And there are still nine gilts who have yet to give birth. That said there are a couple of these remaining gilts that do not appear to be pregnant. Nevertheless, if this pattern continues, we should handily reach our goal of producing 60 producer gilts, who in turn should produce somewhere just north of 1,000 piglets a year, allowing us to cull the grandparents to a manageable four sows and one boar.

In a related development, the weekday fencers have almost completed fencing the new hog pen, henceforth dubbed Hogwood. Compared to Hog Haven, Hogwood is an exclusive, gated community. The flora is rich and diverse...the views stunning.

Other milestones reached this week:
  • Lone produced Alfheim's first butter, from milk which we purchase from Rosana's father for R$1.00 (€0.37 or $0.51) per liter, which is a win for him (wholesale price: R$0.60 or €0.22 or $0.31) and for us (retail price: R$1.50 per liter or €0.55 or $0.77). Lone is also producing yogurt.
  • Alfheim has its first, very own, homegrown duckling, proudly displayed here with her mother, Sandra. Officially, this would make Sandra, Lone's good friend from New York and Sandra's namesake, a godmother.
  • Esben, Brian and Pelle arrived to much joy, celebration -and a little goofiness.
  • We broke ground on the new house...and it will be spectacular. It's location is the result of the accidental discovery of a spring, a spectacular spring, which forced us to change the planned route of Hogwood's fencing to accommodate the strict environmental legislation. In brief, all animals and buildings must be offset 30 meters from any source of running water and respect a 50 meters diameter from any spring.
  • The black and white-spotted hen is the proud mother of 19 chicks! That's right...19 chicks!
Otherwise, the week went with the moving of fence posts. The boys have a daily quota of 90 fence posts, and to satisfy my big sister, Paula, who has raised completely unsubstantiated suspicions about my self-proclaimed work exploits, I joined in the fun -even doffing my broad-rimmed hat so that she could see the photo was, in fact, of me. Brian and I did our quota on foot, while Esben and Pelle utilized horsepower.

The boys also harvested mandioca from the far field that I recently bought back from Paulo, the owner of one of the two markets in Vargem Grande. Paulo had been renting the land from me for the past year. Amazingly, Chiquina, who now shows up unprovoked at our kitchen door a couple of times a day for feeding, followed the boys all the way to the far mandioca field and back, a round trip of approx. six kilometers. Pretty awesome for such a tiny creature.

Finally, Esben brought us a collection of essentials from UK: 20 pairs of work gloves, a Recta DT 420 Global System compass (most compasses work in either the northern or southern hemisphere), more One Earth Emergency Wind Up Lights, a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx handheld GPS device, lots and lots of Green & Black's organic chocolate, an engraved Leatherman and these very hip his & her t-shirts.