A day in the life a half year on...

Written to Hello Love by Be Good Tanyas

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

- Will Rogers

Slowly but surely we are coming to grips with the additional labor resources we have had at our disposal since October (Dirlei) and January (João), respectively. Since January, we have had four full-time employees. As I noted in a recent blog post, this has ratcheted up significantly the speed at which we can complete work -by an order of magnitude, actually. It has also required us to rethink how we use our own time. The result of this rethink is that Lone divides her day as follows:

• 05:30 - 07:00: yoga, meditation and breakfast
• 07:00 - 09:30: farm work
• 09:30 - 10:00: break
• 10:00 - 12:30: office hours, e.g. paperwork, phone calls, e-mails
• 12:30 - 13:30: lunch
• 13:30 - 16:30: farm work

While my day shapes up as follows:

• 06:00 - 07:00: pilates and farm work
• 07:00 - 09:30: exercise the dogs (aka me pretending to be Cesar Millan), breakfast (while watching ESPN SportsCenter) and office hours
• 09:30 - 10:00: break
• 10:00 - 12:30: farm work
• 12:30 - 13:30: lunch
• 13:30 - 16:30: farm work

Typically, we meet with the workers every morning at 07:00 to discuss the day's activities, and again at 16:30 to wrap up.

Lone works with Rosana much of the time, and this contact is invaluable.

I generally work alone from 10:00 to 12:30, which includes feeding the hogs, and then with either Clair, Dirlei or João from 13:30 to 16:30. This gives me a chance to spend some quality time with each of the men. Beginning next week, Rosana and her potent powers of observation will be joining me for the midday hog feeding.

In addition, there are a number of activities, such as slaughtering and treating the hogs for miíase or berne, that require a team effort. On those occasions, we all pitch in.

Thus far, everyone seems to work well together, and each one of our employees brings something complementary to the table that enhances Alfheim. Clair brings a joy to his work which is contagious. He sings from morning to early evening: A estrada longa que é a vida. Rosana is the brains of the operation: she sees all, knows all and her intuition is True North. Dirlei is exceedingly calm and knows a great deal about both animals and the maintenance of everything from chain saws to tractors (he also has a great deal of experience driving a tractor, something that proved most useful a couple of weeks back when I managed to get my Lego tractor stuck in the mud). João is simply a machine. If Clair is a cross between Paul Bunyon and John Henry, then João is a cross between the Hulk and Iron Man. He simply does not tire. Even Rosana expressed concern that he works too hard, not a reaction one would normally expect from her.

In other farm news, the ducks have taken to our recently-cleared lake, and we purchased 36 bee hives, enough to produce approx. 720 kg of honey per year, and assorted equipment from Januara, until recently, when she moved to Taubaté with her husband, a neighbor from down the road.

The purchase of the bee hives is integral to our goal of testing all of the farm's business models prior to Esben's arrival in July. Thus far, we have successfully tested the production and sale of organic piglets. Milk, a guaranteed sale to the local Associação in Vargem Grande, is next (April), followed by pasture-raised broilers (May), which we hope to sell locally for R$9.00 (€3.51 or $4.86) live and finally honey (?). We have two Danish visitors, Sandra and Anella, who will spend May cleaning and preparing the bee hives, so hopefully we will bee operationally sometime in June.

Finally, we visited São Luiz do Paraitinga this morning to place an order at Depósito Cursino, our local DYI. Both Lone and I were struck by how much the town had recovered since our last visit with Dennis and Anne in late January. All of the debris and mud have been removed from the streets, many shops are operating at 100% and people everywhere are busy repairing and painting their houses and businesses. When evaluating their progress, it is critical to remember that the Paraitinga River rose eight to ten meters in the town center; everything was submerged. The owners of Depósito Cursino found a freezer full of ice cream on their roof (interesting side note: the owner still has not come forward)! When I compare these developments with those in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, which almost five years on is still mostly empty, devoid of schools, businesses, even people, the contrast is shocking. Without a doubt any number of caveats can be applied to such a comparison. Nonetheless, it is arresting to consider that Brazil might actually be better equipped to deal with a natural disaster of magnitude than the world's richest country.