A video tour of Fazenda Alfheim

Written to Philosopher's Stone by Van Morrison

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose."

- Dr. Seuss

Esben recently completed directing his second, much improved, video of life at Fazenda Alfheim, with me playing the role of Executive Producer, editing the video on my MacBook using iMovies, very intuitive and powerful software. The results of our artistic collaboration can be seen here.

Other noteworthy farm news:

• Our hen (female turkey) successfully brooded two duck eggs. It sounds complicated, and it was, but the results are delightful. The ridiculously cute pair are holed up in a plastic tub in our kitchen and doing splendidly.
• Our first Topigs' gilt gave birth, officially making her a sow, to seven healthy, pink piglets.
• Megan, our first WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms WOOF) volunteer, arrived at Fazenda Alfheim on Saturday, July 24th, and immediately rolled up her sleeves and lent a hand with all types of farm work: from counting fence posts to treating piglets to herding hogs to slaughtering...and we could not be more pleased with her work…she is a real asset.

Finally, a massive thanks to Ralph Wehrle, a regular reader of the blog and President of the Advisory Board of Axial, for sending us this inspiring video of a large-scale, free-range hog production in Brazil. A lot of similarities to what we are doing at Fazenda Alfheim…and clearly a lot we can learn, too.

Also worth watching: Chocolate: The Bitter Truth, by BBC Panorama reporter, Paul Kenyon, an investigation into the supply chain that delivers much of the chocolate sold in the UK.