Thursday, March 10, 2011

Bees in my Bonnet


There is no fire like passion
No crime like hatred,
No sorrow like separation,
No sickness like hunger,
And no joy like the joy of freedom.
- Buddha

Where to begin…a lot has transpired in the past couple of weeks. We have had a myriad of visits, by Jeff and Suzanna on a couple of occasions, once with their friends, Patty and her younger brother Jonathan, and again to help with the honey harvest, and also from Márcio and Heather.

Nonetheless, it probably makes sense to start with our stomachs, which have been treated to a series of delights from our very own chef-in-residence, Jamie, Paxton, not Oliver, though the latter has nothing on the former. Jamie is nothing short of brilliant. We have consumed a figurative ton of our own piglets and chickens recently...very yummy! And best of all, Jamie's culinary skills run the gamut from entrees to main courses to deserts.

Not wanting to keep Jamie locked in the kitchen all of the time (actually, we did, but our better judgement got the better of us), Esben and the volunteers spent a day at the modestly well-known Carnaval in São Luiz do Paraitinga, where they met up with Jeff and Suzanna. That there even was a Carnaval 2011 in São Luiz do Paraitinga is remarkable when one remembers that it was only slightly more than a year ago in January 2010 that the town was devastated by floods. Amazing! A testament to the great leadership and management of the town's all-female cadre of executive civil servants.

In spite of all of the festivities, we have actually made a fair amount of progress with our farming. Esben has been working hard with the team, and although at times it can seem like one step forward and two back, the fact of the matter is we are really getting close to breaking through. We will be selling our first chickens this week…at R$30.00 (€13.10 or $18.08) a pop! On average, the chickens weigh between 1.4 - 1.8 kg cleaned. To put this in perspective, if we sell 20 chickens per week, we will generate enough revenue to cover nearly all of our workers' salaries, or pay for two-thirds of the organic corn we still purchase from third parties. Add in the revenue from a handful of piglets, which are always in demand and typically cost R$180.00 (€78.59 or $108.47) per head, and we are getting close to operational break-even. Most importantly in this regard, our piglet production is showing signs of reaching the tipping point: we are currently fattening up close to 50 piglets and have 12 pregnant sows in the queue.

No doubt we still have a ways to go, but a bit of shoulder slapping is also in order.

Before that can happen in completely good conscious though, we have to see if we can't cure what ails Noel, the youngest of our calves. She is beautiful but also weak. Diagnosis undetermined at this point, despite a great deal of back and forth with the vet.

We also have to avoid mistakes like the one we made during our recent honey harvest: we forgot to close the boxes after retrieving the honey, and the bees took back approx. 75% of the harvest. Chalk this up as the kind of mistake one only makes once. Pretty sure no one at Fazenda Alfheim will be forgetting this lesson anytime soon. The good news: we still managed to harvest approx. 20 kg. of Lone's amber-hued raw, organic honey. Can't wait to taste it.

For my part, I learned that my zen approach to bee-human co-existence only works with bees that are not pissed off because their honey is being stolen. Needless to say, I learned this the hard way. On Saturday, I was on my way to my favorite watering hole for a cool dip when Esben was passing by with a bee box full of honey (and bees). In his defense, he did warn me to leave, but being __________ (fill in the blank) I thought I would slip by unnoticed by remaining calm while Esben passed by a few meters away. Big mistake! Not able to take their aggression out on the protective-suited Esben, the bees turned their attention to me, first attacking my head, then my ears, then my neck. Despite the frenzy, I managed to remain pretty calm and decided to head for the water, an emergency plan that I had cooked up when we first acquired bees. As I made a break for the stream, I fell into an overgrown ant hole that Clair and I dug out during our first year at Fazenda Alfheim. Thankfully there were no ants inside (and even more thankfully I didn't break my leg), but considering that the hole is more than a meter deep, it took me more time than the bees needed to intensify their brutalizing of yours truly to climb out and continue towards destination agua. When I finally reached the stream, still accompanied by a swarm of now festering, seemingly insatiably angry bees, I dived straight into the water, believing, falsely it would turn out, that my misery would subside as my head submerged. Not so. The bees simply waited until I came up for air to continue their vengeful attack. Again and again I dipped under, only to find them waiting for me each time I came up for air. Inglorious bastards! After five-six deep dives, I finally decided that I would have to make a run for the house, and that I did, first tying my wet towel around my head. During my dash to safety, I am pretty certain I resembled something akin to the best cartoon characters from Disney's Golden Age of Feature Animation. Long story short, I made it to safety, drank a boatload of water, took a couple of 6 mg antihistamines, rested quietly for the remainder of the day and was basically myself by the end of the day. Remarkable...and good to know that I am not allergic to bees…though this, too, is a lesson I will not soon forget.

And finally, I would like to pay tribute to my lovely Hobbit Lone, who has mastered a myriad of new skills over the past year plus that it is worth taking a moment to recap. After less than 18 months at Fazenda Alfheim, Lone has learned how to (in no particular order):
This partial list amounts to adding a completely new skill to her repertoire every six to eight weeks….remarkable! So while I am tempted to quip that this only proves that you can teach an old Hobbit new tricks, I will close instead by saluting Frankie Four Fingers from Fazenda Alfheim.