Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving 2011…São Paulo style


Written to Philosopher's Stone by Van Morrison

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.
- William Faulkner

We celebrated Thanksgiving, São Paulo style, together with Jeff and Suzanna, the driving organizational force behind the event, and 6 of their friends, and Urd, a Danish family friend who has been staying at Fazenda Alfheim for the past couple of weeks, at Lola Bistrot & Baràvin in Vila Madalena. Indubitably the most Thanksgiving of all the Thanksgivings I have experienced. The table was exquisitely decorated and the menu was, in a word, sumptuous:

Entrada


Entrée Principal


Dessert


As tradition dictates, we ate until our farewell hugs had to be administered with a certain disciplined  cuidado.

The week before arriving in São Paulo for the aforementioned Thanksgiving celebration, Lone and Urd headed to Parati, where they spent time with Marina Carvalho, our first volunteer. In addition to a wonderful boat trip, the ladies engaged in some serious mud bathing.

During her stay at Alfheim, Urd shared her abundant cake baking gifts. She is a true artist. Yummy!

While it may appear that things have been quiet back at our little slice of paradise, a great deal of projects have either recently been completed or are well under way:

  • Clair widened the path to the bees so that the tractor can pass (helpful for transporting many heavy bee boxes full of golden honey)
  • We hired our neighbor, João Jipe (Jeep), the latter a nickname derived from the aging Toyota Bandeirante (aka Land Cruiser) that he drives, for nine months to help us with a series of construction projects, beginning with the repair of our cast iron stove's chimney and including but not limited to a new maternity ward for the piggies. It is indeed a pleasure and a privilege to enjoy the services of a truly capable håndværker, though managing the inevitable combustion between Clair's laborer's work ethic and João's careful artisan profile will be challenging.
  • We received a visit from our veterinarian, Ana Maria Paredes, to vaccinate the cattle, treat Mausolus' nasty sore, sterilize our two cats and check whether any of the heifers are pregnant (they're not)
  • We also received a beautiful Santa Gertrudis heifer, an overly generous gift from our kind-hearted lawyer/cowboy friend Márcio Magano. If we can figure out why (more or less) suddenly none of our cattle are getting pregnant, we will (more or less) soon be producing one beef calf per year in addition to copious quantities of delicious Jersey milk

Finally, a couple of items -running the gamut from revolutionary to spellbinding to tragic to hilarious- worth sharing:

  • The Japanese company Blest has developed one of the smallest and safest oil-to-plastic conversion machines out on the market today. It's founder and CEO, Akinori Ito is passionate about using this machine to change the way people around the world think about their plastic trash. From solving our landfill and garbage disposal issues to reducing our oil dependency on the Middle East, his machine may one day be in every household across Japan. Going to see if I can't purchase one of these machines.
  • "If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. -- and gives two breathtaking performances of "B" and "Hiroshima."
  • More than 38 million Americans — one in eight — now receive food stamps, a record high.
  • Best Door to Door Salesman in The World! Aspiring Comedian Kenny Brooks

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

60 liters of pure, caramel hony/hunig/honig/hunang/knēkós



But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.
- William Shakespeare

Lone arrived from Denmark on Friday, October 28, after 18 days of relaxing with her family…and most of ours. An altogether positive experience.

Adding to the positiveness of Lone's arrival, we had scheduled a visit from Jeff and Suzanna, aka the Jones. Unfortunately, as they are now gainfully employed, we could not leave São Paulo until well past nightfall, though that did result in our enjoying a delicious, fully comped meal (it pays to have piglets to barter with restaurant owners) at Serafina, one of our favorite restaurants.

We arrived at Fazenda Alfheim at approx. 03:00, so we took it easy Saturday morning…particularly easy for my part. I crawled out of bed sometime after 11:00. Needless to say, Lone had been up for hours.

As compensation, I agreed to make lunch, a scrumptious leg of Márcio and Heather's lamb, roasted in a bed of chick peas, organic carrots, organic tom cherry tomatoes and organic squash, and bathed in a sauce of olive oil, garlic, fresh spices from our garden and lemon. It looked nearly as good going into the oven as it tasted after coming out. Very, very yummy!

Sunday was dedicated to our third honey harvest, with yours truly as head apprentice, again shepherded by our neighbor Izilda. Jeff manned up and donned a bee suit for the occasion and proved a great help.

In all, a very smooth process…three hours and we had stored seven very heavy boxes of honey for processing that same evening.

In between, Lone dropped Jeff and Suzanna off in Taubaté, where they caught a bus to São Paulo, and me off in S. L. do Paraitinga, where I sorted João severance pay. Alas, despite our many interventions, João's constant indebtedness finally overwhelmed him and he quit work at the end of September. Doubly unfortunate because in addition to being a terrific worker and a generally nice person, there is no rhyme or reason behind his decision. He will certainly earn less wherever he ends up, though at least his severance pay will keep the debt collectors from his door…for a while. A genuine shame.

Sunday evening at 18:00 Lone, Clair, Rosanna and I began processing a bronze/russet/sepia blend of winter honey. Taste: exquisite. While Lone and Rosanna bore the brunt of the work separating the wax in order to free the honey for the centrifuge, Clair and I manned the centrifuge. After a bit of experimenting, I learned that speed is second to technique in extracting the honey. Three hours, 60 liters and a great deal of fun later, we had completed the task, carefully closing up our liquid gold and the room to avoid swarming, bee bandits in search of the fruit of all of their labor.

On Monday Rosanna and I quickly bottled the honey…a rapid process that took less than 45 minutes. Lone was a bit cross with me for not removing the froth from the top of the honey, but after extensive tasting I determined that it was too yummy to waste, although she is certainly right in her assessment that some connoisseurs might not appreciate the visual effect. From my perspective, the rawer, the better.

In other fazenda news, the workers cleared the river banks of grass and weeds…wonderful…and long overdue.

Also, pasture 3, is bursting with a combination of sugar cane and napier. We will have no shortage of either by this time next year…more than enough to feed all of our cows, pigs and chickens.

Finally, an interesting article from the New York Times about A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute…well worth a read.