October 20 - 26, 2008

We spent six days in São Paulo this week, from Saturday to Thursday. In two words: too many. By Tuesday, Lone was beginning to exhibit all of the classic, early indicators of megalopolis-itis, aka urban-itis. By Thursday her symptoms were undeniable, and we decided to return home after BioFach and dinner at our good friend Leonardo's house in Jundiaí.

That we traveled to São Paulo on Saturday in the first place was, in fact, my doing. I was convinced that I had badly sprained or more likely broken my left foot and wanted to visit an emergency room. I was convinced of this because I was experiencing increasing pain with each step, and the foot itself had swollen significantly. Long story short: after a lengthy visit to Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, one of the country's leading hospitals, both my x-rays and ultra-sound were pronounced negative. Instead the doctors diagnosed me as having 'some kind of infection', possibly caused by the anklet I received a week earlier courtesy of my old nemeses, the leafcutter ant minors.

BioFach on Thursday was remarkable. Lone and I had attended an earlier BioFach in Rio de Janeiro in 2003, and the difference was quantitatively and qualitatively marked across every parameter. I spent the entire day visiting as many of the exhibitors as possible. I came away with three principle observations:

1. The sheer number of exhibitors was tremendously encouraging and underscored the fact that organics is the fastest growing segment of international food and beverage markets (Brazil's annual growth rate is 30%).
   
2. The level of organization and professionalism among the exhibitors was very high.
3. The breadth of products was remarkable and, again, indicative of a robust segment. From coffee to clothing, jams and jellies, from fruit to fertilizers, from acaí to art to Amazonian products. Also, all levels of government, local, state and national, were active and seemed to be providing well-considered support.
   

While I roamed the trade show floor, Lone attended the conference, including sessions on Organic Market and Traceability, Sustainable Packaging and Cosmetic Market.

All in all, a most fruitful day.

When we returned to Alfheim after a four-hour drive from Leonardo's house in Jundiaí (note to self: in the future, accept Leonardo's gracious invitation to spend the night), we arrived to find that our key did open the lock on the front gate. It was at that moment I recalled that Manoel, from Mano's Moveis (Mano's Furniture) in São Luiz do Paraitinga, had mentioned something in an e-mail about his 'tomei a liberdade de abrir' (took the liberty of opening) our gate when he arrived unannounced on Saturday to deliver some furniture. But Manoel also assured me in a subsequent e-mail that he 'deixei em ordem' (left everything in order). Needless to say he did not. So at 02:30 or thereabouts, Lone put on her Wellington boots, I grabbed our trusty One Earth Emergency Wind Up Light and we climbed over the gate and walked the 0.8 km to our house, where we quickly fell fast asleep. On the plus side, Manoel did deliver a beautifully crafted king-sized bed (not that I mind sharing a single bed with my lovely wife, but she responds to my daily query about her previous night's sleep with the phrase 'I woke up a lot last night'), a kitchen table and a vitrine of sorts.

On Friday we awoke to find that in our absence Clair had carefully packed all of the surplus building material into the exterior, bamboo storage shed, cleared most of pasture #3 and was busy liming the exterior of his house, which either turned out very nicely or very blue, depending on whether you side with Clair, Roasana and me or Lone. Granted before leaving for São Paulo I had asked Clair to focus on these three tasks, but not in my wildest fantasies had I imagined that he would be able to clear such a large area of pasture in only three days! The before and after comparison of the cleared vs yet-to-be cleared pasture is very, very promising. In fact, the regrowth of the grass on all of the pastures, in particular the lower pastures -after we removed the 34 head of cattle that were squatting at Alfheim when Esben and I first arrived in early July- has been nothing short of stunning. Once fenced, and after we remove all of the Samambaia, which causes bloody urine and recurrent bladder infection in cattle, we will be able to implement a proper grazing rotation, with easy access to our very own Ent-draught, brewed from the waters of the mountain springs, allowing us, we hope, to produce approx. 20 organic vacas de corte or beef cattle and 20 bulls every 12-15 months. Annual revenue: approx. R$80,000 - 120,000 (€28,000-41,000 or $35,000 - 52,000).

BIG news: our very own soja perene has begun to sprout...after only two weeks!

On Saturday, breakfast began as it does most days with Lone's magical papaya (Carica papaya) and maracuja (Passiflora edulis or passion fruit) special, a trifecta of pleasure for the eyes, the nose and the palate...a spectacular way to start the day. This was followed by bacon and eggs. What made these particular eggs extra special was the fact that they were the very first from our own hens. Yes, at last our hens have s . l . o . w . l . y begun to lay eggs. All this while group harmony continues more or less unabated.

And finally, for those of you already planning a trek to Alfheim for your first (or second) visit, we have established the road marker to end all road markers. Whether you are coming from Rodoviário - Osvaldo Cruz through Vargem Grande (20 km of estrada de terra or dirt road) or Rodovia dos Tamoios through Posso Alto and Bairro Alto (41 km of estrada de terra or dirt road), you will now be able to find the entrance to our little patch of paradise with ease.

October 13 - 19, 2008

As per routine, we returned to Alfheim from São Paulo on Tuesday evening, in good time, or so we thought, for an early dinner. Unfortunately, somewhere just before or after Fazenda Hotel Santa Rita our rear left tire punctured (hint: never leave home without one of these). After driving slowly to flatter terrain, I changed the tire, much to the surprise of my loving wife of 22 years, who I sincerely believe was more than a little surprised that I actually knew how to change a tire. After a good 30 minutes, or, as Lone estimated, as long as it takes for the moon to rise and two cars and a motorcycle to pass us and offer us help, we were again heading home.

We had hoped to arrive home early enough to welcome Clair and his family to their new home, which they had moved into that same day. However, by the time we arrived at Alfheim, all of the the lights were out and they had gone to sleep. Fortunately, we had left a box of Green & Black's in their new refrigerator before leaving on Sunday.

When we awoke the next morning, we were somewhat tired and disoriented and could not quite understand how we had managed to sleep in for so long; Clair was already busy in the field planting soja perene, so we figured it must be well past 07:00...even though our mobile phone clocks indicated the time as being only slightly past 06:00. After throwing on some work clothes, I went and spoke with Clair, who informed me that he had decided to start early that morning because of the heat. It did not take me long before I understood what he was talking about; by 07:30 it was already 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 degrees Fahrenheit). As a result, we stopped for lunch at noon and only returned to work at approx. 14:00. Despite the heat, we managed to sow the entire front-of-house field with soja perene by week's end.

For her part, Lone finished clearing the remaining debris from her garden, which is now ready for the pigs and the hens to prepare the soil.

We spent all day Wednesday in São Luiz do Paraitinga buying supplies, including blue and green lime samples for Clair's house. Rosana, Clair's wife, was not entirely sold on red as an exterior house color, so I decided to leave the final decision to her. Despite much encouragement from their two sons, Dener and Kaoê, to select green, Rosana quickly settled on blue. When we return to Alfheim on Friday, I am certain that the exterior of their house will have been limed light blue.

While in São Luiz, I received a phone call from Eugenio, one of Telefônica's third-party service providers, with whom I have been playing phone and e-mail tag for a couple of weeks in order to schedule the final visit during which he would complete the installation of our fixed-wireless Linha Ruralcel. He jokingly asked me if I wanted to buy a phone, and I retorted that I was rather hoping he would install the one I had paid for, after which he laughed and told me that he was calling from our new home phone (+55 12 3677-8420)! Throughout this long process, Eugenio has consistently exceeded expectations...a real pleasure to experience firsthand that it is still possible to provide first-class, (outsourced) customer service. Lone and I celebrated our digital inclusion with lunch at my favorite local restaurant, where R$7.00 (€2.46 or $3.30) still buys you a fresh, green salad, rice and beans, grilled chicken and vegetables -three plates in all.

On the way home from São Luiz do Paraitinga, we stopped for a visit at a cattle and dairy farm run by Fernando, the son of our biodynamic consultant. There is simply no substitute for the real thing. In just over an hour, we learned more and garnered more useful contacts than we could have in a month on our own. Among other helpful hints, Fernando gave us the telephone numbers to a fence post factory in Cunha and to Chico the fencer. Chico and his partner are both more than 60 years old, but still capable of installing 200 meters of four-strand barbed-wire boundary fence per day. By calling the factory directly (from our new home phone, of course) I saved 23%, enough to pay for Chico to install all of the 600 fence posts I purchased from the factory. After securing the fence posts, I called Chico and he informed me that he has commitments for the next 15 days, but that he could come and have a look at the job on or around November 5th. It has been said that a good fence is 'Horse high, bull strong, and pig tight'...and it has also been said that such a fence is dearer than diamonds. In total, I estimate that it will cost us R$9,553 (€3,358 or $4,503) to fence seven pastures totaling approx. 20 hectares (49.4 acres).

Other big events this week included the addition of Clair's two chickens to our existing brood. As one of the two additions is a rooster, we were expecting the worst. Clair even prepared us by telling us that Rosana could slaughter the 'loser' of the rooster wars. Sure enough, the next morning William H. Macey sought out Redd Foxx in a classic dustup worthy of the 30-second shootout at the OK Corral in the movie Tombstone, with William, surprisingly, taking the fight to Redd just as the Earps did with the Cowboys. After a lot of posturing, leaping, dancing and a couple of lost feathers; however, William backed off...Redd's spurs are just too long. Ironically, though, William continues to manage his harem of four hens while Redd sticks to his monogamous lifestyle. The two machos now seem capable of co-existing -and even roost on the same bamboo stalk in the hen house at night. Once again order seems to have been restored among our growing menagerie.

Also, Lone product developed the most amazing Jabuticaba cordial. In all, Lone produced more than five liters of concentrate from a single bucket (3.3 liters) of Jabuticaba, which I picked last week.

Finally, we will be in São Paulo this entire week participating in BioFach América Latina, the 6th International Organic Trade Show and Conference.

October 6 - 12, 2008

We spent Monday and Tuesday in São Paulo, where the weather was rainy and, by Brazilian standards, genuinely cold. The rain followed us back to Alfheim late Tuesday night...and it continued to rain/drizzle almost non-stop through Friday, when at last the sun broke free from behind the thick blanket of dark-gray clouds and heavy mist to provide us with a respite and allow us to work outdoors. Prior to this we had spent all day Wednesday and Thursday liming the interior of the casa do caseiro white and painting the doorframes and windows a dark blue.

Having completed painting the interior of the casa do caseiro, it is now ready for Clair and his family to move into, which they will do on Tuesday. This is a significant milestone because it means that we can now move forward with the farm animals. Not surprisingly, until we were able to provide 24-7-365 cover, we could not begin the process of populating Alfheim with larger farm animals. In addition to 24-7-365 cover, these animals also require dogs to help herd and look after them. Fortunately, we have secured our first dog from our good friend Melissa, a lovely 16-month old black labrador named Layla, who will soon be joined by two Beauceron and two Rhodesian Ridgeback pups, all of whom will (eventually) watch over the pigs...hopefully keeping them out of harm's -and the onca's- way. While I am on the subject of pigs, I want to address a comment to last week's blog from the world's most curious orthopedic surgeon, and my very good friend, Tony Matan. Free-range pigs will not 'run away'. Provided you feed them every day at the same time you can quite literally whistle and they will come from wherever they have gotten off to and race back for chow -not unlike certain bipedal primates also known as teenage homosapiens, particular the males of the species. In sum, pigs are intelligent, social animals that form close bonds with their offspring and other pigs among their herd and seldom wander far from the group.

As to Tony's other question about isolation, thus far it has not been a problem. We typically spend two days a week in São Paulo, and farm life does not otherwise afford much time for idleness; a typical day has us up at 06:00, at work from 07:00 until approx. 17:00, with only a short coffee break at 10:30 and lunch at 12:30. After dinner and a little reading, we are typically in bed by 21:00. In the absence of TV (I am a self-admitted couch potato), I have managed to plow my way through a number of excellent books: Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, by John Grisham, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart, by Ian Ayres, and Blue Shoes and Happiness (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 7), by Alexander McCall Smith -as well as numerous Storey's Guides, of course. While these five books share little in common either stylistically or in terms of subject matter, they all deserve a read (IMHO).

Clair and I spent the rest of Friday planting 13 rows of soja perene or perennial soybean, our first crop (more accurately the pigs' first crop) in the field in front of our house; Clair dug the rows, which are approx. 100 meters long, while I sowed and covered them. This work requires the enchadão or hoe. On any given day over the past three months I could be found pushing as many as 40 75-kg wheelbarrows full of rubble a half a kilometer up the entry road to pave it, or carrying 50 25-liter tins full of concrete up to the top of the water tower to lay the base, or unloading 20 50-kg bags of cement from the delivery truck, all exhausting tasks to be sure...but 15 minutes of digging with the enchadão reduces me to a teary-eyed, babbling cripple. In my entire life I cannot recall any task as physically demanding. Merely covering as opposed to digging 13 rows of soja perene left me feeling like someone had taken a meat mallet to my back. How Clair manages to work with this tool all day long leaves me constantly gobsmacked. If all goes well, and my back holds up, we will finish planting the soja perene next week -and should see the first fruits of our labor in another two.

On Saturday the number of entries in Alfheim's official guestbook increased by 100% when we received a visit from our very good friends Márcio and Heather Cabral Magano. More than any other person, Márcio, who owns and manages Fazenda Caetê (when he is not running his law firm in São Paulo), a magnificent ranch near Santa Branca, has provided us with constant support in preparation for this endeavor: showing us countless properties, teaching us about horse riding (with moderate success) and cattle roping (thus far with far less success) and patiently answering my innumerable questions about everything from cattle, pigs and horses to property and commodity prices. Heather for her part has always been the consummate hostess, and, not surprisingly, arrived at Alfheim with a leg of lamb and a jar of homemade Jabuticaba jam.

Speaking of Jabuticaba (the name is derived from the Tupi word Jabuti (tortoise) + Caba (place), meaning the place where you find tortoises), also called the the Brazilian Grape Tree, the Jabuticaba in front of our house is now overladen with ripening fruit -a truly spectacular site and most delicious snack.

Finally, a number of you have expressed some level of surprise regarding our decision to pack up our Old World lives and move to Alfheim. In truth, we have been working toward this goal for more than six years...the past two alone on the closing (there goes the last vestiges of my reputation as an effective negotiator). There are, of course, a myriad of considerations that go into a decision of this magnitude, but Lone stumbled across the following passage from Small-scale livestock Farming, by Carol Ekarius, that sums up most of them more eloquently than I ever could:

First, we want to live in places off the beaten track. We want to feast our eyes on spectacular views of rugged mountain vistas. We want a place with lots of sun, abundant wildlife, and minimal light pollution. We want to sit out at night lost in a sea of stars, listening for the serenade of song dogs (coyotes). Beauty is, in itself, worthy of effort.

Second, we want to be as independent as is feasible in this modern age. We want a significant portion of our energy to come from renewable sources, and much of our food to come from the work of our own hands, whether hunting, gathering, or growing. We want the bulk of our living to come from our endeavors, not jobs.

Third, we want to be honorable and honest in our dealings with each other and with other people. We want to be compassionate and respectful in our treatment of other living creatures. We want our actions on the land to be beneficial to the ecosystem; we want to understand and work with ecosystem processes. We want to be contributors, not just takers, from society and the Earth. And we want the world to be a better place for our having passed through.

Fourth, we want to do meaningful work, both physically and mentally. Our work needs to keep us in the outdoors, and to keep us surrounded by animals. We enjoy work, and take pride in it, and believe that work keeps us healthy and happy.

Finally, we have little interest in material possessions, but financial security with little or no debt is important to us. We want a small but comfortable home. More important to us than money is time: We want to make time for reading, writing, art, music, travel, and a loving relationship. We want to keep our minds open and expanding; our hearts full and content.

September 26 - October 5, 2008

Three significant events occurred this past week (listed chronologically):

First, on Wednesday, I bid farewell to the final two members of the construction crew, Marcos and Orlando, who spent an extra day making sure we were able to tick off all but the least significant of the then-still-pending phase I construction tasks. Marcos (think Andy Capp for the cigarette but autodidactic and industrious) will return in a few weeks, after we have lived in the houses and had a chance to kick the tires, to tidy up any loose ends. His final payment and bonus will be settled at that time.

Second, Lone arrived on Thursday evening from London via Paris.

Third, a former colleague and good friend, Leonardo da Cunha Pinheiro, spent Saturday with us as Alfheim's first guest. As such Leonardo was the inaugural signatory of Alfheim's guestbook. This is a Blichert-Hansen family tradition that dates back to the 1940's when Lone's grandfather, Charles Adolph (that name died out) Denis de Neergaard purchased a summerhouse in Rørvig, Denmark. For 60 years, guests added all manner of notations and salutations, which grew to become a part of her family's history. We hope to receive as many guests at Alfheim -and years to enjoy their company- as did Lone's grandfather, who lived to the ripe old age of 92 and was still bathing au naturel in the Kattegat well into the upper half of his 80s.

Lone's arrival marks a beginning, of course, but also the end of many things. Among those I will not miss can be counted canned tuna, canned corn and cashews for lunch everyday. On a more serious note, her arrival marks the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. Before setting off for Brazil, I wrote down the following five objectives for my first three months at Alfheim:

• Map farm resources, e.g. farm perimeter, natural resources, fields
  
• Prepare soil, e.g. soil samples, biodynamic field preparations
• Renovate houses
• Construct basic infrastructure: source-of-water study, water analysis, road work, fences, gate, renewable energy options, septic tanks, corral, storerooms, hen house
• Trees and bees, e.g. fruit orchard, beehives
  

With the exception of repairing the gate and establishing bee hives, all of the above objectives have been completed or are well in hand. Inspired by this early productivity and the power of writing down your goals, not to mention the need to generate income at some point in the not-too-distant future, we have worked up a list of five fourth-quarter objectives:

• Establish a hog operation comprising 20 sows and one-two boars. The sows will be Piau, which, according to 'Culinária suína no Brasil', by Arthur Bosísio Júnior, et al., is the best and most important Brazilian breed, gains weight easily (by six months it weighs around 70 kg) and is the best meat producer of all the domestic breeds, while the boars will either be Poland China, widely known as one of the most durable of all of the swine breeds, or Duroc. At this point, we intend to raise approx. 315 piglets per year (8-12 piglets per litter, two litters per sow per year) to start. If all goes according to plan, we hope to end with a hog production of approx. 50-75 sows and 5-6 boars. This will generate between 788 and 1,181 piglets per year.
• Establish a cow-calve production starting with 20 Tabapuã, a variant of the Nelore, heifers and one Santa Gertrudis bull.
• Raise 10 Dorper, a South African mutton breed, for the family table and barter.
• Grow all of our own vegetables. Lone certainly has her hands full planting enough vegetables to fill her garden, but guided by the conflicting wisdom of the phrase the more the merrier, she has ordered the following non-hybrid seeds: Abóbora de Tronco Caserta, Alface Baba de Verão, Alface Carla, Alface Crespa, Alface 4 Estação, Alface Regina, Beterraba Itapuã, Cebola Juporanga, Cebola Madrugada, Cebola Petroline, Cebola Primavera, Cenoura Alvorada, Cenoura Brasília, Couve Chinesa, Ervilha Axé, Ervilha Crioula, Ervilha Samba, Feijão de Vagem Manteiga Baixo, Feijão Vagem Macarrão Rasteiro, Feijão Vagem Trepador, Melancia Crimson Sweet, Melão Carvalho, Melão Gaúcho Caipira, Melão Gaúcho Redendo, Moranga Pataka, Mostarda Crespa, Rúcula Cultivada, Salsa Lisa Comum, Tomate Cereja, Pepino Conserva and Pepino Caipira.
• Complete our few pending objectives from Q3.
  

One final note: it appears that we have won the first battle with the leafcutter ants. The trees whose leaves had been stripped bare are again beginning to sprout new leaves and, most importantly, there are no signs of any leafcutter ants in the orchard. Syv-ni-tretten as the Danes say, 7-9-13 or roughly the equivalent of knock on wood!