Our Week on the Farm

We survived!!

Jef and I spent this past week on a small, organic farm located out in Eastern Montana with one of the friendliest, most obnoxious people either of us have ever met.  Our host, Charles, was a REAL character and I cannot paint an accurate picture of our experience on the farm without first doing my best to describe this guy.

The main garden area

Driving up to the farm, we first glimpsed Charles as we would see him for the majority of the week: shirtless.  Within minutes of meeting us, he was offering us "herb" and extolling the virtues of his vaporizer (an apparatus which, according to him, removes the carcinogens).  For somebody who smokes three times a day, he was incredibly healthy.  Throughout the week and at every meal he preached the gospel of health: organic, whole foods, grass-fed this, free range that, aroma therapy, yoga--the whole sha-bang.  He loved to talk and often offered fact after fact about the virtues of everything from essential oils (smelling them prevents Alzheimer's) to push-ups (picture the color green when  you do them--it strengthens  your heart chakra).  When I probed him once on where he learned these little health nuggets, he basically said, "I feel like they're true."

Our glorious shanty! Complete with a comfortable bed and an extension cord.

Jef channels his inner hippie

Though much of his health advice made us chuckle, when it came to cooking, we were sincerely impressed.  He had two cabinets stuffed with thousands of dollars worth of extremely high quality seasonings and spices which he used like magic to turn piles of swiss chard and squash into mouth watering dishes.   It was not unusual for him to indulge in random outbursts of singing, shouting, and dancing while preparing the food--it truly gave him joy to cook for us, to show us his way of doing things.  This loud enthusiasm for healthy cooking, while not quite contagious, certainly made for fun-ish meal preparations.

Some family friends from Germany visited the farm. Charles made a feast and we had fun chatting with them.  

The work on the farm was mostly pleasurable--for most of the week the weather was in the 80s or 90s.  We did a lot of watering in the garden, helped set up a drip system, harvested squash, zucchini, apples and watermelon and weeded.  Jef tilled up a plot of land that we later covered with clover seed, coffee grounds, and horse manure in hopes of making the soil viable for planting in the future.  Twice a day we fed and watered the chickens and milked the goats--this was by far my favorite chore.  Learning to milk the goats was surprisingly tricky, but we got the hang of it after a few tries.  There were seven adorable baby goats and three milkers.  About 2/3s of the milk went to feeding the babies and the rest we used for ourselves--we ate it on cereal, made yogurt, cheese and a delicious coffee/chocolate gelato.

The infamous Charles! Here he's making the coffee/chocolate gelato in his commercial grade ice cream maker (I've got to get one of those)

The chicken house!

Baby goats.  Every time you walked in the barn they came rushing over to say hello and nibble your shirt if possible. 

The milkers--Maggie, Gretta, and another one whose name we could never remember.

Jef milking Gretta

Though we enjoyed the animals and the delicious food, we felt rather exhausted by Charles' lifestyle.  We spent around 10 hours a day together and his energy and zest was bottomless.  We bore frequent witness to displays of his fitness prowess including comically drawn out demonstrations of ninja-style solo air fights.  Jef was more than once challenged to a pushup contest, and the impassioned renditions of contemporary political ballads lost their charm all too quickly.  On Monday the warm weather turned hot as the temperature rose close to 100. The cool weather and beautiful vistas of Western Montana began to lure us once again, and so by Wednesday afternoon we were on the road.

Just a coupla' farmers sittin on some  hay.

Six hours later we found ourselves in Bozeman, MT and only now do we truly feel like we're in Montana.  This place is simply beautiful.  Mountains in the distance everywhere you look, enormous spruce trees, and weather in the 70s. We love Bozeman so far.  It's home to a branch of Montana State University so it has a kind of college town feel.  The downtown area is amazing.  It's as charming as an old style town square but is busy and thriving with all kinds of cool coffee shops, boutiques, recreational outfitters and cafe's. The people seem outdoorsy, but not in a dreadlocks sort of way.

Olive is lying on the grass next to us as I write this on the patio of a local coffee shop.  She's on her back with her legs splayed open and she's so still with sleepy pleasure it looks like she's been shot and gone to heaven.

I think we feel the same way.