The Fruits of Labor

Title relating to several recent incidents.

1. No pub run last night, the plan aborted last minute. Instead became pleasantly intoxicated with Ben and Andreas in Ben's flat, drinking first wine, then amaretto with cider.

2. Magdalena was quite late to the food centre this morning, and Peter (pronounced Pay-ter), her house father and the head gardener, saw me waiting outside and revealed the hiding place of a set of spare keys. I had an intense flashback to my Westtown shiking days, thinking of how then I would have formulated plans to retrieve said keys and use them for mischevious adventures with Liz and Aimee. To be privy to such knowledge as a spare key location would have sent us into a fit of Alias references and Saturday night plans.
Magda came eventually, but then had to go to a meeting, leaving me in charge of pressing 200 kilos of apples. The press is a great green rumbling machine and I love it. I made delicious apple juice.

3. Justin popped into Bracken as I was finishing preparing breakfast to say that Sybilla had gone into labor and if I checked on her at around 8:30 I might see the miracle of birth first hand. After breakfast in my haste to get to the barn I dropped a jar a marmalade on the floor and made a mess of glass and orange bits. But I got to the barn with plenty of time, and Sybilla hadn't calved yet. In fact, by the time I lef the farm in the afternoon she still hadn't dilated fully.

4. On the farm this afternoon we harvested Swedes (haha, not the people, the plant), I looked up to see Luis standing staring off into space--a rare occurance. The thing is, Luis never stops working. He never comes to co-worker gatherings or even leaves the farm because he feels so obligated to work. And he never complains. Not once. He doesn't even have a weekend for crying out loud! He has to muck out the byres and milk! It's a tricky dynamic here...one doesn't have to be physically or psychologically pressured into working nonstop to feel pressured. Anyway, Luis's friend from Germany, a kid he's known his whole life, was recently put in a psychiatric ward in a hospital because he did so many drugs he basically fried his brain for good. Luis really wants to go home for a week or so to see him, but he hasn't even told Justin or Tracy what happened to his friend. I mean, they can't say he can't go home...this is serious shit his friend is in. Anyway, I told him he needs a break and to go home and he absolutely must tell Justin and Tracy this.

5. I went to the Hall at 5:00 for choir/Christmas Eve rehearsal, only to find that it had been cancelled and no one told me. But Lisa (Leeza, who lives with Ben in Rowan, not to be confused with the other Lisa (also Leeza) who lives in Tourmaline and is also a good friend) was there and we got a chance to hang out and talk for a while. She's getting really stressed and starting to feel a bit like a slave or a servent. I told her what the previous co-worker from Bracken had told me (gotta love Facebook), and that is that people think their house parents will be like substitute parents, all caring and such, but it happens more often than not that one's houseparents are more like a boss, and you are their employee. We agreed that a "thank you" for our work every once in a while would mean the world to us.

6. Tomorrow is the Shepherds Play, and we had our dress rehearsal tonight and it was...not a disaster, but pretty bad. Daniel, one of my co-shepherds, looks absolutely hysterical with his fake beard, and his accent is hilarious and every time I look at him I want to laugh. Also I have to do a fake slip-and-fall and tonight I actually fell on my ass really hard, so that made me laugh through a line or two. But hopefully we can pull it off tomorrow!

7. Sauerkraut left today to go home for the holidays. I'm gonna miss that crazy chatter box. Oh, I'm talking about Emily by the way. We just call her Sauerkraut now. When it comes down to it, I love Em. She's like a little sister or a crazy parrot or something.

8. And, having nothing to do with fruits or labor, I found this blog and it is coooool.

Big Storm Picture.