Farmville, Part III: A Fruity Life

Here's the straight dish: farmin' ain't easy.  Life on a farm is neither easy, nor glorified (unless it's a two week voyouer tour) and surely not monetarily rewarding (at least for Peregrino).  Rodrigo, the dry-witted son of Anna (the Matriarch), has a girlfriend who is essentially part of the family.  She astutely, if rather cynically, pointed out that unlike us [tour-voyuers] they [farmers] had no choice to be on the farm, they were in fact born into it and would continue on as their family had in the past.  Both Beth and I agree that they do have choices and that the rest of the family would generally not take that approach, but the fact is that though neither poor in health or soul or even a sense of genuine happiness, they are not taking baths (in $100 bills) anytime soon, and their choices--as with most financially challenged people--are severely limited.  

In fact, it's literally impossible for them to take baths at all, considering they don't have one.  No, they are not animals, they do have a shower (cold, but for the first couple of the day, which are luke-warm at best) and they do clean themselves, it's the voluntarios that are less fortunate.  Beth's first two "cleanings" took place not indoors, not under a spicket, not from a hose, but in a river.  The same river (really it's a rather shallow irrigation canal, which is highlighted on Sundays when the "river" doesn't run because it's the farm's upstream turn to water their crops) that is used to irrigate their crops and rinse the vegetables off from dirt and other things, but the bath is located upstream.  I should point out a few important things: 1) the water is glacial melt, thus ice cold.  2) presumably farms upstream use the river for similar functions.  3) we don't know how many farms are organic, but chemicals flow downstream too.  4) there were no rules against soap and shampoo in the river (just in the house).  5) the river bath did have a place to hang your clothes and set down your bath supplies--an old, white lawn chair gave it a sense of wash-closet legitimacy.  6) lastly, beth used it multiple times, I used it zero.  The submerging-yourself-in-ice-cold-water was the biggest deterent, but there is something incredibly disconcerting about bathing in farm run-off water.  I abstained, and though I regret it, I'm equally convinced that it was the right choice.  

Here's the other bizness, though incredibly tough and besides the fact that after two wereks we were ready to go, it's incredibly rewarding work.  You literally see the fruits of your labor.  I mean we were living, breathing and, most importantly, eating that saying.  We also juiced it, a lot (1).       

But, the most interesting and in fact, arguably the most important practice of this farm is their belief in permaculture, or more broadly and simply, sustainability.  I think for a small operation such as this it is nearly impossible to seperate their belief in a sustainable way of life being derived from choice or necessity(2).  However, you might argue that it is irrelevant, the fact that they are nearly self-sustaining is what is important.  Besides practicing organic growth they also build their own homes from the earth, predominantly from the organic products found on their farm, be it horse poop, wood, flower derivatives for color, olive oil (actually bartered from a neighboring farm) or illegal wine bottles found near the voluntarios hut (perhaps organic does not apply here, but it is recycled, so I'll count it).  All these things are used to build beautiful and aesthetically interesting homes, that are the most Eco-friendly homes you could build, not to mention homes that are theirs--I can't imagine the feeling of living in something that you actually put the effort and creative thought to build, it must be the most rewarding feeling (I did once build a doghouse, but never had the pleasure of living in it...).     

After all this, I enjoy the comforts of modernity and simplicity and would be hard-pressed to say that someday I'd like to be a small, organic farmowner working for pennies and at the mercy of my crops.  No, that wouldn't be true.  But what I can say is that stepping on that farm felt real, it felt good, it gave me at least the tiniest bit of insight into farm life, and even more insight into this particular families beliefs in regards to organics and the value on which they place on a healthy diet. A diet in which you don't have to worry about scrubbing your apple for fear of ingesting some unnameable chemical (though I'd guess contracting hepatitis is possible, so maybe scrubbing is a good idea).  A life in which you appreciate the food which you eat and are forced to respect the land in which you get that food.  A feeling that you have a connection to your basic necessities, from food to shelter and cleanliness and water to where you deposit your excrement (ever imagine where all that flushing goes, outside of sewage treatment plants, of course?).  All of these things are important, yet easily lost in daily life.  So though I wouldn't necessarily live on farmville, I would definitely do it again and maybe even grow a few (organic) vegetables when I get home--mostly because I won't have the money to buy my own.  


  
(1) The juicing process is actually quite simple, though more easily understood with pictures we can't upload.  In any case words will have to suffice for now.  
Step 1: pick apples, dumping them into a palate sized crate approximately 3 feet in height.  When full, the total is about 500 kilos of apples, or 1200 pounds.  A rough estimate of the total number of crates up to 40--red apples only.  
Step 2: lLoad apples into giant plastic tub, similar to a poor mans doughboy, for the purpose of cleaning, or rinsing the apples.  It doesn't strike me as the most effective cleaning device, but then again the apples are organic and have managed to steer clear of all fertilizers simply by being above groundlevel.  Step 3: Hand load apples onto conveyor belt.  The conveyor belt leads to a grinder, which roughly chops the apples (think graded potatoes, but chunkier) then feeds these apples using another conveyor--this one being a giant plastic tube--through a hole cut into the wall.  The cut apples are deposited into an old bathtub, while any excess juices crestrainer strained and drained through the hole at the bottom of the tub.  
Step 4: manually heave all apple biproducts onto slated wooden boards covered in cheesecloth.  It's imperative that cheesecloth is excessively large so as to be able to cover the apples in full.
Step 5: Repeat step 4 between 7-9 times, or until your stack of wood/apple/cheesecloth mixture is about the same height as...
...Step 6, which is taking the apples bookended by the aforementioned wood and using what is essentially a giant vice (or press) to squish the living juice out of the roughly ground apples.  The juice drains into a covered basin, which is then pumped up through a hose into a topless barrel (not as scadalous as it sounds).
Step 7:  Tub, barrel, squishing contraption and bottling agents are all located inside a mini-wherehouse, or galpon.  The topless barrel is near the roof, and has a tube connected to the bottom.  This tube is attached to a not-so-complex pipe used to fill empty bottles with the juiced apples.  That's step 7, filling the bottles.
Step 8: Cap bottles.  Almost Exactly the same tool Raman and Zach use for capping beer.
Step 9: Sterilization/Pasturization..  Yes, there are some standards of cleanliness and health here.  They have four more old tubs, all covered in adobe, which are like ovens.  Underneath are big holes for fires.  Put water in tubs, then capped, filled appley bottles and heat to 90 degrees centigrade.  
Step 10: Remove.  Let cool. Place in giant apple juice cellar. 
Step 11: This is actually steps 2-9.  Drink as much juice as possible because once everything is bottled Familia Peregrino no longer gives you access to the fruits of your labor.  Your real payment is neither experience or inner gratification, it is the four days of goirging on pure, raw, glorious, semi-filtered apple juice.    

(2) Maria told us the first couple of years were terrible and the apples were terribly pock-marked by worms, maggots and other creatures.  Their neighbors ridiculed them and said it would be impossible to grow apples without pesticides.  However, a few years into their experiment a funny thing happened, THEY started having beautiful apples while the other farms quality began to detoriate.  Apprently the pesticides didn't kill just the worms and maggots, but killed their natural predators.  So, as Peregrino began to self-adjust after years if pesticides and nature balanced itself out, other farms suffered.  This is not to say most organic farms have had the same luck or fate, but I thought it interesting that going organic actually saved the farm in the long-run (15 years long, at least).