More potatoes and projects!

It's the end of a relatively long day and I feel the most comfortable, the most satisfied that I have in a long time. Lately I've been questioning why I'm here, what I'm doing and what I'm learning, and especially if Abeo is a community I want to be a part of.

Thing is, I like everything Abeo stands for, it's the weather that's the killer! Days of rain and wind, with little breaks where you can rush out and try to plant something before it starts up again, or you might get the whole afternoon to put things in the ground. Mayhaps it's just the temperamental spring weather.

The last two days have been beautiful: sunny, warm, little to no wind today, and I got to do ART projects! If it makes me this happy, I should create this every day!

Today I decided to put together the parabolic solar oven. That meant tearing strips of newsprint, making a paste/slurry, and gobbing it onto a papasan chair frame Tyler's been saving just for the purpose. I let it dry, touched it up, and applied tinfoil to the top of it. Tomorrow we'll be making an arm in which the pot sits, that we can turn with the sun. So very exciting!

I am covered in paste, and blood. The blood was an unpleasant discovery after I'd been pasting for an hour and bent down to investigate the sticky damp feeling on my ankle. Surprise! Gooey blood, creeping down my leg...from a leech. I knew exactly the one; I'd found it on the path earlier, leaking blood and inching oh-so slowly along and Tyler had relocated it down by the dam. Hadn't thought much of it, except to wonder what animal it had just disgorged from.

Me.

I even looked at the blood it was leaking and wondered if it was mine.

It was.

So I took a shower in our nifty outdoor shower stall and watched the blood clots disappear down the drain, only to realize I had more blood coming out than I knew what to do with. I tried using some paste to stem the flow: after a few minutes in the sun, it did the trick!

I'm quite looking forward to sleep this evening. It's not so cold tonight as it has been – no frozen nose anyway. Tyler made us a fried food dinner – his Patented Potato Things (this time with carrot!), pappadums and falafels. I never knew a fried dinner was what I wanted, but it tastes so good!

We finished planting the potato patch yesterday, except for a couple of rows the tractor kept sliding around, which we got to this morning. It probably wasn't the smartest way of planting; out in the heat of the day. We started before lunch and just kept going without much of a break until as much was done as could be done, and then we collapsed under a tree. I'd been considering having a mutiny and trekking back to the shed for food. I didn't because I didn't want to be a wuss. I was afraid of how Della and Tyler would react – disappointment, disgust? A few times I almost said something, and once I think I did, but Della didn't hear me over the tractor, and I didn't repeat myself. I kept pushing myself until it was over, and then after lunch, I took a two-hour nap until almost dinner time. I felt completely wiped out and fuzzy-headed, drained of my energy.

I don't want to be farming if that's what it takes.I honestly think they both forget about eating, so I would've been reminding them anyway, and I think it would've been healthier for everyone. One more step to self-acceptance!

This weekend we're headed to Deloraine for the Annual General Meeting for the Permaculture Association. We'll be talking and eating and watching some films, visiting a couple of gardens and then taking a couple of days to play in the countryside around there, perhaps visit Emma, another member of Abeo, who lives in Lorinna. I've heard a bit about her; it would be nice to meet her! There's also an Aboriginal Culture Center up by Devonport called Tiagononn or something like that. It has petroglyphs and pictographs. I would love to see those!