The Adventures of Kerriann: Leaving the Farm x x x

Christmas Day came and went as did New Years.

My house companions departed and a quietness fell over the bungalow.

Bit by bit a routine was developing and I at last found work I could do to help. Each morning at 6am I would get up, shower and start my rounds of chanting.

At 7am, just as daylight broke through the clouds on the horizon, (not the best photo in the world but you get the idea!)

I would put on my work clothes

and as the morning mist began to clear

I would head down to Mataji's market garden.

Each day for just 3 hours I would walk up and down the long rows of plants checking for flowers and tiny fruits facing the wrong way!

Now this may seem like a pointless job and when they first told me what I could do to help I too thought they were making it up just to make me feel I am doing something useful, but believe me this apparent time consuming gentle chore is very important.

Supermarkets only buy straight vegetables!

If it has a bend, a twist or a kink in it, it can not be sold and ends up either in the farm kitchen or with the cows.

Every vegetable not sold is money gone, never to be made again and with so many different beds to check I had a never ending morning job that rotated between each to do.

By turning the flowers and tiny buds to face down towards the floor you help to ensure the vegetable grows straight down.

Simple!

But time consuming!

Paying one of the boys to do this job is not cost effective, they cost more in wages than they save in straight vegetables but if you have a 53 year old female begging for some work to do then it is a perfect job!

Normally one of the sons would walk the beds each week looking for vegetables to save.

With me there each day they were free to do other work and over the course of the week I hope I provided a boost to their straight vegetable supply!

The only draw back to this job was that by 11am the sun was baking down on your head and even with a hat it was too much for me to work in.

As the work took about 3 hours I needed to start at 7am, at first light, a time when all the mosquitoes were looking for a last feed before the sun drove them under cover for the day!

The bites on my cheeks and hands were beginning to join together to form one huge lump!

I took some more anti histamines, covered myself in repellent, and went looking for a glove for the hand I used least!

By 12 noon of each day, I would have returned to the bungalow, showered and changed, washed and put to dry my work clothes and filled my belly with food.

Afternoons were spent gardening clearing more and more of the weeds from the paths around the bungalow and raking more and more of the grass from the lawn.

Blisters formed on my hands as they had the year before, hands that worked at a desk and with wood were not used to the repetitive raking movements required to clear a garden

(I mow my garden every week in the UK not every year as they had done at the farm!)

It took a week in the end but at last I was satisfied with the results.

the paths were now passable, (I forgot to take one of it finished!)

and green grass slowly inched its way upwards now that the dried grass had gone.

Clouds had become a regular feature since Christmas day and rains similar to that dramatic down pour were becoming routine afternoon events.

Once the rains passed, late afternoons were spent walking around the farm.

The reservoir was now full and the tap water was a definite shade of brown!

On days when the rains had been heavy, mud stuck to my repaired shoes as I walked, building up layer after layer until my feet grew too heavy to walk.

Eventually I would need to stop and scrape the clawing mud off before I could continue my walk and build up another layering of weight.

As a side note, each day I would walk past this bush and stop to play with its leaves for a moment or two.

When you gently touch its leaves they fold up.

but only the leaves you touch!

All the rest stay open until you touch them too!

Now all the other guests had left, Mataji decided to take me under her wing.

On the days she came down to use the washing machine in the bungalow, she would bring wonderful foods for me to try.

This one is sweet tapioca with fried tapioca.

Sometimes we would walk together collecting 'weeds' she said were good to eat.

Her legs pained her since an operation she had had the year before so we didn't walk far of fast, Grandmother would join us too and at 86 put us both to shame with her agility!

This one she called 'parsley' although it didn't taste like parsley, it was more like spinach but delicious!

Together they showed me how to look for the tiny tomato like plants that hid in tiny paper lantern cases.

Green at first you had to look for the yellow ones that were soft and sweet.

Mataji had turned to Krsna Consciousness five years previously.

Although she had been brought up in a religious family she had 'gone looking', as she put it, else where for peace and pleasure.

Her husband was a Christian and both methods of worship and belief were encouraged in her house.

On an altar against a wall in her house were Jagannatha Deities as well as the Panca Tattva and after we returned from our foraging we would squeeze into her tiny kitchen to cook the food

(OK I watched and stirred what she told me to stir)

before offering the fabulous dishes to the Deities and sitting down to eat.

Evenings were spent looking for things to clean in the bungalow!

The windows had been scrubbed so many times by now that they were at last actually beginning to look clean!!

By 8pm I would be sitting at the large kitchen table writing and watching the geckos race over the netting in search of bugs and moths attracted by the lights inside.