HelpX on Barnace Farm

There is so much to say about my experience here. It started with singing in the kitchen, learning green building and sleeping in a tipi, while it ended with spewing outside in the cold, an accidental chicken massacre and an escape. You can catch me in person for the gruesomer details, but for now we'll start from the top.

I left Gulli and Ollie's on April 3rd and caught the Wirrel line to Bidston, where I was greeted at the station by Russell, one of my hosts. We arrived at the farm where I was instructed to deposit my bags in "The Build". I walked into the kitchen to Helen and her kids singing to a Scouting for Girls song, before being sat down with the only other helper there at the moment, Hayley, from Australia whom I had tea with while Russell explained a bit about their property.

A really shitty picture of "The Build". That is, the house we helped build. It's the one on the right behind the trees. To the left is their pool, also used for guests and their kitchen, living room and laundry area.

The path we needed to walk on to get from The Build to the tipi and caravan. Misstep and you're headed for some big mud puddles that never seem to dry up. Even the goat got the hang of it, though I still needed to work on my balance by the time I left...

The short story is that Russell, Helen and their four children have lived on this site for 8 years. Originally in a run-down house that they eventually demolished, they've built two cottages (also with helpers like myself from HelpX) that they rent out to guests and have been living in caravans for 2 and a half years while waiting to finish their house. Thus, most of my time at Barnacre Farm was dedicated to helping build their house, using all green materials.

We were there during Easter, so as we were building the kids were on an epic Easter Egg Hunt around the property. Here's one of 'em on the 2nd floor beams in search of a clue. Basically an unfinished house is the best playground ever. Screw that modern plastic shit, a playground is only good if you can fall and break your head open. You know I'm right.

Oh yeah, we made beer and wine. It was easier than I expected. In fact, the hardest part for me was staying sterile. I had to wash my hands with special sterilization stuff 5 billion times because I kept petting the dog or something, forgetting I was supposed to be, well, sterile. I could never be a surgeon.

They had a windmill! It was broken while I was there, but once it works they'll be completely self-sufficient as far as energy is concerned.

I had barely rammed a nail with a hammer before this, negating vague remnants of TV-shaped "piggy" banks made in my 8th grade Technology class, so the fact that Russell can take all of us amateurs and convert us into green builders was a pretty impressive feat, even if I grew tired of being covered in recycled class shards and harecliff by the end of it. At the point of the project we were there for, we were mostly installing insulation to the indoor walls and roof to prepare for lime plastering. I also learned how to wire electrical sockets and lights, which was pretty cool (and useful!). I came at the end of the house building process and for that I am greatful, I feel bad for the poor suckers who were there during the winter with no heat and no insulation installed whatsoever.

Suited up and ready for Death Bunny!

After wiring all the electrical sockets for the house and beginning on the lights, I basically wanted to do anything but wire shit. So clearly it was time for a photo shoot! When my host almost walked in on me I had to very quickly pretend I wasn't a freak that takes pictures of herself with light fixtures. Urm. Yeah.

My days were spent putting up and climbing on scaffolding, hoping not to fall to my death, almost falling to my death a few times, eating biscuits, trying to be warm, inhaling glass shards and sometimes putting them into the walls. The insulation, which I termed "Death Bunny" because it looked fluffy and warm like a bunny, but was really made from recycled glass shards, definitely took a toll on me. I couldn't wear contacts the entire time because it just ripped them to shreds in a day while they were in my eyes and it took a couple days after I left to stop feeling itchy. Oops! It was novel for awhile though.

Laura got stuck in the harecliff! The buildin' life is tough!

Screwin'. Yeah, you got it. But really, I was screwing the harecliff into batons that were nailed into the beams, covering up the insulation.

Did I mention the tipi? Oh yeah, we slept in a tipi. It was massive and apparently from Germany (because Germans are really excited about Native American things, according to my host...I'm a bit skeptical). Inside there was a stove that we were dependent on for warm, with a wood fire we were eternally trying to keep going without smoking us to our deaths, and a platform covered in blankets and pillows where we all slept. Our host told us 12 people fit in there comfortably once, but I don't buy it. Four was very warm and cosy, but when we hit 7 it got a bit cramped. Luckily there was a caravan for the helpers where we ate breakfast and room for 3 people to sleep there. Hayley, Laura (another helper from NY) and I moved to the caravan the night we started spewing everywhere and stayed there. Though much colder than the tipi, with lots of warm blankets it wasn't so bad.

The tipi! Spewing aside, at least this experience has given me the chance to say I've slept in a tipi.

Inside where we slept. Sort of opium den-ish? Perhaps. Sadly, there was no opium.

Demonstrating how to sleep in the tipi. Lesson One: Steal all the blankets before anyone else so you don't freeze.

I just have to talk about the spewing for a minute. Imagine three girls in a caravan with no bathroom. The night went as follows: I lay in bed as long as I can trying to convince myself I'm not going to puke again. This is always too long, so I bust out of my room like an animal, trampling anything in my way to get outside so I don't vomit on anything important. On my right is a giant spew pile from Hayley, but Hayley has given up on trying to make it outside and has resorted to the small metal kitchen sink while whispering "Heeeelppp Meeee!" to herself. When I'm done and heading back inside, Laura starts puking in a bag so I hand her a saucepan to vom in. While it was traumatic that night, it sure is a ridiculous scene to look back on.

At the highest point there were 7 of us. Myself, Hayley (Australia), Laura (America), Dustin (Germany), Kadri (Estonia) and Mette (Denmark) and Keren (Israel). Quite a diverse group, I must say, so not only was that cool, but I got to learn how to say "I want to bang your body like a bongo" in Hebrew. If you're reading this Kt Green, I hope you appreciate the throw back.

When cleaning one of the cottages we found some leftover toffee syrup (thanks guests). Why not combine it with shortcake? Laura at tea time with this concoction.

Dustin working his savvy Deutsch culinary skillzz.

Hayley trying not to faceplant in the mud and get pooped on by a goat. This is how we spent a large part of the day. I like to think my balance has improved.

What else can I say? Oh, the chickens. Our hosts left us to house-sit for 2 days and one night on our days off. At the time, they had about 35 chickens and 5 ducks. There is a chicken house and a duck house and they both had to be closed at night. Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication the chicken house was left open overnight and roughly 15 of the chickens got killed by foxes. We realized something was wrong when some chickens were wandering around in the morning before we'd let them out. Oh, and the chicken corpse on the ground without a head was a big clue that something went awry. To our credit, we were a bunch of amateurs left to manage a big, relatively unfamiliar farm, but we still felt really freaking guilty about it and basically shat ourselves all day before our hosts' return, until Laura had the balls to call our host to let him in on the news.

The chicken bonfire. Is it inappropriate to take photos of a kid's dead chicken fire when you've helped cause the death? Maybe. But f'realz it was an experience.

The worst part was that the chickens were basically the son, Sam's chickens, who was about 10. The first thing he did upon arriving home, to Hayley and my's horror, was find the beheaded chicken and light it on fire before feeding it to the other chickens. I usually just buried my dead hamsters and such in my backyard, but that works too! Anyway, mostly you're here for the animal pictures, so here you go:

Which came first? The chocolate Easter egg or the chicken?

The goat wanted to come in the caravan and play. He was very persistent.

In case you ever wanted to know what ducksex looks like...basically the guy duck chased the girl duck around, pinned her down, bit her head, then finished up in approximately 10 seconds. Sounds about right. I should work for effing National Geographic for this action shot.


Same dude, different lady. What a balla'. This was basically my sole entertainment. I wish I got a picture when this happened in the water.

But even better than ducks (perhaps my favorite animal) are...DUCKLINGS! They were always covered in poop, and thus got me covered in poop, but I loved them.

It was peeing. I am mature.

Needless to say, after the chicken massacre by foxes and the horrible spewing virus, Hayley and I never quite recovered. Especially because we were supposed to work 8 hours a day and still didn't feel quite well a few days after getting sick, we hastily planned our escape and left on April 15th to go couchsurf in Liverpool for a few nights before heading back to Chester for a bit.

As Hayley and I were leaving, "You know, someone should get a picture of me now because this is really what I spend most of my time doing while traveling..." To which Hayley replies, "Lugging your bags across a rough trail?"

That about sums it up.

Lautrec, Part II: Welcome to the Country.

The closest town to Chateau Brametourte was Lautrec, which was an hour walk away. One weekend Tom, Danel and I decided to venture out in search of some bread and a self-guided tour of the area.

It was really windy.

When we got there, we climbed a big hill to see the famous Moulin (windmill)!

The view from the top. Look at those clouds looming.

Lautrec is pretty old. Look at those medieval walls.

I don't know where ANY of those places are. Welcome to the middle of nowhere, kids.

View of Lautrec behind me when the wind isn't actively attacking my face, for once.

It translates to "one of the most beautiful villages in France" or something like that. I was excited. I think we walked 309438490 kilometers that day.

Town. No...really. The main shopping strip left a bit to be desired if you wanted variety and even less if you wanted your variety to be open, but it was pretty!

On the way home, there was some weird sun/stormy cloud combination happening.

The road leading from the Chateau. Small.

I braved the hour walk into town by myself my last day to get wine for the people who offered to drive me to the train station and cigarettes for Liz. On my way home I saw the BIGGEST CATERPILLAR EVER! But it really turned out to be many caterpillars traveling in a row...like ducks! Did you know that caterpillars do that? Me either. I definitely spent at least 5 minutes staring at these caterpillars like a freak and took about 10 pictures. Anyone watching probably just assumed I was observing the pavement for an inordinate amount of time and must have thought I had at least one screw loose. Oh well. Nature is CRAZY.

Lautrec, Part I: How I Came to Live in A Chateau

Welcome to Chateau Brametourte. For my second HelpX job as a helper, I ended up in Lautrec, a beautiful small village in the south of France, about an hour from Toulouse. If the weather was right, you could see the Pyrenees from their property (though if you could see them it meant it would rain in a couple days!), but we'll get to that later. It was a pretty laid back week and a half as the two owners left for England and Singapore the day after I got there, and the nearest hint of civilization was an hours walk away, but life doesn't always have to be 24/7 go-go-go, does it? My tasks were mostly cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, mopping, putting things in their rightful places, some weeding, sifting dirt, raking leaves and more tidying of the property. Most of the time it was just me and the volunteer coordinator, Liz, who was from Brighton, but for the first week there were two other helpers from South Africa named Tom and Danel and they were awesome!:

Danel and Tom!

A closer look at the Chateau where I lived while I worked there, it apparently dates back to the 12oos, whoa.

The view from their yard, this picture doesn't really do it justice.

A short walk from their property and you get here, where they grow most of their vegetables. You can even see it in the picture above! On a couple occasions we got to pull leeks right out of the ground for dinner and it was pretty neat. I should mention the weather was absolutely fabulous, most of the time all I needed to wear outside was a sweatshirt! Good bye, winter! And good riddance.

So the chateau dates to the 1200s, but this fountain, which, you guessed it, is a giant stone vagina, apparently dates back to the times before Christ to pagan times. That's BC, folks. It sort of astounded me to be standing in front of something so old in it's natural habitat, that is, not in a museum.


The really old pagan vagina rock was enclosed in here, below that little dark square where the water/well was. Apparently people used to go on pilgrimages here in the past, crazy.

The courtyard of the Chateau, where lots of tidying was done.

Another part of the property where some tomatoes and peppers were grown. My job here was to pull out the old, dead plants and turn over the soil.

The Renaissance Room, which we also spent lots of time tidying. They were doing some work, so a lot of my tasks were just cleaning up everything and making it presentable again. They want to rent this room out for meetings and such.

I think this room was called the Salle de Sejour. It was very pretty and bright, but there were a LOT of really expensive antiques, so mostly I didn't trust myself in there lest I broke something.

And what is a castle without a set of spiral stone stairs?

That's all I have of the property, but tune in next time for pictures of the surrounding area and Lautrec itself!

Mythological Creatures in Germany

 

You’re sitting in a bed, in a house, in the middle of a farm in northern Germany. There are two spiders you’ve been watching for days in two separate crevices of your bedroom. You’re afraid to kill them because of the sound they’ll make when you squash them, an ongoing problem, but also because you’re living on a farm and you don’t think you’re supposed to do such things. What if they eat some pest, contribute to the greater good? The last thing you want is to murder the Greater Good.

You have dirt stuck under your fingernails and that makes you feel tough. Yet when you go to bed each night you shut the lights and rush under the covers lest some creature gets you. After telling your host this, she gives you a key to lock the door at night, which is when you realize it’s mostly mythological creatures you’re afraid of and keys won’t keep them out anyway. You’d prefer a unicorn over the bogeyman, but in reality it’s probably just the mice having tea parties in the walls again.

There is a lot of time to think and you’re not sure if you’re running away from something or towards it. Maybe you’re just running, so may as well enjoy the running for its own sake, and you are. Make a note to live in the moment. Page through a found self-help book and stumble upon the fourth Secret to Life: “Live in the moment.” Go figure. Think about how it’s even possible to live in the moment, anyway. Your to-do list rings in your mind and you think you will write it down soon, a list of things to do and pay for when you have access to fast internet again. You should probably book a flight back to America eventually. Ponder whether you really want to go back to America. Think about the unknown abyss of the future. Of all the things everyone else is doing and how you can’t make yourself want them. Of being a vagabond indefinitely. Wonder how long that last paycheck and what’s left of that money you’ve saved since you were 17 for just such an occasion will last. Probably not the rest of your life. Or through the summer. Same difference.

There’s always this problem: When you leave America, you think of all these things you might want to do when you get back, all these people you don’t want to loose in the woodwork and this sense that you need more closure than America has already given you, that bastard. Closure from what, you don’t know. Just closure. You always want things to be completely beat to death before you leave them. You’re not sure how this fares for a country. You think of your friend who asked why you’d ever even consider leaving the Greatest Country in the World for more than an extended holiday? How could you ever fathom never coming back for good? You don’t dislike America, per se, but you want to become an expatriate indefinitely just to oppose that thought whole-heartedly. You do miss pumpkin ale though, quite terribly.

You’re not looking forward to the second bought of reverse culture shock, even if it’s months away. You realized when you went to England that being able to understand all of the language spoken around you is stressful. You want to listen to everything at once, trying to understand all of the people chatting on the bus up Elm Grove, and eventually turn your headphones back on in defeat, exhausted. Make a note not to compare everything to Prague when you get back, but know it’s a losing battle. Hate how obnoxious you’re going to sound. You’ll miss the public transportation, sitting on trains and the trams, the Czech language. All the languages, really. You’ll miss feeling useful on this farm, more useful than you ever felt during your 4 months teaching English. You’ll miss the Friendly Sheep, her especially, looking at you with big eyes when you come to refill the water bucket at night. Her mother forgot her so she likes humans and you like her.

You’ll even miss not knowing what the fuck is going on around you half the time, what with your 30 word approach to each respective language. You think you’re just starting to get a hang of the metric system. You know that minus 8 degrees Celsius is cold and you don’t even need to convert it to Fahrenheit. You know what you weigh in kilos.

You think of a passage you read in Into the Wild yesterday, “I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.” You hate yourself for being such a hipster sometimes, but think that if you call yourself a hipster it negates your hipsterness so you’re probably safe. Whew.

You’re not sure if leaving is easy, but that passage resonated with you somewhere. Goodbyes were always hard for you. Hard to understand. What is an ending and what should it mean? What does it mean to everyone else? You always put them off until last minute, clutching your drink, sipping slowly until it’s warm and flat in the corner of the pub, and then somehow you make your feet move to the train, bus, plane taking you away from those you care about while you sit teary-eyed and confused at the whole debacle, doubting. You could just stay here, you think. You could. But you don’t. You’ve made a habit of crying on public transportation in the last few years, but maybe you’re just on public transportation a lot.

Everything feels so profound when you’re leaving. Goodbyes are hard, but leaving is easy, you decide. Leaving places is easy for you, but if there’s one thing you’ll ever regret from your life up ‘til now it’s your inability to leave people when you should have. Like America, everything always needs to be beat to death until nothing interesting enough is left to ask any more questions. You think of how much time you wasted being unnecessarily unhappy since you were 15 and hope you at least learned a lesson this year besides how to conceal your inner-thoughts and desires from yourself. You wonder if you like to travel just because you’re afraid of getting trapped in relationships you don’t know how to get yourself out of. Then again, you also like staring out windows. When you discovered you could stick your head out the train windows in the Czech Republic there was no turning back. You were a dog in a car. Tongue out, smile wide. There’s something about being in trains and buses that makes you feel content. The motion. No matter what you do, you’re being productive. You have a destination and you’re working on getting there. You can sleep the time away, you can twiddle your thumbs. No matter, still going.

You’re inwardly proud of yourself for breaking up with Prague and believe it’s a first step in the right direction. She was a beautiful lover, with castles for eyes, cherubs carved into her skin and a clock delivering both death and the twelve apostles to you on the hour, but you never really paid attention. Cobblestones flowed in every direction, creating a path between you, but you two had some fundamental differences you just couldn’t shake and you were tired of fighting. She was fun, but you wanted to be understood more completely. It was precisely the hardest decision of your life.

Mostly you hope you can transfer your new decision-making methods to the next person you’re with that gives you that familiar wordless anxiety at your core. You know, the one that splits the pros and cons list right in two, ruining any attempt to have things laid out for you in a logical fashion, clear as day. Prague split you right down the center: Sixteen and sixteen. But somehow your fingers typed the letters and your voice led the conversations you needed to move on to the next phase of your life. Maybe you’re really growing up.

You’re not sure about this growing up thing. Not the growing in itself, for you don’t really mind getting older. You noticed your first wrinkle forming and viewed it as a rite of passage more than anything. Since you don’t remember Coming of Age like all the books say you should, this will have to do, won’t it? You’re worried about when the line is drawn between when you can have fun and when you can’t. Not the Sex, Drugs and Rock-n- Roll, like everyone else, though you could always use a bit of all of them, you guess. You don’t want to have to put away your sense of adventure and the absurd, much less pass up a good playground. You don’t ever want to be one of those people who talks about things they can no longer wear, play or do because they are “too old”. You think you won’t really mind the whole being wiser thing, however. You’re sick and tired of losing sleep over these things you’ve yet to experience.

But there you go thinking outside of the moment again. You’re not sure any fully functioning human brain is capable of this. You damn anyone that never dropped you on your head when you were a child, but maybe thinking ahead is not so bad. You always did like making lists…

First HelpX experience in photo form!

The bakehouse and pastures at sunrise.

This is the bird feeder we often watching from the dining room. One morning a pheasant that had been wandering around figured out how to hop up there! Their cat, Tinker, used to watch the birds from his clear cat door. We said he was watching the bird program on TV.

I called this the food museum. Where all the jams, chutneys and wines they made are kept in a cool room!

Where the fruit and veggies from the summer are kept in the freezers and Angelika rummaging for the veggies for our lunch!

My favorite sheep eating hay!

Favorite sheep on the right and the second-friendliest sheep on the left! I like the little patch of white fur on the brown one's head, it's like a little hair-do.

My bedroom in my flat.

My kitchen (that I never used)!

Living area of my flat.

A spinning wheel, with part of the library in the shelves behind it.

The kitchen in the back and more of the living area in front. The ladder leads up to a loft, which for some reason I never ventured into.

The greenhouse (and Angelika).

The brussel sprouts are still green in the garden, albeit frozen. Almost every morning I'd pick some of these greens for the chickens.

Angelika and Axel's house. Notice the thatched roof, pretty neat!

Angelika and Axel in front of the house on my last day before Angelika drove me to Bremerhaven to catch a train to Bonn. Bye Kleinenhain, it was a good trip!