December 30, 2008 - Exploring the Farm

Dec 30, 2008 Something between 32 and 35 degrees Celsius (85⁰F -90⁰F). It has not rained significantly. It gets cooler only after the sunset but never inside the house. We need to have the fans on all day and night long. My father uses a piece of the board on top of the sofa to rest after meals. It has been his habit for the longest time I can remember. Because it has been so hot, he is now laying down outside, at the veranda while my mother is sitting on an old woven plastic wire chair we used to have since we were small children. The chairs were out of commission for years, taking rain and sunshine. They were rusty, dirty, and broken. As this is normal at the farm, we fix everything we can. We keep everything piled up, then, we give them a second chance (or more), performing the same job or a different one. Living on a farm is not romantic as seen in movies were aristocrats spend their day laying under a tree, or ladies running across the field wearing a white dress. For me, living here is not putting on a pair of sneakers or boots, but conforming with a pair of latex sandals. My heels are cracked and constantly dirty. I am tanned only up to where my sleeves allow. My clothes are the worst of all: mismatched, old, stained, and dirty. There is no other way if I am leading a true farm living. I wake up to go straight to the kitchen to find unsweetened coffee fixed by my father who is up three hours before me. Today I wanted to try our wild cucumber. I walked first to the coffee field closest to our house. My father had told me “you can find where the young coffee bushes are”. The coffee bushes were tall and bearing green beans. Among them, I noticed old mandioc plants. They were too old, tall, skinny and on dry weather, they didn’t yield edible roots. Yet, my father didn’t eliminate them. I missed the huge avocado tree on the right side of the path. Soon I saw a big cut trunk near its roots. I remembered my mother complaining that my father cuts down everything. I have the same complaint. He cleaned the herb garden, but I cannot find the oregano I brought from Aguas. He surely cut it away. I found mint buried under dirt. I saw the neem trees growing strong. When I asked why he was planting them, he told me that it was for wood. I guess he has great hope in life expectancy. This is good. I saw two other avocado trees full of unripe fruits. My father later told me that ripe fruits would fall on the ground easily and then I can have them. I am planning to make good soap using avocado pulp, differently from other recipes that call for avocado oil. I had made it before but used dende palm oil which made it smell funny and leached yellow color on the clothes. I can replace tallow for palm oil, then, I am going to have guaranteed success. Still looking for wild cucumbers, the fresh air after a hot day on an open land made me understand why my father doesn’t give up working on it. A nice view of gently rolling hills showing abandoned chick batteries, coffee plantations, the buildings, and two generous bamboo patches which made me aware that I know nothing about agriculture calendar. I walked to the other side of the farm to find just planted coffee bushes on the ground. It didn’t take me long to find crawling on the ground like watermelon the vine hiding ready to pick cucumbers. The skin seemed taut and prickly to the touch. I collected enough for myself and for Maria Cristina who taught me how to cook it. We had probably thousands of wild cucumbers, dozens of avocados, an uncountable number of wild healing herbs on a small strip of land. I propose to myself to make a vegetable garden to supply our kitchen. There is no reason for me to buy our vegetables elsewhere. My sister and I went to a plant nursery. We brought back jasmin and some other plants I don’t know their names. We want to revive our garden. Bring life back to the house. There is so much to do.

December 18th, 2008 - Arrival

12/18/08 - All my belongings were hauled by a truck, while Clara and I took an overnight bus to my town. My beloved young pastors took me to a bus stop and so we left Aguas de São Pedro. We left as suddenly as we arrived. I had closed one more chapter in my life. I carried a light feeling of satisfaction of leaving behind people with the problems they have. I freed myself. Some of my friends and students got upset, others sad, and some others didn’t care. I am still assessing whether I am sad or I don’t care. 

12/28/08 - I got to my parents' farm less than two weeks ago. My stuff is still packed. Some pieces of furniture are doubling my parents’. Carla Emery (Encyclopedia of Country Living) said “No matter where you are or go, if you can grow a garden and raise some animals, you’re a homesteader. And a fortunate human being.” You can tell that I am struggling with my moving back to my town. It is indeed a “back to the land”, in the literal sense. While still living in Aguas, I told Clara that she could have as many pets as she wanted after we moved to the farm. She made a long list of animals including a horse. I knew that a horse was too big of a project, but I had considered free-range chickens, guinea hens, pigs, goats, lambs, rabbits. I wanted to have a “true” self-sustaining farm with all kinds of edible veggies, a large orchard, a wood-fired stove and a wood-fired oven. Since my arrival, I have not gone to my little town very often, except for my homecoming ritual (instituted by me) of eating a tubelike fritter with guarana soft drink. The bar owner is the first to know that I am in town. The heat has been almost unbearable if were not the brief periods of time of cloudiness and rain. If I go to town, I come back without running all my errands. I called up an old friend of mine who is living with her 5-year old son on a farm she runs after the death of her mother and older brother. Her sister has also moved out from there. I have lots to talk to her. Silvia was 17 when I first met her at school. She lived on a farm that enchanted me for the rusticity. Her family lived in a wooden house, with a wood-fired stove which pipe ran through the fire and heated the shower water. The refrigerator was powered by a generator. But what most caught me were the goats and chickens roaming around. We talked about the natural lifestyle and Rajneesh. I went on to college to study Social Science and she ended up graduating in Agriculture. Until I re-met her 4 years ago, over 20 years had passed since I had seen her last. But today I went to visit another dear friend. We were 13 when we became friends. At that time, we talked about boys. This morning, we talked about men. Our complicity remains through decades, even after 28 without seeing each other. We re-met two years ago. Clara and her cousin Mariana wanted to get two chicks each. Our neighbor didn’t want to sell chicks without the mom hen. This took us to what I consider to be almost a real farm: my mother's caretaker's parents’ place. A simple white brick house, surrounded by a myriad of colored flowers, neatly kept by daily sweeping of bare soil. An outside kitchen sink with large polished aluminum pots drying over an even larger sieve normally used in coffee harvest. A rustic wood-fired dome oven made with bricks and covered with red clay, all cracked by lack of building technology. A laundry with a washing board joined with a washing machine under a pink blossomed vine that covered the outside room. Adjoined, a closed vegetable garden to prevent the chicken from entering. A chicken coop, a rotten bamboo basket as a nest, chickens with bare neck, mothers roaming with chicks, a young turkey, a nearby old house with dozens of watermelons, a pig with three piglets. A privileged view from the house framed by a large flamboyant tree: a running creek across the field to end up in a drying lake with geese, cows, lambs, horses. Small house for a large family with visitors. Three men were leisurely talking and laying on benches under a shade of a fruity mango tree. On top of the table, three mobile phones. We left with four baby chicks, a bag of wild mangos, fertilized eggs, a watermelon, and anatto seeds. The kids play all day with three kittens and other cats they can lay hands on. The puppy we brought from Aguas is now kept outside. She no longer shows signs of hyperactivity. From old habits, the only one she keeps is of eating other animal dejects and rotten foods, refusing to eat her expensive commercial dog food which is fought over by other house dogs. I have not done much besides cooking and caring for everyone. I breathe pure farm air (not mountain air as I have once desired) and drink and shower crystal clear well water. Just for that, I am grateful. But I am offered much more. The potential abundance the land may supply. I've gathered fruit trees on a list: oranges, tangerines, mandarin oranges, lime orange, lemon, papaya, cashew, guava, coconut, lychee, star fruit, acerola, mangos, pomegranate, banana, sugar cane, durian, kumquat, loquat and other native plants such as jabuticaba, guabiroba, graviola, abiu, pitanga. On our modest herb garden (no vegetable garden yet) we have growing lush green onions and aloe vera, and herbs that I have brought with me such as rosemary, thyme, mint, basil. Fruit trees and herbs are scattered around on a farm. We got lemongrass where we back up our car to go out of the garage, the pomegranate tree is outside the bathroom window, the sweet jabuticaba is near the entrance gate. Durian tree hanging many large fruits like a large breasted woman stands by our tenant’s house. Maria Cristina (the caretaker) and her husband live right facing our living room door. It’s only a few steps away. It used to be my father’s two-room office, which he converted into their house by adding a kitchen and a bathroom. We have an electric bell that rings in her house any time we need her. They usually tend to a vegetable garden with lettuce, parsley, green onions, and kale. Now they have squash and chayote vines. Down by the chicken batteries, we have planted by our old tenants’ employees taro and bananas carrying a full bunch of green bananas. Dying around the farm are old squash and loofah vines. Still, to be inspected, a bamboo that may yield shoots for Japanese cuisine. Every time I came to the farm, I planted okra, but never grew successfully. With my presence now, I may be able to tend to new plants, so I expect to harvest several kinds of vegetables and herbs in months to come. My father plants coffee commercially. I remember him not too long ago roasting coffee over an open fire using a round globelike roaster with a manual turning handle. Then, an electric coffee grinder. Even today I thought about sewing a cotton coffee filter to replace paper filters. My morning coffee is weak but I take afternoon coffee strong sweetened with organic brown sugar. What a pleasure! We also have about 9 cows. One could milk them if willing...And we remain using non-fat store-bought long shelf life milk. The land is a good thing. We even found a cotton bush. I had the experience of folding a cotton ball between my fingers. It is soft and gentle, silky fine fibers that almost seem to melt like sugar cotton. I still don’t know how much of it is a dream or a hope, or a feasible project. I want to have a grapevine with Niagara grapes. My father once had other grapes, but after a few years of not getting very sweet ones, he gave up. Today, that section is occupied by coffee trees, non-edible mandioc. Still in our limits, we have a few coconut trees for green coconuts we take water from. This water is known to be nutritious, even replacing the mother’s milk. I want to have all kinds of herbs, edible or medicinal. I want my favorite types of veggies. I want to cook using my cast iron pots on a wood fired stove and bake bread, pizzas and cookies and roast pork, whole chickens, and beef in a wood-fired oven. I want to roast my own coffee. I want to work weaving fabrics. I want to extract some essential oils. I want to keep making my own soap. We can do so much here. I love plants, but don’t like to handle animals. I won’t be able to butcher and eat them. I wouldn’t even eat brown eggs or drink unprocessed milk. I only love open-air grilled steak!!! I changed my mind about raising pigs. The romantic side asks for all farm animals; but my city values won’t tolerate feces, diseases, and other smells and slimes that come with animals. Yuk!

Personal Background

Personal Background Both my paternal and maternal grandparents immigrated from Japan to Brazil with their family members in the early 1930s to settle in Sao Paulo State to work as labor for big coffee farmers. Until the mid-’40s, they still planned to go back to their country. The end of the war in Japan brought economic crises which made the whole Japanese community to change their minds and adopted Brazil as their country in which the children would grow up as citizens. Most families bought a few acres of an unexplored area of wooded land to clear it by saws and axes to later plant coffee. Many Japanese families gradually left the rural setting, but still, a very few of them bravely work on the land as my father. He is almost 78 years old, of that, 78 years living on, from, and for the land. In this backdrop, I was born in a little town of 30,000 people and was raised on the farm along with my older brother and younger sister. Our farm was run in a very commercial way on a dual activity: coffee and egg farm. The coffee trees neatly followed a contour line on a boring view and white Leghorn chickens were caged in long batteries. Our farm was devoided of any romantic aspect. No creeks, no ponds, no waterfalls, therefore no fish, ducks, geese, or else. No mountains, no rolling hills, no forests. No wild animals, no beautiful birds, or butterflies. We didn’t have the little farm tradition of raising multi-colored free-range chicken, smart goats, cute sheep, lazy horses, or even pigs. We never milked a cow. My mother wouldn’t bake bread in a mud-brick oven or cook on a wood-burning stove. She never made sausages from a freshly slaughtered pig or harvested crispy lettuces. We bought everything on a local farmer’s market. Even the broiled chicken would come from the grocery store. For the longest time, I dreamed of a self-sufficient, self-sustainable farm. I swore to myself to come back to the country by the age of 50 to start writing. I am a few years early. None of the Japanese children was really raised to follow their parents’ footsteps and continue farming. This way, I got a degree in Social Science, lived in Sao Paulo city, worked in a newspaper until I moved to the USA in the 1990’s. I lived in California and Florida for over 16 years. There, I learned not only English but all about an alternative lifestyle, holistic health, ecology, organic farming. I have read books on country living, back to the land, plain life, back to basics. Due to a series of life happenings, I moved back to my country of origin. Firstly, I lived at a resort town and led a dreamlike life (more on that later) until realizing that it was not leading me anywhere but to the consumerism of a touristic town and city lifestyle. My life seemed to be incredibly artificial, not too different from a suburban life somewhere in America. My daughter was not learning through experience anything substantial. Last December, I packed and moved back to my parents’ farm I had left 28 years earlier. This is my journal – a report from the farm. A real back-to-the-land adventure.