The aftermath of cyclone Lusi

Monday March 17 -St Patricks Day

We passed through Cyclone Lusi with little physical damage around the farm despite wind gusts of around 130km-the tent over the community earth oven flew at times and flapped loudly to those gusts as they blew through from the north east. We didn’t receive much rain, only 30 ml, but enough to give the hungry plants a small dram to refresh them after two months of only 120ml of rain. With the changing climate the extremes are intense at times between the wet and dry periods but overall it is discernibly drier each year.

The cyclone seemed to have an unsettling effect on the wwoofing fraternity that were here as two British guys who arrived on the Friday ended up leaving on the Saturday and taking with them a Japanese girl who had arrived only a couple of days earlier. Then another girl, this time from the Netherlands, after only a week of being here when she was going to stay for a month, said that she also would leave, as she was “sensitive to the changing energy of the farm”-I feel so judged-rightly or wrongly-the words and actions of people who are so fleeting in my life yet again had a huge emotional effect on me and I really cried on the Saturday, especially as the excuse given for leaving was “that his friend felt picked on”, when all I was doing was talking very generally, not specifically with reference to the current wwoofers, about common sense. Maybe it was just two strong minds and personalities clashing but I get angry with those individuals who run away without speaking to me-I didn’t judge him and yet in one conversation he judges me-this kind of middle class narrow minded, closed thinking, is a huge irritant in a world where we need to be open and accepting of each other- no wonder there is conflict amongst our species. However you would think that after more than 20 years of wwoofers and helpers passing through this farm, sharing or not sharing their energy and self with us that I would be a hardened soul however that is not the case and so I feel deeply the various things that are said just as the wwoofers feel and react to what I say also. It is all part of the experience of being a wwoofer host of international people of various ages, backgrounds and attitudes-luckily there are gems who give as much as they take and who have become great friends and memories which I will always treasure….

Meanwhile we are down to 3 wwoofers and 2 leave shortly so the oven sits waiting for people energy again. I promised some photos last time so I will include these onesof the female kiln which is being constructed to support the building of the earth oven. The walls are made of bottles plastered with the red and brown clay mixed with cutty grass and flax for strength-it sits 2 metres high.

 

These photos show the kiln at various stages of construction and show different lots of wwoofers at work.