Real twittering

This week, on June 15, right in the middle of 2009, we began our United Kingdom wwoof journey.

Falling in love with the English countryside is no fault of anybody but the beautiful countryside itself.

Its not just the visual beauty of the quiet whispers of the sunsets, the big vivid blue skies. But its also the very sweet little things like instead of going to a florist and buying expensive cut flowers,

I can wander the land from March all the way to November and find seasonal gorgeous wild flowers to celebrate the time of the year. Oh, and experiencing first hand, almost 24 hrs the ever changing seasons. So many people say that the country side is boring. Thats because they dont see the crazy busy activity happening in every inch of the 'wild' land.

And when you're in working organic small holding, man oh man, is there a lot to do and its never dull. Its keeping up with everything that makes it challenging. Bjorn's got a thing for problem solving and innovating, so for him, its constantly interesting and constantly invigorating. For me, its the poetry I find in the woods, in nature. The voice in my heart can be heard more closely whenever I am out here. Watching the clouds slowly pass over, learning the names of all the wild flowers... it just seems like the right way to live life.

Falling in love with a passion is amazing when you fall deeper and deeper in love everyday.

Passion. So elusive to me all my life. What is my passion? Some people have music, others have comics, sports etc. Its when something occupies your thoughts constantly, something you always find new meaning in, something that reflects your own voice and your own self. I dont know if you can call enjoying the countryside a passion, or perhaps, writing about it one. Even if its not, I think its close.

On our day off, we are going to this special forest where apparently it inspired JR Tolkien to write Lord of the Rings. Thats mad. I already find the normal woods we walked in Devon/Cotswolds incredibly beautiful and magical during wintertime already. I can only imagine how this beautiful these woods would be.

So funny, I've seen the woods all my life, on television. And they never looked like anything amazing to me. But to be in one... To hear the birds twittering from all directions, hearing the dried leaves crunch beneath your feet, seeing the light sparkle down through the canopy... sweetness. Even right now, as you read these words, they are only words, and they still cannot fully relate to another person what its like. I now understand why they have the term 'magical woods'. It sorta feels a bit like magic really.

Will write more about the lovely crooked end farm we're staying at now in the following entries.

All I can say is that its so far been hard but rewarding work. Learning alot, eating really well, and sleeping super well.

Now to nurse my nettle sting... Stay tuned.

Sayonara Fuji Eco Park...

We are back in Singapore now... And Sunday's departure from Fuji Eco Park was not the easiest.

It was raining extremely heavily, and Bjorn lost his mobile phone... and it just felt that we only just arrived, got to know the people, the land, the animals and we're leaving already. It was all too soon.

We were showered with so many gifts from the wwoofers. We got a fantastic powerpoint presentation from our Taiwanese friends that I will use to show all my family and friends what we got up to in the last 10 days! The Swedish girls folded us a cute tulip flower and a swedish flag, Non wrote us a very impressive english postcard... and Haru... her tears were so touching, and she gave us a little hamster stuff toy which I have named 'Umeno', which mean plum fields and also Harus surname...

We then travelled back to busy city Tokyo, and almost immediately, I could feel my spirit closing into a shell inside me. Not that I didnt enjoy the city lights, the great food at the restaurants and all. But the more distractions I have in my life... the less time I will have to listen to my own heart. Maybe there are those that can easily retreat into their own space and world amidst all the chaos. But I know I need to be surrounded by peace to find my own peace... I mean, look at how long I took to write in this blog again! Being home in Singapore feels comfortable, but I feel incredibly lazy here.

Here's a photo of the 'Rice pack' they made for us for our journey back to Tokyo... So cuuutttee! Coz they know I always get hungry... hehehe. Its rght before we devoured the delicious rice to find a gorgeous plum right in the middle. YUMMMY!

Thank u Masa, Waka, Haru, Non, Aki, Ringo, Miyuki, Elin, Sussane, Shinco, Daichi, all the rest of the chicken, the 2 sheeps, the insects, the weeds, the herbs, the flowers, the woodchips and of course Mount Fuji... for this amazing experience.

The final photo in centre house

Shinco, our pampered pet hen...

Kami (i think) the naughty sheep!

Here's a link to their blog: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/fujiecoparkvillage - And guess what... Ume has written a lovely entry about us in Japanese! I love u guys... :) :) :) I will use google translate to see what you've written...

Here's a little rhyme I wrote for their blog..... I thought I should share.
I used to write poems alot in secondary school... and then, lost it somewhere between the hormornes stopped raging, getting boyfriends, and starting work. I wanna start again...


I have been searching all my life for a place
Let me meet nice people and live life at slower pace
Over the mountains was paradise as far as the eye can see
Voices in my heart was calling out to me
Everyday we work, play and learn something new
Feeding the hens & daichi the dog to name a few
Untold stories we wwoofers share with each other
Joking, cooking & witnessing the chicken murder
Its a magical place where flowers and weeds alike grow
Even shinco, the injured hen get to give life another go
Could this be heaven on earth, yes i would say
Oh rest assured we'll be back to Fuji eco village park one day!

wild flower pudding

Today is saturday and our host, Masa-san had 25 people over for lunch and a talk on permaculture. It was busy busy for us preparing soba and food for all of them! We also had to decorate a pumpkin pudding thats meant to surprise a couple who just got married. We decorated it with wild leaves and flowers and this is what it looked like in the end. How lovely!

Also, found that in June, they will only have one wwoofer helping out. So if any of you are looking for a cheap but excellent break for a week or two in June and cant think of anywhere refreshing & peaceful to go to.... come here!

The Massacre

Daichi (the farm dog) was acting strange all evening, the barking signaled something was going wrong out in the fields. Grabbed a torch and went for a look at the chickens in their new home and indeed the foxes got to them. Body count was at 10, the other 20 were slightly ruffled but all right, and to think that the sheeps would protect the chickens...sheesh
So now we have 10 chickens at our disposal, was hoping to have a huge cook-up with the carcasses, but no-one seems to agree with me and they want to bury the chickens????!!!!! Oh well it is not my farm so not my call.

Today... at Mt Fuji eco park...

New chickens arrived so the resident old ones moved in with the sheeps...!



Practiced some kong fu in the fields (slacking off) with my taiwanese friend Ringo...



Weeding is therapeutic, as I pull out the unwanted invasion from the earth, leaving space for new fruitful productive plants to grow... it feels like pulling out the demons in my life, creating room for new and wonderful things to seed.

Posing with Ringo and Miyuki, the taiwanese wwoofers. Ringo (right) is a trained nurse, and Miyuki (left) worked in a company that sells aircon components. They both met online to go wwoofing together in Japan & they too quit their jobs back home to be here for a month. Its nice to meet people with the same priorities in life but from different worlds. Lovely lovely gals. :)

Blueberry fields 4eva

So this is my first attempt at updating our blog. As you can tell the previous beautifully written post were not written by me as I'm less than capable of expressing my feelings and thoughts (probably a male thing), so my post will be bring a little more on the technical aspect of our wwoofing adventures.

Our first major task was to mulch the berry fields with woodchips, sounds simple enough, but little did we know it was going to be a backbreaking experience. We spent an entire day moving the chips from one location of the farm to another and was kanckered even before we could get down to the actual work. Somehow I think there was something fundementally wrong with the whole process, but hey who cares about efficency when we had all day (We spent half of it chilling under a tree with ice jasmine tea and japanese snacks)

The blueberry field had a nice little weed protection system going, a cardboard mulch at the base of the plant and a woodchip mluch that we hand-raked across the field hoping to supress the many weeds and to keep the soil moist and warm. Well in theory that was the idea however the resilant weeds were able to find their way in between the crevices of the cardboard and have since sprouted, well hope the woodchip mulch stand the test of the tampopo seeds*.

*Tampopo is the japanese term for Dandelion (there are heaps of them in the fields right now)

Mother tongues...

During this wwoof stint at Fuji eco park, a permaculture showcase park, we have 4 different nationalities wwoofing at the same time. Its quite cute, coz we all speak about 2 languages but not the same ones!

3 Japanese wwoofers - Speak Japanese (good) & English (basic)
2 Taiwanese wwoofers - Speak Mandarin & Japanese (both languages good)
2 Singaporean wwoofers (us) - Speak English and Mandarin (almost la)
2 Swedish wwoofers - Speak English & Swedish (both good)

So when there's something complex our JAPANESE wwoof hosts is trying to say, she'll say it in Japanese to the Taiwanese, who will then translate it to Mandarin for Bjorn and I, then we'll translate it to English to our Swedish friends. Its really fun and really cute. At first, I thought we'd have really strange group dynamics because of this... but it turns out, its just so much fun.

This photo is us as a group, playing scissors paper stone in the morning to decide who does what task in the morning. It takes us about 15 mins to play the games and decide. It could take about 20 seconds if someone just appoints. But what's the hurry? :) That's the whole point.