i will always have sprouts in the making, for the rest of my life. these are mung sprouts. my first ever. this is shana with my permaculture teacher doug. doug in from cincinatti. doug shana and her 2 children and i spent christmas together and ate amazing food. shana is a great cook

this is a picture of a swale and the very beginning of a food forest. so this land is sloped. what we did is dug a 1 meter deep hole , about 2 meters wide and however long, and threw all the dirt into a mound. trees and nitrogen fixing plants are planted on the mound. the water the flows down the land collects in the swale and penetrates into the ground. and also, the water reflects the sun onto the tress creating a micro climate.

this is me nervously explaing a compost toilet system for the permaculture design project i recently finished

i was in charge of designing the compost, compost toilet, food forest, and windbreak. here i was explaing how on this land the wind was coming from the west and that i would recomend a windbreak consisting of small shrubs, then slightly taller shrubs , then a tall tree then another medium sized shrub then a smaller tree so the windbreak would be triangular and better block the wind.

--------------------------------

the idea is for everything to have alteast 3 functions. a plant can fix nitrogen, be edible, and a be good mulching crop. this would be a permaculture plant.

permaculture design course is coming to a close

tomarrow is the last day of the 2 week course. the past few days we have been in groups of 4 and 5 working on our final design project. alot of time has been spent on the project. i was the designer of the forest garden, windbreak, compost, and compost toilet. a couple hours ago all the groups had to present theire designs. when it was my turn to talk i got pretty nervous and it was obvious. but public speaking is something that i need to get over. tomarrow is the graduation. im still not sure where i will be going after the course.
over these past 2 weeks i have been inspired to try to get more invlolved with my community. because i feel like the town i grew up in is not doing well in the way of enviormental issues. but i now have some confidence to take the small steps that need to be taken to improve upon it.

its been a while, huh

so, ive really been buisy. i was doing a work exchange a few weeks ago and the guy i was staying with told me about a 2 week permaculture class going on a couple hours south, do i decided to go. i am here now, today was day 8 of the course. we learned about worm composting, building swales, food forests, microclimates, natural building techniques, and lots of other things. we made a compost heap that wasnt heating up so i put a big jug in the bathroom that people have been filling up , and ive been dumping the urine on the pile to increase the nitrogen.

we have been eating very well, 3 organic meals a day. my teacher, doug, is from ohio. i am becoming more inspired everyday and everynight i dream of permaculture related things. i have been thinkg about spending time in south america when i get back. after i hang out with my family for a while of course.

i will now go eat dinner

kapoooooooka

the past week or so has been great. everyday toivo, hilco and i load up the truck with trees and spend the day walking throught the forest garden planting trees. the website for this place is. www.sustainableforestgardenfarmproject.weebly.com

in 30 minutes or so i am being picked up by joao and we are going to sintra portugal where we will be for 2 weeks taking a permaculture course.

more to come later !!!!

15 acre forest garden

i am staying with a english couple who has been living here in portugal for 10 years. the have a 15 acre forest garden. its amazing. ill write more about it later.

i got sick

yesturday a friend of chris s left some pasta and soup for us. we ate it for dinner, and i ate a piece of chicken by accident that was in it. i havent eaten meat for 2 years. this morning i woke up feeling grosss. a couple hours later i threw up. im all better now

moving on

for the past 2 weeks i have been staying with chris ripley and helping him with his straw bale house. to check out the project go to www.quintadosmelros.org its been wonderfull working with him. i learned alot. now i can install a tounge and groove wood floor, lay down tiles, plaster with lime puddy, and a few other things. tomarrow he will be dropping me off at a friend of his place where they have a 7 hectare forest garden. i will stay there for a little more than a week and help them out, then i will go to southern portugal and take a 2 week permaculture course.

after this you will know me better

sometimes i talk about urine and fecies and urinating in buckets and diluting it with water to use on plants because it makes good fertilizer and all that. and i understand that some people are completely grossed out by that kinda talk, but i want people who want to know me that im not just trying to be shocking or gross, but things such as this is what i am interested in learning about which leads to living a more sustainable organic life. the things i want to learn about are more than human excrement things but it just so happens that that is one of my most favorite aspects of the whole thing.

i want you to know that

when you flush your toilet you are usually flushing drinking water down the drain where it goes to a water treatment plant and it is usually treated with chlorine. this is a waste of water. this is also flushing what could be great fertilizer. when your feces is properly compsoted it can be magical. joe jenkins, author of the humanure handbook talks about this in detail. to read the whole book for free online or just a chapter go to www.thehumanurehandbook.com

it has been said that one persons urine has enough of the nutients it would take to feed that peron for a year.

i could go on and on .

update

a week ago today i got to chris s house. so far we have put a coat of lime puddy on the outside of his house in a few sections. we put down a hardwood floor in his living room area and then coated it with flaxseed oil. i planted a bunch of seedlings which seem to be doing great. i felt good planting them. i have been visiting them everyday to make sure theire doing ok. we also went to the market in argonil where we got about 15 trees for the forest garden, olives trees, chestnut, almonds,walnuts and a passion flower. if your interested about talking with me about forest gardening please email me. dward.okun@gmail.com

there is no shower here or hot water. i havent felt the need for showering yet, but if i wanted to i could wash myself in the stream the runs through his yard. and he has an old fashioned washing board kinda thing for the clothes. i have been brushing my teeth. i have been eating musli for breakfast alot. and i snack on nuts and dried apricots throughout the day that i got at the market. lunch and dinner we usually eat rice and vegies, or pasta and veggies.

so, i think im pregnant. so i am learning as much as a a can now.
a view of chris s house from the compost toilet

here i am puttting on a coat of linseed oil onto the floor we just put down
its hard to see in this pic but i planted 60 seedlings. caulifloower, broccoli, beet, and lettuce. today i placted 60 leeks and some portugeuse cabbage. as a permaculturist, chris has a no till garden. he uses no pesticides and never steps on the garden bed. i recently read that 80 percent of the microorganisms in the soil live in teh first 2 inches of it. so by stepping on the soil many die which is unfortunate because they are really great for the soils well being

a few pics

here are a few pics i took recently. one is the new floor we put in. another one is a view of chris house from a distance. another is me sitting on the side of the street waiting for a ride to get here, i was wearing my new portugal fooootball shirt. another pic is of chris carying some heavy trees he got at the market.

i have arrived

yesturday morning i said goodbye michael and maobi and had them drop me off at an intersection. i was standing around trying to catch a ride. it was exciting to be heading someplace new, and i was really happy. there was a street sign that i started hiting with a stick. it was making a really beutifull noise, and it kept me entertained until i got picked up by some old guy. the old guy brought me 20 minutes down the road to v. velha where i walked for a short time and eventually got to a rotary. the air reeked of cellulose because of the factory close by. trucks full of eucolyptus trees were passing every 10 minutes. i was wearing a bright red portugal fooootball shirt in hopes of getting picked up quicker. hahahha. a good amount of cars passed by. as a car was approaching someone was parked on the other side of the road honking at my to hop in. i recognized them, they had passed me 10 minutes before. my good looks must have made them turn around. they said they could bring me all the way to where i needed to be which was castelo branco. on the way there, their car had overheated. they pulled over on the highway and poured water on the engine or something. then a police man pulled up behind them and wasnt to happy becasue they dont want anyone pulling over on the side of the highway. anyway, they dropped me off at the bus station. before i went in the driver gave me a harty handshake and gave me a powerfull look.
i stood in line to get a ticket to oliveiro do hospital. i dont know how to speak portugeuse so i wrote my destination and what time i wanted to leave. everything was working out great. after 4 hours or so i got to oliveiro do hospital. my final destination was casal do abade. the busses werent running to casal do abade at that time, it was to late. so my plan was to find a place to sleep and get the bus in the morning.before i went off in search of a place to sleep i went into the snack bar-bus stop, to find out what time the bus left in the morning. it was hard to communicate to them , so i drew a picture of a bus and i wrote 6 00 . they kept saying taxi taxi taxi, and i gestured that i didnt have allot of money. but one of the guys in the snack bar went out side and came back 2 minutes later with a cab driver that spoke a little english. his name was carlos. he said he would drive me their for 12 euro. he was a nice guy, real nice. he bought me a beer and then we were off.
chris wasnt expecting me until the next day. i tried to call him to let him know i was coming early but his phone had no service.

gets more intersting here, i guess

i had some not so good directions on how to get to his place. it was something like, go into casal do abade until you see a post box then take a right and go up the track. carlos was driving around with as much of a clue as i had. he parked out side someones house and honked his horn until someone came out. i guess he asked her if there was anyone that spoke english around here, because we ended up from there going to another house and honking untill this english guy popped out of the window. i said im looking for someone named chris ripley who has a straw bale house. the englishman said a bunch of portugeuse stuff to carlos and then looked at me and said, ok, he is going to drop you off at a bridge. when you get to the bridge go to the right and walk up the track in the woods, and he lives around there. so we drove in that direction and couldnt find the bridge or anything. so carlos went to another house and honked until they came out. he asked them if they knew where we could find chris ripley, and they said to him to drive down the road just a bit and take a left. when we got there the road led into the woods, very dark and rocky with lots of ditches. then we got to a cross roads. when you get to a fork in the road take it. right right right, michelle michelle, michelle. so i i gave him some money and thanked him and helped him back out. the path was dark, but i could see a light from a house in the distance. there were 2 dogs on the path barking at me, they ended up leading me most of the way to the house. i could smell the house from far away. when i got close i touched it and i could feel the lime coating on the straw bales. i knocked on the door and recieved a nice warm welcome from chris. what a great guy he is. full of energy. very interesting. he made me dinner and we talked for a while. he had also given me some wine that he and a neighbor had made.
he showed me to a caravan which is to be my home for the next little while. it is cold here at night, and there is no heat. but that is just how i want it .

today we started working on the inside of his house. we are removing temporary beems and putting in perminent ones. unfortuntly i ended up breaking his bath tub, but i told him i will replace it. hahahahaha.

a bit about chris,
he has been living here in portugal for 4 years. a while ago he got fed up with england and decided to get out. he was backpacking around in spain then to portugal where he was shown some land. he thought it would be a great place to start a permaculture project so he bought it a few months later. he arrived in the summer and camped out. then in the winter he moved into a small beat up ruin where he lived for 2 years while he was building his straw bale house. he is getting married in 2 weeks and is going to have a baby soon.

tomarrow i leave

if all goes to plan, tomorrow i will be hitchhiking to a town where i will stay for the night and then catch a 6 30 in the morning bus to a town 2 hours north of here. then i will get another bus to go to a nice place to do a work exchange. its a little complicated. but i trust in life, an itºll work out.
i will be working on a straw bale house. the guy i am working for seems to be into the same things i am interested in like permaculture and what not. for people like my grandma who might not know what permaculture means i would describe at a sustainable way to live and be and grow with the earth. no chemicals or any of that awfull stuff. uhhhhhhhhh , i am bad with describing things.

today i walked

on my day off i slept later then i thought. i got up at 8. instead of just using water for my oatmeal i used some soy milk! i also put in some apple and banana and honey. i also drank coffee. while i was doing this i boiled 2 eggs. i ate the oatmeal, packed the eggs in a tupperware with some carrots and a pare. pair. paier. the fruit.
then i headed on a walk. the walking path was marked with yellow and red stripes to direct which way to follow. i have been at this place for 2 weeks now and this is the first time i really ventured out. i have been buisy. i noticed many eucalyptus trees. there is a factory that processes them for their ( a word that begins with a c) to make paper. they are planted by the company throughout the area which is not a very good thing. they are invasive trees with deep roots and they really hog the water from the other plants.
around here the houses are very very old. many made with stones. the not so old ones are made with clay blocks. the trail i was walking brought me through and abandoned village. michael and maobi had told me about this place. everyone that lived there was very old and died. there was one lady still living there until a short while ago she moved to an elderly peoples place. now there is no one at all. the houses are falling apart and nature is taking over, with many trees growing inside them. some of the houses still have things in them, like cooking supplies and clothes. it was a very eery place.
up the path a little more i sat and decided to meditate. it was the first time i tried meditating in a long, long time. but i was very nice. after the meitation i found some chocolate in my bag i didn't know i had.
then, more up the path there was a tree full of red balls. the outer skin was soft and pointed all over. i later found out the fruit was edible. so maybe ill go back and eat some.
i could see alot of the land surrounding the mountain from where i was. things are so much more green then they were when i first got to portugal. i set the camera to take a 10 second delayed picture of me while i was up there. it came out a little goofy. i didnt get too too lost on this adventure

okiedoke

about my last post with the 10 to 1 or the 3 to 1 ratio, i want you to know that one book i have on the subject says to use a 10 to 1 ratio and the other says a 3 to 1. when i get some time ill look more into it. but dont waste your pee even still.

all the bricks are now up. michael and i spent the whole day on it. tomarrow we will fill in the cracks with mortar then start on the wood work.

urine update!!!!

urine has lots of nitrogen and other beneficial goodness in it. the idea of it being flushed down the toilet and being chemically treated and messing with the lakes and all that terrible stuff is just ridiculous. if you want me to explain more email me and we will talk all about it. so. . . . . i set out some small buckets outside the house here to collect rain water. and now i pee in them. you shouldnt put the urine directly on the plant because its just too much nitrogen. i think the dilution ratio is 10 to 1 or 3 to 1. water to urine. thats why ive been peeing in the rain bucket.

try it at home!!!

caca

hahaha, i remember yesturday while we were standing at the site of the compsot project michael and his friend werner were talking and every few words was caca. i must say it is tough not knowing what people are talking about. i get the jist of it though. caca, i know i know i know. so, yesturday the foundation was poured down and today the entire first layer of bricks were set. also, this morning we went to a wood shop and took allot allot allot of there sawdust to use for the compost toilet. i spent a while sorting it into smaller bags so it will be easier to use. so now we have 5 pound bags of sawdust. very good. tomorrow most of the bricks should be up. maybe by friday we will start with the wood.
im getting sick of bread and cheese for lunch. i like it and all, its tasty , but i need a change. so i had them buy me some brown rice. so i make that in the mornings now and eat it at lunch. also, just so you know, because i bet you wonder. . . i have been eating oatmeal for breakfast the past few days.

hot nuts

this sunday there was a chestnut festival. on the way there we stopped to go see the biggest cork ouk tree in all of portugal. it was massive! they use cork oaks to make corks for wine and such. every ten years or so they harvest the bottom portion of bark from the cork oaks. they also make crafts and what not. cork oak. it might have been over 1000 years old.
then we got to the festival of the chestnuts. i bought a bag of hot nuts for 70 cents. it was a lot of nuts. very tasty. roasted chestnuts. they had wine there too, but you had to buy a cup for 1 50 and then each fill up was 50 cents. i shared with eik. i didnt drink much of it. i might have had 2 glasses. my head hurt pretty good for the rest of the night. cheap portuguese wine.

the compost toilet project is well underway now. the foundation has been laid out , and i few bricks have been put down. unfortunately i do not think it will be ready for the big party on saturday.

grandma

my grandma now knows how to get to my blog page

the straw bale house

eike is a neighbor of michael and maobi. he has a house made out of almost all natural material. the walls are made with straw bales. today i went over to his house and helped him put some plaster on the outside walls. the mix was calk, straw, water and sand i think. the work is harder than i thought it would be. the first layer is very important. you cant just spread it on, you kind of have to push it in there real good so it will hold. when that first layer dries after a day or 2 it will need to get 2 more coats. eike has spent the last 6 years working on the house. he has done pretty much the whole thing on his own. its a big , big house. eike is a real smart guy. he knows alot about natural building.
while working today i was thinking a lot about an idea i came with a little while ago of someday having my own land. i would like to build a yurt or a cabin or something, and have lots and lots of food crops and trees. i have been getting interested in the idea of food forests. i was thinking i could have a big week or how ever long work party type of thing. i would invite everyone i knew to come help out and i would post online. people could stay there for a week or so and work and i would give them food and such. and also they would learn how to work with cob, how to plant things, and all that stuff. a lot of people pay to learn that stuff, but im not interested in trying to get people to pay. it would be a good deal for the both of us.
some day i would really love to have some land to work on.

97 liters

michael just got back from the olive oil press. we ended up with 97 liters of oil. that's a lot

the start of a big project

before i came to michael and maobis place they had told me they wanted me to build them a compost toilet. i was thinking of building a small scale 3 to 4 person compost toilet which is just a small box, a bucket, some sawdust and what not. but they want a more intense compost toilet that can hold the poo of 20 people living there.
it will be set up like this . . . on the upper part there will be 2 sections so 2 people can be using the toilet at the same time. each section will have 2 toilets in them with one available to use while the other one is closed off. underneath there will be 4 sections, one closed off section under each of the the 4 toilets. when a section gets full it will be closed off and the other toilet that was locked down will be opened up and pooed in. by the time that section is filled up, the section that was first used will be somewhat broken down and hopefully ready to use in the garden. there is going to be a angled access door in the back which is south facing in hopes of generating some heat. i hope this works out well. im not sure if it will be safe to use directly on food crops but it should be ok on plants and trees and what not.
if you want to use your humanure on food crops it should be put into a compost bin where it can reach thermophilic temperatures which is 113 degrees. that will kill the parasites and what not.
we have a lot more planning to do. so far we put pegs around the perimeter and i started digging trenches for the foundation. yesterday i spent a lot of time ripping down a rock wall which i now realize didn't need to be taken down.

again with the olives

it is 1 30 in the morning. i just got in from finishing up with the olives. i have really been liking all this work. it feels good. this morning i got out of bed around 8. then around 9 30 we headed to the terrain and we picked olives until the sun came down and then picked some more. its was maybe 7 pm when we got back. then we ate a very delicious meal of mashed potatoes and mashed carrot with fried egg on top. then we drank some homemade wine from another one of michael and maobis friends. then a group of us put the bagged olives into a machine that took out all the leaves and stems. i had to stand there and shake up the olives when they were coming down the machine to put the leaves through the grate that then went into a bag.we all drank wine the whole time. lots and lots of wine. we now have 23 bags full. i would guess each bag ways at least 60 pounds. tomorrow morning we are going to the olive oil press place. i am excited to see how they make oil.
michelle doesnt like olives. i use to hate them. now i like how they taste. salty and what not. my feet stink.

many many olives

last night michaels friends from belgium came, and they brought 2 of there friends, a baby and a dog. today a group of us picked olives all day. we picked hundreds of pounds of olives. it was another beautiful day here. the sunset was great to see from the tops of the trees.
tomorrow we are going to pick the leaves out of the olive bags and play music while we do it. tonight after dinner we drank some of michaels friends homemade wine who lives down the street and grows the grapes himself. then we played music. maobi and i played hand drums and michael played piano. then maobi started playing the dijeridoo. i thought it sounded really good. they said i had some latino rhythm or something.
michael and maobi want to build a compost toilet down at the terrain. i am interested to see how it comes together. i am glad that i am here at this time and get to be part of the beginning of all of this. they are both smart and full of great ideas.right now i am planning on staying for 2 or 3 more weeks.

first day of work in portugal

on the way to the field we passed a donkey. michael. told me a funny story of how a neighbors donkey was running away and he chased after it for a while. eventually he caught it and figured he could just ride it back. when he was on, a dog started teasing the donkey which made the donkey run down the dog with michael still on it. the donkey was running high speed all through the town. when the donkey slowed down to take a turn michael was able to jump off.
michael and maobi live in a house that she got from her aunt. they bought 7 acres of land that isnt to far from the house. lots of olive trees. there are some caravns there that are available to sleep in. they have it set up real nice. attached to the caravan is a tarp and under the tarp a nice table to eat at and comfy chairs. we picked olives for maybe 6 hours. i liked being up in the tree. since ive been in europe ive climbed 3 fruit trees. i think 3.
its nice working with them and talking about our interests. they have been thinking of an intersting idea of having a small group of 10 or so people come to there place and all live together for a year and study permaculture and what not together. i think it is a great idea. they can all live and learn together and teach eachother and create right there on the land together.

i am now in portugal

not to long ago i left pierettes place in switzerland and went to see my brother in halle germany. it was nice to see him again. then i went to basel switzerland and hung out with tim. then i took a 10 pm flight to porto, portugal.
it was 11 30 when i got into porto. i asked a security guy where the light rail was and he gave me a rail pass and showed me to the train. what a nice guy!!! i had to take the train to campanha which is an hour or so from porto. then i was supposed to take the train to rodao, but the trains were not running that late. so i started walking around looking for a dry flat spot to sleep. after a little while i was sitting and i started talking with this lady and i asked her if i could stay at her place. she said she didnt have room. i believe her.i kept walking and i thought some guy was following me. i stopped and sat on a stoop. he came up to me and said something i didnt understand. i said no Portuguese. then i said. je me pelle dward, and then i shook his hand. he kept looking at my bag. then he left. soon after i came to a park with a few trees and such. it was somewhat well lighted and i didnt want to be seen sleeping with all my stuff with me. so i literally went and slept inside a bush. i big bush. not as big as you are thinking but big enough for me to crawl under it with my stuff. i put the tarp i had on the ground. i noticed it smelled like dog poo in there. gross. hahahahaha. it started to rain soon after so i took out my big trash bag and pulled it up to my waist. i slept for an hour or so then woke up a bit chilly so i went and found a new spot. a much better spot down some stairs that was dry and covered. no one could have seen me. i took out my sleeping bag and slept for another couple hours until it was time to go back to the train station.
3 hours later i was in rodao, portugal where michael picked me up. nice guy. we went to this bakery that uses a big old fashioned bread oven. then we went back to his place. so buautifull here. rolling hills and olive trees. old houses that look over a hundred years old. at the house i met his girlfriend maobi. very cool person. i like them both pretty good so far. i am excited to be working with them. i am going to help build them a compost pile and a compost toilet. tomarrow we will pick olives.

farewell to switzerland

tomarrow morning i am taking a train to germany to see my brother for a couple days, then ill go see a friend in basel, then ill go fly to portugal. i have really enjoyed my stay here in courtelary, switzerland. it would not have been as amazing if i had not met pierette. she is so friendly and hospitable. great lady, i'll never forget her. i'm sure i'll see her again someday.
i'll miss all the cows in the neighbors yard and the beautiful beautiful mountains. it is going to be hard to leave her dogs rocky, ika, and guess. at first i thought guess was some weird french dog name, but it turns out the dog was named after the company. ahhhhhh.
i made sure to go get some more cheese and more choclate before i go. the feeling of leaving here hasn't really hit me until recently, maybe an hour ago when the sun went down.

and the compost pile..... i made sure to fix it up today, and layer it good to keep it warm for the winter. i sat with it for a few minutes and ill try to go see it in the morning. theres a few pounds of dog poo in there thats roasting away. i hope pierette makes sure not to forget to add the compost to the garden. part of me is inside that pile.

i miss michelle alot

cheese and amazing hospitality

this is going to be a long one



george and mary antoinette!!!!!!!!!!!!!



i have a friend that is going to school at the goetheanum about an hour or so away near basel switzerland. i left thursday to go visit him. before i went there pierette brought me to an old underground water mill. it is centuries old. it was used for many many years but then electricty came around and it just became a trash dump for the city and for a bucherie that was near by. later on, one man in his spare time started cleaning it out. he soon got help from his friends and after 7 years it was all cleared out. now they have tours there. it was all in french so i didnt know what they were saying ,but i think i know what was going on.
pierette didnt go with me on the tour. she went to see a friend. so i hitch-hiked to basel. i had 2 signs with me. one the said delemon( which was supposed to say delemont but it was spelled wrong) and on the back in said basel which is french. and i had another sign which said bale, which is german for basel because basel is in northern switzerland where they speak german, and i was told the german speaking people might not like that i had a french sign.
after 15 minutes i got picked up by a guy name sylvin. he brought me 15 minutes down the road to a rotary. it was a good spot to catch another ride. i gave him a bar off choclate for his kindness. i was using the sign that said delemon because delemont was on the way to basel. i was standing in a nice shady spot and got picked up by johnjack!!!!! and his nice car with his nice fancy salesperson clothes. he sold lights for the phillips company. he was coming from a business trip in lyon, france. i rode with him for 45 minutes to delemont. the ride was beutifull. steep mountains foiligiatinggldy all over the place. we came to this one point on the rode and he stopped and let me get out and enjoy the view. then we continued and soon got to delemont. he went a bit out of his way to bring me to a good spot to catch another ride. within 5 minutes i got my last ride. i didnt ask theire names. the guy seemed kind of tough and serious. he didnt talk to me much. he was with a girl who was maybe 27 or 30 who he seemed really pissed off at. i gave them a bar of choclate. he didnt say anything, the girl seemed happy. 30 minnutes later they dropped me off in the center of basel. i ran into the post office and mailed a post card to my friend dave that i've had since amsterdam.
i took the tram to dornach which is the name of the town tim is in. then i walked up the hill, got lost, asked a few people where his street was and then i finnally made it. we started talking about the cheese olympics that was happening that weekend. we were both excited about it. the next day we were on the computer at the youth center looking up the info for the cheese olympics. the last train was leaving in 30 minutes. so we ran back to his apartment, packed up and ran to the station. we didnt buy tickets because we were feeling rushed and what not. the train came but it was on the wrong side of the track and it stopped way down at the other end. so we ran over the tracks hopped over a construiction barrier thing got yelled at by a bunch of construction workers and ran to the train. i thought they were chasing me. it was a rush. we got on the train right before it left. we were on the way to the cheese olympics !!!
unfortunetly the ticket people were in that car and asked for our tikckets. then the police came out of no where and asked for our passports and all that. we had to pay 80 francs. which really stinks. (my parents are now freaking out i bet) . we rode the train for an hour to the village of the cheese olympics. when we got there, there were 80 different vendors. many free samples. it was the first day of the festival. the commisioner or whatever was there giving a speech and there were many farmers protesting. i didnt see but they were throwing boots at her. it was in the paper.
that night was the giant vat of fondu. fondu for 1200 people!!! there were hundreds of tables set up in the big room and each table had a 2 or 3 gas burner thing for the pans. we had to pay 18 francs to eat the fondu but it was very much worth it. before the fondu was ready we were talking with a nice french guy named george. he asked where we were staying, and we told him we were probolly going to camp out in the woods. then he and his wife told us to stay at there place. george is 60 something now and he is well travelled. he said he did alot of hitchiking when he was younger. the european hospitality is incredible. incredible!!! during the 2 hours of stuffing myself with fondu they bought us wine liquor, and then bought us coffee.
all the sudden this band came out of nowhere and started playing poka music. i never thought i would get into poka, but i did. the people we were sitting with grabbed our arms and started swaying back and forth real upbeat like. i was laughing hard. there were people on stilts putting pepper on people plates. georges brother kept on sayin ca va ca va.
george and marie antoinette brought us to theire beautiful big house a few towns over and showed tim and i to our room. we got to sleep on a nice big bed. before we went to bed we all sat in the kitchen and drank tea and talked. george is an administrator for a watch company. that next morning he brought us to his work and gave us a really nice tour of the factory and took time to explain everything. there is alot that goes into making watches. lots of time. i still dont much care about them though.
for the last 20 years george has gone to bangcok 2 weeks of every month for business. he drove us to a house he is having built for his daughter who is an artist. its a beautifull place in the country side. lots of big windows and light colored walls. then he drove us around the windy backroads and then into france. he liked to drive fast and i started feeling quieeezy with all that cheese still in me. then he dropped tim and i off at the cheese olympics and told us to give him a call if we wanted to stay another night. tim and i were so cheesed out. there was a cheese buffet for pretty cheap but i didnt want any cheese. so we walked some trails and hung out with some cows for a while then went back to the fest. there was this really rocking bluesish polka band playing with funky bass and tight drums. they had a girl rocking out on the apline horn. it was great.
there was a hotel down the road that we went to in hopes of getting into a sauna. when we got there we found the sauna but needed a key to get in. there was a hockey rink attached in the complex and we went inside and sat down for a bit and ended up watching a really good hockey game. it reminded me off the old days when i used to play. we called goerge and he came and picked us up. tim and i planned on making him dinner but somehow it eneded up with george taking us out to this fancy upscale restaurant. the food was delicous and the wine too. we tried to pay but george said to forget about it and threw down some money. what an amazing inspiring guy. i was tired by the time we got back and went right to bed. in the morning they again had breakfast for us. bread and homemade jam. yogurt and tea. coffee.
after breakfast we went on a walk with george through the woods. he brought us to the top of this mountain. on the top of the mountain there was a small cabin where anyone can go and spend the night. its always open. the view was blurred from all the fog but it felt really good being there. we walked back to the house and then said our goodbyes to george. we walked an hour and half back to the olympics, ate some samples for a couple hours then tim hitched a ride back up to basel.
i went and watched a crappy hockey game and then met up with pierette at the cheese parade. she was going to bring me home but that didnt work out because her niece unfortunetly got in a car accident and pierette had to leave quick and i wasnt around at the time. so i was on my own to get back. i started walking and saw a sign that said 5 hours to st.imier, which is the next village over from where im staying. i was walking down the path and met this couple that told me of a good spot to get a ride. so i went to that street and started walking. i got picked up by a family of 3. a mom and a dad that spoke little french and there 13 year old daughter. they were very kind and brought me 10 minutes down the road. i got my next ride in about 20 minutes but didnt get to far with that one. then i started walking up the steepish road towards st.imier. i never had to wait so loing for a ride since that time in austria. i didnt mind it though. i felt really good then. i was signing to myself and clapping my hands.i had fun. i was walking for over an hour putting my thumb out to every car. except when i saw a dog. he was timid at first but then he was so so friendly and loved when i patted him. he stank like cow. when i was petting him a bunch of cars had gone by.eventually i got a ride and it brought me all the way to the house. so i got to town withing 2 hours instead of walking for 5.
this is the longest entry yet. and ive tried to keep it short. so many experiences this weekend. this could be more detailed but i think im done writing for now.

more cheese then i've ever seen

pierette has been really great with getting me cultured here in switzerland. she set up a private tour for her and i at a cheese factory. she knows the lady who helps run the place and bribed her with jam and apple juice.
when we got there we had to put on a long white coat and a hat for sanitation reasons. susan, who was the co owner of the place talked alot about the cheese process and all that goes into it. they make four different types of cheese there. one of the cheeses that they were making is about 800 grams and it takes 10 liters of milk to produce. the milk comes from local farmers who bring it to the outside of the shop and have it pumped in. they dont go into the shop with the milk for sanitation reason. the milk is pumped in throught a tube and then weighed. after it is weighed it goes through a whole mess of tubes and into a big huge vat that holds atleast 3,000 liters. it looks like a big mixing bowl. the mixing bowl gets heated up and mixed up good and they add things to it and then when its ready , big fat tubes bring it into this other machine which is full of these cans. the cheese is sprayed into the cans and then pressed to drain out the liquid. after a short time they have to flip the cans so the cheese rotates, otherwise the cheese would be stuck in the can. im still pretty confused with the whole cheese process. i think after it is pressed it goes into a salt water tank for many hours which is where it gets its outer skin. after that it sits for alteast 3 months, and every day they wash them with a damp rag to keep them moist so they dont loose to much weight. for a while they were having to wash all of them by hand, but now they have a machine that washes them and can wash up to 300 an hour or 3000 i forget. also everday the cheeses nead to be flipped.
the dairy farmers come twice a day 365 days a year. so its hard for susan and her husband to take a vacation. they both seem really happy though because they are living there dreams. susan wanted to own a small shop and her husband wanted to specialize in this one type of cheese.
their cheese is shipped to a bunch of different countries including the united states. i took some pictures and even if i knew how to get them on the compouter i wouldn't because i was asked not too.

a true swiss experience

fondu!!!

for now on every place i go i want to try to learn a different cultural recipe. so the other night when i heard we were going to have fondu for dinner i made sure to get my notebook. peter taught me step by step how to make fondu as i stood beside him looking on as he cooked. peter is pierettes babies daddy.
its very important to have a hard cheese. you also need a white wine that is not sweet. if it is to sweet add a little bit of lemon juice.
chop up some garlic and onion which is optional and fry it up on a low heat with some butter if you want. some people add different things at differnt times, but after the onions and garlic are heated up well peter throws everything in together. so add the cheese, white wine, pepper, and maize which helps hold things together and stir continuously. peters mom said to stir in a 8. i like stirring randomly. how do you like to stir. email me at dward.okun@gmail.com
the mixture will start to bubble after a while and when you take the stirring spoon out you will see a solid strand which is good. you can also when adding everything in, put in whaterver else you want like tomatoe sauce or eyeball juice.
peter had cut up a bunch of pieces of bread for dipping. he said to make sure that each piece has a good amount of crust so the fork can hold onto it good without it falling in the fondu. they say that if you loose your piece of bread you have to buy a bottle of wine.
he put the bowl of fondu on top of a metal plate which had a small amount of gas burning under it to keep the cheese hot and melted and not get to clumpy like.
i ate so much fondu. i felt gross. but good. i was also told that it is important to drink wine or something hot so the cheese doesnt clump in your stomach. no soda.

saltie!!!!!! they say

apple juice

today we took all the apples that we collected to the apple press place in the village right down the road. there was a machine that i put the apples into that funneled them into a shredder which then shot the shredded apple into a bucket. once the bucket was full we emptied it into another machine that squeeeeeeeeeeezed out the juice. im going to try to explain the machine. it was cylindrical and maybe 3 feet tall and a diameter of a foot and a half. the outer part was made of corregate metal that had a detachable sac on the inside. and in the very middle of the machine was a rubber tube. i guess its kind of lake the layers of a tree. kinda sorta not really much at all. sooooo, we put the grated apples into the machine there, then put the lid on top. there was a hose attached to it that filled up the rubber tube with water which was in the middle applying pressure and expanding outward to squeeze out all the juice. the juice would flow down the corregated metal into a bowl that went all around it, then funneled out into a bucket after going through a strainer. while that was going on i was making shredded apples with that other machine. then when the second machine was done juicing we would open it up, push down the dry stuff and fill it up with the shredded mushy apples. we kept doing that until it couldnt be compacted anymore then we would empty the sac filled with dry apple stuff into a wheel barrow and then set aside for the cows.
after a few hours we made 350 liters of juice.

the swiss alps

what an amazing adventure. i am kind of an idiot for doing what i did. scary scary

pierette and her friend went about 3 hours south to a town called evolene. its right in the alps. i went along for the ride not knowing where i was going to sleep that night, so i brought a sleeping bag and tarp. when we got into the town we went to a nice restaurant and pierette and her friend sylvia bought me a delicous pizza and some wine. she was friends with the owner of the restaurat and asked if it was ok with him if i slept in the ski storage room that was connected to the restaurant. after the meal i was shown to my room. i put my sleeping bag on the floor and slept sooooooo good for 9 hours. i woke up around 7 and packed up my things and headed for the mountains. it looked so much closer then they were. it took me an hour to get to the start of the trail. by the time i got there i needed a rest. i started making my way up and everything was going great, and then i kind of lost the trail. i ended up walking up on some sheep. we both starteled eachtoher. the sheep started baaahing and then all the others started. i walked for a while through the woods and then up this real steep part with alot of help fromthe walkng stick. then i came to a road. i was a little annoyed to see a paved road after the ordeal of getting up that slope. i ate some chocolate, found a trail and headed up the mountain. there were lots of icy streams gushing down the mountain. at on point i got to a stream that was to wide to hop over. there was a rope to hold onto to help get across. the water was flowing fast under the ice and i couldnt make out what were icy rocks and what was ice. i started making my way across and then the ice broke away and flew down the stream and my boot went shin deep in the water. but it wasnt a problem because i was wearing water boots that pierette let me borrow. there not very good for hiking but they kept my feet dryish.when i was crossing the stream i was so happy and excited i started making noises and screaming and whooing.
soon after i again lost the trail, so i made my own way, which i like to do but at the same time i dont for the reason that trails are there so the area doesnt get ruined by hikers and what not. i found a really awsome walking stick that really helped me out alot. i am incredibly thankfull for that stick. more on the stick later.
i was soon back on a trail and everything was going really great. the view was amazing. snow capped mountains all around. i could see the small villages below, way way down below. then piertte sent me a text message asking me to come down because they wanted to leave in about an hour. and i had been hiking for maybe 5 hours by then and i was way up there. i wanted to keep hiking and get to the top but i needed to get down quick. this is when things started getting intense. i realize now that i should have turned around on the trail i was on and went down that way, but i just started sliding down the steep mountain. sliding down wet grass, and rocks, and when i started going to fast i would jam the stick in the ground to stop, then start again. i did this for a while until i got to a cliff. terrifying!!! i am very very bad with heights. no way i could have gone back up the mountain to get back on the trail.much too steep. i had to find another way down. so the walking stick and i slowly edged over to the right crawling along the slide of the cliff holding onto small trees so i wouldn't fall. if i didnt have the stick helping me i dont know what i would have done on that part of the mountain. the stick and i were making are way over to an area where i saw that it was possible to get down a bit further onto a more flat part. when we got there i sat on the edge and put my foot on a branch sticking out the side, then i jumped down putting the stick in the ground at the same time and landed safely. then i realized that i lost a shoe that i had attached to my bag. with a good bit of trouble i climbed back up just a bit and got the shoe then jumped back down. for a while i was able to make my way down by doing the same thing, just find branches sticking out where i could grab onto and jump down and jam the walking stick in the ground to keep my balance. then, there were no more places where i could jump down onto a flat area, it was steep steep steep, and no grass, just icy rocks. i was getting really nervous which was probolly my biggest problem.i put the stick in between some rocks and i was about to make a step when i dropped the stick and it rolled and rolled then fell off the cliff. i was upset that i didnt have the stick any more , and i was even more bothered that i lost the stick that i had somewhat of a bond with. i took off my gloves to get a better grip on the rocks and slowly slowly made my way across. at one point i had to crawl along the side of the cliff on my stomach. then i found more places where i could jump down a few feet at a time. then i looked over and saw a steep but not too steep grassy area where i could just slide the rest of the way down. with alot of trouble and nervous sweating i made my way over and rested knowing that i wasnt at risk anymore of falling off the cliff. aarghhhhh. it was ridiculous.
so i found another walking stick that reminded me alot of the other one, and i just started sliding down the mountain and jabbing the stick int he ground when i got to fast. i did this the rest of the way down for about 15 minutes until i got to a trail.
i walked down the trail and soon came to the main road. it was an hour past the time that pierette wanted me to be there. they were waiting for me at a restaurant and i still had an hour to walk. fortunetly, the second person i showed my thumb to gave me a ride all the way. his name was philipp. sooon enough i was back safe and with a big big smile on my face. ill never forget this experince. and i will never go down a mountain like that again. probolly not, maybe.

apples

i dont think i ever before climbed an apple tree until a few days ago. im pretty afraid of heights, but when im in a tree its different, i feel safe.
pierette and i went to her friends house who have a lot of apple trees. my job was to climb the trees and shake them so the apples would fall. they fell onto tarps we put on the grass and then we collected them. my pants and sweatshirt ended up getting covered in cow poop. the brown really went well with the orange of my sweater.
her friends were very nice people who seemed to live very simple lives. theire kitchen is exactly how you might think of what a farmers kitchen might look like with a wood stove and those red and white square sequenced curtains. they gave me coffee with home made schnapps in it. they made the schnapps with potatoes that they grew. the kitchen smelled like cow and horses which makes sense because the barn is directly connected to the kitchen. i felt good there. comftorble.
a few days ago i climbed pierettes apple trees with pooja and gave them a good shaking. it was so funny watching her trying to get down from the tree. once the neighbors cows saw that we were picking apples they all came over to the fence for a snack. i hopped over the fence to try to milk one but they wouldnt let me near them. someday i will milk a cow.
there is an apple juicing place down the street where we dropped off all the apples. on monday and tuesday we wil juice them.
the compost is doing great, even in this cold weather. its shrunken down to almost half the size. pierette let me put the dogs poo in there which will be broken down and rud of any pathonegens after the compsoting cycle.

soooo hot

it is 1 degree celsius here in switerland. i think thats maye 35 ish fahrenheit. it was about 8 this morning when i went to the compost i built and stuck my hand in. it was so hot i could only hold it in there for a few seconds. some people build compost all the time so its probolly not too big a deal for them, but for me it is intensley exciting. last night i dreamt of compost. i forget exactly what the dream was. also, joe jenkins, wwww.thehumanurehandbook.com who is one of my heroes was in another one of my dreams last night. all i remember is that there was a flood and it was around halloween because everone was dressed up. there was someone dressed up as pat bennatar.

reach into my hot pile of love, pure love

i finally made it to the choclate shop down the street. i went with pierette, and she has a 20 percent discount which i was able to get too. she bought sooo much choclate. over 50 francs worth. she brings it to india for her friends there whenever she goes. i have been eating about 400 grams a day or so. im starting to floss my teeth to balance things out.
pierette has 3 very productive apple trees in the field outside her back yard. last year she got 900 litters of juice from them. i spent an hour or 2 picking apples for her. the beginning of next week we will will juice them.
after the apples i mowed the lawn and i mowed a circle around the trunks of the apple trees so they will be easy to find when they fall. she has a few compost bins that are mainly filled with grass which is just nitrogen. a compost needs nitrogen and carbon to break down properly and for the microscopic organisms and such. so i took the not so good 'compost' out and filled it back up. first i put in sticks so air can get in through the bottom. im not sure if this will help at all. then i put in a thick layer of grass then a layer of leaves and continued layering until it was full. jaque, a little boy that pierette was looking after that day was playing in the yard, and i called him over and picked him up and put him on top of the pile and had him mash it down. he was into it. this morning right after a breakfast of mushy pancakes i went out to my hot pile of pure love and reached deep, deep inside and felt the incredible warmth. oh, the joy i got from feeling that heat. i love it.
yesturday pierette had me cut a big limb of a tree so the sun would hit the part of her yard that had to much shade. i felt a little bad about cutting it, but the twigs and everything went to a good cause. i built a small 8 inch tall fence infront of one of her garden beds. it looks pretty interesting. and the smaller twigs and such will be put into many faggots and used as decorations.
the meals i have here are delicous. yesturday for lunch it was potatoes, salad, and atleast 7, maybe 8 different types of cheese. and for dinner tonight we ate delicous lasagna that pierrette spent hours on. when i was travelling with andru, are staple meal was bread and cheese, and maybe occasional yogurt. it's nice to have variety. i miss travelling with my brother though.

a very good day

today was great! i had choclate pancakes and tea. i decided i would go climb a mountain. so i made myelf some lentils for the hike. pierette came back from some arabian country shortly before i left and gave me some food that she got over there to mix in with my lentils. delicous. it was about 10 30 when i left. the train wasnt leaving for a while and where the trail started wasnt to far away so i decided i would walk and try to hitch hike. for some reason i feel so good when i stick out my thumb and try to get a ride. i can't help but smile. the first time i ever hitch hiked was when i was in austria with my brother. we went from vienna to salzburg. we were standing there trying to get a ride when this big tour bus pulled up, one of those busses where someone is sitting in front telling all the people what is what. but it was empty, the driver was just driving it back from somewhere. it was amazing. just the 3 of us in this huge bus. he gave us beer too.
anyway, i got a ride from a lady in about 10 minutes after i left the house.i was happy to get a ride so i could get on the trail sooner then i planned. she dropped me off st imier then i started walking towards the mountain and tried to connect with some cows. some of them started making sweet sweet love to eachother.
the trails where real nice. lots of pretty plants and mushrooms. i am so awfull at trying to explain things. it was an incredible experience that i can't describe.
i hiked and hiked for awhile and kept following signs for the peak. i stepped in a lot of cow poop and slid all over the mud and almost fell a whole bunch of times. it was about 3 hours when i got to the peak. i can't do a good job at explaining the incredible view. i could see farms and windmills, lakes, and way off in the distance i could just make out the swiss alps with the snow capped peeks.
the used boots i got aren't holding up to well anymore. after all the hiking and sliding on mud and what not it really wore them out. the sole on the left one is ripped up.
i was taking my picture with the 10 second timer and some guy offered to take my picture for me. i asked him where courtelary was, where i am staying, and he gave me directions.
i relaxed on top of the mountain for a while and read for a bit. then i headed down the mountain in a different way then the guy asked me and i got kinda sorta very lost. sometimes i ask people directions and i go another way anyway, its a problem. i knew that to get back i had to go east so i followed the trail for a while and didnt see any singns for courtelary. still towards the top of the mountain i saw a rode and i got on it and tried hitchhiking, but there weren't many cars going by, so i walked acrosss a farm, up small hill, hopped over a barbed wire fence into another farm and got on that road. i walked down the road for a while and saw a man taking care of his horses. he spoke decent english. he told me courtelary was about and 1 30 away, and to go down the rode and take a left. so i did, but i defintly messed up somehow. i ended up hitching another ride from a really nice couple who said that they could bring me to courtelary. it turns out that i walked way to far east and i was 1 or 2 villages away. i was getting
a bit nervous that i wouldnt make it home before it got real dark, or that i would get all the way down and have no idea where i was. but the whole time i had it in my head that i would be there soon enough, which i was. big thanks to people who gave me rides today.

rossa

the beginning of my day was not to productive. i made pancakes and watched french tv. i raked some leaves into a pile and decided i would get around to putting them in a sac some other time for pierettes friend who is building a dry toilet. then i took the dogs for a walk. i am realizing that where i am right now is nice and all, but im not learning any of the skills i'm interested in like self sustainability, compost, and all that. so i think i will stay here for another week or so then go to that place where i was the other day where they make cheese and have a greywater sytem in the making. that would be good for me. i do like working for pierette, shes great.
anyway, after not doing much for a big part of the day i went for a bike ride. i was riding down the street and i saw some old guy and i said parla vu englay ( i dont know how to spell it but it means do you speak english) he said he did a little, and i asked him where i could go to find music or something. he told me to ride 40 mins or so a couple villages away. i rode for a bit then saw this abandoned rode that was being overgrown so i went down it for a bit. it got more narrow as i went along and steeper. eventually there was a sign for the village he was telling me about so i went in that direction and the trail started going down real steep and i was going sooooo fast. i was pretty nervous. i was so happy and excited that i started to make loud and weird noises.
when i got into town i went to the first bar i saw and got a drink. i said the parla vu englay thing but they didnt speak english. i said 'beer' and they understood that. i drank my beer outside next to my bike and relaxed for a while. then i asked someone across the way where there might be music going on. he told me to go 300 meters down the way. so i did and i walked into this really interesting bar with lots of books that i could not read because they were in french. i talked to the bartender for a bit. he spoke some english. he said there wasnt anything going on that night, but he was nice enough to write down the website of the place and give me the owners contact info so i keep keep up to date. already, i lost that piece of paper. i left the bar and started riding my bike down the rode and then it started raining. i had my rain gear but i figured i would just go back to the bar and have a drink and wait for the rain to pass. thats when i met rossa.
i think her name is rossa but im not sure. if it did not start raining i wouldn't have met her that night. 10 minutes is alot of time. she started talking to me after she heard me talking with the bartender. she was sitting down and i was standing at the bar. then she pulled out the chair next to her and asked me if i wantd to sit. she talked for a long while. about her travels to asia, about her living situation in switzerland and how she is getting old and needs to figure out what she needs to do to have a secure future. she was saying how she is a hippie, an old one. she said fuck alot , which was annoying because she would hold out the f, like ffffffffffuck, maybe more like, fffffffffffaahck. she bought me a beer. i think i will see her again sometime soon.
i got back to pieretts house and i just ate food. pooja made instant soup and ramen. then i ate an ice cream bar. bon nuiet

are my posts too long or what. give me feedback.

last night

i told christopher columbus he had a drinking problem. and he told me that if he did not drink he wouldnt be able to play guitar as well. then he walked away.

the begining of my switzerland adventures

i took the night train from germany to courtelary switzerland. a total of 10 hours of travelling. i didnt sleep much on the train. this guy kept on snoring and snoring. i went to the bathroom and “accidently“ bumped into him on the way back and he woke up and i slept a wee bit.
pierette, the lady i am doing a work exchange with met me at the train station. we soon got to her town and she showed me to my place, my own private apartment with a sink and everything! except a shower and stove. i napped for a bit, got walked in on by her mom who lives upstairs then i went down the street to where pierrette lives and had dinner. we ate lasanga and pie and drank mint tea. i told everyone how all mints have square stems and opposite leaves. i put the dishes away and left. i read for a bit,listened to french pop radio and was asleep at 9 and didnt get up until almost 8.
pierette has a girl from india,pooja, that is staying with them for a year studying french. this morning we ate corn flakes together. she said “do you wish to have corn flakes with me“ more on pooja later.
after cornflakes pierette brought me to a friend of hers place. there super sustainable and have goats, chickens, monkeys and kangaroos and 2 elephants. there was this guy making a grey water system. the system was set up so the water would drain out of the house from a pipe into a holding tank where bacteria grows and kills all the bad stuff or most of it, then it goes to another place where they can check to make sure the water is decently clean and where they can add good bacteria or kill bacteria if they have to. then, after that the water drains from the pipe in the ground into a trench thats about 4 feet deep, 10 feet wide and 15 or so feet long. the trench when its finished is going to have all these plants around it that will suck up all the bad stuff in the water like heavy metals and such. i just read something like this in a book called the humanure handbook. it was neat to see it being done. i took pictures and if i can figure out how to get them on the computer you can see.
on one of my weekends off i will go back there and do a work exchange for them. they have lots and lots of delicous cheese. swiss is big on cheese.
the work today was pretty light. i jsut moved dirt for a few hours from a pile into a garden bed. it rained the whole time but i have my rain gear. then i peeled many apples. pierette has a lot of friends who are in the sustainable movement who i will try to visit and learn from. life has been really amazing for me, especially these past couple months travelling europe.

look at this tree!!!

the start of a blog

this is for my momma