It’s four months later, April 29 as I write, sitting in Milan, waiting for a plane to Prague, where I’m meeting Benoit for a week of vacation. My life has begun to feel like a vacation, so it’s funny to be taking one, and here we are. A lot has happened since this all began… and it’s such a nice moment to reflect on our first adventure in Portugal…

First, of course, we start with some driving… From Bordeaux down into Spain, where we overnighted for the first time in our van!, and then more driving, and then… wait for it!…
Portugal! :)

For our first work exchange, we stayed almost five weeks 10km from Serpa in Beja at a beautiful project on the edge of a national forest. Under construction, it will be 10 room hotel that incorporates all kinds of wonderful eco elements… solar energy, vermiculture toilets (flush toilets that use worms to convert the effluent into usable, non-smelly compost for fruit trees), biogas filters for the kitchen compost (a composting system that captures the methane produced from rotting food to use as an energy source), a natural swimming pool (sand and clay bottom vs cement and tile, with a natural plant filtration system), sufficient no-till organic gardens to feed the entire hotel, passive solar to help with heating in winter, etc., etc., etc..

From the first day, we noticed that there was a bit of tension between the owners and the volunteers that were there. Most of them were scheduled to leave soon, so we assumed this would ease once they left. Then on the third day, there was a big emotional outburst by the owner towards them. That was eye-opening. Benoit and I reassessed our needs and desires, set some boundaries with the owner, and decided to stay. We soon realized that the source of the tension wasn’t the volunteers, but the immense financial stress of this big, beautiful project. It was now more than a year late and the loans required that they open the unfinished hotel on time, regardless that the world had been upside down during all of the construction. The stress was understandable, though of course, challenging to live with.

And of course, all of us have stress, so we knew that going somewhere else wasn’t going to land us in a completely stress free environment… we just needed to determine how much stress what too much? This was to become a theme during our stay here: where is the tipping point? When does the stress outweigh the beauty and gifts? Time for personal growth, anyone? Suffice to say, as usual, we took it all in stride, did our best, and learned a lot!

The project was vegetarian, so we decided to go out to eat several times a week to fill our nutritional requirements. This gave us time to ourselves and was a great reason to visit surrounding towns, sample local cuisine, and meet the locals.

From the first week, we fell in love with the Alentejano, a restaurant that our hosts recommended in Serpa. We made fast friends with the waiter, who sussed out Benoit immediately and challenged him to try a different brandy every time we went.

When the new volunteers came, Max, Colin, Alice, Benoit and I had a lot of fun together. No matter what we did, three days of cleaning up construction rubbish, many weeks of removing brambles (!!!), daily weeding, weekly deep cleaning, etc., we laughed a lot. We sang songs, told silly jokes, asked ridiculous questions, told stories about our lives and travels, shared hopes and dreams, made up fun futures… I’m still voting for Max’ Snacks to open up in Amsterdam. He likes sweets. Who doesn’t?!

Early on, we planted trees and seeded legumes to help improve the nitrogen poor soils in the burgeoning food forest. Nitrogen is an important element for plant nutrition and certain beans and other legumes naturally increase it, preparing the soil for other plants to thrive.

I began to understand why animals are so important on farms. In so many ways, they offer a different way to move through life, just by being themselves, and because it’s a Way covered with fur or feathers it’s usually lovely, and fun to play with.
We access different parts of ourselves to be with them, a wonderful gift they offer as we slow down enough to receive it.

And I finally understood why people like donkeys. As a horse person, I really didn’t get them… you can’t ride them so why not just have dogs? :) Hanging out with these lovely ladies was an education.
Much like horses, they have a lot to say about boundaries, emotions, self-care, vigilance and tolerance. Plus they are ridiculously cute. Whoever decided on the ears is a genius. With a sense of humor.

For the next task, we made two no-till garden beds. Our first step was to level the ground under the beds so that water wouldn’t puddle anywhere (messy and wasteful in this super dry climate where even water distribution means all of the plants get the water they need). Next Benoit and Ugo shoveled in many truckloads of well composted (old) sheep manure to make the beds. Then we worked on the irrigation pipes, first uncoiling them, cutting them to proper lengths and putting in the joints to connect them to each other and the water source.

After that we put in drip tabs: making holes in the pipes, and then fitting in little plastic caps that let the water drip slowly out of each hole when the water is turned on.

We finished the beds a bit later… in the mean time…

Then came the next task, we began what was to become The Great Bramble Removal. We had no idea.

Black berry bushes (or brambles when you think they’re weeds :), are a pioneer species that nature designed as rapid ground cover in places that have been disturbed, and where soils are poor and most other things don’t have a hope of growing. Like the legumes, they are one of Nature’s many ways of renewing land.

And boy, can these guys grow! Up to two meters a year – in every direction! YIkes! They’re aggressive, thick and strong, have deep roots, and can regrow from stems (so if you leave parts of them on the ground they will regrow). Plus, and most prickly for us, they have serious thorns!!!
Unfortunately, as most people with pastures will tell you, nature doesn’t distinguish between human disturbance (like creating pasture land in a forested area) and natural disturbance (like a fire), so she puts brambles in your horse pasture. Or in this case horse and donkey pasture.

So, we spent three weeks removing them. Three weeks! That’s a lot of thorns, people. And raking. And digging.
Benoit loved the bush trimer. No surprise. He likes things that require strength. And machines are fun. :) So he motored them down, we raked, he trimmed some more, we raked, and then we all spent days and days digging out roots, and more roots, and finally putting all of the medium piles of spiky thorniness into one big pile of spiny nature… to be burned later once it dried. Then the weekends came…

For our final task, Benoit and I choose to go out and deepen swales (irrigation ditches) and plant acorns on the land. It was cold in the morning and mist obscured the terrain. It was so thick this morning that we couldn’t see the surrounding hills or the house across the little valley. Magical.