Sweet Sweet Sweet Potatoes in Mareeba, AU ~ August 1-25, 2011

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Three weeks on a sweet potato farm way out in the country up in the northeast corner (Mutchilba, if you’re curious on Google Earth) have left me a beaming and thoroughly happy Farmer Jones. There was no internet or phone, so this is my first missive to everyone (please don’t worry or be annoyed if you don’t hear from me – there are so many places in this country that have no phone or internet, and no one seems to tell me or know ahead of time if my next destination will be accessible). Regardless, I had an amazing time on Farm #2 and extended my stay there to stay 10 days more. Here’s what made the sweet, sweet, sweet potato farm one of the best experiences of my life:

Graham & Jan Godfrey’s genuine and generous spirit, welcoming about 10 WWOOFers into their home and livelihood with the intent of making it an experience that will see us all grow, learn, and laugh. They shared their time, knowledge, festivities, family table & delicious dinners, (home brewed lime gin, chili vodka, and beer), life wisdom, soccer games, fishing trips, humor, parents, and constant good nature. I admire and enjoy them as people and their lifestyle.

Gorgeous Mutchilba. 500m above sea level, the “tablelands” are rolling plains and farm country surrounded on all sides by distant red gold mountains sloping away; the enormous sky is pinned down to the horizon falling away over the curving earth; everything feels round and glowing, like being a bird…on a farm. This was our “office”.

Graham Godfrey, an original out-outback character. Monster smile, red bristly beard, weathered Acubra hat (think Crocodile Dundee), strong handshake, thick accent, bare feet most days, all covered in the dust of the farm where he grew up and now harvests sweet potatoes and limes, sometimes peanuts & lettuce & watermelon, great family of three adorable kiddos (they also sport their own Acubras) and lovely strong farm wife who moved to Mutchilba from England; she keeps it all pinned down. Graham answered my 1,000,000 questions about farming and the land and creatures with interest, and got me interested in biodynamic farming and the Steiner school… He also had a great sense of fun and wanted everyone working on the farm to learn and experience new things – from snakes to sweet potatoes to fishing to lime gin to the connection between the moon and farming. When I said, “barefoot works for you, Graham?” he said, “This is a pretty good country to be barefoot in, Blu.”
“Blu”. This means me; Australian for “redhead”. For now I’m trading “Ms. Jones” for “Blu” – that’s ok with me for now. I like my farm self (“farm style” as Eriko says) – it feels whole and fresh and free out here.
Amazing people – new friends – from far & wide. Eriko has one of the two biggest smiles I’ve ever encountered (Elizabet Zedd from OHigh gets the #1 prize for life) and a bright sensitive wise spirit to match; she was a Starbucks barista and jazz saxophonist in Tokyo before her journey; her sax music kept us company in the afternoons; her conversation was welcomed insight and humor in the evening since we were roommates. I get to see her again in Melbourne, where she’ll be for the next year and where I’m certain to stop through on my journeys; and Tokyo! Mom, she wants to meet you in Tokyo – you two are kindred spirits. Saeko is a person who would look sensuous and glamorous…even on a farm – she’s quiet and thoughtful from Tokyo, but she’s also full of vitality and curiousity: gem. Chris and Satoko, French-Canadian and Japanese couple, might be the folks I’d be most likely to have met and become friends with if I hadn’t met them on the farm – they were both extremely funny, thoughtful, adventurous and insightful folks who left professional jobs in Canada/Tokyo to explore Australia for the year; they met on a chicken farm! I had great conversations with them, and I’m hoping to see them up in Cooktown, where we’re all doing our next farm stint. Kai the 20-year-old German kid was sweet, gentlemanly, and hilarious once he got to know all of us. The Canadian girls, “city slackers” as Graham called them, were memorable and good people.
Fun work (though any work would be fun in this office)! There’s a lot to sweet potatoes (read on if you’re interested – I was!). First we picked and prepared thousands of “runners”, the young shoots from existing sweet potato plants that are later planted to propagate the new crop. Then we planted the runners (this is a job only for girls) on the very amazing planter tractor contraption which is like a factory on wheels – we would sit four in a row on the back of Graham’s tractor and feed runners into two big wheels that deposit them into the ground that’s been opened up by the front of the tractor, leaving rows of little mound of perfectly planted sweet potato shoot in our wake, little presents. Of course we got to kill a lot of weeds -- I was teased endlessly for professing that I love weeding, having my hands in the dirt and feeling the roots, or working with a weeding hoe that felt like a big paintbrush in my hand. [Just FYI I’m very, very, very good at picking runners and weeding – I generally did as much work as the whole rest of the crowd combined – this was a nice boost to my confidence since I was one of the slowest strawberry pickers in my last career. ;)] Also we harvested on the possibly-even-more-exciting-if-sometimes-terrifying harvesting tractor: with Graham driving, the machine digs into the earth and spurts up loads of spuds & dirt & weeds & roots which pop onto a conveyor belt on the back at which 5 people work furiously to separate the good stuff from the flotsam (Graham: “don’t get your fingers in the belt; they will get cut off if they go in the belt; don’t get your fingers in the belt”), and another conveyor belt brings the good stuff up to me and a partner standing in two swimming-pool sized crates in which we catch and sort and place the spuds into mountains. And we also worked in the packing shed sorting onto more conveyor belts that washed the little guys, cutting and sorting and packing, dancing to top 20 on the radio. You can go half way around the world and hear the same US pop everywhere… but over here I’m tapping the beats while sorting sweet potatoes to it or riding around farm plains with 9 other folks squeezed in a dusty van bouncing over dirt roads.
Talking about language. I can’t count the number of delightful long talks I had with my international friends about what words are best for a purpose, and when it’s best to use this phrase or that. Three terrific girls from Japan, one eager sweet German kid, a thoughtful French-Canadian fellow, and a funny Korean guy all would ask me – shyly at first, but then with curious humor – about words. These turned into interesting conversations that challenged me and gave me food for thought about language, and brought me back to “teacher”. In this case, though, I wasn’t “Ms. Jones” but a friend on a rambling journey of discovering things about communication with other friends who were my teachers and grateful learners. These conversations were a treasure I can’t express – I know we all cherished the safe space to ask questions that might be silly elsewhere, to go back and forth to clarify and connect to life experience, and get to know one another better in the process. Graham had a rule that only English should be spoken on the farm, unless you’re a native English speaker learning another language – this rule kept people from being nasty in other languages, and was enforced with the dreaded eating of a wildly hot chilli pepper (one of the farm’s other notorious crops). At first I thought this was a little extreme, but then I saw how everyone stepped up and learned and taught and engaged with one another in circles of talk about ideas and communication. I admired my friends who did the hard and brave work of learning and “using their words”.
Transformations. Maybe the biggest story about this farm for me was how perception can evolve. When I arrived I was thoroughly disgusted by the dirt and cobwebs on every surface in our WWOOFer farm house, and the piles of junk that seemed to be everywhere on the farm in general. The rule “take your shoes off at the door” made me laugh out loud – the floor inside was gritty with dirt too. But within a day and a half I was looking at the same scenes noticing the sunlight falling beautifully across the laundry line, or the quiet summery air of the farmhouse kitchen, or enjoying my cozy bright room shared with a fun roommate. I had swept all the floors and could deal with the remaining dirt. Happy dirt; I’m ok with it, and it’s the result of a beautiful free farm life. Bare feet are pretty great. The same story unfolded when, about a week and a half into my stay, two loud, large, citified girls from Toronto arrived with blasting ipods, loud complaints every time they opened their mouths (which was not infrequent), and a too-cool-for-school attitude that quickly squashed the innocent open conversations about language and learning that the rest of us had nurtured. But, within 5 days, this pair Ruthie and Katie had become troopers, friends, and humorous members of our now looser, sillier, chattier family with more points of connection. They stepped up to do their share, zip the complaints, and draw out the quiet curious folks with their own style. The last week I spent on the farm felt like a family, and I thank every member of that team for the humor, care, and openness that created that.

Wildlife. I didn’t come to Australia looking for wild wildlife, but it’s here all around. Amazing huge colorful singing birds everywhere – in the morning to wake us up, to serenade our weeding, overhead while I’m running over the hills in the afternoon. Wallabies in the road and in the hills jumping along with me when I’m hiking. Snakes in the brush and in the front yard (big, big, scary snakes). The frog that lives in the shower. The geiko that lives in the kitchen. The spiders and enormous beetles that live in our rooms and porches. The giant Alice in Wonderland caterpillars that live with the sweet potato plants. These guys give a new meaning to “organic” – out here it’s about living with nature, just letting nature be while it lets us be. Graham’s mother (who I met at her grandkids’ soccer game) pointed out that “nothing in the bush will attack a human, unless it’s seriously threatened.” After Graham held the head of the third most deadly venomous snake as it was dying, he (Graham) said to me with terror in his voice, “you guys have bears, right? Now bears are REALLY scary.”

No phone or internet for 25 kilometers around the farm! Turns out it’s glorious not to think about pressing buttons and keeping track of the rest of the world…
Sweet potato song. Yes, previous WWOOFers on Graham & Jan’s farm had composed a lyrical tribute to the golden sweet spud (you may hear it in elevators some time…). We learned it around campfires by the dam. Eriko was our musical teacher, singing along with the recording on her computer and jamming with her sax. The chorus (the only part we fully mastered) was catchy and mimicked Graham’s constant refrain: “Sweet, sweet, sweet po-ta-to-oo-oooes; sha-la-la-laaaa Mut-chillll-ba”.

Fishing trip on the big sea with Graham, one of the other WWOOFers, Graham’s dad, and Graham’s friend who is a professional fisherman on the Daintree and full of nautical and folk wisdom, as well as great fish that we took home to fry up. Do they have WWOOFing for fishing? My dream is to spend months on a sailing or fishing boat travelling around the world, learning and helping… Clara, I’m heading back to the sailing club as soon as I get back!

Learning about organic farming and biodynaics. I filled Graham’s ear with questions, and he filled mine with talk about the Steiner school of biodynamic farming, the relationship between the cycles of the moon and particular crops, and his knowledge of how the crops work and develop. He did point out that, “it’s a lot easier to take your money to the casino”, but he made it clear that in principle organics pay off bigger in every way. I didn’t need to be convinced, but I was fascinated to learn exactly how they work in practice.

Delicious food! The tradition of “morning tea”, a.k.a. “smoko”, seems pervasive in Australia and I’m a big fan – we start work at 7, but around 9 or 10 we break for a morning meal. On Graham’s farm this was the 9-10 hour and was always on his porch with morsels prepared by Jan – time to sit back and shoot the breeze over a filling morning meal, before going back to work for a couple more hours before afternoon break in the heat of the day. In the evenings, the WWOOFers cook for ourselves in glorious culinary teams of two. Everyone cooked their specialty – crepes and quiche from Chris the French-Canadian guy and his lovely girlfriend Satoko; German sausage from Kai; spaghetti & garlic bread from the Canadian chicks; Japanese hot pot from Saeko and Eriko (instructing me); Korean tuna cakes and friend rice and seaweed (imported in bulk) by Jae; sweet potato mash & chicken by the Welsh-German couple. Afternoons were for more experimental cooking and sweets: chocolate chip cookies requested by Eriko, recipe supplied by Julia Quicy!; sweet potato fries & chips ventured by me and Satoko; lots of salads from the kitchen garden; more cookies from Eriko who shares my sweettooth ;).

Seeing the life of Graham & Jan’s kids on the farm. They’re completely free and adventurous, enjoying every inch of the farm with endless giggles for the pigglets, feeding the chickens, sailing from the rope swing into the dam, waterskiing behind Dad’s little boat on the pond at the top of the property. And they’re also some of the most polite and well behaved kids I’ve ever met. Not to mention all painfully adorable. I told Jordan, 12, the oldest, that I thought he has a pretty good life up here; “I like it” he said.