another rough night, and a headstart into work

Another weird night. Of course I did not expect my sleep to be fixed in 24 hours, but I could use a little more help. I was very exhausted by yesterday evening, and still took some time to fall asleep; and then, again, I did wake up in the middle of the night. It's not a good feeling; it's highly distressful to know one will have a very hard time coming back to sleep. There are a few strategies – NSDR protocols are one, and so is to get out of bed and practice any relaxing, or not too intensive activity, that will ease one in being comfortable for sleep again – but this is a little more difficult on a shared room.

I was out of bed by 6:30AM, but felt very tired. I did not drink or get the yerba mate right away; first, I'd confirm with Daniele whether we would work in the morning. And we did: by 7AM I resumed raking the cut grass, and it really is nice to have a headstart early, as the sun is still very weak, and all is very quiet around.

meeting Petra, the experienced gardener

The garden beds. A layer of paper, which will be filled with a layer of compost above.

Some hours later, we would meet Petra, who's one old connection to the farm – she has been here on previous Youth Exchanges. Petra is studying biology, and does some garden planning every now and then. Our farm's garden has been a little neglected in recent times, and so we were to prepare some new garden beds.

The work was not so hard. First there was the slight lifting of the field – with the fork, some of the soil is slightly elevated (but not turned over, to avoid major disturbances); we then took some width measures, and put some wooden planks in between: this is useful to create a path in the middle of the garden bed, so as not to be walking on top of it. After laying two sheets of paper on top of the bedding, we lay a layer of compost. I don't know what the next steps will be; we stopped at this point, as we were reaching noon.

seeding some pots for the garden

Potting the seeds on the porch. If only all gardening were this pleasant.

Before lunch, we would still place some seeds on some smaller pots. We did this in the porch of the house, guarded from the sun; Nataša was also there with us, sitting with a glass of water by her side. There is a light jolliness around her in these last few days: she confessed to have underwent a lot of stress and anguish due to the very extreme and unprecedented bad weather in the form of heavy showers. Although it still rains, the days have been mostly sunny now, and it looks like a big weight is off her shoulders. I sit a little below, and inquire what exactly is the rhythm of the farm life in the winter, when the plants are dormant, the weather rougher, and the days much shorter. At that time, they leave Jurovski Dol and spend some months in Berlin, but the farm is never out of their minds: it is a period to think, to wonder, to fantasise and to project. This planning process is much easier on the farm than thousands of kilometers away.