Pero tu, tu no eres - como se dice?- tu no eres "morning person"

As it turned out, I ended up telling Lola I got lost on my way back from watering the olive trees, so she went with me the second time. The path is now both familiar and obvious: not only is it about half the length of the one I took before, but it is also very direct and complete clear. When we get to the point where I was supposed to turn off the hose, Lola sees that it is still open and has a small panic attack: HEMOS FALTO TODO EL AGUA! Es un desastre! I try to explain that I did turn it off, just at a point closer to the trees, because I couldn't find the proper way back. She doesn't really believe me, but we keep walking.

Eventually we get to the point where I did indeed turn off the water, but only after we passed at least 4 other locations where I didn't. It was a fun walk.

I watered a billion trees, but came back just as the sun was setting, and successfully found the path and turned off the water. Woo!

I decided to set an alarm the next day to wake myself up. I set it for 9am, and woke up then and went in for breakfast. Lola looked at me, and immediately asked what I was doing awake. She asked if I used an alarm, and obvi I did. She then gave me a little speech about how I am NOT a morning person and shouldn't pretend to be one. We decided I will do all of my trabajos in the afternoon, so that I can sleep until 12 if necessary. THIS IS PERFECT.

On Monday we went into the town of Huercal-Overa to do some shopping. Lola left me at the mercado, and I had about 3 hours to roam around. The market was kind of like a street fair in New York, but with MUCH better stuff and ridiculously low prices. I loved it. I bought some clothing, shoes, and some gifts for the fam. I hope I can go back, because I want to get everything! It was all wonderful and I miss it.

When we got back to the farm, Candela had a friend over (Erica), and I did an English lesson with the two of them. It was too hot in the afternoon to go water los olivos, so I instead did some more arts and crafts work: I finished up the jar fixins for the mermeladas (I have a new favorite: mermelada de albaricoque. IT'S SO GOOD), and then made some light covering things out of wire, tissue paper, and hay. I had to somehow wrap the tissue paper around a conical wire structure and attach a tuft of hay to it without ripping the tissue paper. It was a struggle. Eventually I figured out a successful system, but not until I had wasted a ton of tissue paper and made some really ugly ones.

We had guests for dinner again, this time it was Erica's family. We had a delicious tortilla made of eggs, potatoes, and onions, and then salad and wine. Erica's brother Mario really enjoyed my presence. He's probably 9 or 10 years old, and he kept showing me things and trying to teach me words in Spanish. At the end of the night he gave me ice cream. I like him.

I decided that my favorite word in Spanish is "rica". But only when it's used to describe food. I think it sounds wonderful and is a perfect description of delicious food.

The next day was more of the same, but in the afternoon I helped Lola make a roof for one of the casitas for the huespedes. The house is right in the sun, so it gets really hot, so we laid out bamboo sticks to make some shade on the patio. I was in charge of hauling the sticks and cutting them, and Lola laid them out. Luckily I have used loppers before (at Harvest and also while I worked in Central Park), but the sticks were about 20 feet long and I kept poking myself and falling over.

At dinner Lola and I had a wonderful heart to heart and she told me all about her life and the history of the farm. She is from a pastoral Arab family (that's as specific as it got), and bought the property 17 years ago. She has since added 7 casitas for guests to stay in, and grows nearly all of the food herself, living in an entirely organic and natural manner. Over the past few days, Lola has reminded me many times how a woman should always know how to cook and clean. I nod politely but inside am not thrilled about this compartmentalization and feel that women should be allowed to do other things. At this dinner though, Lola explained to me that women must learn to cook not to provide for their husbands necessarily, but to be able to be independent: if you know how to cook, you can not only cook for yourself, but you also know how to go to the market and spend a small amount of money and be able to make a ton of great meals. This seems obvious enough, and I'm sure other people use this argument too, but I never thought of it this way. I like it.

Eventually we got to the topic of boys, and Lola asked if I have a boyfriend. I told her no, and she said that was better, that girls should wait longer for things like that. Candela was not pleased. I asked if it was normal for girls my age to be married in Spain, explaining that nearly every man I met at the airport and around Madrid asked me if I was married. Lola told me no, not at all, and that these men are probably asking because if I am not married, they will want to try to marry me to get papers because they aren't from here. Oh. Good to know.

Another fun event during dinner: the cats were up on the bamboo roof above the main terrace of the house, trying to eat little birds! I was not happy. Two little birds fell out of the roof, and just plopped onto the terrace. I thought they were dead because they didn't move AT ALL, but I went to look at them and they were just sleeping. I have never seen a bird that relaxed around people! I was able to go right up to them and they didn't care! (probably not that big of a deal really if they can fall out of the sky without noticing)

Today I met the chickens.

I do not like chickens. I think they are smelly and terrifying and spastic and they bring tons of flies with them everywhere. So naturally, I was THRILLED when Lola brought me over to the chickens. I waited patiently outside the door as she went in their pen, indicating that NO I would not be joining her in breathing 60% air, 30% flies, and 10% chicken poop dust. No.

Lola started scraping up the unknown substances that covered the floor of the pen, and I stood outside trying desperately to escape the flies. Lola soon came out with a bucket filled with the floor goop, and told me to bring it outside and dump it out to fertilize the trees. I looked inside the bucket and saw little worms crawling around in the poop/dirt/hay. Yummy.

I carried the bucket about 843759827855 miles to the trees, dumped it out, and headed back to Lola. She had another bucket waiting for me. And another one. And another one. I went back and forth with 8 or 9 buckets, and ended up creating a nice mountain of chicken products around the trees. I was hot and sweaty and disgusting by the time it was over. It was definitely not my favorite trabajo, but if I hadn't been there I know it would have taken Lola at least twice as long to get done. In addition, because the chickens are so disgusting, Lola was able to set up a fly trap bucket near there pen. It's working pretty well; the bucket is almost entirely filled with dead flies. I think I prefer chickens to flies, so I guess they aren't ALL bad.

However, I did cut my leg on the chicken wire, so if you don't hear from me again assume I am dying from asphyxiation from some ornithosis infection or have lockjaw from my tetanus infection.

Hopefully not though, because today Lola brought out BUCKETS of new fruit and I want to eat all of it.