Lights On!

Sorry about the major delay in blog updates! We were completely off-grid for four days... our solar system was down so we had no electricity and no water... It was awesome! Late nights by the fire and candle light... early bedtimes... truly a simple life. I'm not going to lie though, by the time we got to Pueblo on Sunday (we finally bailed), I needed a shower... BAD. So, since it's been 5 or 6 days since my last update, and things have been... interesting... I have a LOT to put down, so I'm just going to go by date. Before I begin on this huge catch-up though, I just want to clarify what changes I'm going through:
1) eliminated junk food and fast food -- only organic food (often times vegetarian)
2) weaning off psychiatric medications
3) hard labor, every day
4) quitting smoking

It doesn't seem like that much when typed out like that... but, believe me, it is. And it's hard. That's why this is the human experiment!

4/21: Bella asked me to pick up a new WWOOFer on my way back down from Boulder, where I went to celebrate the holiday and obtain my MMJL. Possibly the best 4/20 EVER. Anyways, so this guy, Nico, called me and we decided to meet in Denver. So, I picked him up and he's a really cool kid, with an amazing story. He's planning on staying at Earth Family all summer and I'm glad, because I think we're going to get along great. He's really chill and laid back. He studies eastern and homeopathic medicine, so his energy is just amazing. He is so balanced. It helps so much with the hectic, manic environment that Bella can create. So we're driving down I-25 and my car beeps at me. One of my tires is really low. I have to gas up anyways, so I pull over, we take a look at it, and there's a huge nail in the side. LUCKILY, I had Nico with me, otherwise I would have been screwed, but he helped me (didn't do it FOR me) put my spare tire on (for the first time in my life). Thus, big achievement for the summer: I changed a tire (with help). So we continue to drive on to Monument, where there's a Big-O Tires. It turns out that since the nail is in the side of the tire, it can't be repaired. DAMN. Not only that, but they didn't have the tire I needed in stock. The guy was super nice though and called his friend at Discount Tires (their competitor) in Colorado Springs. THEY have my tire. So, we put back on the spare and off me and my fresh new friend, Nico, go . We get to Springs and it takes an hour to put a brand spankin' new tire on. Yep, had to buy a new tire. FINALLY, after like 7 hours, we get to the farm where almost automatically, the phone rings and its Mike (another WWOOFer) from Aztlan (the Native Church on Greenhorn Mtn.) They were having a sweat lodge and invited us to come. This was my second sweat lodge (I went to one the week before). For those of you who don't know, a sweat lodge is a native cleansing ritual in which everyone in the prayer group goes into a pitch-black, heavily covered hut where there is a fire pit. Hot rocks are brought in and the leader chants and leads the group in prayer as he sprinkles water and sage onto the hot rocks. It gets super hot in there and you drip more sweat than in an hour of Bikram yoga. It's very ceremonial, very ritualistic, and extremely spiritual. It's easy to get taken away and lost in the intense spiritual energy within that hut. It truly is a mentally, physically, and spiritually cleansing experience. There are four rounds of chanting, praying and pouring water, but the ceremony isn't over until after the group prayer smoke and feast. It was such a wonderful end to a hell of a day!

4/22: Oh, man, do I have notes for this day! Obviously, I still had hope that the electricity (thus internet) would be up and running. Yeah, was I wrong! I want to give my readers a full list of the characters I've met and now see on almost a daily basis. They're mostly all super cool old hippies, but I don't have the energy to go into descriptions now, so that'll have to wait until another day when I'm not playing catch up. This was an awesome day though. We started out by working at Leon's, one of Bella's friends who lives up on the commune, Libre (like I said, I'll get to all that later); we helped him dig out a potato patch and clear out other plots to be planted. Leon. Is. Awesome. He has spent the last 40 years getting peace stickers and pins made and passing them out and putting them up in random places. So, he lives up at Libre on Greenhorn Mtn. and stays on a beautiful plot of land. There are about 14 older couples still on Libre. They all built their own houses from recycled material... it is so amazing. Leon has the self-sustainability thing down pat. He's got an amazing greenhouse that includes aquaculture and a system that pumps water out of a fish tank to feed the plants. He also has an amazing flower and vegetable garden outside. In the greenhouse, however, things grow year round, which is hard to do in the mountains. For lunch, we just went on a little stroll through it and harvested plants for the most amazing salad I've ever had. Harvest, clean, and eat. Just as we are meant to do. It was so beyond cool. On our way down the mountain, we passed Eagle Ridge/The Butte... kind of the marker saying you've entered Gardner. We decided, although its on someone elses land, that a good hike after a long day of work would be awesome. So, up we went on this loose rock, at least 60 degree slope. It was a HARD climb, but the view of Huerfano Valley from the top was breathtaking. We stayed up there for about an hour, each on our own ledge, meditating and watching the lower over the Sangres de Christo mountains. Absolutely gorgeous. After we got back to the farm, Bella asked us (us = Nico and I) to go fill up bottles with the fresh spring water about 9 miles away. I realize that it may not sound super cool to get drinking water from a fresh spring, but it is. It totally is. Filling up bottles with fresh, cold, clean, natural drinking water? It tastes sweeter than any Vitamin Water you can buy. Overall, another fullfilling, laborous, wonderful day in Gardner, Colorado.

4/23: Woke up to 8 inches of snow. Slow morning... Should probably let you all in on another part of this farm business: the medical marijuana part. Bella, a long time tea and herbal tincture maker, brews cannabis tinctures and sells them to dispensaries around Colorado. In order to make these tinctures, she gets trash bags full of cuttings from plants that have been harvested. We get to go through these bags and sift them to get the best parts. So, that was how we started this cold, snowy morning with no electricity: sifting herb. Thank God for the wonderful wood burning oven/stove! Another part of Bella's business is edibles. That's where I come in. I love to bake... especially from scratch, and I happen to be pretty good at making cannabutter, so I spent the rest of the day attempting to perfect my CannaBanana Bread. It all got messed up though and was a terrible disaster (this time).... but I will say that it was a LETHAL batch of banana bread. CRUMBS are enough to medicate with. The snow melted quickly, almost as fast as it appeared, but at least we got a nice long day inside chillin' and bakin'. It was a nice break from the labor.

4/24: Windy but beautiful day. We fixed one of the coldframes (a structure that keeps plants warm and allows quicker growing). I didn't really help out much with that... I let Guy (the WWOOFer that left later that day) teach Nico how to do it while I layed in the hammock. Later, Nico and I went back and prepared the soil within the frame for planting. We have a nice little salad garden going now: arugula, lettuce, and broccoli raab. This was the day when the electrical ordeal really hit the fan. Ray, who had been working on fixing the system, royally f*cked it up and he and Bella got into it BAD. After three days of little to no electricity, we finally just had to turn EVERYTHING off, including water. There was major tension in the round house, so Nico, Ahni (Bella's daughter), and I went to THE bar in Gardner. It was pretty fun. I got to practice my pool game and enjoy a couple of nice cold brews... it had been a while =) When we got home, Bella was ready to forget about solar energy and just go on the grid or move away in general. She likes crisis like that, haha.

4/25: Ahni decided to take initiative on our solar system, and with the help of her dad and Bella's friend, Norm, she was able to fix it! Because we had already decided to go into Pueblo and stay the night with Norm, we left the batteries to charge up with Direct Current and headed off to Desert Reef Hot Springs outside Florence. We had to take Ahni to Colorado Springs to meet up with a friend before she flew home to San Fransisco for a couple of weeks, so we stopped along the way. At first, I was like, "AWESOME, I need a bath so bad." Then I got there and realized it was a NUDE hot springs! Leave it to Bella... Anyways, at first, I couldn't stop giggling like a stupid little girl (this was before we had even entered the place) then, I got all nervous about getting naked. I decided just to go with underwear. Boobies are boobies, right? Well, after a brief self-pep talk outside by my car, I go into the changing room. I get my shirt and jeans off when Bella steps out of the shower... fully, 100% nude. She smiled and was like "c'mon!" Well, I thought, after she left the room, this IS a summer of new experiences... so off came the underwear. I have only skinny dipped ONCE in my entire life and it was this last summer in Barcelona. It was like 2 am and I was wasted. THIS time, I got consciously naked, in the middle of the day, around a TON of people. It was so invigorating and, in a way, a self-confidence booster. Being naked is nice! But I will say, I have seen my fair share of peens, vajayjays, and saggy boobies for a while.... After a couple hours, we packed up and headed to Whole Foods in Colorado Springs (the meeting point for Ahni). For some reason, I had a complete emotional breakdown. I freaked out on Manbearpig (we'll just use that as a code name for the way-too-complicated-to-even-begin-to-explain man in my life), which I haven't done in a really long time. It really scares me when I get like that, especially now that I'm weaning off my medication. I mean, I started psychiatric meds when I was 15. November of my sophomore year. Now I'm 24... how am I to know who or what I actually am?? So, when I freak out for no reason now, I REALLY freak out. This sent me into a spiral of questioning whether or not I can handle all these radical changes taking place so quickly. I called most everyone in my family and cried and came to the realization that if I do, in fact, need to be on meds, then so be it. I really wanted to prove that they weren't necessary, that things that nature and the earth give us can just as easily fix issues in the head... but the facts are, that's not true for everyone. And that may not be true for me. Which really scares me, because right now, more than anything, I want to be 100% natural and chemical-free. I want to be independent and live in the NOW, the PRESENT, and not in my past. For as stable as I was before I left and have been for the last three years, I am now finding how hard it actually is to deal with my demons after they've been suppressed by medications for so long. It's probably the hardest part about this entire experiment so far. Love doing the labor. Love being outside. Not so much loving where my mind still goes and what is obsesses on when I have absolutely no reason to be unhappy. But, the show must go on, so I'm still taking half of my usual dose. Everything will work out as its supposed to.

4/26: So, since I'm trying to also become financially independent, I (for the moment) have taken a job at a medical marijuana dispensary in Pueblo. It pays for gas and gives me some extra spending money, plus I'm learning a ton from one of the top guys in Colorado. The medical marijuana industry here is booming, and since finding jobs in film festivals or film in general is so difficult if you don't want to go to LA or NYC, I figured this is the next thing I know the most about. I feel like its an opportunity I can't pass up... come September I could be set up with a full time, well-paying job, possibly anywhere in Colorado. Like I said, the guy I work for is THE man. Look out for him in the June issue of High Times. So, I worked a full dispensary day from 10 am- 7 pm. You may think that its just a legal way of selling pot, but patients do come in with severe problems. I helped an elderly man with throat cancer who could hardly speak or hear. I could literally see the pain in his eyes, and I could feel it. It takes patience and compassion to dispense medicine, but if I can help one severely ill person feel better, then I don't care what I give them. It truly is rewarding... and really, really, really freakin' fun. On my way home last night from Pueblo, there were tons of deer and elk on the side of the road. Though I was cruisin' to some jams, I was definitely cautious and aware on highway 69 leading out to Gardner (the middle of nowhere). As I turned a corner about 10 miles from Gardner, I saw a truck with its emergency lights flashing. Automatically, I assumed he had hit a deer or elk, so I pulled over to help out (something I would NEVER do, except, as I say, everyday's a new experience now). As I approached the window, the elderly, toothless Mexican man was on the phone and had stopped because he was about to lose service (as I already had). I walked back to my car, which I left running, only to find out that my car locked me out. 9:00 pm. Middle of nowhere. 30 something degrees. FREAKING OUT. So, I go back to my new toothless friend and tell him my dilemma. "Ayudame, por favor" I plead. So, he pulled up next to me and tried everything he could to get into my car. Finally, we realized that the only option was to break out one of my windows. I picked one of the small ones that didn't roll down, thinking that it would be easier and cheaper to fix, and my new friend stuck the handle of his shovel right through it. I shuddered at the sound, but was happy to be back in my warm car. I drove the next 10 miles both laughing at my stupidity and crying over the damage to my car and the money that I would have to spend to fix it. Now, my little window on my precious Jeep is ghetto-rigged with plastic shopping bags and painter's tape. I finally fit right in to the Gardner scene!

4/27: FINALLY! TODAY! Today.... wow. What did I do today? Haha, I've been thinking so much about the past week, I can't focus on what I did today! Hmm... well, I woke up at 7:30 in a pretty bad mood and immediately put on my work gloves to go clean all the broken glass out of my car and ghetto rig it until I can get it fixed. Then, I had breakfast, and HALLELUJAH! Someone came and fixed the electricity. We're about to build a greenhouse, so Bella had a friend with a tractor come and level the land. Before he got there, though, Nico and I had to do a ton of clearing and moving building materials and other trash that had accumulated in the area. Then, Nico and I set to the task of building another cold frame/hoop house. This time, I did most of the work in putting it together. It took all day, but we've got another great plot that will allow growing and harvesting most of the year! We're thinking of expanding our salad selection into this one as well. It's very exciting to spend hours building something and at the end of the day, see a final product. I feel very achieved =)

So, that's all I've got for right now! Was that enough catch-up? I'll try to be more on top of this, but we'll just have to see how our solar system holds up! Thanks for reading and check back in a few days for more updates and MAYBE even some pictures!