I'm here!

Well, here I am, three days on the farm and pretty much set up. The wireless network reaches out to my little napping house so at least for now my umbilical cord to the 21st century remains intact! Got to see the closest town yesterday, little place named Joplin. Just like everywhere else it's mostly just strip malls and sprawling subdivisions, 600 miles from where I started and I couldn't outrun the commercial tracts, oh well.

Leaned quite a few things the first couple of days. First, don't buy packaged cigarettes, why you ask? Well, when you're right next to an indian reservation a full months supply of rolling tobacco only runs about 8 bucks and there are no chemicals added to it! I got to find out what a rocket stove was, drive a few fence posts, plant some corn by hand(my poor back!), meet all the animals, eat several completely home grown meals and meet the new family. Lots of things to keep straight in my head but I'm catching on pretty quick. There's a nice little stream on the property and plenty of woods to go exploring in although I haven't had the time to do it yet, maybe next week I'll swing down the road and rent a canoe and see where the waterways around here go.

My host family turned out better than I expected. Comrade and his wife are nice people, they've been developing the whole place with sustainability in mind and have a great son who's seven and is just about the smartest seven year old I've ever met, not to mention that he's far better behaved than I was at that age. Life around here is a bit more lax than normal and most of the day is spent outside either working or just sitting in the shade, far more agreeable than being stuffed up in an office all day! This'll be my first summer spent AC free, not too hot around here yet but I guess I'll see how it goes.

It's just too nice out at the moment to spend too much time punching the keys so I'm headed outside to read a bit and maybe go exploring, aurevoir!