Alika take on CDED9 farm life and general farm

The following statement belongs to Alex Wong, our beloved volunteer also known as Alika, that is with us for 5 months (2 months in 2015 and 3 months since last December!) 
We hope that you enjoy another point of view about our place!

" I came to Casa Da Eira at the end of summer in 2015 and enjoyed it so much that I came back for a second time. This action best explains how I feel about the farm and the experience I got from it. I've trained as a chef and last year decided to make my rounds of the culinary experiences that Europe has to offer. By far my best time traveling through has been on this farm and with the people on it. I think its worth to point out that I grew up in a city for most of my life and have never really 'WOOFED' prior to this farm. But I have always been interested in working hard and creating complete and functioning systems.

One of the biggest things I can remember as an example of this was to stop burning the large amount of brambles that had to be cleared off the land. The farm was absolutely covered in brush which needed to be removed to use for planting and after all of this you end up with an excess of dry material that is a fire hazard. A way to prevent an uncontrollable brush fire is to have small contained fires that get rid of the risk. But a better way to do this is to compost it. This simple but pivoting change is a great example of how the farm is constantly evolving around it's system, especially when you account for the amount of nutrients saved. We are constantly telling each other how much biomass was "wasted" when we are gathering all the components for the latest Hugelbeet shovel by shovel, wheel barrel by wheel barrel.

Personally I'm a really big fan of sticking to a project, finishing it and enjoying the change from your work. Casa Da Eira has its hands in many different projects but the common theme as is in hopefully every organic farm is constant improvement, efficient managing of resources and having fun doing it together. These folks have this theme in trumps (no relation to my president) and I'm excited to see the future versions of them and the farm. "