turnips all the way down

Whoops! So I'm back in Iceland 2-ish months later and I have yet to complete the 6-week SIT session in blog-form...While I have many photographs and stories to share, for the time being I will have to skip the summer adventures and move on to my current escapades (now with 100% more Ben!)

Let the official blog post begin!

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Heeeey universe. So, yes. Sorry. We're in Iceland again and we didn't tell you. Well, I guess we did tell you. We just didn't KEEP telling you. WE'RE STILL IN ICELAND! As it turns out, this particular part of Iceland has very spotty internet (dial-up, what?), and our web-beaming powers are severely reduced (aka, loading pictures is a no-go... for now). However, when we leave the farm and embark on our grand Northern-Iceland adventure we'll have significantly more internet access (maybe), and will be able to update you all in lucious images and hi-def video. We'll be mailing you your 3D glasses* for appropriate viewability.

For those of you who can still be satiated with text-only updates, the rest of this post is for you (hi Mom!).

We arrived at Vallanes, the farm, on October 13th, and were driven by the farmer, Eymundur, to our regal accomodations in...THE MONSTER HOUSE (named for the monster murals painted on the outside). Our farmhome is a double-double-wide with a kitchen, living area, 3 bathrooms, 8 bedrooms, a rickety 1990's desktop computer, and a perpetually muddy entrance room littered with soaked jackets, torn boots, and glove remains (and I say without any trace of sarcasm, it is a charming abode). Our roommates are constantly a-changin, and their backgrounds and personalities cover whole spectrums.

Work here involves everything from harvesting to packaging, and anything in between (though there's not much in between...that's pretty much the whole shebang...shibang?).

The harvesting begins with a bumpy ride on a tractor-trailer filled with WWOOFers and empty baskets. As we're taken further and further from the barn, the scenery fittingly expands into a landscape of low-growth trees and ever-changing mountaintops. We drift past the half-harvested barley fields and the ravaged beet fields until reaching our target of the day, be it turnips or potatoes.

Turnips rely on a crafty sort of teamwork. A few WWOOFers yank the rabbit-eared vegetables out of the ground and toss them into an impressive pile. Meanwhile, 2 or 3 WWOOFers man each pile and cut off the leaves and protruding roots of the turnip. At the end of our morning or afternoon shifts, we pile the baskets of shaved turnips and muddy volunteers back onto the trailer and return to the barn where we then wash and bag the turnips. The washing process involves a lot of lifting, shaking, rinsing, slipping, pouring, and dropping. In just one day, 10 of us managed to harvest 1.8 tons of turnips!

Potatoes are the result of a more solitary work experience. Each person takes on a row of potatoes and digs under the soil until striking starchy gold. The washing process is the same as the turnips, but the results are not quite so spectacular...An uncharacteristically cold summer stunted the potato growth, so most fields yield tiny potatoes in small numbers.

While harvesting is, overall, a fairly steady and reliable activity, recent rainfall has ensured a more exciting adventure. To say that I have never seen mud of this caliber would not be entirely true...I have seen mud like this, but only during the filth-harvesting scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and during the [ultra-depressing] swamp scene in The NeverEnding Story (click with caution...saddest movie moment of my 8-year-old life). This mud is a black hole. The kind of mud that makes a surprising smacking sound as you attempt to lift your theoretically-waterproof boots from its gloopy grip. The kind of mud that laughs in the face of the once-heroic tractor before engulfing it in a swampy trench. If this mud was a person, it would be the kind of person that plays bass-heavy music in the room above yours every morning at 8am...even on weekends (I mean, really. That can't even be enjoyable for them. No one wins).

Must cease our babbling for now...Expect more soon.

Until then, here's a quick teaser about packaging: We put edible things inside non-edible things and then people buy it!

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*please do not anticipate any 3D glasses