Grant and Paige: the Week of July 11 to July 16

Friends and Family, a week has gone by, it is now July 16 and we have had a life changing week. Everyday we are learning something new. Our consciousnesses are expanding greatly as each day goes by. I joke that by the end of these 4 months I will have subsumed the entire Universe.

I will now do a recap. My plans for this blog is to take a good amount of pictures and choose several to expand on as I type and recollect my memories about the past week.

On Saturday, July 9, 2016 we arrived at the Grange Farm School and were the first two students to get there out of 7. We arrived a day earlier because we wanted to leave San Diego ASAP. The rest of the students were going to arrive on Sunday, July 10. We were astounded by the beauty of the surrounding mountains and giant redwoods. We were greeted by 3 beautiful individuals of which we have grown close to over the past week. Their names are Eva, Sky, and Daniel. I love their peaceful natures and willingness to be. As soon as we arrived, Eva and Sky welcomed us nicely and took Paige and I to forage for the first time! We traversed a pasture full of cow-pies and ticks to forage for blackberries which were so extremely divine and delicious. We have never tasted such blackberries before. The juice in each little small berry of a whole berry was very warm and not to mention, some were very big! We love walking by and seeing a wild bush and just stop for a few seconds to eat a few berries.

(Paige and Eva in the background picking blackberries. They are also trying to avoid the thorny pricks on the stems of these pretty dang big bushes.)

(The pretty big smile on a little girl after a long big day of roadtripping from San Diego, California to the Ranch which was about 12 hours of nonstop driving.)

We harvested a few buckets of these beauties and froze some blackberries for future uses such as making jam and cobblers. Most of us are eating a vegetarian diet with some optional meals that have meat included now and then. We have noticed our consciousnesses and health has improved greatly with this adjustment in diet. *insert joke again*

(A blackberry with a lady bug on it, the quality of this picture is really good and I love the macro effect. I used my iphone only which is pretty dang cool for this type of picture.)

I then declared this a lucky blackberry so I ate it. Of course, after I set the lady bug's preciousness elsewhere. I am not that morbid. :)

(Redwood Giants sitting in the forefront of a large mountain with more giants. Beef Cows are grazing in the pasture sitting in front of the aforementioned Redwood Giants. The valley has already been consumed by the shadows of surrounding mountains. But the upper half of the redwood giants are still receiving sunlight!) 

We are very lucky to get the chance to see this sight every evening because this is from our Gazebo!

On Sunday, July 10, 2016 we woke up feeling so weird and out of place but very content at heart because we knew we were with nature and that we were going to be living around this beautiful huge ranch.

(The Canvas Tent Paige and I will be living in for the next 4 months.)

We love sleeping with the cold nights and waking up to a heated tent and going outside into a very brisk chill every morning then have the sun rise into the valley and immediately giving its love and warmth to everything. The valley is pretty much a diamond shape and its upper point faces north as the bottom point faces the south. You can feel the sun and the shadows dancing around you because the sun rises from the east to west. It feels somewhat divine.

(The views of the tent area. our tents are about 50 yards from the Gazebo and Schoolhouse of which sits on top of a good sized hill)

(This was midday of Sunday, July 10, 2016. We decided to walk towards the redwood giants to the left of this picture. You also saw these giants in previous photos of the sunset and cow pastures. It was about a half mile to get there.) 

We also stopped at the purple little field down there. The pretty purple flowers are called Pennyroyals and they have a very heavy mint aroma. It also repels some bugs and ticks which is pretty cool.

(Tents on the Left and schoolhouse on the far right and gazebo in the middle with the kitchen sitting on the left of the gazebo. and the tool workshop sitting to the right of the gazebo. The picture was taken from a distance on the west side of the farm facing the eastern mountains. The sun rises over that mountain)

(Field of pennyroyals as you saw in the other picture above from the Gazebo)

(Sky and Paige approaching the redwood area entrance mentioned in the previous pictures. Those trees were just the outer area and are already too big to fit in that screen on my iphone.

(A very dreamy picture of the old growth redwoods)

 As soon as you enter the shade of that old growth area, you immediately feel the shade and fresh chill air and the certain smell of the forest. The difference is about a 15 degree drop. 

 (This picture says enough. Paige is very precious compared to this very big old ancient tree.)

(Paige standing under an altar frame of crafted wooden sticks. This circle was used for a few weddings I believe.) The area is very beautiful. The area was circled by the redwoods and other little trees and shrubbery. Very private and breezy. It was indeed a beautiful place for two humans to announce their vows for eachother.)

(On the way back to the farm from the Redwood Area, we collected a bunch of pennyroyals and decided to make them into wreaths as well as put them everywhere in our tent to repel bugs)

(The three of us, Sky, Paige, and I made wreaths for the new students who were arriving later in that day)

(A Cob House being made)

Later on the evening of Sunday, July 10, 2016, Sky, Paige and I decided to walk a little distance over to a neighboring property on the ranch to help them with their building progress. It was a fun and laborious experience. This is one of the many methods to build houses with. It is not my most favorite but was still nice to get the experience to see how some of the cob was being made and knowing the Ratio sizes of the mix and stuff. This houses total cost was about 6,000 dollars and has an upstairs loft and is spacious It is amazing what we humans can do with our hands. 

On Monday, July 11, 2016, we woke up with all students present. We learned who we all were and why we came to this very school. We have a very good group dynamic and the vibes are good.

 (Our calendar for the month with notes about that certain day)

 (White Board right in the Gazebo where we meet for every meal and in the morning)

 (The Field where we will be working on nearly everyday and harvesting our own food from the same very field. Most of the vegetables and food also goes to the farmers market which we will get experience with down the road over the course of the next few months)

Monday, July 11, 2016 was mostly a day of adjusting into your surroundings and had a ranch orientation where walked around the entire ranch and got to know our surroundings as where the field was, where the orchard was, and all that stuff. Later on in the evening of Monday, we had to move the sheep into pastures down the road. It was a good experience with some good belly laugh moments. We also had to move their pens and we simply put it on one of the farm trucks and just moved it there. hah.

 (Pen has been put on top of a truck which isnt the best idea but it worked well at the time)

(Sheep pen on a truck. Three of us holding it down so it wont slide back and forth on a bumpy and gravelly road)

On Tuesday, July 12, 2016, we realized time was going by fast on the farm. Entering our second day of school and really enjoy the nature of our classes. Our classes are either lectures outdoor or indoor. We learn at the field or will be provided reading materials and make our own notes. So every day will be different. I have my own binder and maintain my reading materials they provide and keep them in the binder. There is not exactly much writing but I know we will get into that over the next 4 months. The day was mostly about the curriculum. Which most of you already know I plan on mastering 5 units, Livestock management, Industrial Arts, Crop Production, Business management, and holistic management.

I learned alot on this day for what values I will be bringing into  

Paragon Sustainability.

We talked mainly about values we should be having on that day along with our currilicum. I can sum up everything into 3 words. These 3 words are very loaded and can result in a deep discussion.

It is known as CPR -

CONTEXT

PURPOSE

RESULTS 

  

On Wednesday, July 13, 2016 we had a good long day spaced out with several activities. We had a tool maintenance workshop and learned a lot about little nuts and bolts to tool practices and about the shop itself in general.

(Master Takashi Yogi's workshop. We have an amazing old japanese craftsman who lives among us and maintains the farm and can fix literally anything.)

I look forward to learning more about industrial arts from Takashi. He is a very humble and intelligent man who escaped worldwar II and moved to America. He has so much respect from us. We are learning Orderliness and Mastery from this individual!

We also went to the local ranch community center and had a big potluck dinner and met the people who own this ranch and found out Seabiscuit the legendary Horse lived here and that the ranch has alot of history to it. As well as a very well known Native American child's graveyard. There is sacredness around here.

On Thursday, July 14, 2016 the day went by quickly with 2 classes. It was full of good food and was mostly about how there are different Agricultural Philosophies(bio-dynamic farming or biointensive farming or big AG way or growing GMO's or monocropping for money only or the organic method or concentrated feed farming as in livestock only food or the conventional farming using certain synthetic insectides and calling it organic)

There are many agricultural philosophies and it was mentioned that there is no one way to "farm". I found this very unpleasing and contradictory because if only one reality exists along with Oneness then Planet Earth can have a method/infrastructure towards how we live on this planet. Just like how there is a "society" but everyone again is dominated by their ego and we do not have a way to talk about this. 

I believe Paragon Sustainability can slowly bring this Oneness into reality!

I thought about that notion all day on Thursday. 

 On Friday July 15, 2016 we found out we will kind of have a 5th Unit which will run through all the other 4 units. We have an instructor from Holistic Management International and she plays a very big role in that institution of some kind. She will be teaching us for the next 4 months about stuff related to running businesses as a powerful conscious entity with VALUES.

This is a good site that shows what HMI is about.

http://holisticmanagement.org/

I am grateful that we will have her around to teach us what she knows. She will definitely instill me alot of new visions and approaches I will have with Paragon. I will add some reading stuff which I have as a little card. Feel free to zoom into it to get an idea of being introduced to holistic management.

 

On Saturday, July 16, 2016 we had our first day off. In the morning I went to a local bakery to taste on local deliciousness then went to an amazing local organic food market which had a whole bunch of different stuff that made my mouth water. I also spent most of my day figuring out what content to put up online and sorting through pictures so my day to day activities make sense. I hope my people enjoy reading about my first week here because I truly loved it and am looking forward to the next 13 weeks.

Here are are random pictures and an updated picture of me.

One of the most delicious meals I've had in a long time. Applesauce made by our own apples and cinnamon and rice and good salad harvested from the field.

Grant Whitaker and his good Hat friend.

This is one of our many cute animals that lives on the farm. This is Nueska or something that sounds along the lines of that. This cat just runs all over the ranch and finds a cool spot and sleeps.