life on the organic farm.

hello hello!

i know, i know, can you believe it? i have written two blog posts… within a few days of each other. this is not how i roll! normally a good month passes before the guilt gets too bad and i put something on here. what is happening?? 

well thank you for asking, as i do have a reason for trying to smash out as many posts as possible… i have decided to cut my trip short (if you can call six months in europe short) and head home to melbourne at the end of december! certainly not the original plan but life is a bitch who often doesn’t like to let me follow through with my plans. and in this case, i’m quite pleased with the curveball she has thrown at me :) more details on that in later posts. for now, let me walk you through the time i spent on an organic farm in the south of catalonia.

fyi i’ve changed the structure of my blog a bit, as i found i was often describing events captured in my photos and then doubling up in the captions. so it’s now more of a show and tell than just a big blurb. hope that’s ok!

ok so after the madness of barcelona, i wanted to go somewhere quiet, where i could relax and get down with nature. after scoping airbnb, i found the perfect place — an organic, off-grid farm in the middle of a mountain range, inaccessible by cars, with a british woman named helen, her two dogs, two cats and five chickens. yesssssss.

helen met me at the nearest town, a place called tortosa, and drove me to the benifallet station, an adorable little café/ hostel/ post office/ convenience store in the middle of a greenway, where i was to collect my bicycle to ride the rest of the way to the farm. after reassuring me that no, i wouldn't get lost in the mountains given it was a straight line to her house, helen put my suitcase in her 4wd and set off the drive over the mountain ranges.

while i loved the ride, i was a bit nervous when i had to enter the tunnels, as they were very, very dark and naturally i assumed there was a rapist lying dormant in the shadows, just waiting for his next victim to approach. or — shudder — there could have been bats. however, after passing through each tunnel alive and well, i saw the turnoff for helen’s farm (not hard to miss, considering it was the only property within 20km). 

it was here i was greeted by two snarling, ferocious beasts, who barked menacingly at me as i wheeled my bike up to the house. however, as soon as they saw how supremely unafraid i was by their little performance, the barks quickly turned to yelps of delight and tails wagged furiously as i gave the little chihuahua and corgi-type mutt pats and cuddles. 

pretty soon they were prancing in circles around my legs, repeatedly dashing forward and then running back, as if to say ‘come check this out! have you seen the chicken coop??’ 

i met the two cats too, but of course, they didn’t show half as much excitement at my arrival as their canine siblings. after snooping around a little bit and taking some photos, helen pulled up in the 4wd and showed me around the house. 

my room in the attic! given it was the middle of summer, it was quite balmy up there but my little fan worked a treat.

helen introduced me properly to her two dogs, molly (the chihuahua) and toby (the crossbreed). molly was a little sweetheart but it was toby who stole my heart. he was the most affectionate, silly little munchkin ever, always snuffling about, crawling onto my lap and begging for treats. 

who could resist that face? he was such a little piggy, even eating the grapes helen grew off her balcony!

this is the most brilliant contraption ever... a solar oven! every morning, we would put some bread or a pot of veggies in here and let the sun cook our meals for us! 

the chicken coop molly and toby really wanted me to see :)

a large part of helen's day is filled by tending to her amazing veggie garden. i ate the most delicious salads, vegetables and herbs every day while i stayed with her.

something sad happened during my time at helen's though... one of her beloved chickens died :( she had noticed one wasn't really leaving the coop, even in the middle of the day when it was boiling hot in there, and so tried to get her to drink water and sit in the shade. but the next morning, we woke up and found her dead in the water dish :( 

don't worry, it wasn't the pictured hen. she is alive and kicking.

as fun as it was just hanging out at helen's and talk, talk, talking (boy, did we TALK!) i decided to ride my bike to the nearby waterholes one day.

view of the farm from above.

when i arrived, there were a few other sunseekers enjoying the fresh water pools so i made my way downriver a little bit to eat my salad, read my book and sunbake in peace. when i emerged a few hours later (yes, i did fall asleep briefly), everyone had left and i had the waterhole all to myself!

on the ride home, i stopped to explore one of the old abandoned railway stations that pepper the track leading to helen's. now a greenway, the area used to be home to a railway that connected two towns on opposite sides of the mountain ranges. however a massive battle during the spanish civil war destroyed a large part of the railway and so the project was abandoned. the benifallet station, where i got my bike, used to be one of the railways and is the only station that has been renovated for another purpose. 

every morning i'd wake up to this guy curled up next to me, snoring away. bless his cotton socks. i also managed to win the affections of helen's two cats, little puss and robert. i sadly don't have any photos of robert, as he was the rogue of the family, always dashing off to explore the grounds. both cats were extremely affectionate though and loved to have a cuddle. just another reason why helen's life was rapidly becoming the example of which i hoped to model my own existence upon.

the following montage of photos truly sums up my time at helen's farm — watching the sunset over the mountains and eating grapes with little puss and toby. oh man, was it great.

coming up next: my own little cabin in the mountains! ciao! xx