Hola! I couldn’t of a good title, so here we are…

Compost, cats, working on a farm and some other life updates.

May 01, 2025

Hi!

Have you missed me? I will stop apologizing for not being timely and consistent, as we have all probably realized that it’s just simply not going to happen. Instead, this will be more when I have bursts of inspiration and feel like sharing (thanks for reading and listening!).

It’s spring here, which is probably my favorite season here and anywhere. Flowers are in bloom, the sun is strong but not too hot yet, the water is warming up a bit so I can now swim without clutching my chest and being unable to breathe, and there are very few tourists. Whereas I used to wait in anticipation for summer, now it is with a bit more hesitation and dread because that’s when the hordes of tourists—and summer home owners—descend and this sweet little island gets taken over, whipped into a frenzy and then tossed back down at the end of August, exhausted and depleted. I have never wanted summer to end as badly as I did last August. In fact, I don’t think I have ever wanted summer to end before.

Fields of flowers and these magenta ones that I love

For now, life is sweet. Let’s focus on that as I am trying more than ever to remain in the present, even though that feels like such a loaded and cheesy thing to say. I think that’s the lesson I need to learn now, and actually learn it, not just say I need to learn it, which I have been doing for a long time.

Part of me thinks that' is why I haven’t been able to find a house. I need to trust that it will happen with the right timing and enjoy all the good things that I do have, rather than stressing and feeling anxious about things that are out of my control. (I say this but I also spent last Thursday crying because I was so anxious about having to move again at the end of June and figuring out where to stay.) Other than this blip, I have a new activity that has helped me spend more time immersed in nature.

After my regenerative agriculture course, I wanted to learn more about farming, so I asked Nuria, who runs s’hort de Baix, an organic farm along with her husband, if I could help out once a week. It’s been almost two months now, where I go on Fridays to help them pick for the Saturday market.

My soft, computer body was not prepared for the work.

45 minutes of yoga and a walk a day clearly were not cutting it. The first few times I returned home to collapse on the couch, unable to move for three hours. It was completely different physical work than I was used to, even if I’m someone who considers myself relatively in shape.

Now, I have become a bit more used to it, and it has become more of a meditation, even though it’s still physically challenging. It feels good to use my body in this way, a different type of workout, even when it’s raining, and we are battling the elements. I wore rain boots, borrowed a rain jacket, and we picked strawberries, waiting for a rainbow to appear in the sky when the clouds broke to give way to patches of sunshine.

I can get lost focusing on plucking the right sized carrot from the ground—by looking at the thickness of its stalks—my fingers wriggling into the damp, soft earth from yesterday’s rain to get a good grasp, and the sweet release when it emerges from the earth. Sometimes we work barefoot, too, and there’s a certain connection that comes with having your hands and feet in such healthy, strong soil, working with your body, concentrating only on what’s in front of you.

I don’t have time to think about how I still don’t have a home and need to leave this one soon. Or the fact that I have to take my driver’s license test all over again like a 15 year-old, both a written exam and driving one (something I was supposed to do after six months of living here, oops). Or, that I need to get a Spanish social security number and so many life things that I don’t want to deal with.

No, no. Here, with falcons swooping overhead, the birds singing, I can lose myself in the quiet calm of the sound of strawberry stems breaking beneath my thumb and index finger, their sweet fragrance filling the air, and turning them over to see if they have any spots or moldy bits to them. If they do, I put them in a separate container.

As Nuria has taught me, we keep a separate pile for the feos/feas (the ugly ones) as people don’t want to buy carrots that look like two-prongs or ones twisted together—something I find so sweet and tender—even though they taste exactly the same. When I said that I would buy them, and I’m sure others would too!! She said that people usually wanted a discount for ugly vegetables, even though it was the same amount of work to harvest them. (She’s right, that crossed my mind too that maybe I could get them at a discount, not thinking about the work involved.)

Instead, I get paid in ugly vegetables, which I find extremely kind as I would do it for free because I am learning so much, and they are so patient with me, explaining why this is this way and that’s that way, even when it takes me a bit to ask my question correctly in Spanish (or more like string words together until they understand what I’m trying to ask).

My ugly/beautiful carrots and strawberries that we just picked

As Nuria explained when she taught me how to use my thumb to help guide the release of the celery stalks, only selecting the larger ones that we then group together and secure with a rubber band. You learn to have a relationship with each vegetable. Something I think is so beautiful and accurate (she’s a lovely and super interesting person). Whether it’s strawberries, radishes or lettuces, I’m learning when and how to harvest them, where to cut them and how they taste at different sizes and colors.

Unsurprisingly, I have a new appreciation for food and food waste, which is probably not a surprise for anyone who has grown their own food, even if it’s tomatoes in a pot. The first day, I picked guisantes (English peas), my fingertips shaded in a bright, pea-green color from plucking them from the stems, moving slowly and methodically, looking both high and low for ones that were ready. I truly felt like my body was going to break and give up on me. I was aching all over, not used to squatting, twisting and turning my body like this repeatedly for hours.

We snacked on some, popping out the crunchy and mildly sweet green rounds, fresh off the vine. I swore at that moment that I would never take a fresh shucked pea for granted again.

Her carrots are so unbelievably flavorful that it feels wrong to cook them as snacking on them plain is an experience in enjoying the sweetness of the earth. I’ve tried other carrots from the island, too, but they don’t have her flavor. When I asked her, she said it might be because of the soil, something that they take care of before planting and during. Part of this includes the compost and the quality of soil that they use.

At home too, I have started a compost at the far end of my friends’ house. I keep a large bowl on the counter (covered with a dish towel because flies are plentiful in the countryside), throwing in all food scraps, crumbling my egg shells into it, then taking a daily walk with the two cats who also live here, to empty it. I planted some citronella around it so that the mosquitos don’t overwhelm when the heat starts to rise, and it’s a nice ritual to walk away from my computer or whatever I need to do and do this instead.

Me coming home with my box of vegetables and muddy feet + the cats sitting on the compost

I feel better about not wasting this beautiful produce that took so much work and thought to grow. Now knowing that it could be food for goats, whose milk I will later eat in the form of cheese, or pecking material for chickens, whose egg yolks I want to be a sunny orange color, it feels wrong to throw them away. While I still give some to a friend with a farm, the rest I put in the compost, feeling better that at least it will go back into the earth.

It’s also radically reduced my garbage as I’ve realized most of what I cook with is fresh (I am super lucky to be able to do that), and the rest I recycle. This is a helpful thing as I have to drive to throw out the trash, so it’s nice to not have to do it that quite as often anymore.

Anyway, that’s pretty much my update… I’m seeing two new houses this week and next and have a good feeling about them both, so fingers crossed one of them works out! And I’m going to a talk about regenerative agriculture from this man, have any of you heard of him? It’s actually in English because he’s from Montreal, so it will be nice to not struggle for a bit, even though I’m still continuing my Spanish lessons because I am determined to become fluent asap.

Last month I went to London for my nephew’s birthday and saw a bunch of friends as well, which was great. The wonderful Melissa Helmsley and I made a feta and lentil salad, and I got to meet her sweet family.