Tomatoes and Garlic Everywhere, and yet I Dream of Wind

It has been awhile, the reason being that I have not had internet access. This all changed today when I dug a trench to our trailer at Campi Di Sogni farm, connecting ethernet from the main farmhouse; we also have Direct TV, ahh roughing it. Yes, we finally arrived at our destination and we have officially become farmers for the summer, tomato and garlic famrers to be exact. But more on that later. I have to elaborate on the time lapse between posts first, as so many fun and interesting things have happened. This could get long and unruly.

Immediatly upon arriving in Charlottesville, VA we attended a good ole fashioned crawfish boil at a farm, hosted by Montessori parents, that Wendy was sure we would love. She was right, more than right, she was spot on. Everyone camped out so there was much drinking and partying to be done. Kegs of beer, wine, a gigantic party tent, non-stop live music from local bands, a bonfire, 200 hundred people, crawfish, shrimp, a midnight old time music guitar lesson with the lead singer of the Guano Boys (Thank You Chris), new friends, soon to be in laws, and my trusty slackline even made an appearance to the joy of the hoards of Montessori children in attendence. Thank you Andrew and Leigh Ann.





We then spent a week kick'n it in C'ville watching Kelly's little bro and sis, Hanna and Nate. We went Climbing with Brittney in the Blue Ridge mountains, a 5.6 trad crack climb. It was fun but made me miss Boulder. While driving through the deep forest trying to find the route we saw a black bear. And then while hiking back down I got sidetracked in the woods and, hearing something behind me, turned around and found that I was being stalked by a mountain lion. The damn thing was about 15 ft away and when I turned it must have realized that I was too big to attack - I watched as it bounded across a clearing away from me, quick as lightning and as silent as a ghost. I was shaken for the rest of the day and could not help but wonder what would have happened if it had been stalking someone a little smaller than myself, say Kelly.





It was all leading up to a week on the beach on Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. Kelly's father Cory had rented a house on the beach and wanted to show us a good time. Recently, he has taken up the sport of Kiteboarding and was totally amped to teach us how. For those of you who don't know, Kiteboarding is basically wakeboarding behind a giant parasail-type kite. He taught us and I must say every other sport I have ever done seems lame by comparison. I know why I have been snowboarding all these years now, it was just training for this sport. Snowboarding, downhill skiing, wakeboarding, surfing, windsurfing, etc, are complete utter wastes of time when you could be spending your time doing this. If you say otherwise than you have not tried it. For those of you in Colorado now scoffing at this bold statement, I beg of you to get into snowkiting, you can do it on skis or a board. Never again will you have to pay for a lift ticket as the kite can carry you up the mountain and then if you like you can use gravity to get down, although once you feel the wind I think you will opt for a combination of the two. Near the end of the week I was finally starting to get a hang of the kite (which is the hardest part) and I had figured out how to get 10 to 15 feet of air just by flicking the kite around to create upward lift. It was spectacular and so were the resulting crashes, I have yet to land a jump, but the feeling of floating under the kite was worth minor injury. Luckly the pros were in town and we got to watch them ride in the big waves on the ocean side, where they were consistently landing 30 foot airs. I am now a wind fiend.






Now here I am sitting in our luxurious travel trailer on the farm after a hard days work. It has been a little over a week and my body already aches from the labor. But at the same time I have never felt so completly satisfied with a job. We have a roomate named Chris who is probably one of the most "interesting" people I have ever known, I already have bizarre stories I will share about him in upcoming posts, get ready to have your socks knocked off. He is at the beach for a week giving Kelly and I a reprieve from his drmatic escapades. The farm is great and Juliana the 24-year-old farm manager is quickly becoming a good friend. Posts will be be more frequent now, hopefully daily or everyother, same bat time, same bat channel. Peace from Culpeper, VA. Daniel Wilder