[Migrations & Peregrinations] Dorms for grown-ups with green thumbs

Overall, I'm really enjoying my stay here in Herefordshire at Canon
Frome Court. This farm is actually a community. There are a bunch of
people sharing a big, old house and its outbuildings and running an
organic farm for their own consumption. It would not be quite accurate
to call it a commune, since many people also have outside jobs and all
the families own their flats within the estate, their own possessions,
and they only eat one meal a week together, but it's definitely a more
communal lifestyle than the norm. In a way, it reminds me of an adult
version of living in Mary Lyons, my beloved college dorm, where
everybody has their own things to do but they socialize and help each
other out. They make group decisions by consensus, just like Swatties
prefer. (Unsurprisingly, I met one woman here who's Quaker.) I don't
know if I could live here or a place like it permanently, since the
farm work, food prep, and upkeep mean that you don't seem to have a lot
of truly free time, but it's a majorly idyllic place to visit. They get
all their own milk from two cows and several goats, and much of the
cheese, yogurt, and ice cream are homemade,n as is the jam. The fresh
produce is really good. I'm feasting on odd English fruits like red
currants and gooseberries. Kids run around, climbing trees and
generally having the sort of freedom and space that very few have these
days. There are a number of ridiculously friendly cats of the sort that
get so happy you are petting them that they start drooling. There are
also lambs and goat kids, currently making a racket because today was
weaning day.

I was almost glad when I heard about a group meeting that turned
somewhat contentious about certain issues. Before that it seemed almost
too perfect, and I was beginning to suspect that there must be some
really serious catch like a yearly human sacrifice or something. So
far, no sign of that.

Anyway, I've been doing a mix of jobs: weeding, clearing patches of
nettles and poison hemlock, washing off the front of a flat in
preparation for painting, picking and sorting fruit, digging up a pile
of muck and leveling the ground in preparation for new compost bins,
and hacking my way through a jungle of holly and ivy in an attempt to
cut the ivy off at its base to keep it from overrunning an outbuilding.
Some of it has been hard, but the berry-picking has been nice and
low-key. The people are very hospitable and interesting, and I've eaten
with a different family every night, so the company is varied. I
especially enjoy this 75 year-old lady who has lived all around the
world and still works in the garden.

The house is a handsome Georgian mansion, retrofitted into quirky flats
with multiple levels and brightly colored walls. I have my own room
with a window seat, plus a wee kitchenette so I can do breakfast on my
own. This suits me fine, since I'm not much company at breakfast anyway
(unless, of course, you like people who grunt and glare a lot). There's
a church on the grounds, independent of the community, with a small but
interesting graveyard. Much of the garden is walled in to shelter it
from wind and rabbits. I'm enjoying myself here, although today I tired
myself out with too much digging. Later, while I was trying to plant
spinach, it started pouring down rain. That was fun, though I got
rather thoroughly soaked before admitting defeat and heading inside.

My last blog entry didn't get to my trip from Abergavenny to here. I
went through the town of Hereford, where I owe eternal gratitude to the
nice lady in the tourist info office who let me stow my luggage so I
could go look at the cathedral. In the cathedral, they have something
called the Mappa Mundi, a big medieval map showing the known world. Out
at the unknown edges, it has things like dragons, people with their
faces in their chests, and other such craziness. It was neat, although
they have the map mounted too high, so you can't see the top part. They
also have a chained library, a collection of books chained to their
shelves because when they were collected books were so valuable that
they had to be guarded from theft that way. It reminded me of Terry
Pratchett's Discworld and all the books in the library that had to be
chained up to protect people from the bloodthirsty books. Sadly, I saw
no orangutan librarians in the Hereford Cathedral, just aggressively
informative volunteer ladies.

I'm here for a few more days, then I head north and get to see my
fabulous friends. Yay!