Enough. More later.
respectfully, Drew

Sounds like we have a lot in common (four girls, etc.)

We’re learning a lot about the countryside in Uruguay. For one thing, there is not a culture of growing one’s own vegetables. On our road, none of our neighbors have vegetable patches, though several have fruit trees or grape arbors and most have nice flower gardens. People use the land as a way to earn a living, so they either raise cattle, have cows for milk, or grow hay or wheat or (unfortunately) genetically-modified soybeans or corn. Organic gardening is unheard of here–or rather, organic as a term is never used. It’s like in the fifties–almost everything is grown organically (in terms of local produce) so it would be kind of weird to start labeling produce as organic!

We thought about turning our place into a nice little organic farm–and we plan to–but it would be for us rather than as a money-making venture. Even a roadside stand out here would be a stretch–people don’t have that much interest in vegetables other than the basics that are available at the produce vendors in town and they don’t have the money for any sort of “extras”.

The soil is good, though. Years of light pasturing rather than tilling help. There don’t seem to be a lot of pests or predators other than parrots and they have completely destroyed our apple crop in two weeks. There are ways to deal with them but now we’re in mid-summer, so we’re just using this time to learn so we know what to do next year.

I’ll write more directly, but wanted to address these questions here for others who may be interested!

Best,
M

I love the model that you two have laid out for all of us. Thank you so much for taking the risks (as seen by some) you are taking.

Stephen