The calendula field

-


Thursday, my 4th day on the farm, it was calendula-picking-day (marigolds, or soucis in French). It ended up taking not just one day to pick the whole field (with 4 people) but several days because there were so many flowers! Look at this color, it was just stunning to be in the middle of the field picking these beautiful bright orange flowers, easy to pick off the stem. It was really a magical time to be 'working' in this place. As some people were walking by, hiking or walking their dogs, I saw them watching us, saying hello, and I thought: 'If I were them right now, I'd be wishing I were in that field picking these flowers and working on this farm' - and I was!

Of course I do recognize that there is a down-side to what looks like an ideal occupation, so I also want to share the other side of it: the heat and the strong sun, the backache after a while from bending down to pick and carrying the basket. The flowers and leaves are very sticky and make everything sticky as well (clothes, shoes, arms) and of course lots insects, which I am getting used to. A tricky part is also the bees: they sometimes hide under the flowers still 'sleepy' in the early morning then fly all around and are on most flowers when the sun is high: keeping a close watch is necessary to not get stung by accidentally pressing a bee while picking a flower!

With all of this, I still felt so happy to be working in this magical calendula field, it was very meditative, reflective and just taking in the beauty and abundance of nature.

Oh and what do we pick them for? Like cornflowers, calendula is also used in tea mixutres to beautify and bring color to the teas. Martin sells the dried flowers to someone who will use them both for teas as well as for medicinal use. And we also pick a couple more flowers to add color to our salads and water :-)

Wikipedia says: 'Calendula species have been used traditionally as culinary and medicinal herbs. The petals are edible and can be used fresh in salads or dried. The oil of C. officinalis is used as an anti-inflammatory and a remedy for healing wounds.'









Labels:
Location: 4634 Wisen, Switzerland

Comments

Post a Comment

Please add your name to your comment :-)

Popular posts from this blog

Fridays for Future in Valparaíso

-
Image
I arrived at Carolina's place in Pio Pio on Thursday evening, and the next day we went together to Valparaiso, one-hour bus ride away, to walk around the city and also to see the Friday's for Future march for Climate action. Here in Chile, climate change is really affecting the country, along with several other deeper issues of access to water and agriculture being reserved for export, mainly avocados here in the area. In many places, the ground water level has gone down so much due to the cultivation of immense spaces for avocados that water for the local inhabitants needs to be supplied by truck. in many places, the rivers are privately owned so the local population also does not have access to sufficient water. I loved seeing the creative signs and smart slogans in the march. It was also really emotional for me to see so much drive and passion to protect the environment by so many people, especially groups of teenagers and families with children. One of the groups were a
Read more

Hall of mirrors and baby twins

-
Image
It's cousin time again. Let's hit the museum and that cool mirror piece in the 'Light' exhibit. Laura lives in Denver and works at the Denver Art Museum, she takes care of the art pieces for their conservation, cleans them and stores them in very special ways to best preserve them and gets to see everything behind the scenes. Earlier this year was the big Monet exhibit and she was dusting the Monet paintings everyday! So on her day off, she super kindly offered to take me for a tour in the museum. So of course we went to the hall of mirrors,  “Corridor #2” by Lucas Samaras, 1970. It is an impressive walk through the mirror gallery with the light and reflection effects, a surreal space. It is also  selfie- and picture-heaven so I end up wanting to go through more than once. The one rule is to NOT touch the mirrors! The whole rest of the exhibit is actually fascinating, especially the way the curator and artistic team have presented the art pieces and placed them i
Read more

Christmas in Valle Azul at Matilde's

-
Image
Spending Christmas so far away from home and family, I was looking forward to arriving at Matilde's house. She and her family seemed to be a very warm and welcoming from their Workaway profile so it was the place I wanted to be for Christmas, especially because they are engaged in environmental and social projects and she said they don't do anything commercial with gifts but simply spend time together and cook food, perfect. They truly were welcoming and warm, I was really happy to be there. I spend 4 really sweet and fun days with Matilde, her daughter Nissa (19) and family friend Raquel with her children (although at their grandparents for the vacation time). The time with them was very chill, relaxed and fun. There wasn't much work for me to do because I stayed so little time and it was mostly raining the whole time, so not possible to work in the garden. 'What do you do when it rains here?' 'well, just as we are doing now, we have nice conversations, we c
Read more