Yesterday Merri Bee Organic Farmacy was privileged to greet 22 sweet Japanese students on their first day in Australia, at the picturesque Pump Hill Chalets Pemberton. We first put the students to work lighting a fire ( a new experience for them) and then cooking a huge pot of organic soup ( they drained it!) From there we dodged the rain …Gwendoline drove the tractor for a hay ride in the sunny breaks to feed the animals the vege scraps. We could have just as sustainably created soil from the scraps by feeding the worm farm. We talked about the food webs on land we can see, and the foodwebs in the soil we can only see with a microscope. We showed pictures of bacteria and fungi, the tiny creatures which turn vege scraps back to soil in a worm farm or by passage through a cow, goat or sheep.
English being a 2nd language for the students, we shared smiles and humour , the universal human language. We saw faces light up when they tasted the results of their labour on a citrus press, squeezing lemonade lemons.
Thanks so much to the team of bi-lingual teachers and to my son Lee who helped out and led the young guys in the skill of cutting up a home grown pumpkin. We saved the seeds for later planting and thus completed the cycle from soil to soup and back again. The bus left for the Cascades for a bush walk. I hope you found plenty of fungi fruiting bodies out there guys! The cute video below really captured the essence and is worth a click.
