Letter from Lost Valley
Weeks 1-7
Hi there!
It’s another glorious, green day at Lost Valley, and I’m doing well. Aside from the following traumatic experiences, things have been pretty peachy.
Trying to crack a duck egg into a skillet only to discover there was a duck fetus inside…
Waking up at 4am to two rats in my room and ON my bed. (There’s currently a big rat problem at LV, but I have since moved to a rat-free floor.)
Nature, am I right?! But really, the good outweighs the bad:
My surroundings are lush, magical, and alive, and that meadow is clothing optional. ;) Sometimes, Lost Valley’s 87 beautiful acres just aren’t enough, so a few of us have ventured to Fall Creek for the occasional afternoon swim. Aside from that, I’ve only left campus a handful of times—twice for groceries, once for lunch with my aunt & uncle, and once to see the Barbie movie.
Intern work!
Much of my intern work has been focused in the gardens, where I’ve spent many hours weeding, watering, planting, and pruning. Specifically, I’ve planted baby mulberry trees, pruned tomatoes and willows—where I discovered a baby bird nest!—and weeded out soooo much amaranth. (I’m not complaining; weeding is the pimple popping of gardening and I LOVE IT.) I’ve also harvested beets, kale, lettuce, onions, zucchini, garlic scapes, beans, mustard greens, cucumbers, and radishes—most of which have been cooked up for the intern & PDC student meal plan this past month. Plus, I’ve flipped the compost pile a few times and learned to make compost tea.
It’s berry season! So far, I’ve picked and eaten raspberries, cherries, goumi berries, thimble berries, and huckleberries. I’ve also cut back a ton of invasive blackberry vines, but there are still plenty of brambles that will hopefully bear fruit soon. I’ve also heard talk of salmonberries, dewberries, and salal berries but have yet to taste them. Naturally, I’m on the brink of learning to make jam.
Outside of the gardens, my intern work has also included land projects like clearing trails, felling trees, and splitting wood. I’m learning a lot and looooving not being on my computer as much.
Community!
After a few years of feeling community-deprived in NYC, being a part of the intentional community of Lost Valley has been refreshing, eye-opening, and sometimes challenging. Compared to my experiences in “the real world,” people here are surprisingly forthcoming with their feelings, thoughts, and desires, and it’s encouraging me to do the same. The community holds a shared commitment to non-violent communication and it’s been awesome to see even the most sensitive of subjects be discussed with curiosity and respect for differing perspectives.
There’s also a strong culture of consent, which has helped me take a closer look at whether I’m doing something (as basic as one garden task vs. another) because I feel like I should or because I actually want to. How liberating—and also strange—to not feel forced into doing things! Everyone’s autonomy and preferences are respected, and it’s been refreshing to exist in such a judgement-free environment.
That lack of judgement extends to the clothing-optional nature of some areas of the property. Lost Valley is by no means a nudist colony, but nobody bats an eye at anyone’s decision to be nude, topless, or totally covered in certain spaces. At the very least, it has me reflecting on how silly—and effortful!—it is, for example, to compulsively cover one’s self with a towel while changing in or out of a swimsuit at the beach. They’re just bodies, after all. (But I’ll save my inquiry into our twisted, puritanical, sex-starved-and-therefore-overly-sexualized culture for another time!)
Living in community has also tested my introverted nature—I’ve never felt so exhausted simply from being around people all the time (this was especially exacerbated by eating all three meals with the other interns and PDC students, Monday through Friday, for the entirety of July). Solitude is sacred and self-care is essential! In many ways, it feels like I’m attending Boundaries & Communication Boot Camp—and I couldn’t be more grateful.
Bonus PDC!
For the month of July, Lost Valley hosted a permaculture design course (PDC), and interns were given the opportunity to sit in on some classes and tag along on field trips. While I’m still extremely satisfied with the PDC education I got in Portugal, it was nice to revisit and go deeper into some of the topics, like appropriate technology, earthworks, herbal medicine, animal systems, and integrated pest management. Plus, LV hosted TWO Zoom Q&A’s with one of the fathers of permaculture himself, David Holmgren. As a permie nerd, I was utterly starstruck.
Looking ahead!
I’ll be at Lost Valley for one more month before I head to San Diego for Labor Day weekend. After that, I’ll be bopping through LA, NYC, and Lisbon in September before heading to Southern Portugal for my 12-day natural building course, followed by a Spanish adventure that is yet to be fully fleshed out. More dates & details coming soon, but does anyone want to meet up in Barcelona for my birthday?
Wow what an experience you’re having. Glad you’re enjoying your exposure to another world. It will be interesting to see how you incorporate all this into your wife once you finish your courses. See you in late August
What is this slow cooker magic???