The name makes it sounds so fancy, and you better believe it, this place is fancy. Claire and I have been here for about six days. We should be updating the blog more often, but we often just find ourselves doing stuff all day long (maybe laying in a hammock or enjoying an iced drink down at sunset beach). At any rate, I’ll try to give you the low down of what we’ve been doing for the past six days, but I highly recommend checking out our photos, they do a great job of telling our story.
We arrived on Friday, but my bag didn’t arrive with us. When you get into the airport you unload off the side of the plane and down some stairs, like in the olden days, or like the Burbank airport. Before you can get to baggage claim you have to go by the woman who has 5 different types of rum to try with punch - for free! Welcome to St. Croix! That night we partook in all you can eat shrimp for $15.00. We went to a couple of local bars and got to know some of the cool folks on the farm.

Saturday my bag came in, but it was completely out of whack; buckles connected to the wrong snapper, tent falling off and halfway out of its case. The bag had clearly been searched, probably to check out the computer on the inside, and to ruin my pretty green pack. For most of the day we just laid in hammocks and tried to fix up our cabana. That’s right, cabana. Claire and I are staying in a cabana for the next four weeks. The windows have screens (no glass), we have a roof, but it’s open air between the walls and roof, allowing the geckos to come and go as they please. We have a porch that looks over the other cabanas and a sink that overlooks a gorgeous papaya tree. We have a sweet mosquito net, it definitely makes me think of something Barbie would have over her bed, except that ours looks like it was used during Vietnam (Claire has been stitching it up). We also cut some bamboo and hung it from beams in our cabana with twine to hang our cloths on (there are no shelves or closets - super sweet). Also on Saturday I started “Wine for Dummies”, which means I’ll be an expert on wine when I get home, or a dummy, I’m hoping both. Lastly, we had the Creque Farm Slow Down. The Slow Down is an invitation dinner that happens once a month on the farm, inspired by the Slow Food Movement. The first 25 people to confirm their spot get a five course meal and organic food experience! The meal was amazing. During the meal, Ben (one of the heads of the farm) explains what the farm is about, it’s mission, what has been harvested recently, as well as what in the meal has been harvested off of the farm. It’s a pretty neat thing for the farm to do - keeping the community aware of what is available to them and how good it is.

On Sunday we did a pretty amazing hike through Annaly, a beautiful beach that is now in several of our photos. The hike took us around the cliffs to some tide pools where we all swam around for a good while. To get to these places, four-wheel drive is needed, so Joe (a professor of agriculture at the University of the Virgin Islands) was gracious enough to drive us (his first time on some of these roads, it was amazing.) This was also the first time we saw ruins of an old sugar mill (built by the Danish to produce sugar cane). We all came back here and ate, then met for happy hour at the Cozy Shack (aka Upper Echelon), which is Dan’s new porch by his house (which I have to get photos of, it’s amazing.) and was constructed over the weekend by Adam. Monday morning Adam left early to fly back to the states (hence the happy hour). The farm had a meeting to decide what the jobs for the week would be. The tomato crop had just finished being harvested, and now the farm is deciding what to move onto next. Ben took a few of us on a walk around the farm talking about the things we would be working on over the next few weeks. For the most part, Claire and I have been working on the Secret Garden, where most of the food for the staff is grown. We get up and out in the garden by 8am and work five hours, which gives us the afternoon off to enjoy and do other things.

Monday was also our first visit to Sunset Beach (we have been twice now). The water is warm, the drinks are cold, but most importantly they sell Sierra Nevada, and a drink called the Sunset Punch, which is cheap and delicious. All in all the beach looks like a Corona ad, and the photos that we have of it, and we’ll post soon, look like it too. We had to take one of the dogs to the vet from the beach, turns out she had a built up hairball in her stomach and had to have surgery to remove it.

Tuesday morning Claire and I started putting some serious work on the Secret Garden. We had put some work in on Monday, but Tuesday was really our first day to shine. We weeded a few beds, and turned the soil so the next round of planting could be done. After lunch I went with Dan to K-Mart to get sheets for our bed, laundry detergent for our clothes, and video tapes for the documentary I’m going to put together for the farm. Dan and I then went to the grocery store to do the farm’s weekly shopping.

Wednesday I was out in the fields around 6:45 with Steven picking Provider Beans before the soil was turned. We stayed out there for a good hour and brought back a ton of beans which we have been spending the last day or so peeling out of their stock and putting in a bucket to soak for cooking later. Around 10am, some local 3rd and 4th graders came to the farm on a field trip and got a tour of the grounds by Dan. I filmed most of this, most importantly the kids freaking out when the saw the tree house that Jess lives in, and got to climb around in it. Claire made some pretty stellar fried green tomatoes for lunch for everyone. At the end of the day we went to Sunset Beach again to relax as the sunset. Out in the distance we could see what looked like a grey whale swimming around a buoy. After the Wednesday night “family dinner” (enchiladas) that Steven made, we watched “Farce of the Penguins,” good idea, poorly executed.

Finally Thursday (today), Claire and I worked in the Secret Garden clearing the top row in order to plant some lemon grass, katook trees, and papaya trees in order to keep deer off the garden. Every day someone makes lunch for everyone and we all sit down to eat together, today it was pork chops, pasta and leftovers from several meals made by Dan. I worked up on Ben’s house for an hour or so with Chad (who’s an amazing handyman), then came back and worked on a video of the Church we stayed at in Paris. That brings us to Yoga that happened about 2 hours ago; led by Joe (amazing workout), then dinner, fish by Steven with beet salad made by the ladies.

We could go into more detail but now you have the main gist of what we’re doing here, and what a week looks like. Basically, this place is an incredible 140 acres of beautiful, lush land that is being well-cultivated and used to feed its staff and local community. We’ll try to keep you all more updated as the days go by. Until then, check out the video that is at least five weeks overdue of the American Church of Paris.

-Whit (n Cliare)

PS: Claire also updated the Ultimate Section regarding our last week in Italy at Paganello.