Yilan's labor-for-grain exchange: trading work for food
Text / Xiaoshu
Grain Rain has arrived, and the young ears of rice in the paddy fields are striving to shoot up. This Taipei city slicker has also set both feet on the land, on this endless treasure house that nourishes wisdom. Yilan, so often rainy, is rarely this crystal clear a blue. And so we met this group of friendly small farmers on the fertile Lanyang Plain, who truly care for the land with their hoes.
Although everyone now generally agrees that the word "organic" means no pesticides and no chemical fertilizers, large-scale monoculture farming still damages soil and water conservation and diverse ecosystems, and still harms the land. So a group of people began trying to find a truly land-friendly way. At the call of Abao, author of ‘A Female Farmer's Journal of Claiming a Mountain’, local small farmers in Yilan gathered this love for the land and formed the "Friendly Small Farmers Alliance". Xiaoshu and Moli were deeply moved by their vision and joined the "2011 Spring Plowing Farm Aid Team".
After a busy day, the weeds in one corner of the farm had all become compost. With the work finished and ready to head back to the lodging station, the auntie gripping the steering wheel in the front seat suddenly turned into a female street racer."Girls, how about Auntie takes you for a drink?"
Just as we were wondering what kind of "drink" this would be, the bleating of goats came from beside the car window.
"The goats here are all raised on Chinese herbal medicine! And the milk is very fresh, with no goaty smell."
After a small cup of fresh, sweet goat milk, Auntie Meiqiao drove us back to Sister Lihua's place, and the moment we walked in, the table was already full of delicious dishes. After a whole day, I was almost starting to suspect I had not come to farm but to enjoy life.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and a figure that seemed familiar appeared before us. Wasn't this Brother Qingsong, the farm owner we were going to exchange labor with tomorrow? Brother Qingsong had come to speak in my department when I was a junior in college, and even then I deeply admired his determination to return to farming; he was an idol to both Moli and me. I never imagined that at this moment we would be chatting about everyday things with him at such close range.
After dinner we took a comfortable hot shower, and the evening breeze blew gently as Moli and I walked along the field path chatting. Suddenly, the fireflies we had expected to see at Liyu Lake in Hualien appeared right there along our walk. And not just one, but one after another.