Reader's Write: "Where Do You Work?"

A friend writes:

"Nice one, cutting the hours back to practice. Where do you work that lets you do that, lucky."

My job is wonderful, and I feel very fortunate to have it. It doesn't pay a lot, and there isn't really any "upward mobility" or "career ladder" to climb. But, it is lots of fun, and the people are great. Basically, I wake up at 4am, eat an omellette, and then drive to meet my carpool from which point we continue on to Wattsonville. There we pick up a truck which has been loaded with super fresh fruits and veggies (mostly picked the day before) and start driving up toward the
Bay Area.

By the time I arrive, it's around 7am, the sun is up, people are laughing, and the day is getting underway. We set up our veggie stand at the Farmer's Market (I'm in Berkeley on Saturday and Montclaire on Sunday) and start selling by 9am. It's fast paced hustle and bustle - not at all like Safeway. We weigh people's food by old time scales and geuestimate the prices to the nearest quarter. Sometimes I can take maybe about 20 customers per minute when things are really flying!

We sell super fresh California delicious certified organic produce. It's seriously some of the highest quality food on the planet. Special Bonus: I get to take home as much as I want as well as "trade" with other vendors for whatever they are selling. My food bill averages about $10 per week. And, when I get it home, I don't even do fancy recipes or lots of spice because the food is so good and so fresh that it just bursts with flavour as-is. My favorite dish is to throw everything in a cast-iron pot with some olive oil (garlic, onions, potatoes, squash, broccoli, tomatoes, fennel with some fresh rosemary, marjoram, sage) a little salt - don't even cut them up, just cook 'em whole. And, eat them super hot right out of the pot. Simple food can taste so good.

Before i know it, it's already 1PM, market's over and time to pack up and go home. I get back to the farm around 4:30pm, finish unloading the truck and getting it ready for the next day. Clock out with about a 12.5 hour day and drive home for a quick bubble bath and a few hours of sleep before I repeat the whole thing again the next day. So, right now I'm just working Saturday and Sunday (for a total of 25 hours)... and then mon-fri I have free to do whatever I want!

Field Trip to the Fields

I may not be traveling anymore right now, but I can still take a field trip. So, last Monday about a dozen Happy Boy Farms employees (including myself) took a field trip out to the fields where our veggies are growing fresh and lively.

One thing that can be said about the Happy Boy farmer's market workers is that we are our number one fans! Which is to say that we probably eat more of Happy Boy's produce than any of our other customers. The running joke is that the people at the grocery store must be laughing at us when they only ever see us buying dairy, toilet paper and beer. Well, maybe not exactly, but when all of our veggies, fruit, bread, rice and honey are coming fresh from the farmer's market, there's not much need for anything else.

Mouths watering, we hit the fields. A few of the veggies were so tempting that they just had to be plucked on the spot. Other than eating watermelons and tomatoes in the field, I also took home a "first of the season" red kabocha squash, a few fresh red cippolini onions, and a handful of okra.

California is such an amazing land. The skies were big and blue and the sun was shining hot. The majority of the fields we visited were in the Hollister and Gilroy area, although I don't know all the exact locations. Greg (the owner of the farm) was excited about our newest field because of the mix of long hours of sunshine with a cool coastal air - perfect for our baby lettuce!

The colors were beautiful, the smells were fresh, and the Happy Boys and Girls were smiling happily. Yum!

By the way, I've used up all my free space on Picasa, so I started another account to fit the new photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bhavanatraveler

First Batch of Pesto

All settled in and back to work, I'm finding my pace here in Felton, CA. I made my first batch of summer pesto, and it's delicious! (Maybe a little too much Parmesan, as it's got bite.)

I've also got my stuff from storage and having an emotional ride going through all those memories and working on my discard pile.

I had planned to take time while here in this peaceful forest setting to do as much meditation as possible (yes... I'm still blabbing on about meditation, but that is the point of this blog). I just took the last two days on retreat here, just for meditation. It was a bit of a struggle, but a fruitful use of time. After a nightmare on Wednesday night about a cobra, I decided to make an offering of incense to the forest creatures the next day. I think if I'm taking refuge in their forest home as a bit of an uninvited guest, then I ought to do my best to win them over. May it be a sanctuary of peace for all those who wish to pass their days in these woods.

Work seems to be going well, and if anyone wants to visit me: I'll be at the Downtown Berkeley Farmer's Market on Saturdays, and the Montclair (Oakland hills) Farmer's Market on Sundays. See you there!

Time to go now and cook up some beets. 'Til next time.

Best Pay Cut Of My Life

As the future unfolds before me, it looks like I'll be heading back to the simple life. There's a 90% chance that I'm going to be going back to work for my long time friends at Happy Boy Farms - selling the freshest and most delicious organic fruits and vegetables!

If I take the job, I'll be making about 3 times less than I made teaching workshops and seminars, 10 times less than I made doing private coaching, and about 40 times less than what I could make if I followed some of my friends into the marijuana growing business. Uh oh, I said "marijuana" so I better explain. Well, these days, it's possible to grow marijuana "legally" through the legal loopholes in California. I've met a number of people who do it, and they make a ton of very real money. But, I didn't want to compromise myself for money. I didn't want to compromise myself for anything in this vast world of abundance we live in. In fact, not only will I be making less money than all these other opportunities, but I'll even be making $2 per hour less than when I had the same job five years ago!

So, why is it the best pay cut of my life? Because it's an absolute joy to give up the extra money in exchange for the perfect job for me right now. If all goes as planned, I'll work Saturday and Sunday every week (for about 10-12 hours per day). Then, I'll take Monday and Friday as days for personal errands (email, etc.). And, I can take Tuesday through Thursday to spend on personal meditation retreat (at home, no phone, no email, nothing but me and the redwoods)

And, that brings me to the next point - I'll be living in the Redwoods! I don't think I've ever found the Buddha anywhere more than in Redwood trees. My mom will hopefully be generous enough to let me stay in her cabin up here in Felton, CA (where I am now). In fact, I just spent yesterday, all day, in meditation here and I loved it! It's so quiet, and so peaceful, and so alive. A cabin in the woods - my dream come true.

I always loved working for Happy Boy Farms too. I really think that eating fresh local organic produce is one of the most important things any of us can do for our planet and our bodies. I don't think the ecological and health benefits of this simple act can be understated, and it seems like a very important task to help bring the food from the farms to people's homes. It's a simple job, but one of the very crucial ones in our society, I believe.

Not to mention the perks - free veggies!

It's generally a seasonal job, as most of the Farmer's Markets will end come wintertime. So, in November I'll have a chance to move on with my journey.

I'm planning to work this Sunday at one of the San Francisco markets and see how it goes. Next week, I'll be up at Abhayagiri Monastery for a few days, and then back to work again. I'm sure I'll keep posting on how it all goes.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.
- Henry David Thoreau