Hello, Bonjour and Gutentag from La Lombarde

Hello everyone...

I am working with a keyboard I don´t know very well so if the format and what not seem a little low rent...I apologize haha.  I don´t really know how to go to the next line...Ill ask tomorrow.  In any case, I am going to start at the present day and will cover my lovely time in Paris tomorrow or the next day.  I just wanted to get this ball rolling so that I wouldn´t have it hanging over my head any longer.  I am on a farm in southern France about 30 minutes or less from Boreaux called "La Lombarde."  My plan is to be here until the 14th or 15th of October when I will head back to Paris for a day or two and fly to Berlin on the 17th.  My host and hostess are Wolfgang and Ingrid, Austrian and a German respecitvely.  They are awesome.  They are both  Dharma practitioners in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.  We sit every morning and night (though I missed this morning due to playing a little sleep catch up) and Wolfgang and I often compare practices and philosophy.  He has been studying the Dharma for almost 40 years so there is a lot I can learn from him.  After we sit in the evening we/(they and I sort of get the hang of it by the last verse) sing songs of Milarepa and then we have a little discussion about the meaning...its pretty cool.  Being surrounded by Tibetan Buddhism again after practicing and studying in the Therevada almost exclusively for the past couple years has brought up an interesting series of thoughts and emotions in me...a little nostalgia for lack of a better word.  I have Tibetan prayer flags hanging from outside the window of the wonderful room in which I sleep and relax on the second floor of the house.  My view includes beautiful green French countryside, skyscapes out of a John Constable painting, the neighboring farmer´s row of Monet Poplars and some donkeys haha.  They are awesome and smelly... and I fed them apples the other day.  I am accompanied by another Wwoofer here named Jee-Yeon, (yes like the name of Jin and Suns baby on Lost).  She is a Korean girl in her first year of University and has been studying in London for the past 4 months.  She is a singer in a band and plays drums and hates anything that crawls (as we found out today in the greenhouse).  She is very polite and has been very easy to be around thus far.  We work pretty hard here so its not all staring out at the beautiful countryside while drinking tea with whole leaves harvested from the greenhouse, or picking amazing organic figs from the tree outside the barn and munching on them, or sitting on the windowsill reading at sunset, or playing ping pong...no no no ...thats only part of it haha.  Yesterday I seriously got on a tractor and mowed...LA boy on a tractor wearing a silly pink hat so I didn´t get sun burned anymore.  My stomach turned a little at the thought of being like the farmer in The Secret of NIMH plowing through the field...but I got through it.  I was avoiding the little baby Ash trees and only getting the weeds, which was not easy given that it was my first tractor ride. Then I spent the afternoon weeding in the greenhouse, which is no easy job let me tell you...but its been really amazing learning about organic farming from organic farmers with hands on experience.  This morning I sanded down a friggin 10 foot wide opening of uneven plaster, for the house they are putting together next to the one Jee and I are currently staying in, with a one inch wide hand held sanding rod.  One inch at a time, I told myself as I moved across the expanse "this one is attachment, this one anger , this one delusion."  I try to bring my practice into the chores and jobs around the farm and when frustration arises...like now with this internet connection and delay on the typing on screen...I just try to observe without judgement...some moments are better than others.  I have a lot more to write but I also have some reading and sleeping to do and we go to the market in the morning.  Now that I actually managed to get on this blog successfully and write something down I think there will be a somewhat steady flow...at least as long as I have connection.  Thank you all again for hanging out with me on this little blog...I hope each of you is doing well and that you are smiling and paying attention to your breath at least a couple times a day. Say hello when time permits, it will be good to hear from you. 

Metta,

Asher