Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

So I've finally had a chance to experience the eponymous ice of Iceland.  The weather here is like an excitable little child in a sweet shop who can't make up his mind: "Snow! No, rain! Wait, no, hail! Yeah, hail. No just wind. Snow and wind? Hail and rain? No...everything at once!"  And so everything at once is what we got today, a snow-wind-rain-hail-pocalypse.  Ok, maybe no pocalypse, but it was still pretty serious.  When we get just snow though, as we did this weekend, things begin to look very pretty indeed.  Exhibit A, B, and C (and my new snazzy header, oooh):

Susseljuhús - the sustainability centre in Sóhelimar where I work

Things turned not so pretty when the rain melted the snow and froze to ice, turning all the dirt roads in the village into ice roads.  Not so much fun in the darkness of morning.  But after today's efforts everything is now covered in a layer of sludge, which makes everything a bit safer, albeit not as pretty.

I've begun work in Ölur, the forestry initiative in Sólheimar.  At the moment it's still too early to plant, so I've been sorting poplar saplings into five categories (tall, tallish, short, really short, scutty) and making cuttings of herbs in the greenhouse.  The past two days I've spent my time enveloped in a perfume of rosemary and spearmint; it's a tough life.  Most of the trees are grown to be bought by the government for a reforestation scheme - Iceland is one of the most deforested countries in the EU; although from what I understand, the forests were neither all that plentiful nor impressive to begin with.  There's an Icelandic joke that goes something along the lines of "What should you do if you're lost in an Icelandic forest? ..... Stand up."  (Readers should note that Icelanders are generally a good bit funnier than this.)

Paulo and Matt struggle through an Icelandic forest

The rest of the plants, mostly herbs and a few types of flowers, are grown to sell to the general public.  It's an organic nursery, so everything has to be grown to fairly strict standards.  No pesticides, hormones, non-natural fertilisers, etc.  There are ways and means, though, of making the garden grow without creating mutants.  For example, when I was making cuttings of rosemary, mint, and pineapple salvia this week to make new plants, I dipped the ends in lemon water.  Most hearty plants will re-root on their own without the aid of dangerous hormones, but lemon juice gives it an extra boost.  Oh, and all the vegetarians out there may want to skip this: organic fertiliser?  Ground up fish bones and blood.  You may be vegetarian, but your vegetables aren't... As the logic of Hazel (who is also a vegetarian) goes, we're more vegetarian eating cows that eat grass, than vegetables that eat fish.

The head gardener of the forestry programme is a quiet woman full of interesting surprises.  She lives in Sólheimar with her boyfriend, a big jovial man who likes to talk loudly about politics over tea breaks, and Popeye the sheepdog.  I found out she's an installation artist who has taken a sabbatical from her craft for an indeterminate amount of time.  Yesterday as she trimmed an unruly cloud of lemon balm she asked me, "Do you play Facebook games?"  I told her I didn't, and she went on, "I play Fairyland.  The object is to have a garden and grow plants."  She fell silent after that and moved on to watering the oregano.

As all of the interns get more involved with their projects, I'm able to really see the connectivity of the community shine through.  The clippings of rosemary I made the other day in the herb greenhouse were used by Will and Pami in the bakery today in their herb-infused oils experiments.  When fully grown, the tomatoes and cucumbers Flor is cultivating in the greenhouse will be used for lunches.  The herbs left over at the end of the season will be dried and used in the candle workshop where Hazel's working, and the natural cleaning products Paulo, Claire, and I were creating in the soap workshop will be used to clean the guesthouses.  Ideally, it would be cool to take it a few steps further: use the natural hot springs to plant more fickle fruits and veg all year round (nine bean rows shall I have there...), keep bees to provide the beeswax for the candles (a hive for the honey bee...), and most importantly, set up a microbrewery and open a little sustainable pub - really missing the aul pint or two here...

At the risk of sounding more like a hippie than people already think I am, "It's all, like, connected, man..."  There's only so much intrinsic worth an object can possess; after that, it's up to personal and social influences to put a value on something.  If you have a bag of dried herbs that comes from southeast Asia that cost you a fiver in the local supermarket, it's not going to be as valuable to you as the herbs your friend picked and dried for you.  It reminds me of The Story of Stuff (which if you have 20 minutes, I would highly recommend watching), which traces the true cost of a radio and explains how we never pay, or often consider, the true cost of products.  Aside from the cost element of an item, though, is the value, and this is something that we can consider and influence on an individual level.  I know it's not as easy as walking down to the village greenhouse to say howdy, nor would completely localised economies solve all the world's problems.  The poorly planned, grossly unequal globalised production line as it stands today is a massive issue to tackle; but being more mindful of where our stuff comes from, and the real people who were involved in getting it to us - conscious consumption - is something we can all do.  It's a good place to start, don't you think?

The Lake-isle of Sólheimar?

In other news, all is well on the set of Iceland's Next Top Intern.  After a surprise birthday dinner on Monday for Claire's birthday, we all sat around listening to Sigur Rós, waiting for more snow to come.  Though we still can't understand most of what they're saying (Takk - "Thanks" - and goðan daginn - "good day" are all the meaning I can salvage at this stage), all the same there are few things more fitting to do in Iceland than blast post-rock Icelandic bands by candlelight.  

Tonight, we Þorrablot!  This will involve fermented shark, sheeps' heads, and the interns performing their rendition of an old Icelandic folk song.  Stay tuned for the aftermath.

More photos here.