Abby's Travel Log: BIOFarm is Beautiful!

I really can’t get over how beautiful this farm is. Everything is in bloom, the twin scents of mint and basil (with a faint backdrop of sweat and compost) ride on the breeze, and the fruits and veggies are gorgeous and delicious.

The farm is in the process of renovating their buildings, expanding their programming, reaching out to businesses and the local government for support, and recreating their image. They hope that by creating new presentations for visiting groups, new flyers and posters to advertise their events, and completely changing the design of their weekly newsletter. Over the past few weeks, I have kind of become in charge of researching, designing, drafting, and writing all of these materials. At times it can be a little overwhelming, but every so often I hit a day where I get to spend hours roaming the farm and taking pictures for these publications. I love those days.

This little nose belongs to Molly the (boy) pig. He is just one year old, and was adopted by the farm last week. His previous owner bought him off a street vendor in the city and tried to take care of him. However, the old owner was called out of the country on an indefinite business trip and needed to find Molly a good home. This little pig adores the attention showered on him by all of the families that visit the farm, and also loves to eat tomatoes.

Last week, when I went into Shanghai, I mostly stuck around the Former French Concession area. As I was wandering through the streets, I stumbled into a park and saw a huge crowd of people. I meandered over to see what they were looking at, and was thrilled to see a Tai Chi exhibition.

A whole range of masters had brought their students to this park to demonstrate their technique. I was absolutely fascinated by the slow, even movements that held so much power. As I was watching and taking a few pictures of the Tai Chi demonstrations, the other Chinese people were watching and taking pictures of me.

Eventually, a group of young Tai Chi students came up to me, and were shocked that I knew some Chinese. We chatted for a while, and eventually more and more members of their school came over to talk. Finally, I was introduced to the school’s master, who insisted that I stand up and pose for a few pictures with him. I felt ridiculous standing there trying to imitate his pose, but he was smiling, and proudly told me that these pictures would be posted on his school’s website, and offered to give me lessons whenever I wanted.

As their school group left, I turned to walk away and almost ran into this tiny old man. He spoke to me in perfect English, and after learning of my interest in Tai Chi, he began to lecture me on the basic principles of the art. His stories were absolutely fascinating, but by this point I was starving, so I needed to beg off and continue on my way.

I have yet to find the website of this school, but as soon as I do I will show you the hilarious pictures of the Tai Chi master and me.

A couple of days ago we also had a tiny baby goat dropped off at the farm (with his mother). This little guy doesn’t have a name yet, but we are going to host a contest where Shanghai locals can submit names for him.

He is just so sweet and little, but he is also very loud and his mother is VERY protective. She hates it when we come to visit, because the farm’s giant German Shepard (Sai Hu) always comes along and tries to sniff her baby.

This just yesterday we had a group of little kids come visit the farm.

They were all adorable.

Some even had miniature British accents.

The tall Chinese guy is William. Originally from Taiwan, he came to BIOFarm to open up a cafe and ice cream shop. Here his is showing the kids how to make sun dried tomato cookies.