Hi All,

Firstly a big congratulations Arjen to you and Margaretha and wishing you every happiness for the future. I was going to say peace but it will probably be noisy...

As far as placement goes I am being kept very busy and it is varied. The most scary aspect is that I am introduced as the biodynamic expert and they keep asking for advice. On the plus side, after a week I have realised that compared to almost all of them we BD1 ers do have quite an amount of BD knowledge squirreled away. There is a beautiful walled garden, amazing labs, many hectares of land and tea/coffee whenever you want. But hours are long - 9-6pm with half hour for lunch. The farm manager here is very supportive and will include me in various meetings. Next Monday I have a BD spray strategy meeting for the vineyard, then need to do an onsite assessment of trials set up last week in the walled garden. The afternoon will be an induction to the rapid compost method used here (they also have a large more traditional compost area that took me 1 and half hours to temperature probe the numerous windrows last week). I should be doing 2 days a week with the stockmen - that is even longer hours - they start at 7. - lambing hasn't started yet. I think de-thistling a field by hand and helping to transport buffalo and finishing the stags bladder preps are also next weeks agenda.

Hope you are all well - post news when you can. I'll try and take some pictures....in my free time!!

love

Margie