Harpo and I have been staying out on Maha Farm on Whidbey Island getting a taste of the country life before we leave for our PCT hike. We’re doing some chick rangling, scenic painting, organic gardening and eating directly farm-to-table. It’s a great to harvest the food you eat, and nobody seems to mind that we only cook weird vegan food.

By working directly for room and board, without currency in exchange for labor, we’re able to realize the actual value of our labor. It’s a more direct way of living, without the complexities and abstraction of currency.
Work-for-Stay arrangements raise questions about how to exist alongside this system of bait and switch capital markets, the association of products with emotions, and the consumer consciousness of the American identity.

Can we live more simply? I guess that’s the intent of this experiment…