New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Beautiful flower pots made by Vidya

Greetings From the Garden:

This week as I was harvesting asparagus I was asked, “what do you do with all of the vegetables that are picked from the garden?”. What a great question. The vegetables, fruits, and flowers grown here at New Vrindaban are used for the deity kitchen, prasadam, and Govinda’s Restaurant. The organization responsible for the planning, maintenance, and harvesting is ECOV. ECOV is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to cow protection, local production of food, sustainable housing, alternative energy production and energy conservation. We are also working towards having active teams of oxen, planting 1000 fruit and nut trees and building earth sheltered low impact housing using recycled or locally produced materials. ECOV stands for Earth, Cows, Organics, and Village. Check out the ECOV website

This year we are starting many new garden projects and were in need of garden tools. I have always enjoyed a good auction so when Madhava Gosh suggested we attend an Amish consignment auction in search of tools I was quite intrigued. We left early in the morning for the Captina Auction house in Monroe County, OH. I have been to many animal and produce auctions before, therefore I thought I would know what to expect. I was wrong. There was an almost even mix of Amish and English (English is what the Amish call non Amish people). Horses and buggies surrounded the auction building. The amount and variety of auction items was mind blowing. Large carts filled with tools, buildings, furniture, animals, boats, all things equestrian, tractors, building supplies, trees, hand crafted items, and so much more.

Three auctioneers began the bidding in three locations, it was almost sensory overload deciding which area to watch. We started with the tool carts. It took only a few minutes for the auctioneer to mark Gosh as the dollar man. Or in other words when no one was bidding they could rely on Gosh to pay a dollar for anything that seemed to have at least some value. We were able to get shovels, rakes, boots, and tools for just $1.00. Some items were more expensive than I would have expected, notably pitch forks were going as high as $30.00. I found this odd because I saw a beautiful horse saddle for only $15.00. In a moment of auction weakness I even bid on a deaf puppy (which would have made for an interesting ride home). Luckily I was out bid by a young girl super excited for her $12.00 puppy. In the end we FILLED the van with an assortment of items including a 150 gallon water tank for tree planting, many hand tools, and a very large sorghum & maple syrup evaporator. We had a great day with successful purchases and I can’t wait until next year.