Troisieme/Quatrieme

These are gonna be quick because of the delay. We lost power due to some wicked storms and wind, so I was delayed in posting.


Third day, we started off with more harvesting, same lettuce, spinach, and radishes, in lesser quantities. Then, to the cleaning! Joy. Getting dirty and wet. I used the wheelhoe, which is an exhausting, evil invention, look it up. Then we mowed the lawn all over the farm, wherever there was grass. Then, we ho'ed the entire bed of carrots and squash , weeding all the little...weeds.

Fourth day, Sam was exhausted from over work and slightly sick, so he stayed home and slept. Lucky bastard. So it was just me, Tali, and some woman I didn't know. We spent the entire bloody day spreading wood chips over the farm paths, and then cleaning leftover plants that were harvested and not sold. Two more days in the books, next coming soon.

Deuxieme

Yesterday was the second day of work on the farm. This time, Greg was there when I arrived, and so were his two kids. The son will turn eight in July, as he never ceases to remind us, and the daughter is four. The son spent all of yesterday babbling at Sam and I about "Ben 10" and its online game. Today, he was regaling a girl, about my age, whom I had never seen before, about the virtues of certain Pokemon cards. When he was finished talking over everyone else, Greg gave us our jobs. The volunteers were myself, Sam, the young woman whose name turned out to be Tali, a kid who had just graduated from high school named Jeremy, and a couple of others whose names I didn't catch. We were divided into groups to get to work. As the vegetable shares of the farm sponsors are collected on Tuesdays, it was harvest time.

Sam, Tali and I were assigned to first lettuce, then radishes. Apparently, Tali is a regular face around the farm, as we had the two farm children following us the entire time, nattering.

For the lettuce, we(Same, Tali, and I, not the younglings) took knives, reached under each head, and sliced the stem. We did this for 75 heads of lettuce. For the radishes, we gathered them in bunches of threes, rubber-banded them together, and gathered them. 47 of these later,and it was on to cleaning,a very intricate process, involving pointing the hose at rows of dirty radishes and spraying it on the highest setting. I know, complex.

After that...ugh. Weeding. An hour of it before noon,and then it was time for me to return to my abode. Another day finished.

Premiere!

Hullo all. First day on the farm!

First things first--the backstory. I just finished my freshman year at high school, and, frankly? There aren't too many things for a 14 year old to do over the summer. Too old for the camp I went to last year, too young for anyone to hire me. However, my family had a share in a local community farm, run by a farmer named Greg and a group of volunteers. My parents suggested I volunteer there, and, sure enough, they were looking for more workers. So yesterday, a couple of weeks after my finals, I started farming.

8:30--Arrival: I got there and...no Greg. Just some lady I'd never seen with a video camera, scanning the farm. So I sit, unobtrusive and out of the way for a couple of minutes, and, lo and behold, Greg comes out. He speaks with the woman for a little while, then comes over to me. "You're Philip, right?"

"Yep."

"I've got this interview to do. How about you start weeding the cucumbers." Joy. Weeding. Work gloves on(Cukes are extremely prickly), and out into the breach. I worked weeding for about a half an hour, finding some weeds larger than the plants supposedly growing there. At around nine, the second worker showed up. He introduced himself as Sam.

Sam's a college student, and he's been volunteering three weeks longer than me. We weeded together as Greg finished his interview. Once we were finished with our hour and a half weeding job, we were assigned a new one. Twine in a box and posts all around the bed. We strung up all the hanging over cucumbers so they would grow straight. That was about an hour's work, and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, it was noon. To allow time for, y'know, summer relaxation, that's y curtain call. More to come.