Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Tuesday

Today, we worked fast, because it rained on and off on Monday, and the weather report anticipated more for, well, today. Speed was of the essence, as if we didn't finish setting up the farmstand and CSA, we wouldn't be able to clear the beds for planting, and the seedlings HAD to be in before the rain. We also had a limited time frame for stringing up the tomatoes, because though they cannot be strung up while wet, they need to be contained before they grow too large.

Tom, the assistant farmer, wasn't here today. I suppose I should explain about Tom. See, Tom used to be a full-time farmer, but he retired. So now he's on the board that runs the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and he assists in the running of the farm. Cool, huh?

So we worked fast, focusing on preparing for the planting and above all working ourselves into a frenzy, and....

No rain.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Saturday

My cousin from Florida decided to help today, and with her plus a sudden influx of volunteers, we had a large workforce. We spread out and started weeding, which always needs to be done, especially in the wake of a rainstorm that helps the bastards grow.

My group were regulars, me, Jeremy, and Josh. While we weeded, we talked about music, discussing bands, genres, and venues, asking each other things like 'ever hear of X?', and 'Ever seen a show at Y?' They recommended some...eccentric bands and some good, smaller venues to see them in.

Afterwards, my cousin and I headed home leaving the rest of the weeding to those who stayed.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Friday

Worked to morning half day, as my cousin came in to visit in the afternoon. We worked inside the barn today, which was awesome. See, the old barn is going to get rebuilt, so we had to...disassemble the place.

There was a wall, y'see, made entirely of boxes nailed together, and first we used a crowbar and sledgehammer to separate the wall(I used the sledgehammer), then I got to use the sledgehammer to break the boxes into pieces of scrap wood to take to the dump. Dirty, exhausting, FUN work, that lasted me the entire morning.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Wednesday/Thursday

Two days where less got done, so I'll post them together.

On Wednesday, I arrived at nine due to being tired enough to warrant sleeping an extra half an hour. We worked the far reaches of the field, plucking raspberries to donate to the food pantry. Actually, we harvested almost everything for the food pantry, which is one of the big things the farm does for the community.

Thursday, and we spent the day selling produce, and bunching produce to be sold, and loading produce onto the truck to be taken and sold. During lunch, we played 'soccer', which consisted of one of the farm children kicking a soccer ball at us while we ate.

It was really, er, slightly more fun than it sounds.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Tuesday

Came into work at ten again, stayed till two. Shoulder pain is better, but not gone. Needs more icing.

We spent the remainder of the morning after I arrived harvesting lettuce, carrots, and the last of the sweet peas, which sadly are now going to be plowed under to make room for the next crop. We also began prepping some of the empty fields for planting.

At lunch, we chatted about vegetarians, vegans, lineages, and Judaism and ate a loaf of chocolate bread that my mother made for us.

After eating, two of our four workers left, and the remaining volunteer and I went out with Greg and Tom, the 'assistant farmer', a former farmer, now retired, and weeded the beds that were going to be planted on Saturday.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Past Week

Damn, fell behind here. One more weekly format, then we're back to daily.

This week was an interesting on, schedule-wise, as my injured shoulder swelled up overnight, forcing me to work the afternoon shift while icing it in the mornings.

Tuesday, when I showed up, lunch had just ended. We transplanted hibiscus plants into new pots, harvested carrots and snap peas, and played with the sprinklers to get them to work. Wednesday, I showed up in time for lunch, and we spent about an hour discussing first the 60's, then racism, then the foundation of America as a slave nation, then the status of boyars in pre-revolution Russia. Very farm-centric.

All in all, a productive week, mainly because we finally convinced Greg, who, in case you missed it, has lime disease, to rest instead of work the fields. My god, the man's a machine. xD

Monday, July 7, 2008

Farmer troubles

Farmer Greg was diagnosed today with lime disease. Probably because he works so hard every day, when really he should leave some of it up to us volunteers.

We're going to have to step it up, because he'll need to take antibiotics and sleep.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Gah, I'm getting tired of french numbers

Going to do weekly format this time, for time constraint reasons.

From Tuesday onward: Heavy rains ever day from about noon onward, forcing us to eat lunch inside, and greatly slowing the people who work full days. Eliminates the humidity nicely, though. I injured my shoulder recently, and it hurts a huge amount. Ah, well.

This week was a big planting week, as we seeded six trays of Genovese basil, and planted a bed of lettuce and three of beans. All in all, pretty productive. I learned how to run the farmstand.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Sixieme

Tuesday, first day of the new week on the farm. Arrived, almost no-one there. We had a bit of a late start due to continuous rains. Once we got started, however, we were using hoes on the squash beds. There was a really cool little event that occurred while we were doing that.

Sam and I were working on opposite sides of the same bed to make it go faster when, suddenly, Sam leapt something like ten feet in the air. A little swallow dropped to the ground. It had landed on him and out of the corner of his eye, looked like a giant, evil moth. xD

So Sam, wearing gloves as to not get human scent on the poor thing, picked it up. It turned out the be a fledgling, who hadn't quite yet mastered flight. We placed him down a bit away from us and kept an eye on him, and his parents-we assumed they were-picked him up.

We laughed about that for the rest of the time while working, then headed off.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Cinquieme

Fifth day on the farm was Saturday. We finished up our mulching(joy), and moved on to weeding(exuberance). We weeded huge patches of burdoch, which as I learned can be used medicinally and so is saved to be sold, out of the strawberry patch. Sam came late, and Tali didn't come. Frankly, a day that felt shorter than it was. More wheelhoing as well, not much other action on the day. One week down.