Earth Dance, Week #9

Meet Taylor!  She started on Monday, June 7, 2010.  She is 24, is from St. Paul and will be here through October on a paid internship.  She and I hit it off right away, and she loved my pink kneeling pad so much that I decided to leave it there for her.  Between Taylor, and Bushra and me, we talked and laughed the whole time we were weeding carrots (our first job of the day), and it made the time fly by.  What a great new addition to the team!

As we were weeding the carrots, I asked, "Where's Matt?"  "He's in Colorado," Mark reminded me, and then I remembered that today was Matt's 22nd birthday and that he had gone to Colorado with his brother to rock climb.  Bushra and I decided to wish him a happy birthday, even though he wasn't there, yelling, "Happy Birthday, Matt!" in chorus up to the sky. 

I asked Bushra what they did yesterday when it was raining.  She said, "We actually got to bottle honey."  And, she told me that she thinks that honey might be a bonus in the first CSA box.

Very soon after that, Riley walked up, and I was surprised to see him, because he usually doesn't start until about 4:00.  I asked him if he had the day off from school, and he said, "School's out for the summer!"  Nice.

Norm came upon us all weeding in this little group and laughed, "You guys look funny, all bunched up like that."  We explained to him that we had all been doing our own rows and that it had come down to this last little spot, and then we would be done, but he laughed again and said, "I know, I was just kidding ya."

Norm told us that next week is going to be our first harvesting, packing and delivery of the CSA boxes to the members!

All done weeding the carrots.  Mark, Bushra, Riley and Taylor look over our work as they walk to our next job...harvesting strawberries!

Taylor and Bushra deciding how and where to divide up the strawberry rows for harvesting.  Norm told us, "I want you to time how long it takes you to pick one row, average the fastest and slowest times between all of you, and give me an estimate of how long it takes to pick one row."  Of couse, like always, Mark was the fastest...and Taylor and I finished up last.  The average time turned out to be 1 hour 15 minutes.  (Wonder how long it would have taken Matt.)

Beautiful organic strawberries and tasty, too.  (Well, of course, we had to taste some!)

I love this picture of Riley, because it's what I like best about him.  He's constantly entertaining us while we all work with his never-ending grab-bag of stories.  I don't know how a 17-year-old can already have had so many experiences, but he is never at a loss for a good story!

Lunch time!  I sat down to the side of my car overlooking the front yard and took off my boots and socks and sat in the nice cool grass under a shade tree to eat.  What a gorgeous day.  This is my favorite day I have ever had on the farm.  The sun is in and out of the clouds, the temperature is moderate, somewhere in the high 60s to mid 70s, there is no humidity or rain, and the wind is blowing.  Perfect!

Of course, I had to check on the chicks' progress.  I see that they have been let outside for the first time!  They've got a bit of a fenced area just outside their coop now.

Here was the first brave little chick I saw outside.

And here are some others venturing down the walkway to get outside.

How beautiful they are becoming...wonder what the adult chickens think of them, now that they're all out in the yard together.

On my way back down to the yard, I snapped this picture of one of the grape vines.  They seem to have really taken off since Bushra and I weeded them last week!

Very often, this is where you'll find Mark after lunch and before getting back to work...sitting on the tailgate of ole 'Sandy,' playing guitar.  Just one more thing that added to the perfection of the day.

Hannah, getting some noontime attention from Taylor.

Okay, back to work.  We each took a row and harvested 5 more rows of strawberries.

We dumped our individual bowls of berries into these crates, and then took the crates to the cooler, where they'll be stored until they can be used.  Norm told me to take as many home as I wanted tonight, and I happily complied, taking what amounted to 2 big bowlfuls home with me.  Even Willee (who doesn't usually like strawberries) really liked them!

Norm thought it would be nice to have photos of someone holding a bowl of berries, and I couldn't decide who that would be, so I just snapped photos of everyone.  The first was Bushra.

Taylor.

Mark.

Riley.

Taylor laughed and said, "Now, somebody has to take a picture of Bev."  So, there's even a picture of me, taken by Bushra.

This was the best part of the day, when Norm told us that we were going to be planting, using the mechanical planter.  I hadn't yet gotten to use it, and today was probably one of the last chances I was going to get, since my Wednesdays are probably going to be pretty busy with packing CSA boxes after today.  Norm got the planter hooked up to the tractor.

Here, we're loosening up all the seedlings that we'll be planting.  They will all get wetted down, too, before they're taken out to be planted.

Hard to describe how happy and content I was this day.  There just wasn't anywhere else I wanted to be....even when the day went long, so we could get all the plants in before the rain tomorrow....I was perfectly happy to be doing what I was doing.  I think I truly fell in love with the farm today.

This was my maiden voyage on the mechanical planter.  Norm is driving the tractor, and Bushra and I are on planting detail.  She was already very experienced at this, since during many of the days when I wasn't at the farm, they had already been doing lots of this kind of planting.  Bushra and I started by planting tomatoes and then peppers.  This was hands-down the funnest thing I have gotten to do on the farm so far.

The planter is supposed to dig the trench, lay in the seedlings in even spacing, and fold the dirt back into the trench.  "It doesn't always work perfectly," Norm told us.  And, sure enough, today, when Bushra and I started out, the first two steps went very well, but the trench wasn't filling back in, so Riley went along behind us and filled in trenches.

Everyone takes a turn making dinner, and today was Norm's day, so about 4:00, he handed the tractor over to Riley and went down to the house.  Just before he leaves, Norm watches as Taylor and Mark take a turn on the planter.  They're planting squash.

Planting is such a happy job...you just can't help but laugh and smile a little as you do it.

Turnng the tractor around at the end of each row can be tricky, but Riley handles it.  Mark gave Riley some grief for a few 'wobbly' rows...hmmmm....let's see how Mark does.

Mark takes a turn as the driver, and Taylor and Riley are on the planter.

Bushra waits for them to start planting, and she and I will follow and fill in the trenches.  As the planting went on at this point, the planter seemed to become less efficient, and we had to fix spacing, dig up seedlings that had been buried, and set them upright before filling in...not sure what caused the change.

Riley got to give Mark back a little of that grief, because Mark had a few 'wobbly' rows, too.  I'm sure I don't want to know how straight my rows would have been if I would have tried it.  Norm did say at the beginning of the season, though, that I might get a shot at driving the tractor some day...we'll see.   : )

We continued planting well past quitting time, so we could get most of the seedlings in the ground before the rain tomorrow.  What a fabulous feeling to have done what we did today.  We worked with the earth and planted food for our own plates with some of the nicest, hardest-working people I have ever met, all on one of the nicest weather days ever.  You just can't beat that.