Days 58-60 (8/22-24/12): Goodbye, Winterberry Farm

It felt like everything I did these past few days, I found myself repeating, “Aw, this is the last time I’ll ever __ again on the farm.”  I worked in the shop for most of Wednesday, making flour bouquets, making Mémé's Tomato Rice Soup (recipe included below), and changing the berries out of Kenya’s dehydrator to put in pace tomato slices.  That night after work, I went on a long bike ride for the last time around Belgrade Lakes.  It was a treat to spend my summer in Maine.  Unless it’s raining (which I love), the skies are baby blue with fluffed clouds and this is beautifully contrasted with the rich dark green of the reaching pine trees.  No wonder they call it Vacationland.  Upon returning to the farm, I found Jillian and Annie had carried out Annie’s plan of roasting a chicken over an open fire.  They had built a fire, sterilized in it a steel rod they found on the ground (a ‘spit’ of sorts), and built a dubiously balanced structure to hang the spit from.  We spent our time waiting for the chicken (it took about 3 hours) chatting by the fire and telling ghost stories.  Some of you know how horrible a story-teller I can be, I can kill the punch line in anything.  However, I told my most successful ‘ghost story’ of yet that night. Mary came home the next day and Jillian and I were to go to farmer’s market together.  I spent the morning harvesting produce, with pumpkins, mini pumpkins, and decorative gords included.  The mornings and nights are getting cooler (way more flies found inside in the last week than most of the summer) and fall is upon us.  Mary had me decorate the farmstand with the pumpkins and gords already.  Jillian and I had a lovely day at farmer’s market and enjoyed seeing our regulars (hey there, combat boot lady who pays almost exclusively in $100-bills) and new customers (hey there, garlic lady who broke our garlic braid and went on to eat 2 cloves and have me smell her breath before paying for it).  My last night on the farm was spent cleaning and packing.  Mary came back Friday morning for CSA day.  I set up the CSA section: counted and weighed the veggies, put them into presentable bowls and bins, wrote out the ½-share and full-share CSA distributions, and cleaned the CSA section of the barn.  My last task ever was to harvest tomatoes – our prize-worthy veggie.  I got to say goodbye to Kenya and Sage on Mary’s phone before leaving, and Sage made sure that I’d say goodbye to all of the animals and gardens.  I know Jillian and I will stay in touch.  I choked up a little saying goodbye to Mary, she’s been amazing woman to work for this summer and I’m lucky to have met her.  She sent me on my way with a big ol’ jar of their wild Maine blueberry jam, socks from their sheeps’ wool, and a card from the family – how generous.  

I can’t believe I’ve left the farm now, although I’m eager to go home and see my family, my grandparents included.  I’m writing this on the bus back to New York which is being driven by  a  Chirstopher Walken sound- and look-alike.  I know I’ll make my way back to Winterberry Farm some day soon to visit.  I think this blog turned into one describing the admirable farming lifestyle from the perspective of a rookie.  I’d like to thank all of my friends and family, and perhaps others, who have followed my blog this summer.  

Mémé's Tomato Rice Soup Recipe

~30 Tomatoes

20 stems of Parsley

1/3 C Sugar

2 C Butter

10 Onions

15 Carrots

10 C Brown Rice

20 C Chicken Broth

Salt and Pepper

Peel tomatoes by having them sit in a strainer in boiling water for a minute then pulling the skins off.  Cut tomatoes into desirable chunk size.  Don’t strain out tomato juice.  Pull off and chop parsley leaves.  Stir parsley and sugar into tomatoes and let sit on stove at med-low for 1 hr.  While tomatoes are cooking, melt butter in a saucepan.  Chop onions and carrots and mix into butter until soft.  Add salt and pepper for flavor.  After tomato mix has cooked for an hour, stir in carrot and onion mix and cook for another hour.  Cook rice.  When done, serve with 1:4 rice to soup ratio.  If storing in freezer, put a scoop of rice at the bottom of container and fill the rest with soup.  Don’t mix rice and soup.

*Remember: You can alter the ingredient’s proportions or adjust the recipe to fit what you have on stock.  

Days 55-57 (8/19-21/12): Farmer Anna

Dilly Beans

Mary made a master to-do list for Jillian, Annie, and me covering the days that she'd be gone.  Since I've been on the farm for the longest of all the apprentices, I've been given the 'overseer' role: making sure Annie and Jillian understand what they're supposed to do, checking in with Mary, managing the money, etc.  It looks like it's going to be a pretty relaxed week with simple chores like watering plants, harvesting veggies, feeding the animals, quick hoe-weeding, and general upkeep.  To my great delight, I watched the shop all day Sunday and Monday.  Mary came back for the day on Tuesday, but I was in the shop a lot despite this.  On Sunday, I harvested blackberries, mostly from our neighbors property (with their permission).  I didn't dress properly and had to tough it through the thorns - my wounds are still visible.  I baked brownies (um brownie better, yes) and made 16 tussy mussies to hang beautifully around the shop on Sunday too.  I use three kinds of flowers in my tussy mussies, each of which dries maintaining its brilliant pink, white, purple, yellow, or orange color.  

On Monday, I harvested all of the tomatoes: plum (aka pace) tomatoes from Field 6 for Kenya's fundraising, orange heirloom tomatoes for sauce later that day, and big red tomatoes for shop.  My favorite part about harvesting tomatoes, still, is feeding the hornworms I find to the baby turkeys.  For the fresh tomato sauce, I cut the small heirloom tomatoes into quarters, not bothering to core or peel them (I took off any stems).  I covered the bottom of the baking pan with a thick layer of the cut tomatoes and added basil and dashes of sea salt, and mixed.  I let this bake uncovered at 300 degrees for 2 hours (no less).  After letting it cool, I spooned the mixture into a food mill which turned it to mush, poured these into containers to be frozen. This fresh tomato sauce will be delicious on pastas.  On my bike ride after work, I ran into a moose.  I had been in Maine all summer, waiting for this moment.  A baby moose was in the road ahead of me.  The man in a car beside me was watching the calf, too.  We figured the mom must not be too far, so he said he'd drive next to me so I wouldn't get too close to the calf and as to not be vulnerable to a protective mother moose.  The calf had only a right antler and was stumbling in circles back and forth on the road, oblivious that it had an audience.  The man said the calf probably had a worm in its brain that moose can get, so must be sick.  I hope that beautiful 7'-tall calf ends up okay.
Today I fed in the morning, and had an unusually challenging cleaning day.  I cleaned the stalls of Ladybug, the sheep, both horses, and the steer (they stayed in today and kept whipping me with their poop-caked tails while I was trying to clean) like usual, but also changed the bedding in Mr. Duck's cage and cleaned the turkey coop (I should have had a gas mask for that one).  I don't think the baby turkey coop has been cleaned since June, so the entire floor was caked with waste.  I put down lime before adding fresh shavings to prevent stench.  Mary came home today, bringing groceries and laundry with her.  Annie and I cut off the stems of green haricot vert beans and put them into pint jars to make dilly beans (spiced with crushed red pepper, a peeled garlic clove, and dill plant).  I took Kenya's pace tomatoes out of the dehydrator and added blackberries that Annie had picked this morning.  I jarred the dried tomatoes that Kenya will sell at the Common Ground Fair for fundraising.  I used imperfect tomatoes to start on the tomato rice soup that I'll work on tomorrow.  I peeled the tomatoes by having them sit in a strainer in boiling water for a minute and then chopping them into a pot.  The big highlight of today was Katy coming today!  Katy drove down from her home in Bangor to spend some time with Jillian and me.  She helped us finish our chores for the day, and we ate dinner at Cafe de Bangkok, Hallowell's premier Thai and sushi restaurant.  We walked along the river, spent time in a used book shop, and got ice cream at Friendly's.  Katie has been jarring pickles and applesauce galore at home and brought us a jar of her homemade applesauce - delicious.  It was great to see her so happy and active and it was so sweet of her to make the trip down.

Moose calf

Day 54 (8/18/12): Goodbye Kenya, Gil, and Sage

Kenya and I fed the animals together this morning.  We're going to alternate having Tom and Jane (Gil's show turkeys)  with Oregano (the new rooster) out of their cages and the chickens with Jordy (older, white rooster with one HUGE talon that lives with the chickens) out.  Oregano has been bullying Jordy when they're out together.  We also changed the fly catchers (rosen-lined strips that hang from the ceiling) in the animals' stables  - the flies and fruit flies seem to have doubled this week compared with the rest of the summer.  Flies are all over the farmstand unlike any other time before.  Once done, I cleaned the CSA section and put the leftover veggies into the farmstand for sale.  Mary and I made (delicious, medium) salsa for the rest of the day:

~50 tomatoes of all sizes
8 large yellow onions
20 hot peppers
3 green peppers
10 cilantro stems
20 parsley stems
3 garlic heads
~2 C Vinegar
Salt & Pepper
Sugar

Fill a pot strainer 1/2 full with tomatoes and dip in boiling water, making sure tomatoes are covered in water.  After 1 minute pull the tomatoes out and finish rest of tomatoes.  Peel the skin off tomatoes and cut salsa-sized chunks into a pot.  Drain tomato juice out of pot.  Use a food processor to chop onions and mince hot peppers, green peppers, cilantro, parsley, and garlic.  Add to tomato chunk pot.  Heat pot on stove at medium.  Add vinegar (for preservation) and dash in salt & pepper and sugar. If not canning, let cool.
Canning: Pour the salsa into canning jars and submerge jars in boiling water for 10 minutes to seal.  Let cool.

The family was packing all day to leave for Pemaquid, ME for the week.  As I helped Mary clean the dishes, finish taking pies out of the oven, and close up the shop, the kids finished packing and were ready to leave.  This would be the last time I'd see them before I left.  Sage clung on to me and said she's miss me and even Gil gave me a goodbye hug, thanking me for helping them this summer.  Kenya and I had an emotional goodbye.  I can't believe they're gone!  The farm will be so empty this week without Sage's giggles, seeing Gil driving hi steer around, and having Kenya helping out at 10 places at once.

Days 52-53 (8/16-17/12): It's Raining Men and Cats and Dogs

 

I knew it'd be a good day on Thursday because we woke up to rain.  I harvested squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  We're starting to harvest certain produce for CSA (on Friday) a little earlier in the week so that our early Friday mornings aren't as hectic.  The drizzle turned into a pour, so I had to resort to getting my rain jacket and rain pants from the top floor of the house.  I felt silly watering the hoop house while it was raining so outside.  It was so wet and cold.  I'm still sick, so hanging out outside in the pouring rain certainly wasn't helping my case.  I came in for a hot shower and hot tea before I left for market.  Because Mary needed her car to go back to Fiddle Camp Thursday afternoon, she had a friend and CSA member take me to market.  Since I know how to work everything at market, Mary felt most comfortable for me to go this week.  Janet is an older woman from Connecticut who is now retired in her Great Pond lake house.  Janet helped on the farm last summer when the family was short of labor, and she helps out with transportation, working the shop, or working events.  We got along just lovely.  She knew what Williams was, and we talked at length about colleges and careers and how her daughter just started a post-doc program at Yale.
The rain was no better at market.  We rushed to bag the pies and breads to keep them dry while our tent malfunctioned and kept pooling up with water.  The showers kept customers away from the market today, so sales were at a record low.  Janet was generous enough to run over to get us each some hot green tea (perfect for the cold and my cold) and we even hid in the car to warm up since neither of us had dressed for the weather.  On our way home we also stopped off at Wal-Mart to pick up Kenya's wallet that had been found and returned without money missing.  The fact that people would return the wallet in good faith without stealing anything reaffirms my faith in mankind.
Jillian and Annie had ridden their bikes to the store to get ingredients for dinner.  They then prepared falafel and tomatoes in wild rice - what a feast.   The family got home late from Fiddle Camp and it was lovely to be reunited with the kids again, Kenya even teared up a little when she saw me.  She then went on to tell me every detail of Fiddle Camp, oh my.l
Every day I've woken up, my cold has felt and sounded a little better.  We had an early start this morning for CSA harvesting: lettuce, mezclun, slicing cucumbers.  The slicing cucumbers were huge, some close to a foot long.  Mary started explaining how to harvest autumn gords - the fall season is upon us, starting even in August.  I finished the morning with helping Mary and Kenya set up the CSA section and count/weigh and distribute the produce into 1/2 and full shares.  We've started organizing the CSA section a few days in advance, so Jillian already had many of the veggies counted and organized.  Organizing went smoother and took less time than the time I helped out 2 weeks ago.
Mary explained that Field 7 would not be used next year.  The potatoes, squash, pumpkins, peppers, and cucumbers growing in there are nothing impressive, so this means the field has lost many of its nutrients.  Mary will 'retire' it for a year so it can recharge its nutrients.  She had me start pulling black plastic off of 3 rows in Field 5 today.  It's amazing how the growing season can be coming to an end so soon.  I feel like it was just yesterday that everything was in full swing.... I guess that's true too though.
I watched the shop this afternoon.  To keep busy, I sliced pace tomatoes and put them in the dehydrator, cleaned dishes, and prepared tomatoes for salsa.  I used a pot and its strainer, filling the pot 3/4 with water and bringing to a boil and filling the strainer 1/2 way with tomatoes.  The tomatoes were placed in the hot water for 1 minute and were ready to be skinned and then diced for salsa.  We fed the scraps to the chickens.  The shop was busy today, which was good since Mary's farmer's market was not, and I got the chance to sell yarn, a garlic braid, and almost all of the chocolate chip cookies that I'd made the other day and though I'd messed up on.
We were going to spend our last night together (the family leaves on vacation tomorrow) roller blading at an old-fashioned rink nearby, but the pizzas took too long, so we settled on watching the Ferris Bueller's Day Off DVD that I'd brought while it rained and stormed more outside.  Hey, I'm not complaining.  Jillian and I skyped Katie tonight to figure out possible dinner plans for next week, and Gil kept eavesdropping on us.  He refused to come over and say hi and instead locked us inside the room we were in by tying some fisherman's knot on the door.  12-year-old boys are so silly sometimes.

Jillian working in lower hoop house

Days 50-51 (8/14-15/12): Back on the Farm

Madison, me, and Caroline (trying to) striking a pose.

Me, Shelby, and Kelly after our cabin activity at Camp Varisty.  

 I left the farm on Friday, August 3 in a 9-seater airplane (smallest plane and airport I've ever seen).  I was heading to Virginia for several days to visit with friends from home and to be a counselor at a running camp.  Camp Varsity was full of craziness, per the usual: doin' the dew, date night for table dress-up theme, fried and packaged camp food (seriously, yum), Parlor Rugby, Lip Syncs (One Thing by One Direction), CaMp DaNcE, and too much more to list.  CV is a high school running camp in the mountains of Madison, VA that I've gone to for 6 years now.  Even as a second-year counselor, I got to stay in the same cabin as my high school girl's cross country team.  I'd like to thank the campers and my fellow staff for an amazingly exciting yet sentimental week at camp.  I'm counting down the days until next year.  I also had an amazing time catching up with friends from high school and home.  After braving the 'wilderness' at camp, I got to go to the movie theatre (Prometheus was awesome), buy a dress (thrift stores rock), and drink diet coke (it's been too long), all luxuries for me.  I'd like to thank Georgia and her sisters, Hannah and Lydia, and the Rose family for hosting me in Richmond - they give so much!

I returned on the evening of Monday, August 13 on the same 9-seater plane with the same Australian pilot.  Sage and Mary were there to greet me with open arms and a fresh peach (the taste and texture were divine).  The family is at Maine Fiddle Camp this week, with Mary and Sage coming home during the day, so Kenya and Gil weren't home when I returned.  However, it was lovely to see Jillian and Annie again.  It felt as if nothing had changed.  Little had except the farm had its final and concrete appraisal (the price was set for the easement), the corn had doubled in height, and Piccalilli had been slaughtered since it had attacked Sage (please note that more elaborate reasoning was considered in this decision).   Yesterday, the 14th, I tended to regular chores of watering the lower hoop house, harvesting squash and cucumbers, hoe-weeding field 4, and feeding the animals in the evening.  I was less productive than I wished in the hoe-weeding because I felt fatigued.  I've been feeling sick from something I probably picked up from Caroline (she was feeling feverish on Saturday) and from lack of sleep.  Nestor is staying out in the pasture at night time because his stall is being used for storing extra shavings right now.  Until all the extra bedding shavings are used, we will switch Nestor into Ginger's stall for the days that Ginger and Ladybug go out to the pasture.  Mary had me spray the herb garden's kale plants for fleas.  We use an organic spray made from chrysanthemum.  This spray kills bugs on contact and stays traced on the plant for up to 2 hours.  It's not something one should go out of their way to inhale, but it's rather unharmful for humans.  This is the first time all summer that I've used spray on plants - our produce is 100% organic with arguably no chemicals.  Before returning to Fiddle Camp for the night, Mary and Sage joined us for dinner: kale and tomato salad, eggplant parmesan, and peach and blackberry pie with crumble and whipped cream - what a feast!

I spent much of today in the shop.  I fed the animals, cleaned their stalls (Red, the steer, insisted on lying down and made it extremely difficult to clean his stall), and put Nestor into Ginger's stall and Ginger and Ladybug into the pasture.  I watched the shop all day and made batches of chocolate chip cookies for the shop and blueberry bread for market.  When Mary returned for the day, I canned haricot vert beans .  I clipped the stems off of a bucket of beans and jammed them as much as I could into mason jars, sprinkling in 2-3 tbsp of canning & baking salt  and filling each with boiling water.  The jars are placed in a special canning pot that is filled with 3/4 boiling water and 1/4 vinegar (to prevent staining the pot).  The special canning pot is heated to seal the mason jars for preservation.  Mary also had me make 'tussy mussy's'.  Think of London in the industrial revolution with waste in its streets.  Women would have fragrant bouquets of flowers called Tussy Mussy's slid up their sleeves so they could smell the perfume easily.  Mary had me harvest dry flower (aka straw flowers) and a couple of other flowers that dry nicely.  I cut the stems short, wrapped the bouquets tightly, and artistically hung the bouquets from the farmstand ceiling by hay bale twine at varying heights from the ceiling.  I thought this was a creative way of using space and putting the bouquets on display for sale while they dry.  

Haricot Vert Beans: long and thin 'fancy' string beans

Day 49 (8/2/12): C’est La Vie

It wasn’t the best day in a lot of ways, but what can you do?  I’m traveling to Virginia next week, so I’d miss my day to go to market, so I was excited when Jillian agreed to flip-flop weeks with me.  Before I could get to market, however, I worked in the fields for the morning.  I was bug-checking for squash bugs in Field 7 when I found an ‘adolescent’ squash bug (right before its adult stage), squished it, and its trajectory was straight for my eye.  It felt like a burn of a thousand suns.  I yelped to nearby Annie to run to get my water to flush out my eye.  Through cringing and tears, I eventually made my way up to the house to flush my left eye out in the sink.  Much to my despair, my eye had swelled.  The swelling had mostly gone down with some icing by the time we left for market, but there was still a dull burn, and Mary suggested that Kenya and I stop by the emergency room on our way home if it still hurt at the end of the day.  This would be my last farmer’s market with Kenya since she would be at Maine Fiddle Camp and then on vacation in Pemaquid, ME for the last 2 weeks that I’ll be on the farm.  We enjoyed our time together and got a fair amount of business (selling out of honey) since it was a beautiful and sunny day.  We did errands on our way home, including stopping at Walmart.  It is there that we lost Kenya’s wallet.  We backtracked our trail 4 or 5 times and had an employee help us, but it was no use.  Kenya was extremely hard on herself and incredibly distraught that she’d lost the money from market, several gift cards, and her tip money from Open Farm Day.  There’s no greater punishment for Kenya, I’d say, than Kenya being mad at herself.  We got home and ate dinner at 10:30, beat from the high emotions of the day.  Mom had me call Poison Control to check in about my eye – surprisingly I could find no suggestions online for what happens when you squirt squash bug guts in your eye (it has to have happened to someone else before!).  The dull burn had stayed throughout the day, but they affirmed that I would not go blind.  I told Kenya that all we can say at the end of a day like this is: C’est la vie. Worse things could have happened and life will go on.  

Days 47-48 (7/31/12-8/1/12): Back to Normal

Things have finally calmed down this week since Open Farm Day, being at the lake house, Dinner on the Farm, and seeing my family.  It was a blast going to Boothbay and Wiscasset and getting to watch the Olympics.  I was sad to see my family go, but I know time will fly until going home. 

On Tuesday I fed the animals in the morning, which includes scooping the poop and wet bedding out of their stalls.  I suckered the tomatoes, checked for horn worms, and broke off all branches below the bottom set of tomatoes on each plant – this aerates the plants and takes off dead weight to focus the nutrients on growing the tomatoes.  The tomatoes are huge (about the size of 2 softballs sometimes, maybe even a football) and they’re finally getting ripe enough to pick – a few each day.  The garlic has been drying in the barn for a couple of weeks now, layed on a drying rack with a fan blowing on them.  I trimmed their roots, cleaned the heads, and cut the stems off to a 2-inch stub.  I organized the garlic into hard-stemmed garlic, soft-stemmed garlic, and small-headed garlic (to be used for planting).  I was supposed to leave the soft-stemmed garlic stems on for Mary to use in garlic braids.  

While Mary and the kids were gone for errands tonight, Jillian and I went on a bike ride and a run, respectively, through the dark.  Kenya returned home tonight.  She had spent Monday and Tuesday with Sharon, Eli’s mother, for Sharon’s birthday.  Along with helping out in the gardens, Kenya worked on building her solar dryer with Sharon.  Kenya will use this and a giant solar dryer she’s making in the roof of the hoop house to dry fruit and veggies for fruit leathers and soup mixes.  She will sell her products at the Youth Entrepreneur Station at Maine’s Common Ground Fair in September to fundraise for her expedition next year.  

Wednesday morning was filled with harvesting.  Many plants are in season now, so harvesting takes a long time.  Along with pickling cucumbers, I now harvest slicing cucumbers, and squash and green peppers are still coming in.  Eggplants are ready, so we first pick them a little small to encourage the plant to produce more fruit.  I found one today larger than a football – beautiful.  Provider Beans (green) and Yellow Wax Beans are also plentiful. I finished composting Field 7 with Jillian and was supposed to heavy hoe-weed Field 7 for the rest of the day, but Mary called me up to help her with making Turkery Pot Pies.  You’d be surprised at the demand for this product in the hot summer season.  We pull pieces of turkey and add potatoes, carrots and onions, and gravy and pop this in the freezer.  

I got all spiffied up and read to Sage before we went out for dinner tonight.  Because I didn’t get a share of the tips earned for Open Farm Day tours, the family treated me to a dinner at a Thai restaurant (that also serves sushi).  I enjoyed some yummy eel sushi and Pad-Khing (rice dish with tofu, ginger, mushrooms, vegetables).

Pickling cukes (left) are shorter and fatter than slicing cukes (right) and are a lighter shade of green. They're both prickly on the vine though.  

Day 46 (7/30/12): Vacationland

Red's Eats Lobster Shack of Wiscasset.  The line is often so long, it goes back up onto the bridge crossing the Sheepscot River.

I had an amazing day today and enjoyed a nice little ‘staycation’ with the family.  We traveled from Waterville, home of Colby College, to Wiscasset, ME, listening to the Music Man, The Beatles, and My Fair Lady all along the way.  We followed Dad into a used bookstore – his favorite thing -  and we checked out a shop where I had gotten a couple of beautiful porcelain dolls when I was a little girl.  After waiting in line for 1.5 hours, we filled up on onion rings, sweet potato fries, french fries, fried shrimp, and lobster rolls at the famous Red’s Eats lobster shack.  We window shopped a little more before heading out to Boothbay Harbor.  We visited the condo we’d stayed in when we visited here 8 or 9 summers ago.  We did the typical touristy stuff: getting souvenir t-shirts, taking pictures on the boardwalk, sampling popcorn and fudge in shops, and speed-walking past the slow families (oh wait, that’s just the Spiers).  We walked through a statue garden with these cool stone figures; I’d love to have one on my desk.  After I’d been sufficiently punch-buggied by Abigail and we’d all posed for enough organized pictures for Mom, we decided to head back.  I love the Maine coast and all its attractions, so I found it interesting that Boothbay and Wiscasset were noticeably less busy in the prime of summer than they were 8 or 9 years ago.  

We drove on up to Blueberry Hill in Belgrade to pick blackberries and enjoy the panoramic view of Belgrade Lakes.  We had Gifford’s ice cream for dinner (it’s vacation, right?) – Wild Maine Blueberry and Maine Deer Tracks for me – and crashed in the hotel room for an evening of television.  Mom fell asleep by 8, Dad and I picked up some peanuts and carrots to munch on while watching the Olympics, and Abigail and I stayed up late painfully watching the US Men’s Gymnastics team slip up again and again.  

I had missed my family so much, and having a couple of days with them was exactly what I needed.  I love you guys!

Boothbay Harbor, ME

Day 45 (7/29/12): Dinner on the Farm

The big day was finally here.  Not only have we been planning this day for months, but this day celebrates the 11^th anniversary of buying the farm, and today my family will be coming!  Everyone was in the kitchen today.  Kenya and I worked in the house kitchen while Jillian, Annie, and Mary worked in the farmstand kitchen.  Kenya and I made a string-bean and tomato salad and a bok choy and ginger side dish.  While Kenya remained in the kitchen, I helped set up the barn.  The skies were still overcast and it was drizzling every so often.  Everyone would be eating in the barn.  We had to move everything to the side of the barn, outside, or to the second level; sweep weeks of hay, dirt and animal poop of the floor; and bring in all of the chairs and 13 tables donated from the church.  We barely had enough room at the tables for the 110 expected guests.  I ran to the store to grab some mayonnaise for the cole slaw, more cups and napkins, and M&M’s as Mary’s de-stressor.  The event started at 5, and I found myself in the kitchen at 4:20 mixing together the BBQ sauce for the pork.  Eli had been struggling between using a North Carolina vs. a South Carolina recipe, although I’m not sure which one he decided on (recipe included below).  I was to man the loom until dinner started, showing people how to weave our gathered materials between the spokes.  Mary wanted every person at the event to weave something into the loom that was set up right next to the barn, covered by a tent from the rain.  The loom was a hit.  Families, older couples, kids all loved it and were eager to share in a piece of the loom.  I was almost in tears seeing my family for the first time in 45 days – I think that’s the longest I’ve gone without seeing them.  Mom, Dad, and Abigail (no Austin or Copper) road tripped up to Maine to visit a relative in Kennebunk, ME and see me on the farm.  

Although we had to have a couple of tables outside under the loom’s tent, the dinner went smoothly.  People were impressed with the amount of food they received, and Eli’s pork was a hit.  We had a mystery 25 extra people show up and we found one lady hoarding food in bags, but there were still plenty of leftovers.  After dinner, I eagerly gave my family a tour of the farm and where I work.  We all helped clean up after the event and shared peach cobbler with everybody before heading out.  I have my day off tomorrow, so I’ll get to spend extra time with the fam.

2 C cider vinegar

2 Tbl dark brown sugar

1 Tbl ketchup

1 Tbl Texas Pete hot sauce

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp salt

Warm until sugar is dissolved

Day 44 (7/28/12): Earth Loom

Not exactly our loom, but looks similar.

I woke up early to spend some time on the dock before starting the day.  The cloudy sky lay over Great Pond, filmed with fog.  Since we’d be moving out of the lake house today, I took advantage of having prime access to the water by doing a water workout this morning.  I’m not a lover of water now as I have been for most of my life, but the lake water became comfortable in no time.  During my time out there, the fog crept toward me, swallowing the islands up the lake that had previously been visible.  Spooked a little, I got out before Nessie’s cousin could catch a scent of me. 

I fed the animals and scooped their poop this morning, and watched the shop until Mary arrived from the lake house.    Kenya caught the rooster that has been roaming the forest for the past 3 weeks.  It’s a beautiful and large green, red, and gold cock with glossy feathers – welcome to the family, Big Red.  The main event of the day was building the loom with Ray.  Ray is the family friend who put together the teepee with Gilbert.  I’ve had little to no experience working with wood, but Ray did a good job of explaining each step to me.  We built a frame using 4 3x3” cedar planks by cutting 1.5”-deep chunks into each with a bow-string saw to interlock them.  We lashed all 4 corners with fishing string by wrapping each in an X-pattern and tying them with a square knot.  We stuck the frame ~10” into the ground and tied the spokes (vertical strings of the loom – horizontal strings are the ‘weaves’) 1”-apart from each other.   Sage and I spent the rest of the afternoon gathering materials around the farm that people could weave into the loom: dried flowers, thorny blackberry bushes, metal artifacts found in the ground, strips of fabric and denim, horse hair pulled from Nestor’s mane, sticks and bark, pine branches, milkweed, daisies, cock’s comb flowers, and sunflowers.

We finished the day with harvesting every and all of the produce in the fields, namely string beans and squash.  Eli joined us for our All-American dinner of hotdogs and chips – not the kind of meal that our dining table sees to often.  Eli would be sleeping over tonight, outside with the pig.  As our ‘local chef’ for the Dinner on the Farm even the next day, Eli would be roasting the locally-raised 160-lb pig for hours up to the event.  He decided that the pig would go on the roast at 4 a.m., so he’d need extra hands.  Mary almost made Jillian and me get up to help at that time. 

Jillian made a guest book for the event while I typed up a story that would be attached to the loom, explaining why we have this loom and its purpose as a community builder at the farm.  

Day 42 (7/26/12): Water in Waterville

 I woke up early this morning to work out, but heard rustling and footsteps around the house.  I glanced out the window to see Kenya sneaking out of the window of the downstairs bathroom.  The apprentices had slept in the house last night while Kenya had slept at the lake house with her 2 friends; I guess she needed to get something from the house this morning, farmer girl style.  

I spent the morning clearing all the fields of remay rolls so that now all of the plants are completely exposed.  I bug-checked all 9 rows in Field 7 of squash, to which I might have a mild allergy (itchy skin and a little rash whenever I’m working with it).  I finished early, so I tended to this’s and that’s for the rest of my time in the fields.  For lunch, I whipped together an omelette with kale, green pepper, tomato, and a patty pan before heading out to market.  We were giving Gillian, Kenya’s fellow farmer friend, a ride to market.  She described to me her dream of having multiple farms around the world and having a shop and café that sells only produce from her farms.  This, she elaborated, would provide jobs and allow her to live abroad.  

It had been overcast all day and it was still drizzly at market.  Despite the weather, we were able to sell all of our pies and make a dent in our stock of cinnamon and honey oat breads, pesto, honey, flour bouquets, jams, and freshly-jarred pickles.  

We ran some errands after market, stuffed our faces with DQ Blizzards, and came went to the house to unload the perishables.  We had to walk the ~1.5 miles to the lake house to further gorge ourselves with Mary’s eggplant parmesan.  She would hear nothing of my refusal for seconds as well as my declining a piece of her blueberry pie.  Mary takes her eggplants and pies rather personally.  The eggplant parmesan tonight was a Turkish recipe, without breading.  Eli joined us for the evening and told us all about the bird wildlife around him, including mynahs that can mimic cell phone ringtones.     

Mynah bird

Days 40-41 (7/24-25/12): Oh the twins

Caroline and Abigail Rose visited me today, two of my best friends from Richmond.  Two of my best friends who just graduated from high school and are attending Amherst in the Fall.  For those of you who don’t know, the Williams-Amherst rivalry is one of the oldest in the country.  Caroline and I ran in high school together, and she’ll be running at Amherst, too, so I should see her frequently next year – I cannot wait.  When they arrived, we went to Hallowell, a town on the Kennebec River, for lunch at an eclectic café (we ordered grilled salmon, a portabella mushroom, and a chimichanga).  It wouldn’t be a true Rose twin outing without something sweet to top things off, so we all dug into a chocolate chip pie from a nearby bakery.  Caroline and Abigail had just spent almost 3 weeks at Martha’s Vineyard at a Christian camp, FOCUS.  We spent most of our time talking about religion: what it means to them, what the camp taught them and how they want religion in their lives.  With Mary and my spiritual discussion and the Rose’s religious conversation today, I feel like it’s a sign that I should start thinking about my faith, whatever it is.  

Their grandmother lives near Saco in Ocean Park, ME, about 2 hrs SW of Belgrade.  I spent the rest of my day off relaxing at the lake house.  

Wednesday I restarted my workout routine in the morning.  Get to bed before 11, wake up at 6:30 for abs and a bike ride.  We had another long day in the fields, but I got to look forward to dinner.  We had friends over for dinner that night, which meant well-prepared meal and dishes brought by the guests.  The Welch family came with their daughter Gillian,  one of Kenya’s best friends.  The Welch’s are teachers that have lived in Thailand and Saudi Arabia, among other places, and returned to farm in Mrs. Welch’s home state only 10 years ago.  The Welch’s also brought their apprentice, Olivia.  Mary’s friends, Leia and her daughter Lily, came for dinner, too. Dinner was full of great conversation and great food, with an entrée of swiss chard pie.  I found it humorous to sit at a table of farmers discussing their crops and the (farmer's) market.  I've never been surrounded by such company like this, and it's certainly not like one might imagine as a table of overall-and-sun-hat-wearing farmers chewing on pieces of straw.  No, I actually can't think of a farmer I've met that fits such a stereotype.  

The apprentices slept at the farmhouse tonight since Kenya had a couple of friends over and we wanted a solid night’s sleep.  

Swiss chard pie

Day 39 (7/23/12): Welcome, Annie

The view from our lake house. nbd.

I am Anna, Katie’s name was Katie, and the family, particularly Ellie, Sage, and Mary could never keep us straight, so they took to calling us ‘Katie Nana’ (a character in Mary Poppins).  We had a new apprentice arrive today named Annie, and I can only imagine the name confusion that will ensue for the rest of the summer.  This morning I worked on some typical chores of watering the hoop houses, harvesting cucumbers, green peppers, squash, and broccoli, and bug checking (the hornworms on the tomato plants are HUGE – at 6” long and 1½” wide sometimes, they make even me cringe a little to squish, with my foot of course).  Ellie brought Annie back to the house at 1:30, and we settled her into Katie’s old room and I gave her a tour.   Annie is a petite 24-year-old with olive skin and dark hair who arrived in a straw hat, worn jeans, and an air plant in her pocket that she takes wherever she goes.  I showed her around the house and the farm, reciting my speech from Open Day Farm, the day before, when we reached the lower fields.  Annie prefers to wake-up to the fresh air, so she hopes to eventually sleep in the teepee we have behind the fields.  Last summer, Annie worked in a 2/3-acre CSA garden.  The reason why she’s doing an apprenticeship this summer is because she wants to become comfortable with her skills in farming.  Her father gave her some land on a mountain in Dickson County, ME and her dream is to build her own little shack and subsist on her land with a fruit trees, a veggie garden, and maybe some animals.  She’s training to be a doula, a support person for mothers giving birth, and she’d like to go to school to be a midwife.  I’m looking forward to getting to know Annie because she’s on such a different life path that I am.  

We ended the day with feeding together, as Annie is particularly interested in working with the animals.  She rode my bike as I ran down to the camp and we joined the family for pork chops, cooked broccoli, and grilled squash for dinner.  Much to Mary’s dismay, Gil finally figured out how to turn on the tv, which has cable, so River Monsters, a show about a man travelling the world to catch huge fish, played for most of the evening.  Kenya and I finished North & South while giving each other foot massages, and I’m crashing at 10:30.  

Day 38 (7/22/12): Open Farm Day

The MOFGA t-shirts we wear on Open Farm Day say "Who's your farmer?" on the back.  This is the gang on Open Farm Day last year.

I awoke this morning to Mary shouting my name from outside at my 3^rd story room.  She was locked out of the farmhouse from staying at the camp and my alarm hadn’t gone off this morning.  All was fine though, and we started the day early to get our chores in before our Open Farm Day started.  Open Farm Day is a day for farms across Maine to invite the public onto their property for tours, demonstrations, samplings, and more.  

I watered both hoop houses, harvested cucumbers, and headed up for a beautiful ‘egg mcmuffin’ breakfast made by Ellie.  I helped set up for the day’s event by setting up the wool and spinning station and making freshly-squeezed lemonade.  People started coming by 9, so we readied our positions for tours earlier than expected.  Gil gave cart rides to children with his steer, Kenya and Sage gave tours of the top half of the farm, and I gave tours of the bottom half, the fields.  This is where I thrive.  I loved explaining to people all that I’ve learned this summer.  It’s all still fresh in my mind what new things amazed me about growing produce and living on the farm.  I was asked questions about gardening, but also ones inquiring who I am, what I do, and why I’m here.  I found it quite fulfilling to answer the latter.  I even had the pleasure of meeting a couple of folks from Richmond, VA.  The day was long with short breaks which I filled by tending to the fields with weeding, squishing tomato hornworms, or nibbling on my grinder and pb cookies that Kenya brought down for me.  We ended after 4, cleaning up the farm after the busy day.  Mary let me leave to go to the camp (lakehouse) at 5 and lounge for the rest of the day.  Despite the cool evening I begrudgingly got into the water with Kenya before we sat down for dinner of stuffed green peppers from the farm.  Eli joined us today, and he’s a friendly guy who lightens the mood despite how tired we all were.  Kenya and I crashed in her ‘studio apartment’ above the garage, watching BBC’s North & South and sipping on tea.  

Day 37 (7/21/12): Golden Pond Camp

It was a relaxed and enjoyable day on the farm with much to look forward to.  Jillian had left last night, so I was alone for much of the day.  My undemanding to-do list included watering both hoop houses well, harvesting squash and cuc’s, weeding and composting the herb garden, and suckering and wrapping all of the tomatoes.  

All of these jobs were done with ease, and I even squeezed in cleaning up the CSA section, putting all the veggies into the farmstand fridge.  While doing so, I had an unexpected discussion with Mary.  She commented that the moon must be doing something funny.  I asked how she knew.  Mary was raised Unitarian, most of her family being Catholic, and she is now simply put, a spiritual being.  Only in recent years has she taken to reading horoscopes and following the moon’s patterns.  She’s found over the years that customers follow the same trends from day-to-day.  These trends seem to be controlled by the moon.  For example, many of the customers who came in today were more stressful than usual, beit talkative and overwhelming or stressful, people seemed kinda crazy today.  This comment of hers spiraled into more elucidation on her spiritual beliefs.   There is an energy everywhere that people can tap into.  Mary can’t always feel it, but on some days she knows that she has to make more pies than bread for market, and not by looking at sale records from this week last year, but by feeling that that is a necessary judgment.  She doesn’t know if her recent revelations of self come with age, but she did admit that these insights could have provided her with much needed strength at other times in her life.  She’s trying her best to urge Kenya down a path of similar discovery so that it doesn’t take her decades to understand what her mother does now.  I explained to her my desires to become a more faithful person.  I’ve always been a practical and logical thinker, and always struggled with the idea of a God existing, but still I am questioningly envious of those who are able to find strength from whatever faith they posess.  Another comment that Mary made was that farming itself facilitated these self-realizations.  Something about nurturing plants to grow and produce sustenance, working in the dirt, and reaping the fruits of one’s labor is quite therapeutic.  I curiously listened to her tales, and her final message was that she hopes that people (Kenya, apprentices like me, others that work with the farm) learn to trust one’s own intuition.  This discussion with Mary not only gave me much to ponder for the rest of the day, but more of an appreciation for how Mary runs the farm, how the family dynamics are, and what influences Mary’s day-to-day decisions.  

The last thing I did today was to make flower bouquets.  They sell everyday in the shop.  A key point about making bouquets is to not over-think them.  As long as they’re pretty, people will like them.  I walked back and forth through the rows of the flower garden, picking out the different colors of zinnias, blooming dry flowers, and more.  Mary makes sure to put one sunflower in each of her bouquets.  I snip the stems at an angle, pick off the leaves, make sure all of the flowers are visible, and wrap and place them in water.  Sage and I went grocery shopping at Hannaford’s and headed over to the camp that we’re staying at for a week.  We have family friends who own a camp on Great Pond about a mile down the road.  The 2 sons would work on the farm whenever their family went to their camp, and now they allow Mary and the kids to stay there for a week every summer.  This week is a ‘staycation’ for the kids.  Ellie (Grammie) came this evening, having picked up Gilbert from his week at camp.  We ate dinner (kielbasa with sauer kraut, German mustard, and sautéed peppers and corn on the cob) at 9 again.  I had taken the car back to the farm and run there, trying out my foot again since it’s been feeling great recently.  I chose to stay at the farmhouse tonight rather than with Kenya, so I ran on back in the dark.  Although I had a flashlight, I was entranced by my surroundings.  I listened to the soft coo’s of birds above me and gazed at the star-kissed sky.  I pattered down the dirt and paved roads using mostly my peripheral vision, following the pale space ahead of me that was the road, guarded on each side by the tall, black walls that were the pine trees.  After a shower, I’m now all hunkered down and ready for bed.  

Day 36 (7/20/12): Is it just to take a bug's life?

View from the farmstand of barn, side of house, flower garden, sheep and their electric fence.  We have only 3 sheep now.  

Kenya and I were planning on waking up to do core, but her alarms didn’t go off, so I made my tired body do a few pushups before relaxing for breakfast with a book.  It was an early CSA day, and I harvested poc choi (they’re much larger down in Field 5 than in the herb garden where I had been harvesting them in past weeks), broccoli, and cucumbers.  All of the broccoli heads are now harvested and we’re just waiting for sprouts to shoot up, and we’re still only harvesting pickling cucumbers (prickly veggie and plant).  Mary, Kenya, and I each had a new walkie-talkie, making communication during harvesting so much easier.  

I watered the hoop houses and weeded the fields all morning.  Jillian and Kenya had bought a brand new stirrup hoe yesterday, but Jillian and I ended up using the old hoe while weeding together because it was oddly sharper.  I always enjoy working with Jillian because of our exciting discussions.  Today we talked about the philosophy and logic of things like the importance of one’s heritage, overpopulation, and death.  Jillian says she came to her conclusions about the morality of killing while debugging rows and rows of squash.  

I watched the shop starting at lunch and for most of the afternoon while I worked in the flower garden near the barn and the house.  Mary is making floral arrangements for 2 weddings that are both coming up in 2 weeks.  The flower garden is in full bloom.  I weeded the footpaths and rows of the entire garden.  I ridded the zinnias of Japanese beetles by dumping them in a cup of soapy water.  I fed all of the animals again, although I only led up Nestor from the pasture today.  I worked extra time since I never got around to harvesting the dry flowers before feeding.  Dry flowers make a rustling noise when you swipe over their petals, and I cut the stem up close to the flower since these flowers will be used later on with thin wire replacing the stem.  I set these out to dry in the barn on a window screen.

Jillian and I started eating pizza and watching BBC’s North & South while Kenya insisted on finishing mowing the lawn before Mary and Sage came back from market. Jillian’s friend from school who lives an hour away arrived to eat dinner with us for a while.  She’ll be taking Jillian to the airport at 3am tomorrow morning.  Jillian’s grandmother is in hospice and will die any day, so Jillian is leaving tonight for the funeral in Texas and coming back on Tuesday.  I’ll miss my roomie.

Zinnias, Japanese beetles favorite treats.                                        Japanese Beetles

Tonight I also chatted with my WOOLF co, Aldis.  If anyone has any ideas for trail magic (treats like Oreos or a magazine that are brought on the backpacking trip as a surprise for the frosh) or schwag (costume ideas for dressing up on the first day of freshman orientation: Mario, cavemen, Jersey Shore, different colors), please let us know or leave a comment!

Days 34 & 35 (7/18-19/12): Crystal Lake

 

            Ginger and Star as a calf in the pasture.

                                                                                                Sage and Nestor

Another exciting couple of days.  Things still feel a little empty now that Katie’s gone, and Claire too.  Mary said we’ll be getting a new apprentice on Monday though, so stay tuned for details.  Our honey from the honeyman came today, warm and viscous in a huge jug.  We sold some of it at market today.  We received our Motorola walkie-talkies today that I had ordered for mary.  Mary uses cash for practically everything and doesn’t have a credit account.  She doesn’t want to risk her account being hacked, which has happened before.  She loads money onto a card for purchases online, but only however much is needed.  I put them together and charged them, and they’re ready to go.  These 2-way radios will make communication across the farm much easier rather than trying to scream close to ½ mile away or sending Sage around with messages.  We also received the hefty catalog from Associated Buyer’s, the company in NH that sells bulk organic foods, so we can start thinking about what we want to order.  

Last night was a blast.  We drove out to Union for dinner at Mary’s boyfriend, Eli’s, house.  Kenya gave us a tour of his farm that he lives at with his mother, Sharon.  Sharon grows more flowers than anything else, including opium poppy flower.  The biggest difference between our two farm is that Sharon and Eli’s is a ‘no-till’ farm.  This means they don’t get many weeds.  When they start a fresh bed, they lay down newspaper, compost, then mulch, so they never till the land and never have a weeding problem.  I hope Mary is able to transition to using similar methods.  We could cut out so much time spent on hand- and hoe-weeding.  Not only does this farm not use plumbing, or electricity for that matter, but they use their humanure (that is human manure) as part of their compost - now that’s what I call sustainable farming.  The farm is on part of 125-acres owned by the family that used to be a boys’ camp in the summer.  Where they live is actually a series of sheds.  Each room that would be in a house has its own shed, and all of these are connected by footpaths of wood shavings.  Sharon and Eli each have their own bedroom sheds, and there’s a kitchen, bathroom, laundry shed, a guest shed, a storage shed, and more.  It’s quite a different way to live.  Across the street is Crystal lake and Kenya, Jillian, and I swam across the entire length to eat wild huckleberries and chew on wintergreen leaves.  I hadn’t eaten since 1, so our dinner at 9pm was plenty welcome.  The family grew up in Bowdoin, ME, and Eli went to Bowdoin College, his brother, Seth, went to Brown, and Sharon was a dean at Bowdoin.  Seth was visiting with his family while we were there last night.  We ate our dinner of aioli on scallops (they pronounced ‘scollops’), pesto and pasta, cucumber salad, grilled broccoli, and stuffing with turkey around the fire.  Everyone was so pleasant and wanted to get to know Jillian and me.  

Yesterday’s main project was harvesting the garlic.  Gilbert had harvested all the garlic scapes last week, and most of those are being used in making aioli (garlic mayonnaise).  It took me 2 trips with my loaded yard card to bring all of the garlic up the hill from Field 4.  These are the largest garlic that Mary has ever grown.  I set up a drying table in the barn, and laid all of the garlics out with their stems attached, overlapping each other.  The final product looks rustic, and I might even dare to say that I liked the smell of garlic (it reminds me of Dad – a garlic Guy).  Today I harvested again, but this time it was broccoli, green peppers, summer squash, zucchini, patty pans, and cucumbers.  These are all very much in season, so will need to be checked frequently.  Once the head of the broccoli is cut off no more will grow in its place, but smaller sprouts that can be harvested will grow on the outside of the plant.  Broccoli responds badly to heat, so I harvest these last and get them into the farmstand fridge as quickly as possible.  

I finished my entire list before lunch (record), so Mary just had me hoe-weed after lunch.  I was in the fields alone for most of the day since Kenya and Jillian went to market.  The Field 6 footpaths officially look beautiful.  Mary said that we may need to try out the weed-wacker in Field 7 on Saturday if we haven’t made enough progress.  I headed up at 5:30 to feed the animals.  I’d helped Katie with this in the past, but I’d never done it myself.  I fed the animals with Kenya yesterday, but I still needed 6-year-old Sage’s help to get everything done.  We have 32 chickens, 1 half-blind rooster (Piccalilli), 4 quail, 2 rabbits (Mr. Bunny Foo Foo and Hopper), 2 horses (Nestor and Ginger), 1 blind pony (Ladybug),2 ducks (Mr. Duck and Sing), 3 sheep, 2 steer (Red and Star), 2 show turkeys (Tom and Jane), and countless meat turkeys.  Thankfully the chickens were left in today, so we didn’t have to chase everyone in, but there was only 1 egg to be collected.  We first fed everyone 2 squares of hay through the floor of the hay loft and into their stalls.  Ladybug is so old that she can’t digest hay, so we just give it to her to make her feel included.  Next, we freshened everyone’s water and fed them.  Ladybug has her grain mixed into a soup with beet pulp (helps digestion) and water since she’s too old to digest plain grain.  Mr. Duck was quacking at us to not forget his wife, so I went over to give Sing her physical therapy.  The ducks spend the day outside near the pond, so I carried Sing with her wings flapping, simulating flying, to exercise her wings and make sure she doesn’t forget how to fly.  I then stretch her foot until it pops a few times.  We hope her foot injury will heal eventually.  In their pen, Mr. Duck is kept in the crate while Sing has the rest of the pen to herself to spread her wings.  Sage led up Ladybug from the pasture while I led up Ginger, Star, and Red one at a time.  I really like working with the animals, so I hope I’ll be able to feed the animals again.   

With Kenya and Jillian running errands after market, and Mary baking in the farmstand to prepare for tomorrow’s market, I was left to cook dinner.  They call it paella, but it’s really just cooked rice and assorted vegetables, and bacon in this case.  I sautéed kale, swiss chard (for color), scallions, green peppers, cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, parsley, black beans and bacon and served that all over wild rice.  This entrée was supplemented with chevre and oil on fresh multi-grain bread from market made by an Amish man who uses a 10-year-old sourdough bread starter.  

Garlic drying table

Shout-out to mah boy, Aldis Inde.  He’s the best ganglar WOOLF Co-Leader a girl can have.  I found out a couple days ago that my friend, Aldis, will be my co-leader for our backpacking trip for Williams Outdoor Orientation to Living as First-years (freshman orientation).  I’m getting so psyched for school to start again.  

Days 32 & 33 (7/16-17/12): Goodbye, Katie and Claire

So much has happened these past couple of days.  There were smaller changes, like the food for example.  Mary is now investing in natural peanut butter instead of Skippy; there will be bread and fruit every day; and we get paella for dinner almost every night.  She feels better feeding the apprentices and her family organic foods.   We also plan on using Associated Buyers once our account is set up to buy organic foods in bulk.  Another change is a new oven.  Mary’s commercial oven in the farmstand went berserk and the oven in the house has the door completely detached, so we finally got a used oven for the farmstand today.  

Yesterday I did a lot of weeding and Claire and I practically knocked out an entire row in Field 7 together.  The stirrup hoe’s blade is getting dangerously thin from all of its use. While suckering and wrapping the tomato plants, I found a 2” hornworm, the biggest I’ve seen up close.  It snapped at my poking finger so quickly, I yelped.  This morning I spent much of my time harvesting broccoli, summer squash, zucchinis, patty pans, cucumbers, and green peppers.  I even found one zucchini-patty-pan hybrid that we’ll save for ourselves.  After almost 3 weeks of no rain, we finally got precipitation last night and this morning.  Although it watered the thirsty plants and cooled us down while we worked, the rain caused some of my shelling pea seeds to pop out of the ground, so I had to go back through and shove them back into the ground.  

The biggest changes were Katie and Claire both leaving today.  Katie had been stressed out for weeks because of her aunt’s recent diagnosis of cancer.  Her Aunt Sharon is from ‘the county’ in northern Maine where many of the potato farmers have contracts with large companies, for example Lay’s.  Some chemical used in growing the potatoes has caused a surge of cancer development throughout the population up there.  Her aunt moved in with her parents to be closer to the hospital for chemotherapy.  Both of Katie’s parents work full time and Aunt Sharon is starting to need constant attention in her weakening state.  Katie was put into a difficult place when she had a family crisis to deal with but had also made a commitment to the farm.  At the end of the day though, we all know that family comes first and Katie needs to be at home to care for her aunt, taker her to her appointments, and keep up the house.  Claire also had to return home for family reasons, although WWOOFers are able to come and go with more ease than apprentices.  I’m so happy to have met Claire, and I loved picking her mind about Crew and what it’s like to live in NYC.  The dinner table has gone from 8 people on Saturday night to 5 now that Gil is at camp this week, too.  Jillian, Katie, Kenya, and I curled up last night to watch Across The Universe, sort of a Beatles musical, as the last time to really be with Katie.  Katie’s mom, bless her heart, sent us 3 big bags of grapes as a goodbye treat.  Katie promised she’s write letters and we hope that she’ll be able to visit.  

Jillian, Kenya, and I found ourselves jamming out to more Beatles tunes on our road trip out to Freeport this evening.  Freeport is a town near Portland with many shops, and most importantly, the L.L. Bean ‘headquarters.’  I’ve been to Freeport before with my family and it always amazes me how large the L.L. Bean stores are – yes stores plural.  The store is divided into different buildings, including an outlet.  Thanks to Bean’s lifetime warranty, we were able to exchange our 6-person camping dome that was leaking with a new one.  Not only that, but the price has been hiked up significantly since the tent was bought and they didn’t even charge the difference – I love my Bean.  The highlight of the trip was going to Ben & Jerry’s, but we couldn’t find it and all the stores were closing, so we just stopped off at Friendly’s on our way home.  I’m so mad that I missed out on B&J’s new frozen greek yogurt.  Jillian had never heard of Friendly’s.  At least we were able to finish our sad day with a sweet end.  We’ll miss Katie and Claire dearly.  

                                           

                                                            Patty Pan

        Zucchini                                              Hybrid?                                              

                    Zucchini

Day 31 (7/15/12): Turkey Pot Pie

The upper tomato hoop house.  The entire floor is covered in black tarp to prevent weeds.  It's not visible here, but the tomatoes are getting HUGE, still green though.

Gilbert will be gone for a week at a wilderness camp, so the whole family left early in the morning to drop him off.  That left Katie working the shop until a family friend could take over, Jillian bug-checking, and Claire and me weeding.  Claire and I worked together all day.  We finished hand-weeding the pea row, leaving behind a clean row of fertile soil.  I’m guessing we’ll plant peas again there because peas are the only plants we’re growing that don’t grow surrounded by black plastic.  Now, after weeks of hoe-weeding every day we’re able to see the fruits of our labor quite visibly: Field 4 is ‘spotless,’ Field 5 is right there, Field 6 has a couple rows that need light weeding, although Field 7 still has quite a bit to be tackled.  This was a hard first whole day, and Claire was a trooper.  Claire had arrived yesterday around 2 and wanted to get straight to work in the field – a hard worker and not a complainer.  She humored my random streams of thought including, why was Mary Poppins and Bert’s love never resolved in her movie? are Starbucks in NYC ever open 24hrs for studying college students?  My mind wanders all over in the hours I’m in the field.

My highlight of the day was at lunch when Katie and Jillian surprised me with a ukulele serenade – an improv song about me. We each scarfed down a quarter of one of Mary’s turkey pot pies for dinner, and Claire crashed right afterward. 

The family arrived home late from their trek to NH and back, and Kenya and I are hanging around now before bed.  

Day 30 (7/14/12): Welcome, Claire!

After a late night of splurging on Hulu, I woke up to find Kenya finishing French toast for breakfast made from Mary’s cinnamon bread with blueberries on top, mmm… After hanging my laundry and responding to emails for the day, I was off to lounge at the beach for the afternoon.  On my way to town, I did a little hill workout on my bike, doing 5 repeats of this one hill off of Point RD.  Wearing sandals, jean shorts, and a backpack didn’t make things easier.  I grabbed a lunch of fruit from Day’s store – banana, kiwi, orange, cucumber included (vegetable, whatever) – and poured through my book, Born to Run.  I’m trying to take this book with a grain of salt in all of the far-fetched claims it makes and people it introduces, but I can’t help but feel inspired by the determination, pure love of the sport, and straight-up craziness of some people.  If you’re going to do something, give it your best, and don’t make excuses for yourself.  Not bad rules to live by, if one goes about it reasonably.  My friend Alison, a dear friend and fellow Eph runner, and I talked on the phone.  Alison has already read Born to Run, and has worked at a running shoe store, and so was trained on both sides of the barefoot running debate.  She was full of answers to my questions, although we agreed that it’d be hard to test out barefoot running ourselves suddenly while in a demanding college training program.  

I took a dip in the clear, rocky lake and napped in the shade along the rocks.  What a day.  I headed back earlier than usual because Gil and I were going to do some shopping.  He’s going to camp tomorrow for a week at Koroka in New Hampshire, the same program that’s running Kenya’s semester abroad expedition next year.  I drove Gil to Augusta to get new sandals (he’s been wearing broken ones all summer) and a swimsuit (he lost his, so he just swims in his cargos), and I was able to pick up some necessities at Shaw’s and Target on the way.  We ate dinner outside(grilled summer squash, zucchini, and kohlrabi; cucumber, kale, arugula, and spinach salad with homemade dressing; black beans; and iced tea) and I was introduced to our newest addition to the family, Claire.

Claire is a 20-year-old from Connecticut who goes to The New School in NYC.  She took a gap-year after high school to teach at a secondary school in Kenya and as a former rower herself, she coaches high school crew.  Claire seems strong, witty, and warm – I’m glad she’s going to be around.  She’s a champ and will be staying outside in the family’s tent for the 4 weeks that she’ll be WWOOFing (World-Wide Organization for Organic Farming) here.  

Sage and Mary at the Waterville Farmer's Market (the one I was at on Thursday).  This is a dated picture, as Sage is now 6-years-old.  Mary has honey, breads, pies, yarn, pickled goods, and a vegetarian cookbook on display here.