Day 15 (6/29/12): Weed Away

It was an early start this morning for CSA day, so work started at 7.  I harvested the pak choi and lettuce  and cleaned the lettuce, ready for display.  The pak choi had to have its flower cut off to prevent it from going to seed.  If the vegetable goes to seed, the leaves (what you eat) become bitter.  The lettuce were also going to seed, producing some pretty tall lettuce heads.  While you can prevent some platns, like turnips and pok choi from going to seed, it’s harder to prevent others, like lettuce.  

The rest of the day was rather simply planned.  Weed Field 7.  However much I dislike weeding the thick, grassy between-rows areas, it’s a job that must be done.  This is the worst of the weeding for the year, and after it’s done, there will just be easier upkeep.  After quickly rolling the remay off the blooming squash plants, I headed over to Field 7 for the rest of the day… it was only 9am.  Mary understood how draining the task is, and was sympathetic.  She said I could hill the potatoes² if I needed a break.  I weeded from 9 to noon frustratingly with a gardening hoe³, from noon to 1 more easily with a cultivator claw⁴, and from 1:45 to 5:45 most easily with a stirrup hoe.  Katie was weeding Field 5 and was already using the stirrup hoe, so we traded after lunch.  Mary went to the Union Farmer’s Market today, but she called a couple times to check in to see how things were going.  She wouldn’t let us work any more past 5:45. 

On our way up from the fields, I grabbed some parsley and kale to add to our pizzas for dinner.  Pizzas with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and kale on one and sautéed onions on the other.  Mmmmm.  I rode my bike alongside Kenya while the pizza was cooking.  As advice for cross-training, my coach told me to use a lower gear to have quicker turnover on the bike to better mimic a running cadence – I was on gear 1, peddling almost as quickly as Kenya was running.  There was a hail storm warning, so we quickly closed the hoop house sides (the hoop houses can be entirely picked off the ground by wind) and brought the animals in.  This was my first time dealing with ‘the boys’ (Gil’s steer), but With a hurried set of instructions, I helped Kenya lead the steer up from their electric fence to the barn.  I leaned into my steer, Red, making sure that I couldn’t be stepped on, and tugged him away from distractions, like munching on grass, although I couldn’t win the battle of him stopping to get a drink from a water bucket.  Finally done for the day, us girls sat down to watch Mary Poppins with our pizza (Gil was with Mary at market).  

Kenya's cat, Marzipan, loves my room.  I always have a little buddy when I'm in here.  I don't know if it's the warmth of the 3rd floor, the bugs crawling around my room (there aren't as many now that I've closed my window), or my company that he likes, perhaps a combination.  I certainly enjoy his company, as long as he doesn’t wake me up at 4:30 by knocking things off my dresser again.  

It’s been one of the longer days, so I’m ready to hit the sack.

lettuce head going to seed

normal lettuce head

¹ 

² Hilling potatoes is mounding the part of the plant above ground with more dirt so there is room for the potatoes to grow.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7l_DOlx1Uo

³ Gardening hoe

⁴ Cultivator claw

Day 14 (6/28/12): Thank you, Sally

I slept in until 7:30 this morning, being awoken by Marzipan (Kenya’s friendly orange cat) scurrying about below my bed.  Despite this farm having countless laying hens, I had eggs for breakfast for the first time this only morning.  I could taste the richness in flavor from having fresh, untampered eggs.  Today was a special day off because I had a visitor.  With some last minute plans thrown together, my friend, Sally Waters from, was driving up from Bedford, MA for a day trip.  How generous of her!  When she arrived, I gave her a tour of the historic farmhouse and Sage joined us to show her around the farm.  We were obediently followed by Gil’s turkey’s, Tom and Jane.  Sally and I drove down to Belgrade Lakes to park and walk around.  We checked out the local antique shop, a cornerstone, it seems, of a small town in Maine.  We enjoyed lunch at the Sunset Grille and walked over to the joint seafood and ice cream shop for some Maine’s Gifford’s ice cream.  Unfortunately, Sally had to work at her own ice cream shop later that evening, so she left earlier than preferred.  I spent the rest of the day lounging in my room on hold with Greyhound to figure out a fiasco with my return trip tickets, researching the group Anonymous, and catching up on the US Olympic Trials results (go Nick Symmonds!).  

Another highlight of the day was going running – the first time in about 6 weeks.  Kenya and I ran about 2.5 miles up a scenic country road.  I’ve been dealing with plantar fasciitis in my left foot since about November of last year, although I didn’t know what it was until April this year.  I stopped running after my outdoor season to heal it, and this is the longest I’ve gone without running since the 9^th grade.  My foot felt fine, no pain from the plantar, although my left big toe still feels a little numb from my night splint I’ve since stopped using that I think was pinching a nerve.  I'll consult my coach, but hopefully this means I can get back to training fro cross country.  We returned home to dinner served on the table: leftover lasagna, booked beans, and salad with dill and pickling cucumbers.  Katie and I watched the Sister Act (with Whoopi Goldberg) after dinner and now I’m off to bed for an early start tomorrow morning on CSA day. 

Tom and Jane, 2 male turkeys that Gilbert shows for 4-H, followed Sally, Sage, and me around the farm today.

Day 13 (6/27/12): Winterberry Farmstand

I know many of you have asked to see pictures of everything on the farm, so I'll try to start including a picture or two on each post.  Here is a picture of the front yard on a sunny day including the side of the house and the door we always use to enter, facing Route 27.

I slept in this morning.  The first morning I’ve slept past 7am since being here.  I was half-asleep at 7:30 when Mary stopped by to thank me for cleaning the kitchen so thoroughly last night, and I’m afraid I gave a rather lazy response in my stupor.   Gulping down my watery oatmeal and sweet nectarine (a treat that the family had gotten for each Katie and I), I rushed outside to water both hoop houses, eager to start the day.  Because of the bounty of rain we’ve been getting, little watering was needed in either hoop house. 

The reason I was so excited to get the day started was that I was working in the farmstand for the first time today.  I’d had my tutorial by Mary the day before, and I was ready to cook, bake, and watch the shop while Mary and the kids went to Portland for a doctor’s appointment and to Old Orchard Beach for leisure.  Mary had me bake 4 loaves of her chocolate chip banana bread¹ for market tomorrow and bake a pan of lasagna²or dinner tonight.  Inspired by Katy’s idea, I listened to TED Talks while baking in the farmstand’s kitchen.  Mary had noted that it was better to ere on the side of gooey rather than burnt bread because customers are more forgiving of the former.  However, I need not worry, for the breads turned out great.  The lasagna, too tasted great, but that’s because I went a little overboard on the ingredients.  I thought I was supposed to and I wanted to finish off all of my noodles and mixtures, but it was a little too much for the pan to handle, for my lasagna reached above the top of the glass pan.  

Between the baking, cleaning, and meeting customers, I also swept the barn of the loose hay from haying this weekend, pulled out bad turnips from the herb garden³ and thinned the carrots in the herb garden (then feeding them to the rabbits and Nestor, the horse), which were much larger than the ones I thinned in Filed 5 yesterday.

Greeting customers was the highlight of my day, and today was very busy.  When people visit an organic farmstand to buy homemade pies, they’re always in a good mood, and most like to talk.   I met a family from Virginia, visiting their sun at Colby; a woman from MOFGA stopped by to say hi to Mary; I got to show a mom with 3 tween boys around the farm, as they were eager to see the animals; and several more stopped by the farmstand to check out our goods.  Many people come from out-of-state to spend a couple of weeks at a camp⁴ in Belgrade Lakes.  I offer them to walk around the farm, since it’s a community farm, to check out our livestock and produce.  If appropriate, I would tell the customers about a flyer we have advertising the Dinner on the Farm we’re hosting at the end of July as a fundraiser for Mary’s Forever Farm campaign.  For those who had visited the farmstand before, I had to explain that I was not Mary’s eldest, Kenya, but an apprentice of hers.  I loved when people asked me where I was from, why I was here, what we grow, and other details about the farm, and I enjoyed hearing what brought them to Belgrade and this farmstand.  I had a few pea sales, and I made sure to tell the customers that I had freshly picked them the day before.  

Before the day was done, however, I had to take care of a couple animals that had escaped from their cages.  I led the sheep back to the barn after they broke free for the 2^nd time today – it’s been too overcast to properly charge their solar-powered electric fence.  Also, our couple of ducks (literally, the family had a wedding for the two of them), Sing and Mr. Duck, had a fiasco today.  Sing was mauled by a fox a while ago, most likely permanently injuring her foot, so she’s kept in a cage.  However, I didn’t realize the cage was primarily to separate her from Mr. Duck, who guards his mate with a passion, quacking and pecking at whoever comes near the two.  Somehow Sing had gotten out of her cage today and was being ‘mauled’ by Mr. Duck.  Because they’re a couple, Mr. Duck wants to mate, but Sing can’t withstand that position in her injured state.  Mr. Duck unintentionally hurts Sing more by being in contact with her because he doesn’t understand her wounds.  

The family got home in time for Mary to have a meeting with a bride for floral arrangements.  I spent a power hour picking peas⁵ as fast as I ever have, completing the last side of the last row, with a little help from Katie.  I finished the day with cleaning dishes in the farmstand, closing the shop, and fixing the dripper in the farmstand refrigerator that has been leaking.  

All 6 of us in the house had dinner together tonight with my baked lasagna, the popular chopped cucumbers with sour cream, and bok choy sautéed with Maggi Seasoning (pretty much just, MSG, they joked) and peanuts.  Mary told me today that bok choy is a wealthy supply of calcium, the most of all plants.  While preparing dinner, Kenya showed me a spoon that she had made from a block of wood, practicing for when she’ll have to do this on her trip.  She had wittled it with a knife and molded the curvature of the spoon with a burning coal.  Kenya also showed me Chaga⁶, a mushroom that grows on birch trees that is nutrient dense, and something that she will be foraging on her trek to make tea with.  We have some in the cupboard of the kitchen. 

We finished the day with the 5 of us kids sitting down to watch Forks Over Knives⁷, a documentary supporting a plant-based diet, as we ironically ate our strawberry shortcake with whipped cream. 

I get my day off tomorrow, and Sally’s coming to visit!

¹ Here is what I remember of the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread I made. 

2 C softened butter

2 2/3 C brown sugar

6 eggs

4 ½ tsp vanilla

4 ripened bananas, mashed

4 C whole wheat flour

4 C white flour

2 tsp salt (?)

1 tsp baking soda

6 tsp baking powder

Mix the dry ingredients (flour-poweder) into the wet ingredients (butter-banana).  Bake in oven at 350 for 40 minutes.  Let cool.

*We don’t always clean the bread pans because it allows easier, and thought tastier, breads.  

² This is how I made the lasagna that we had for dinner:

3 garlic scapes

~8 leaves of basil

~14 stems of parsley (leaves picked off)

Salt and Pepper

Oil

4 12-oz(?) cans of tomato paste

1 lb-box of lasagna noodles

1 pint ricotta cheese

1 pint mozzarella cheese

Grated parmesan cheese

Sauce: Heat cooking pot with oil covering bottom.  Add chopped garlic scapes, basil, 8 stems of parsley and add dashes of salt and pepper for flavoring.  Stir for a minute.  Add 4 cans of tomato paste.  Stir entire mixture.  Let sit for a couple hours.  Stir every ½ hour, making sure to scrape bottom of pot to prevent burning, and make sure there is a slow boil.  Pour into saucepan

Noodles:  Cook noodles as directed by box.  

Cheese mixture:  Chop mozzarella cheese block into cubes and mix with ricotta cheese, adding dashes of salt and pepper for flavor.  Chop remaining 6 stems of parsley to mix in. 

Assembly: In a 9”x13” pan, spread sauce covering the bottom.  Lay noodles over top and spread cheese mixture on that.  Repeat sauce, noodles, cheese order until the top of the pan is reached (do not go over the top – as I did) or ingredients run out.  Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese on top.  Bake at 375 for first 30 min and bring down to 350 for last 30 min to 1 hour, depending on how cooked you prefer the lasagna.

³  In the turnip row of the herb garden, the first half of the turnips are growing properly below ground, resembling white carrots.  However, the second half have flowered and something unknown has gone wrong causing the underground veggie to be shriveled and black.  Mary had me unroot these and feed them to the animals, and we will plant lettuce in their place later.  

⁴ Camp is a new word for me. Here, and in Albany where I live now, a camp is someone’s second house that they go to for leisure.  Being from Virginia, I imagine a camp to be a summer camp for kids with counselors and activities.  I’m used to calling so-called “camp” either a lake house, beach house, or mountain house, depending.  

⁵ I learned today that pea plant leaves can be a popular snack on the farm.  Once the peas start to grow, however, the leaves taste bitter.  Katie also showed me a small weed that looks like long-stemmed clovers, in the pea plants, that is tasty but mighty sour.  I can’t remember the name of the plant.

⁶ Chaga is known in Japan as “Diamond of the forest” and in China as “the king of the plants.”   It is nutrient dense in B vitamins, flavenois, enzymes, mineral and phenols, and is the mos powerful known anti-oxidant.  

⁷ Forks Over Knives was released in 2011 and discusses ‘the Chinese study,’ and other research explaining the health benefits of avoiding animal-based protein and surviving on a plant-based diet.  Great film.  (http://www.hulu.com/watch/279734) 

Day 12 (6/26/12): Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

 This morning I woke up early to finish my blog, so as of tonight I’ll finally be caught up.  Breakfast was Mary’s whole wheat bread toasted with peanut butter and homemade rhubarb jam on top.  PB&J is always and forever my favorite food.  It was raining outside this morning as Mary sat down with Katie and me.  She explained that the rule of thumb for farmers when it’s raining out is to not go into the garden because this can facilitate mold and fungus spreading.  However, things out in the fields need to be done, so we’re overlooking that farmer’s rule this week.  Good think I love working in the rain.  I was to thin¹ the carrots in Field 5 that took up 2/3 of a row.  There were a ton of weeds in each hole, so I had to weed around the baby carrots and then go about thinning them.  The carrots are so young right now², there isn’t any orange to be seen yet.  Maine weather is funny.  Last week was blistering hot and today my hands were frozen and numb in the cold rain.  A few days ago, a couple was walking around the farm, as Winterberry Farm is a community farm and allows people to walk the grounds.  The couple was from Texas and in town for a wedding, and they asked me how all of these fields (Fields 4, 5, 6, 7) get watered without irrigation.  I answered with rain and they were shocked and somewhat skeptical that we would remain solely on rainwater to nourish our crops.  Rain visits frequently enough in Maine summers. 

I hurried inside to make hot chai tea and thaw out my fingers.  The family had left for the afternoon to get haircuts (Sage’s first haircut ever – 6 years!) and do errands, so my lunch was lonely, yet calming.  Katie had her lunch break in the farmstand as she was preparing ingredients for turkey pot pies.  As I ate the last of my baby dill pickles and had a sandwich of hot pepper jelly and the last of the Skippy³ peanut butter, I read a 2011 National Geographic on child weddings in Yemen – there was a 5-year-old girl featured in the article being married to a 10-year-old boy.  How different cultures and customs can be, amazes me.

The rest of the afternoon was spent picking peas.  Yesterday, Katie and I had been too picky with which peas we harvested, and Kenya pointed out a whole bunch of ripe shelling peas that we had overlooked.  Therefore I went through the shelling peas again, the ones that grow up a net, and also picked the ones on yellow vines (yellow because of dehydration) that I had avoided yesterday, since they tasted less sweet.  Kenya said that we could save these after they were picked.  I only got through one side of the cooking peas row by 5:45 when I had to head up.  I’m really frustrated that I can’t work as fast as I want to.  I know the goal is to be thorough and fast, but I’m not able to meet the goals that I nor Mary set for myself.  I’ll probably finish picking the peas on Thursday.  I headed up for the day, leaving the bucket of weeds and baby carrots in the barn for the animals to eat.  Whenever a plant is harvested, a damp burlap sack must be placed over the crate to keep them as fresh as possible.  

Fact of the day is that rain does not inhibit mosquitoes from being out and about.  In fact, I think it allows them to thrive.  From the last few days, Katie counted 21 bug bites on her legs and 2 on her face and I found 19 on my legs and 6 on my face.  I wore my rain jacket hood scrunched up close to my face, and I only thought ahead to wear rain pants for the afternoon to stay warm and protect my legs from bites.  

The family is leaving for Portland tomorrow and Mary’s having me watch the farmstand.  I’m way too excited.  She’s going to have me cooking and baking.  After I came up from the fields, she showed me what was in stock, how to handle payments, and how to converse with customers.  

The family was gone again today for dinner at a family friend’s house, so Katie and I were left alone for Bachelorette Pad Take 2.  Katie made stir fry for dinner and we had frozen turkey soup and bread as well.  Mary had me make spaghetti sauce to put on the lasagna that I’d be making tomorrow.  I chopped finely 3 garlic scapes⁴, a small handful of basil, and a small handful of parsley and added this to a stovepot with oil covering the bottom.  After stirring this for a minute, I added 4 (~12-oz) cans of tomato paste.  I stirred this mixture every 30 minutes for a couple hours, making sure that it had a few bubbles at the surface popping slowly, but that it wasn’t boiling.  Katie and I curled up to Jimmy Fallon, then we washed all of our dishes and then some like bosses, and Katie played the piano (reminding me of home when Dad always plays) as I scrubbed the blackened bottom of one sauce pan that was cleaned improperly.  

I can’t wait to work the shop tomorrow: warmth, customer service, and no bugs!

¹ Carrot seeds that and planted too close together grow into crowded seedlings and must be thinned.  You must pull out entire seedlings, including the root, to leave about ½”  between seedlings for them to grow.  Kenya pointed out that I should try to remove smaller seedlings and allow larger ones to grow.  

² Young carrots 

³ One product I thought stood out in a household that serves almost exclusively organic, local, raw, or sustainably-grown foods is Skippy peanut butter.  However, because pb is a quick protein and there are so many people in the house during the summers, bulk and cheap peanut butter is best, especially when it’s gone through so quickly.  

⁴ Garlic Scapes are the "flower stalks" of garlic plants and  appear a month or so after the first leaves. They are usually cut off of the plant, since leaving them on only diverts the plants strength away from forming a plump bulb. 

Day 11 (6/25/12): Rain, Rain, Come Our Way

I decided to catch up on my blog posts at breakfast.  Apparently that wasn’t going to happen.  There was no bread for toast, no cereal, and just one egg, so my options were limited to just oatmeal, although I got to make it the old-fashioned way on the stove.  Not only does this take a little longer, but Sage came down and asked for some, too.  Apparently Gil had buckwheat crepes, which sounds awesome. 

I had checked the forecast this morning and it called for an 80% chance of rain and there would be thunder.  It was overcast this morning, but no rain in sight – just a TON of mosquitoes.  Mary had Katie show me how to turn on the drip line¹ for the tomatoes and then I headed down to Field 6 to finish planting the flowers from the day before.  I finished the entire row, leaving some extra Celosia², and continued weeding Field 4.  Mary had said that now is the worst of the weeding we’ll do, but it’s still my bane.  It’s extremely difficult to weed foot-high grass with a 6”-high stirrup hoe.  Not only was I weeding, but I got a nose bleed and a major bug caught in my eye.  I had to wait a while to get the bug out since I was so far away from the house.  

The kitchen was still rather barren of meal food, but Gil broke out some frozen hot dogs from the freezer.  Kenya answered my prayers by surprising us with a whole wheat loaf of bread from the farmstand.  So, a meal we had.  While eating, it began pouring.  Mary had to readjust our assignments for the day because weeding, which both Katie and I were doing, is useless when wet.  Mary had Katie show me how to transplant peppers.  We got sweet pepper, hybrid specialty sweet pepper, hybrid jalapeño pepper, and hot chile pepper seedlings from the upper hoop house, as well as some False Queen Anne’s³ included in those trays for some reason.  In the garden center of the barn, Katie showed me how to transplant.  We gently pulled the seedlings out of their small pots (~3”x3”x3”), keeping the roots in tact as much as possible, not needing to keep soil from that pot, and transplanted them into a hole made by my finger in a larger pot (~5”x5”x5”) filled with soil to the top.  We keep a big bucket of soil in the garden center, recycled from seedling pots that aren’t able to grow their seedling.  Kenya was organizing seedling trays in the garden center with me, and she explained to me all about her diabetes and diabetes in general, and patiently answered all of my questions.  She said that they don’t know why people get Type-1, but Type-2 can run in families, and I explained that it runs in mine.  

Although it was still raining substantially, I told Mary that I was willing to go outside.  She wanted me to pick peas for CSA.  Me wearing my raincoat, shorts, and sneakers, and Kenya in her raincoat, rain pants, and boots, walked down to Field 4 where the peas were.  I was to pick Snap Peas⁴, only the big ones and leave the smaller ones to grow, and Shelling Peas⁵, only the fat ones and leave the skinny ones.  Kenya said that the Shelling Peas were plenty ready to be picked, and that many of them would go bad if not picked immediately.  I could taste that because a couple that I tried (the perks of harvesting vegetables – taste-testing) that had huge peas weren’t very tasteful.  I also had to avoid yellowing pea plants because although the peas around there were nice and big, they were starting to shrivel inside and had an awful aftertaste.  Katie came to help after a while, and we had our jacket hoods as tight as possible around our faces to avoid the mosquitoes that were everywhere.  We finished the row at 6 today.  When we headed up, we were pleasantly surprised to have Kenya share a few strawberries that she and Sage had picked that morning (a family friend had taken them strawberry picking).  

After showering the mud off of me from kneeling while picking peas, I returned to my room only to be scared the bajeezies out of me by Sage who was hiding under my bed, still in my room from before my shower.  Apparently she had been playing with my phone, too, and had called her mom by accident (send button>send button).  Katie and I started our Monday Movie Night by watching Big Fish.  We stopped for delectable dinner of pesto pasta, cucumbers and sour cream, and salad with homemade dressing made by Kenya and Gil, and while Katie cleaned the dishes, I read some Robert Frost to Sage.  While finishing our movie, Katie and I were pleasantly surprised by Gil and Sage bringing up some freshly-made strawberry shortcake made by Mary.  How sweet!

¹  Drip line irrigation delivers water directly to the roots of plants through the use of small tubes that “drip” the water out to the base of the plant.  

² Celosia Flowers 

³ False Queen Anne Flowers 

⁴ Snap Peas, or sugarsnap peas, are sweet and are eaten fresh (in a salad) or cooked (in a stir fry).  

⁵ Shelling Peas 

Day 10: Wine and Cheese Social

Nobody was down at breakfast this morning, so I ate my meal in solace, reading a National Geographic.  I’ll be so educated about 1990’s environmental topics by the end of this summer.  Just before 8, Sage came stumbling down sleepily to give me my to-do list.  I wanted to be prompt about getting outside by 8, but Sage needed me to make breakfast for her first.  I first had to water both hoop houses.  There’s a piece that connects 2 hoses to the hose from the house, and I’m assured to get my legs and feet pretty drenched every morning when I have to unscrew the main hose to water the upper hoop house.  While ‘bugging’ in the lower hoop house, I was pleased to find few predatory insects on the cucumber plants, as I normally find many, and instead there were more bug eggs to be squished.  I then finished weeding, suckering, and wrapping the tomato plants in the upper hoop house.  I didn’t have to weed between the rows of the upper hoop house since Mary has the entire hoop house covered in black plastic to have maximal prevention of weeds.  Sage, again, was following me around this morning, and wanted nothing but to play more 20 questions and the interrupting cow knock knock joke over and over again, so I suggested we sing some songs, for variety.  Mary had already left with Kenya to pick up our 4^th (1^st of the day) load of hay, so she had to explain my next task to me, planting lettuce seeds.  While weeding the herb garden a few days ago, I pulled out the roots of the harvested mesclun and tilled the soil.  Using a hand trowel, I spread out a ½” deep and 1” wide lane along the entire 12-14” of each hole.  I sprinkled the lettuce seeds in, which are very small and dark brown, close enough so that they’re just next to each other but far enough so that they aren’t on top of each other.  I then covered the seeds with 1/4"-1/2” of soil.  By then, Mary had returned with the hay.  Kenya’s 2 friends returned today to help, although we were still without Katie and Eli.  As well as getting the bails off of the trailer, I lifted the bails from the ground where Gil left them to the top of our hay staircase, handing them off to Caitlin.  Lots of bottom right to top left lifting.  Lunch was between the hay loads, and we finished hay day(s) with final count of 407 bails.  Mary had me go plant flowers, 5 to 6 in a line in each rectangular hole in field 6.  Again, she wanted each of the different kinds of flowers planted together.  Although many of the flowers pots came with multiple seedlings in each pot, I was to separate the seedlings and plant each in its own hole, covering them so that the soil was flat and even (allowing the water to soak down evenly, as opposed to hilling the soil around the plant which makes the water pour down the hill).  Today was a special day, however, because I stopped at 2:45 to pick flowers around the yard for Mary’s Wine and Cheese social tonight, and I closed up shop.  I had just enough time for a quick hand bath to wash the visible dirt off of me and getting into a dress (a nice reunion with my favorite piece of clothing) before Eli, Mary’s boyfriend, came to pick up Gil and I, as Mary had already left with Kenya and Sage to set up.  I didn’t wear Katie’s pants today while haying, so my bare legs got scratched and bled from the hay and could be seen beneath my dress.  Trying to hide my scratches as best as I could, I explored our settings in the Belgrade water conservation center.  The walls covered with milfoil¹ alerts and education.  Mary was hosting this social to raise awareness for her campaign to turn Winterberry Farm into a Forever Farm.  Mary will use the Maine Farmland Trust to put easements on her property to make sure the land of Winterberry Farm always stays farmland.  Maine is rich in farmland from potato farms up north in ‘the county’ to diversified farms down south, like Mary’s.  Because Winterberry Farm is on a highway, Route 27, it’s vulnerable to development moreso than other farms.  Putting easements onto land to protect the farm is more effective than including this criterion in a deed because easements involve a 3^rd party enforcing the law even if the farm leaves the family or falls into someone’s hand who wants to get rid of the farmland.  Stacey from the Maine Farmland Trust spoke about her company, and Mary had Eli’s brother, a Maine congressman, speak of the importance of farmland preservation. 

I was pleased at the 20-30 person turn-out in the small room that we were in.   At the last moment, we found out we couldn’t serve alcohol in the water conservation center, so Eli brought over some Eli’s Pop, a Maine-based soda company (not associated with Eli, however), with flavors: root beer, blueberry (tasty!), strawberry, and parrot punch.  Along with the pops were mason jars of well water from Winterberry Farm and of well water with frozen blueberries in them.  Kenya and I helped spread goat chevre² and another cheese from a local cheesery onto crackers garnished with fiddleheads or pickled watermelon rinds.  I served crackers and sold tickets for Mary’s fundraising dinner on July 29^th that will be on site at Winterberry Farm.  While selling tickets, I was pleased to meet a couple of Mary’s CSA members, an older couple from Great Falls, VA who have come to Belgrade Lakes every summer for 42 years.  It was lovely to chat with some fellow Virginians, coming from just an hour down the road from Richmond, about how great Belgrade is and Winterberry Farm, too, and they told me all about their daughter-in-law training for a half-marathon when they found out I was a runner.  

After an exhausting day, Kenya wanted to go running, so I biked along side her as we ran up a very scenic road while the sun was beginning to set.  I barely had time to settle down and relax when Katie came home and we were called down for dinner at 9:20pm.  Katie, Kenya and I did the dishes, and Kenya then showed me pictures of her family’s canoe trip on her blog³.  

Packaged toast gone

Kenya showed me pictures of her canoe trip and article about her from Joslin (include article url and blog url)

¹ Milfoil is a weed destructive to lakes’ ecosystems.  It dominates native plants, destroying ecosystems from its base.   Kenya explained that there are checkpoints across New England to clear boats’ motors and propellers of the weed.  The only way to kill Milfoil is to drain a lake, a destructive and costly process itself.   

² Chevre is goat milk cheese.  The chevre served tonight was packaged in olive oil and herbs.  

³ Kenya has her blog (http://kenyastrek-kenya.blogspot.com/) to document her progress for a trip that she’s taking next year.  This trip is a 5-month-long semester abroad (Jan-June) through Kroka Expeditions.  She and ~11 other students her age will cross country ski up Vermont, build their own canoes, and canoe back down New Hampshire.  Not only is this a challenging trek, but Kenya faces dealing with her Type-1 diabetes in harsh conditions (she’s worried about her insulin freezing in the cold temperatures, for example).  This amazing trek has made Kenya sort of a ‘poster-child’ for Joslin, a diabetes center that Kenya goes to in Boston (http://blog.joslin.org/2012/06/type-1-teen-to-trek-through-northeast-wilderness/#.T86MzfhEVlk.blogger).  Kenya tracks her fundraising and preparation for her trip on her blog.  Check it out!

Day 9 (6/23/12): Heavy Hauling on Hay Day

My bike rides are less for working out now and more for warming up sore muscles and having some leisurely time outside, without feeling the pressures of working as hard as I can.  I also talked to Mom and Dad who were on their way to a Great Aunt Sue’s memorial service that morning, a somber day.  Back in the farmhouse, people were already up and about, and I found the big bags of sugary cereal that Ellie had got finally eaten.  Katie and I gave our reports of what we had accomplished the day before, neither being stellar, and Mary gave the most cushioned and polite speech that basically said that we should be working faster.  I felt so bad!  Today, I was to finish weeding field 4 (it had been started by Katie); finish weeding herb garden (that last row that I had to stop because of the rain); finish weeding, suckering¹, and wrapping² tomatoes; and if there was time, start weeding field 5.  Mary made it clear that this was the worst weeding all year, and it had been so hot and wet recently that the weeds were just growing double-time. 

Although we had our tasks on our to-do list, today’s major objective was to haul the hay for Hay Day.  Hay Day comes once a year and requires us to haul 352 bails of hay out of Mary’s trailer (it takes 4 loads, about 1 hour and 45 min between each load) as quickly as possible so she can leave for the next load, and then to haul those bails up onto the 2^nd and 3^rd levels of the barn.  Because of the intensity of the hauling, Kenya recruited one of her friends, Jess, and her cousin, Caitlin, and Mary had Eli, her boyfriend, come over, and it was a pleasure meeting him.  With the first load, we had to build stairs going up to the 2^nd level and stairs going up to the 3^rd level to stand.  We had a nice system of people getting bails off the trailer, bringing bails over to the first stairs, someone lifting them up to a person on the first stair, someone lifting the bail onto the second level, and a few more people going up to the 3^rd level where Kenya was organizing the bails in rows.  We had to wear pants and gloves, or else have cut up and bloody legs and hands because of the sticky hay.  This hay would last the entire year.  In between loads, we returned to our to-do list tasks.  We fit lunch in between loads, so from 12:30 to 1:30, we had salad and overstuffed Rhubarb jam and peanut butter sandwiches, compliments of Kenya and Jess.  Kenya had me pick some parsley at the end of lunch, for I don’t know what, but she wanted the stems to fill to handfuls around.  While weeding again in the 4^th row, Katie announced to me that there would be no 4^th load of hay today because it was already raining at the hay place.  I had just finished my hardest row (it was like grass in some places) at about 4:10, when Katie also said that Mary wanted me to help Katie weed between the potato rows in field 7.  We had been dreading this job all week because of how densely covered in weeds these rows were.  Of the 3 rows to weed around the 2 potato rows, Katie had  gotten through a little over half in the entire day.  The weeds were so dense, she had taken to using a shovel to just skim off the weeds, and dump them over.  Turning the weeds upside as best as possible is crucial because weeds can reroot themselves if left on the ground.  We found quickly that the stirrup hoe that I had been working with all day was the magical tool for this job.  Katie and I flew through the field, and in about 25 minutes we had finished ~90% of the row.  At this time, Sage, Katie, and I determined that it was raining to hard, the thunder was getting to strong, and we had seen a couple of lightning flashes.  We took cover in the lower hoop house and spent the rest of the time until 5 weeding, suckering, and wrapping the tomato plants in there.  We headed in for Katie to get packed to go home that night for her brother’s confirmation, and I went in and read Sage a book.  Katie’s dad came to get her just as we were finishing Thursday’s The Daily Show, and then Kenya and I made fried rice with eggs, pok choi, kale, corn, brown rice, lemongrass³, tarragon⁴, and black pepper.  Mary was too tired to eat dinner with us, so it was us 4 kids at dinner, and Kenya and I cleaned all the dishes and headed out to the barn to do some P90X Ab Ripper X in the hay loft on some potato bags.  I hadn’t done core in a long time, so it was a bit of a struggle for me.  After all the hay lifting, weeding, and ab working out, Kenya and I agreed that we were solidly fatigued, and each of us crawled into bed after a well-deserved shower. 

¹Tomato plants want to grow as much as possible, but suckering makes sure that there’s only one main stem with branches coming off of it.  Often the tomato plant tries to grow another main stem between a branch and the main stem, and to sucker the plant, we must break off that renegade branch-turning-stem.  

² Tomatoes grow up a string, which is why they’re grown in the hoop house, so there’s a bar above them to tie the string to.  Otherwise, the tomato plant would fall over and not grow as efficiently.  As the tomato plant grows, we must wrap the top of the plant around the string to continue guiding its growth.  

³Lemongrass is a fragrant tropical grass that yields an oil that smells lemon and creates a strong lemony taste in food.  It is widely used in Asian cooking and in perfumery and medicine.  

 ⁴ Tarragon is a perennial plant of the daisy family from Southeastern Russia, with narrow aromatic leaves that used as a culinary herb.  I thought it smelled like tea smells like tea, and is used in a variety of dishes including chicken, vegetables, fish, and sauces. 

Day 8 (6/22/12): Pizza Night to Pizza Night

kale and olive oil

American chop suey and almond slivers

I arrived at Winterberry Farm one week ago, on pizza night.  Tonight, the kids again congregated in the kitchen-turned-pizzeria to make dinner that night a group effort.  

However, it was a long day to get to that point.  We started early, out the door by 7am, to harvest some greens (pak choi¹ and mesclun² included) for CSA³.  We had to cut the plants out from the herb garden, shake them out for bugs, rinse them, and store them in a bucket, with a wet potato bag on top to stay moist, in the CSA section of the barn.  CSA started last Friday, just like me, and continues into the fall.   Mary tried to take on 75 members last year, and found this too many to serve well, so we have 52 members this year.  

What was supposed to be my major project for the morning took up my entire day.  I was to weed inside the rows of the herb garden, then between the rows with a hoe, and then weed and sucker the tomato plants.  Thankfully, I had a little source of entertainment.  Sage was with me all day singing songs, ‘helping’ me weed, and playing games.  By lunch time I’d weeded only the plants in the rows – not everything on my to-do list that morning.  You don’t really realize how hungry you are when you’re working outside and hot, but once you hit that cool A/C inside, I was ravenous.  After lunch, I tried to weed between the rows of the herb garden quickly to have time to spare to help Katie weed the potato rows in Field 7, but I didn’t get far.  The rain didn’t help either.  It’s hard enough to weed as is, but with rain pouring down and turning the dirt to mud, it was impossible to pick out the weeds.  I saved the worst row for last, the ‘soup’ row.  It’s one that drains all the water from the yard, it seems, but to give you an image of how deep it was, Sage was up to her knees in mud.  Sage and I played hours of 20 questions (half of the ones she chose were pieces of farm equipment I don’t even know the word for) and knock-knock jokes – I guess we played 2 knock-knock jokes.  Sage loved the interrupting cow knock-knock joke, and we practiced it at least 40 times so she could tell her family later.  We came inside and I gave Sage a bath and read her a book before dinner.  

Dinner was pizza, just like the first night I was here, just a week before.  However, we were missing cheese and tomato sauce, so we used olive oil and sautéed onions and herbs on 1.5 pizzas and American chop suey leftovers on the last .5 pizza.  While we ate, the 5 of us (Sage, Gil, Kenya, Katie, me) watched the movie Michael with John Travolta.  Only around 9:30, when everyone was getting ready for bed, did Mary return home from the farmer’s market and errands.  She’s such a hard worker, I’m exhausted just watching her!

¹ Pak Choi is a vegetable in the lettuce family.  It is commonly known in th US as Bok Choy or Chinese Lettuce.  

² Mesclun is a mixture of you salad leaves from a variety of different plants.  It originates a s a mixture of seeds that grow at a similar rate.  Since the leaves are young, they are tender and thus part of the reason for its popularity.  

³ Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Mary offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a "membership" or a "subscription") and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season. Mary has our CSA run every Friday from 10am to 8pm.  (http://www.localharvest.org/csa/)

Day 7 (6/21/12): First Day Off

Despite staying up a little later last night, knowing that I could sleep in the next day, I found myself checking the time this morning at 6:30.  I made myself sleep until 7:20 when I finally woke up and made my way downstairs for a leisurely cereal breakfast and a smidge of Pillsbury coffee cake.  I put my almost-week’s worth of farm clothes in the wash and dilly-dallied around the house.  The family was bustling around, getting ready for the day of work.  Mary was baking in the farmstand and in the house, getting things prepared for the farmer’s market in Waterville this afternoon.  Simultaneously, she made sure Kenya knew what to do today and that Katie was on task.  Ellie took Gil and Sage to the beach in Pemaquid, ME so they could fish and have a lunch of lobster.  After packing a sandwich for lunch and hanging the clothes on the line, I was on my way down Route 27 to explore the Belgrade Lakes area.  My first stop was the Belgrade Public Library at the Belgrade Community Center to parooze around their 1½ rooms of books.  In the next room over was the gymnasium where 3 parents holding their babies and one solo woman were having a dance class.  I chose to sit, rather secluded, outside to talk with Mom and take advantage of the library’s 24/7 WiFi.  

Next, I biked all over.  I traveled down a road for a couple miles and came to Castle Island Camp that houses many tiny cottages sitting right on the water, a camp that Ellie had shown Katie and me on Sunday.  I biked down another road and came to the Village of Belgrade Lakes, where the center of town is.  I browsed the souvenirs at the ‘Maine and More’ shop and got an orange (I’ve had no source of vitamin C all week!) and an AriZona Green Tea for lunch, and a jar of baby dill pickles for myself at Day’s General Store.  Love me some pickles.  The refrigerator at the farm house is organized so that the family’s milk and food is labeled with tie-dye duct tape, the 3 kids have their own drawer, and the apprentices have our own drawer.  Everything else in the fridge is fair game for meals or snacks.  I walked around the town a little more, and then headed over to the beach that Ellie had taken us to earlier in the week.  I spent all afternoon there sitting in the sun and reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, swimming around, sitting in the shade and reading, swimming around, and napping.  It was even warmer today than yesterday, so I thanked my lucky stars that I got today off rather than Saturday, which I was expecting.  Many families came and left the beach, including a few smokers unfortunately.  I walked around the Village one last time, passing by their biweekly farmer’s market, and moseyed on back to the farm just in time for supper.  Ellie had prepared a tossed salad and chicken pot pie, and it was different having the whole table filled, rather than just the three of us: Ellie, Katie, and me.  After dinner, Katie and I washed dishes and played Animal Trivia with Sage, who slobbered over a few of the animal cards (pretending to be a dog) and made the die ‘roll’ to 6 on almost every turn of hers – gotta love 6-year-olds.  We got Sage in her pajamas, we brushed teeth, and I read a bedtime story to Sage from her selection of largely farm animal-themed children’s books.  I watched last nights Daily Show with Katie and showered before bed, and although I wasn’t out in the field today, the biking and the sun has clearly taken a toll and I’m ready for bed.  We have an early start tomorrow, leaving the house by 7am instead of 8am, because Friday is CSA day (to be explained in the next post).  Goodnight all!

Day 6 (6/20/12): Hot Hot Hott

As you can tell from the title, today was hot.  We knew it was coming all week, but that still couldn’t prepare me for working outside all day in such heat.  Even at 8 in the morning, I was dripping with sweat from the humidity already.  I got started with watering both hoop houses.  In the upper hoop house, I only water the seedlings in the trays and pots, and because I’ve been bringing the squash down for planting throughout the week, there was less and less to water in that hoop house.  After watering, I went through the cucumber plants in the lower hoop house and again squished many a cucumber beetle and squash bug.  I finished planting the last of the squash, finally – only 21 today.  After remaying the plants, I left the remay role on the row, and Mary said that we’d finished planting cucumbers along that row.  By the end of yesterday, I, with Kenya and Katie, had planted 7 1/3 rows of pumpkins and squash, including Uncle David’s¹, Delicata², Sunshine Winter³, Acorn⁴, Gentry⁵, Carnival⁶, and Buttercup⁷ squashes.  You wouldn’t be able to tell that these were pumpkins and 7 kinds of squashes because they all basically look the same in the pot; it’s not until they’re older that they’ll have better distinguishing features.  To make better ease during harvesting, Mary had us plant all of the same kinds of squashes together.  It’s too bad I won’t be here in the fall to see the pumpkins and squash for harvest time, but I’ll hopefully see pictures!  

So I finished planting by 10:30 and I had the rest of the day to weed.  I used a stirrup hoe to weed 2 1/3 rows in Field 7 before lunch and 2 rows in Field 6 in the late afternoon.  Each field had it’s challenges, for Field 7 hadn’t been weeded in a while, so it was relatively grassy between rows, while Field 6 had been weeded more recently, but it was very dry and hard, making it difficult to cut beneath the dirt.  Weeding in the sun all day took it’s toll.  I had to stop for mini-breaks to catch my breath or wipe off the sweat, something I didn’t do on other days, and I watered myself down with the hose in the late morning sun.  

Lunch was salad and leftovers from our dense dinner last night (cheesy potatoes and ham… yum).  I was just going to lay on my bed for the rest of the break, when Talia called me and I got to talk to her about our summers, including her lovely trip to Barcelona she just returned from.  After lunch, to give me a break from hoeing in the sun, I helped Katie plant Vinnias⁸ under the sun, instead.  I can’t wait for July when the flower garden will begin to bloom.  Not only will the flower garden be beautiful and visible from the road, but also the bees will begin to produce more honey.  I finished the day hoeing Field 6, more slowly than I would have liked, however, because the sun had really drained my energy.  I finished at 5:30 and unpacked my cart, not needing to close the hoop houses because Mary had communicated that she wanted them open tonight.  Just as I’d done the last few days, after finishing, I went to see how I could help Katie.  I swept the barn and collected eggs from the chickens (I couldn’t bring myself to lift a chicken from its nest to grab its eggs, so I just took the eggs from the empty nests – baby steps, Anna.)  The grain man was supposed to come early yesterday, and we had run out of food for all of the birds, but thankfully he came this afternoon.  Therefore, I fed grain to the chickens, quails, and Pickalilly (the right-eye-blind yellow rooster that ‘owns’ the barn), and I helped Katie close up the farm stand, although we only sold one pie today.  On the bright side, we sold all of the pies that Mary had made for the week before she left and even a few frozen ones, too.  

On hot days like today, the family goes swimming at Long Lake in the evening, sometimes with lanterns if it’s too dark.  After dinner of leftover American Chop Suey, Ellie took Katie and me to lounge in the water, which ended up being our baths for the night.  We came home, enjoyed some homemade strawberry shortcake, compliments of Ellie, watched an episode of The Walton’s, and headed up to bed.  The family returned around 10pm, so I said hi to Mary and talked with Kenya for a while.  Kenya was burned all over and was covered in bug bites!  She used coconut oil to cool her skin.  Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, but at about 98 degrees (Kenya guessed), it liquefies, and that jar of coconut oil was completely liquid.  That just goes to show how hot it was today!  Because Kenya is starting cross country this fall, she’s eager to learn all about running, so I gave her my summer training packet to look through and absorb the terms, philosophies, and training tips of running.  

Oh yeah, Mary is letting me have the day off tomorrow!

¹ Uncle David’s Squash

² Delicata Squash

³ Sunshine Winter Squash

⁴ Acorn Squash

⁵ Gentry Squash

⁶ Carnival Squash

⁷ Buttercup Squash

Day 5 (6/19/12): Sun bonnet

I did my first interval bike workout this morning through Belgrade Lakes and into Rome.  I was thankful that there aren’t any stop lights or stop signs through town because my front breaks still don’t work properly.  As per the routine, I talked to my Mom, ate breakfast (we had bananas!), and was out the door by 8.  While watering both hoop houses, I needed to kill more cucumber beetles on the cucumber plants in the lower hoop house.  There were just as many as the day before, and even more eggs to pick off and squish, too.  My least favorite part of the day, I’d say, is watering the melons in the lower hoop house.  Melons are relatively fragile plants, so they must be cared for delicately.  They’re covered with Remay in the hoop house and they must get sufficient water, so instead of pouring water over the Remay, I must bend down and lift the staple holding down the Remay to get to each melon plant – it’s hard on the knees.  A new task for the day was to weed in between the rows of the lower hoop house.  I used a stirrup hoe¹ to cut out the very few weeds growing between the black plastic rows.  

Now off to do more squash planting for the day, I really looked like real farmer, as Ellie told me.  I used my mom’s big ol’ sun bonnet that afternoon when it was sunny, and had my knee pads on to protect my knees from the gritty ground and to give them some cushioning.  My knees are killing me from all of the kneeling I’ve been doing, I hope I won’t have to do this every day!  I planted a whole row of squash before lunch.  Again, I cut holes in the plastic (~8 in wide and 32 in between sides), dug up and loosened the dirt, made a hole (~8 in deep), threw in a handful of compost, drowned the hole with water, transplanted the seedling into the puddle, and covered everything with dirt again.  

For lunch, Ellie had set out turkey salad sandwiches and chips, and I enjoyed my meal while rolling my foot on my frozen water bottle (for my plantar fasciitis) and reading a 1995 National Geographic about Ndoki².  Mary has a ton of National Geographic’s sitting out from the 90’s, and it’s humorous to look at their technology and car ads because their very outdated.  

After lunch, I watered the seedlings in the upper hoop house again and Katie and I headed down to plant another row of squash before the end of the day.  Especially on the Carnival Squash today, I found a ton of Squash Bugs, the ones that resemble stink bugs and smell like a sour Laffy Taffy.  Many of these bugs were mating, so again, it was easier to find them and squish them, although these I try to squish with my gloved hands since they smell bad and have a lot of guts.  Because we finished soon, I cut holes in the black plastic of the next row to prepare for the next day’s planting.  After showering and a dinner of cheesy potatoes, ham, and buttery green beans, Ellie took us out for ice cream (again!) at the original Maine Gifford’s ice cream shop on the Gifford’s family farm.  On our way there and back, we drove through Oakland (where Ellie’s parents retired), through Waterville, and through Colby College (another NESCAC).  Katie and I finished up the day with watching The Daily Show on Hulu and researching 4chan³ and Anonymous⁴.  Before bed, I was able to talk with Abigail Rose and Lily for a bit.

¹ A stirrup hoe resembles a horse saddle stirrup and has screws in it purposefully use so that it can be dragged it back and forth on the ground to cut out any weeds and their roots underneath.  Other hoes that we use are the collinear hoe and the long-handled diamond hoe, although I’m not sure of their exact purposes, as I haven’t used them yet.  

² Ndoki is part of a preserved tropical forest in Congo with some of the last territory that has been untouched by humans.  One of the primary purposes of the National Geographic expedition was to study the quickly fading Forest Elephants. 

³ 4chan is a website that has categories you can explore, but has no archive.  People can post whatever they like anonymously – completely anonymously.  4chan has been the founder of phenomena such as LOLcats and Memes.   (http://www.4chan.org/)

⁴ I’m still not quite exactly sure what Anonymous is, but I understand that  it’s a group of people that are able to hack and stay one step ahead of government security, it seems.  They are the ones responsible for the Wikileaks.  A woman was able to interview some of them and she wrote a book called, “We Are Anonymous,” and she was interviewed on the Daily Show.  (http://www.hulu.com/watch/372277)