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.