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