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.

Day 29 (7/13/12): Polishing Up

This is a picture from last year of the back of the farm looking up towards the farmhouse.  In front is Field 4 and to the left is part of Field 5.  The second row from the left in Field 4 is where I spent my time today pulling up the pea vines and their weeds.  At the head of both fields is our lower hoop house, the larger of the two.  The back of the blue farmhouse is visible at the top of the hill, although it appears white, and the upper tomato hoop house is to the right of the house.  The permanent pasture for Ginger and Nester (the horses) and Ladybug (the pony) is on the very right of the image.

After having my body rest at market yesterday, I was ready to hit the fields today.  I realized that the worst is behind us in terms of hoe-weeding the footpaths in fields 4, 5, and 6, but Field 7 still needs to be tackled.  In Field 4 I polished off each footpath and the sides that are hard to reach with the hoe without cutting the black plastic.  The field looks so nice and clean now.  Mary recently started giving us our lunch times, although the 3 apprentices are staggered, so I headed up for lunch at noon, which was good since we got an early start for CSA at 7am.  I harvested broccoli, parsley, and arugula this morning.  It was in the 90’s this afternoon, and Mary called us from market, telling us to run through the sprinklers to cool off.  We were too lazy to get the sprinkler prepared, so we happily settled for sucking on ice inside.  I harvested the last of the peas (snap and sugar anne’s) and pulled up all of the vines.  Peas don’t grow covered in black plastic, so there were tall weeds throughout the entire pea row.  I only got through half of those weeds after harvesting (and putting the peas in the shade) and pulling up the vines.  I decided to hand-weed these weeds rather than using a hoe to take advantage of the dry, sandy soil that we have right now – the weeds come right up without dirt sticking to them.  

After work I wound down with a leisurely bike ride down the scenic Point RD nearby.  The family has friends at their camp on Point RD right now, and their daughter (about Kenya’s age) joined us for our dinner of broccoli and basil pizzas and sautéed kale and tomato salad while watching You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  I found it funny that Gil was dying to watch Sleepless in Seattle, also starring Hanks and Ryan.  

Day 28 (7/12/12): To Market, To Market…

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when Mary asked me if I wanted to go to market with Kenya this afternoon.  OF COURSE.  Ever since I’d heard Katie tell me of the gluten-free bakery 2 shops down, the meal-in-a-bag people next door, the organic ice cream truck parked nearby, and the loads of friendly people to talk to, I couldn’t wait for the day when Mary would let me go to the Waterville Farmer’s Market.  From Mary, Jillian, and Katie’s humored looks, I think my excitement was a little too apparent. 

I spent the morning watering and cleaning the tomato (upper) hoop house.  When the tomatoes become as large as they’re getting, one tomato plant weighs more than 100 lbs.  With ~20 tomato plants in each row (5 rows total) tied to a string going along the row, the metal-framed hoop house could break under all the weight.  We put planks in the middle of each row to hold up the spring and spread out the weight better. I hand-weeded down in the fields for the rest of the morning until I headed up at 12:30 to quickly change and grab my wallet before leaving.   The car was all packed and ready to go, so Mary sent us on our way, reminding me to make slow and wide left turns to prevent damaging the pies in the trunk. 

It was so refreshing to be at market with so many people around me.  I forget how much I miss being in such populated areas, however much I appreciate the solitude that farming often provides.  Today we were selling honey oat and cinnamon (my favorite) breads, blueberry and blueberry/raspberry pies, turkey pot pies, pesto, 4 kinds of jam, several pickled goods, and flower bouquets.  Kenya loved my idea of making a Winterberry Farm Cookbook; I think it could be a huge hit.  It was a scorching day, but I was happy just sitting in the shade and greeting customers.  People are in such good moods when they come to farmer’s markets and they just want to know all about where the goods came from.  A few people even looked interested in our Dinner on the Farm flyer.  Kenya got some coffee ice cream (with coffee bean nibs) and I got a huge whoopee pie for $2 across the way from some Amish girls.  Kenya and I talked about our weeks; I told her about SAT testing and answered her questions about college; and Kenya told me about her and her siblings’ home school experience.  Kenya was homeschooled in 2^nd grade and then begged her mother to be homeschooled for high school, she feels like she learns more this way, and apparently the school system isn’t the best around here.  Gilbert did K-2 at a Montessori school, and now uses a Waldorf program at home¹.  Sage just started kindergarten last year and jumped on her family’s bandwagon of being home-schooled.  Kenya joked that Sage doesn’t know what a line is since she didn’t go to school with other kids to learn that.  Oh, I remember the days of hiping-and-lipping. 

By the end of the day we were out of pesto and turkey pot pies; we had 1 cinnamon bread and 1 blueberry/raspberry pie left; we had sold half the jams; and a few of the pickled goods and a flower bouquet had been bought.  We had countless people come up asking for pesto (they sold like hotcakes!) after we’d sold out, and many people come asking for honey² and whole wheat bread, too.  We often trade with other stands after market, but we didn’t stick around since we had errands to do on the way home.  

On the way home we stopped off at Wal-Mart, Hannaford’s, and DQ to share a Heath Blizzard with Kenya’s gift card there (best. day. Ever.).  Tonight was my night for dishes according to our new schedule, so although I barely had a bite of the dinner made, I set about cleaning a day’s worth of dishes after unloading the car.  Mary was quite pleased with our earnings for the day.  Although I didn’t do as much physical activity today as usual, I’m exhausted still.  

¹ Montessori education has an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological development, as well as technological advancements in society. Characteristics include mixed age classrooms, uninterrupted blocks of work time, learning by working with materials rather than by direct instruction.  

Waldorf learning is interdisciplinary, integrating practical, artistic, and conceptual elements. The approach emphasizes the role of the imagination in learning, developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytic component. The educational philosophy's overarching goals are to provide young people the basis on which to develop into free, morally responsible and integrated individuals.

² Something about this year has not been right for the bees.  Our farm is better off than most in terms of our honey, and we barely have any so far.  The flowers are blooming a lot later, and so their growth schedule has been thrown off a little.  Bees across the state aren’t producing much honey this year.  

Day 27 (7/11/12): Takin’ Care of Business

I slept a whole 8 hours last night, a sufficient amount for me.  My large bowl of Raisin Bran set me up for a morning of success. I watered the upper hoop house, rolled up a row of Remay since the plants were ready to be uncovered, and hoe-weeded and picked up an entire row all before lunch.  This is the first time I’ve finished an entire row AND picked up the weeds behind me in one day, I got to do this in the relative coolness of the morning, and I was able to go up for lunch 20 minutes earlier than planned.  How’s that for takin’ care of business.  I felt a lot more rested today than yesterday.  

Thia shared her homemade curry chicken for lunch, and I got to chat with Mom on the phone while overlooking the yard the cars passing by. 

The afternoon went a little slower – I think it’s the hottest it’s been all week.  I planted beet seeds in Field 5, although the soil is so dry from lack of rain that it was difficult for my hands to till the soil in parts of the row.  Beet seeds are planted ½” deep and 1” apart from each other in a line.  As they grow into seedlings, they will have to be thinned to allow the strongest ones to grow large.  I finished the day hand-weeding.  Thia and Mary have almost finished putting drapes up around the outdoor shower.  We’ve decided it’s okay to shower outside without biodegradable soaps since there isn’t any food growing in the soil near the farmhouse.  

A few years back, the family had an apprentice who’d traveled through Italy with her partner and collected recipes from all over.  We used a recipe from her for dinner tonight: capers and mushroom on spaghetti.  Kenya added beautiful blood-orange flowers from the flower garden to our arugula salad with cucumbers, lettuce, and zucchini.  Thia and Bing will be leaving tomorrow morning, so the kids went out for ice cream.  I didn’t want to spend money, so the apprentices stayed home to finish the coffee cake.  Overall it’s been a lazyish but exhausting day.  I wish I had a pen and paper with me while I’m working.  So many thoughts and great ideas run through your mind while you’re working for hours outside, often in solitude.  It’s hard to remember them all when you want to.  Katie and I want to write poems this summer, mostly about the farm: lamentation to stirrup hoes, showering outside at night time, ode to strawberries are among our ideas.

This is the lower hoop house, the larger of the two.  From left to right are tomatoes, eggplant, basil and pepper, and cucumbers.  This picture was taken over a month ago, so everything has grown quite a bit.  I've spent much time debugging the cucumber plants seen here, and we're harvesting them now (pickling cucumbers).  

Day 26 (7/10/12): Cookout and Coffee Cake

I had one of those days.  Everyone has them.  I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I guess.  I wasn’t mad at everyone, I just didn’t feel like my normal self.  I was all bent out of shape that there wasn’t any bread left for breakfast.  I was so looking forward to pb on toast, and I saw the last piece taken right before my eyes, one that could easily have been sliced into 2, it was so thick.  I stubbornly had only a plum and a plum-sized apple.  No surprise, I was hungry all day until lunch.  

I had to water the seedlings in the upper hoop house with a watering can because there have been screens put on the side of the hoop house to protect the tomatoes from bugs.  We got a late start to planting this year, so usually there aren’t seedlings still in the hoop house awaiting planting.  I couldn’t water with the hose through the side of the hoop house as I usually do because of the screen.  

We had a group of Americorps people come today.  Americorps, as it was explained to me, is sort of a homeland Peace Corps.  I brought down a ton of tools (hoes, shovels, rakes) and buckets for them to weed ‘the jungle’ in Field 7 for the 2 hours that they’d be here.  We had been expecting a larger group of strong, young people in their 20’s.  Unexpectedly we got 5 helpers, including a family and a couple of older woman.  One of the older women coincidentally used to live in Richmond, VA and her son even went to the Governor’s School while it was at TJ for a few years.  After showing them how to hoe-weed, I hand-weeded a row of broccoli and the sides of the black plastic where the remay was covering weeds so the hoe couldn’t get to them.  Those were the toughest weeds I have ever hand-weeded, some of which not even my whole body weight could make budge.   Kenya and I checked out the weeding job of the Americorps people.  They’d come late and packed up early, but they did weed about 1 row total and cleaned up the weeds very nicely after themselves.  

I had been feeling hungry all day (no surprise there, so I snacked on the last of the dying peas), tired (as if I hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest in days), and my hamstrings were sore probably from all the bending I’ve been doing.  I took my full lunch break to refuel, recharge, and rejuvenate.  I hoe-weeded a footpath for the rest of the day, still not being as productive as usual.  Singing songs with Katie and Jillian made the time go by faster, although I work even slower when I’m distracted with singing along.  We also decided that we wanted to start a Language Lounge, where we’re going to teach each other foreign languages (primarily), poetry, and skills, and we’ll do it every day after dinner.  Thia was hand-weeding with us for a while, and we had an interesting conversation about gender neutrality.  Bing has long hair, by choice, and is often confused as a girl, despite being 7 years old.  She noted how differently other children treat Bing depending on whether they think he’s a girl or boy.  Thia, a feminist, doesn’t limit Bing’s toys to just cars and leggo’s, and actually only has him play with girls, as to avoid playing guns and war with other boys.  Thia is trying to bring him up without the societal pressures of gender as much as possible.  Bing almost cut his hair before visiting us.  I described my philosophy class’ final paper, addressing why there are more male than female math and science professors in post-secondary education.  Nature or nurture?¹  All of this gender equality talk was stimulating, and had my mind wandering, making the time pass by quicker.  

Kenya showed me how to harvest the broccoli and green peppers that will be saved for CSA on Friday.  Harvest the largest broccoli heads (close to 6”-8”), cut off and toss if the heads have gone to seed (turned to yellow flowers), and make sure the green peppers are at least 5” before picking them off.  Tired and exhausted, I put the produce in the farmstand fridge, and helped prepare for our cook-out.  Kenya was going to see the new Spiderman movie with a  friend so she wouldn’t be at dinner, but this afternoon she baked a coffee cake just for me since I never got to have a scone of hers the other day.  An entire coffee cake for one little scone?  That’s quite the deal.  She’s the best.  

We grilled our hamburger patties on an open fire.  Having always wanted to be a nutritional therapist, Thia told us about a doctor who reversed her Multiple Sclerosis finally by changing her diet.  I’ve heard of this being done with Type II Diabetes and other diseases.  

I’ve been eating raw kale almost every day, and tonight as well with my burger.  Mary described how raw kale upsets many people’s stomachs (including hers) because of its high fiber, so that’s why kale is often served cooked or sautéed.  ‘Massaging’ kale with salt can break it up to make it more easily digestible.  

After cleaning up, I cut the coffee cake for the three of us (Katie, Jillian, and me), and shared some with Bing and Gil.  We enjoyed our evening treat while Jillian gave the first Language Lounge lecture, teaching us German.  Gute Nacht. 

¹ Canadian family is raising their 3 children gender-neutrally: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/genderless-baby-controversy-mom-defends-choice-reveal-sex/story?id=13718047

Day 25 (7/9/12): The Desert and Jungle

I’ve never missed cereal so much, so raisin bran with milk (I kind of miss my skim) was perfect.  The plan for the day was outlined by Mary as follows:

8-10 plant peas

10-12 hoe-weed one footpath

1-4 plant peppers

If time, help weed

What actually happened was this:

8-10:40 hoe-weed and hand-weed pea trellis

10:40-1:45 plant peas (side 1)

2:10-4 plant peas (side 2)

4-5:30 plant peppers with Kenya

5:30-6 pick peas for Katie

I wanted to get the hoe-weeding out of the way before the day became so hot, so Katie and I ended up taking turns using the stirrup hoe and picking up the grass behind us.  We’re trying to throw the gathered weeds farther into the woods and spreading them, rather than dumping them all at once close to the edge.  We’re trying to keep things nice for Open Farm Day on July 22^nd.  This was the fastest hoe-weeding I’ve ever done, also the easiest footpath, too I guess.  

However, the weeding did take a little longer today in that I had to do a bunch of hand weeding around the pea trellis¹ to clear the soil for planting peas.  Planting shelling peas today, the dead vines I had unrooted the other day, I dug a trench along the entire side of the pea trellis with a pointed soil scoop² used usually for tilling the soil when planting.  This trench had to be at least 1” deep so that the seeds wouldn’t surface when it rained next (there isn’t rain in the forecast for days though).  The trench was 10” away from the bottom of the trellis, and I planted each pea 1½”-2” apart from each other.  We’re still out of planting compost, so I covered the peas with our homemade compost, generously watered the entire trench with a watering can, and covered it up with dirt.  The compost was filled with what I thought were gigantic cutworms, but they turned out to be grub³, although this made no difference in me having to kill them.  Kenya started finding baby hornworms⁴ on the tomato plants; we’re going to have to be very careful to keep an eye out for these guys for a while.  I didn’t dilly-dally at lunch since I didn’t feel that tired, so I went back outside after eating to do the same procedure on the other side of the pea trellis.  By this time it was 4, and I doubted I’d be able to finish the peppers.  You can’t start planting something like peppers unless you’re going to finish it all because once planted, they have to be put under remay to protect them.  Mary suggested I grab Kenya to help me out.  Kenya had been in the fields all day with us, some welcome help.  We started and finished the peppers in less than 1½ hrs.  Until 6, I helped Katie by picking the Sugar Anne peas, although most of these vines are dead or yellowing too, so my work wasn’t fruitful. 

Bing and Sage had been trotting around together all day.  They’d gotten a ride from Gilbert in the steer’s cart, and they were walking around, both in Sage’s sun bonnets – so cute.   I got a little sunburn on the top of my legs today, but at least I won’t have too bad of a shorts tan for once in my life.  

After heading up, Mary recruited everyone’s help to move the heavy maple syrup house roof from the barn, and then she had me direct making dinner with Katie and Jillian: tarragon chicken salad (from Thia), plain mayo chicken salad, and potato salad (from Thia) on greens (kale and swiss chard leaves).  After dinner, we all went down to the public lake beach, but I thought it was too cold to get all the way in, so I stood in the water and watched the sunset instead.  

I’m truly weary tonight and it’s hard to keep my eyes open.  My hands have already become so rough and weathered, that I can’t put on my clothes or pull up the covers without the fabric kinda snagging on my skin.  Gee whiz

 ¹ Pea trellis is a fence for pea vines to climb up.  

² Soil scoop.

³ Grub (larvae of Japanese beetles) look like gigantic cutworms, although aren’t as hazardous to the plant as cutworms are.  

⁴ Hornworms blend in quite cleverly on tomato plants, and can eat through half a tomato in one night.  With a horn on one end and teeth on the other and growing to be bigger than a quarter around and longer than 6 inches, it’s no fun to squash them as adults.  Usually they’re fed to the turkeys or chicken, but Kenya wants to make sure none escape, so she freezes them in a bag and throws them away.  

Day 24 (7/8/12): Beach Day

What a luxurious morning I had to start my day off.  I slept in until 8:15 and was slightly awoken from my half-dozing state by Jillian scrambling out of bed a little late, having forgotten to set her alarm.  Mary had set out a loaf of her chocolate chip banana bread for breakfast, so I had that and a toasted pancake from yesterday with a glass of milk for breakfast.  Between eating and watching an episode of SNL, while doing nurikabe puzzles¹, I did a couple loads of laundry and hung them out to dry.  It would be a hot and sunny, but beautiful and comfortable day.  

After packing my lunch of leftover stir fry and potato salad, banana bread, and grapes, I began my trek into town choosing to take the longer and more scenic (and hilly) way to get to the library on Rte. 27.  Mary asked if I could research two-way radios for her so that she doesn’t have to scream across the farm to get her children’s attention.  If anyone has any suggestions for an affordable deal for a 3- or 4-pack of walkie-talkies, please let me know.  I picked at my lunch while doing that and catching up on my emails and messages.  

I got into the center of Belgrade Lakes just in time to miss the bi-weekly farmer’s market (Thursdays and Sunday), so I locked my bike on a tree and headed over to Day’s store to treat myself to an ice cream.  I spent the rest of the day swimming and sub-bathing on the rocks at Peninsula Park – I had a rather private setting, as I was surrounded by shrubbery behind me.  The sun was gentle all day, never too hot to handle, and I loved lounging on the big rocks, characteristic of Maine beaches.  I didn’t realize how weary I’d actually become after a week of working.  My skin is as bronzed as I’ve ever seen it (in a farmer’s fashion, of course), despite applying and reapplying sunscreen every day.  Thankfully, my wide-brimmed sun bonnet has been protecting the skin on my face.  My hands are weary from gripping, squeezing, and holding heavy objects.  My knees are creaky and stiff from squatting and kneeling on them.  I felt my wrist pulsating again, so maybe it’s not completely heeled.  There’s been a knot in the left dorsal muscle along my spine for the past 1½ weeks that I feel most often when I hoe-weed, so I’m thinking a day of rest can only do that good.   

As well as just relaxing (I’m pretty sure I napped), I caught up with friends that I hadn’t talked to in a while, and read my book Born To Run.  Although I’m not able to run right now, I supplement this with reading about running.  It’s inspiring to read of such amazing legends of running.  The book mainly follows a tribe, deep within the Copper Canyons of Mexico, of superathletes – the best ultramarathoners the world has ever seen.  These tribal folk, the Tarahumara, speak their own language, and have little to no contact with civilization, but they can beat the world’s premier trained athetes.  The book is a national best-seller. Check it out.  

I got back to the house a little after 7:30, just missing the start of dinner.  We have a couple of guests for the next few days.  Mary’s friend, Thea, and her long-haired son, Bing Bing, from Southwest Harbor in Maine, will be helping out on the farm and staying in a tent outside.  Thea generously brought many fruits and salads with her to share, and we had her homemade pesto with pasta and watermelon that she’d brought for dessert.  Thea doesn’t have a farm, but she has an extensive vegetable garden and even a hoop house.  She and her husband own a bike shop on their small island, which was just my luck, seeing as I haven’t been able to fix my bike.  At dinner, she told us about her spontaneous bike ride across the country at age 33.  After inspecting my bike, we determined that my front-left brake’s spring is broken, and I’ll need to take it to a bike shop to have that spring replaced or get new front brakes entirely.  After taking down my laundry, I hung out with Kenya for a while before heading to bed.

What a luxurious day.

¹ I love puzzles – puzzles of all kinds – and I always have.  I’ve gone through Sudoku phases, jigsaws, crosswords, logic matrices, ken ken, kakuro, light-up.  You name it, I’ve probably done it, except for a Rubix cube, but I’ll get to that eventually.  I also don’t usually like sitting still when I watch TV, so I often do puzzles online if I’m watching something on Hulu.  Nurikabe is my current favorite puzzle.  It is a binary determination puzzle named for an invisible wall in Japanese folklore that blocks roads and delays foot travel (thank you, Wikipedia).  Try it for yourself: http://www.puzzle-nurikabe.com/?size=0