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).
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