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.