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.