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.