Spring Break

Hi all!
You might wonder where a college girl's ideal destination is for spring break.  Some logical guesses might be lounging in Florida, hanging in Myrtle Beach with her friends, or travelling across the country to check out Hawaii.  I say nay.  I've found myself counting down the days over the past few weeks of midterms to the day when I can go back in time to Massachusetts in January by traveling up to Maine in March.  I'm back on the farm and I couldn't be happier!
I thought checking up on Winterberry Farm would be a lovely way to spend the first part of my 2-week long spring break.  I headed out on Friday after heaving to the finish line of midterms and peaced out of Willytown headed to Boston with my friends Sally and Greg.  Greg and I continued our travels on bus up to Maine and I enjoyed my first McDonald's meal in almost a year perhaps.  Not so good - processed meat doesn't sit well in a stomach that isn't adept to red meat.  Mary picked me up and Sage and Gil were up waiting when I arrived last night.
I'll have different chores this week or so than I did last summer.  Lots of the jobs are indoors and preparing for the summer.  Today Sage and I worked at a farmer's market in Washington, ME and we stopped off at Mary's friend, Eli's, house to watch him put some shiitake plugs in logs.  "Shii" means oak in Japanese and "take" means mushroom.
Young oak trees are shopped into log cylindars and scrubbed and washed of lichen and other fungi so taht the shiitake don't have competition.  Every pi/2 radians around the log holes are punched in about 8" apart from each other.  Plugs made of grain are inundated with shiitake seed and the plugs are hammered lightly into the prepared holes in the oak.  They will take month to grow, but shiitake mushrooms should take over these logs as they are exposed to mild amounts of light and kept wet after a period when they're allowed to dry.
Back at the farm I did some bookkeeping to prepare for the summer and I prepared dinner: linguine with capers, olive oil, sliced mushrooms, olive oil, garlic, olive oil, squeezed lemon juice, white wine, and olive oil. Yum.
Tonight we went to a coffee house at a church in Waterville, ME to watch our family friends, the Gawlers, play.  The Gawlers all play music together, primarily folk and bluegrass.  Check them out: http://gawlerfamily.com/.  They have 3 grown girls who have recorded albums together and they're simply fascinating people.
I'm still recovering from my lack of sleep this week, so I'm going to head to bed but I'll try to post a few more times this week.  Catch ya later