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| Kale in "Quad 1" |
So. It’s Sunday afternoon and I haven’t written a single thing all week. Well, that’s not exactly true – I spent most of my evenings this week writing an article for the CSA newsletter and countless other hours working on recipe revisions (a bullshit task that I had already spent hours on the first time around. The nit picking on font size, ‘personalization blurbs’, and more ‘storage tips’ finally breached my tolerance level Friday night, when I tried to knock the rest of it out, and after yet another formatting issue (and a few beers) I had my first real outburst since coming to the farm. You all know me well enough to know what that looked like… lol… I think I really startled Paul, and definitely woke Lisa who was asleep upstairs.)
Other than the stress of writing deadlines, the week was enjoyable. The rain was minimal and we only spent one day of 9 hour hell in the bent-at-waist position (which I can now do two hours of without the urge to howl in pain!) The hard day was Thursday – after spending the entire 4.5 hour morning weeding we jumped back into it after lunch and then finished the day planting out tomato starts (rolling out plastic, measuring out 18 in. intervals, cutting 4X4 squares in the plastic, digging a six inch hole, sprinkling each hole with bone meal, dropping plants at each site, and then finally putting them in the soil). After we finished the two beds I seriously almost fainted when Stacey called out for one of us to go get the hoops and set up the row cover… we were far from done.
We got a talking to from Bill earlier in the week regarding our performance as a group. Apparently we are slow, compared to past apprentices. Bill made it clear that we needed to pick it up, especially as harvesting exponentially increases next week and continues on through September. I laughed out loud when he said: “Have the occasional chat – you don’t’ need to work in silence… but you can have the chat without staring longingly into each other’s eyes.” He also warned us that with the upcoming increased workload, there is an increase of stress all-around. I laughed out loud again when he said: “…To be honest, I’ll probably bite someone’s head off……(pause 5 seconds)…..and that’ll just be too bad!” bahahah. (Hope it’s not me.)
This week we harvested: salad mix, kale, radishes, spinach, and cilantro. The fields are growing bigger each day, and we’ve cleared out most of South Dakota already. The salad beds are only used once in a season – this is to assure that nothing wonky happens, since salad mix is Horton’s most profitable and popular crop. The other beds are tilled and replanted, but with a different crop, preferably in another family of vegetable. Crop rotation helps the spread of disease and assures that the soil doesn’t get drained out of a particular nutrient.
This weekend a few of us took a road/camping trip to Canon Beach along the coast of Oregon. What a relief to not wake up to that damn woodpecker, if only for one night. The coast is absolutely beautiful – pristine and magical looking.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ll be better about writing next week, I promise!
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| Doin a sampler at the Rogue Brewery in Newport |
It sounds like you are learning so much Rach, about farming and also about yourself - living in such a unique community and how everything that each person says and does affects the other community members....Be patient with your writing, because I really believe you might have a future in writing if it is something you choose to follow. This is a tedious chore that has much to teach you.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to come to the Oregon Coast!!!
I love the description of your explosion about the CSA article, and I'm glad you spoke up!! Only wish I could have witnessed it, and not directed at me hahaha.
ReplyDeleteYour mom's right--you've already learned so much, even just the way you write about the farm conveys a sense of confidence and familiarity that you didn't have going into it. Thanks for keeping us all informed, and for making regular appearances in town, too!!