yeah fun week!

This week was intense.  Our morning harvests were high volume and fast-paced.  We all seem to have a good handle on how to move through the day with efficiently and purpose, which feels really good and motivates me to work even harder.  This week we began the harvest of carrots, cucumbers, and potatoes.  Potatoes are a fun one.  You take a digging fork and loosen up the soil then pull the plant out – with potatoes attached to the roots.  Then you keep digging and have to search out loose ones.  It’s so exciting and I think of it like digging up buried treasure; you never know what you’re going to get!  Unfortunately some of our potato plants have a disease called ‘black leg’ which is essentially a rotting of the stem (like our cucumbers).  It’s a disease of the soil common in unusually wet and cold conditions (like our entire spring/summer up until this week of 80 degree weather); but, so far the majority of the plants have been harvestable so it’s not as dire as it could have been.

Bill gives us a lesson on potato harvesting



A heart-shaped cull!

On Tuesday we celebrated Lisa’s 36^th birthday which was a night of AMAZING food – beer battered salmon, fresh cucumber, carrot, and radish salads, and a flourless chocolate s’more’s cake! 

Lisa's Birthday Cake!

However, the best part of my week was on Friday when Erin came out to visit and help out in the field!  She spent the afternoon with us in the packout bagging spinach for Saturday market and then helped weed an unruly bed of carrots.  The next morning she was definitely feeling the ‘bent-at-waist-hamstring- burn’ – lol – which is a distant yet eternally familiar memory of my first days out in the field.  It was really fun to have someone I love be a part of my experience out here.  I can’t wait for my mom and dad to get here August 28^th!! 

Erin samples our Nettle Beer!

My garden has been producing some good food as well.  I especially love my thyme-oregano plant – some sort of hybrid that tastes great baked into a pizza crust!  I feel like the more crops we harvest, the more we eat!  All day long we talk about what we could make for dinner with the copious amounts of food we bring in.  Eating has been as much of a learning experience as farm work as been.  Especially living with a professional cook – I never knew all of the things you could do with the most basic ingredients.  Our kitchen is eternally busy with creative energy; all four burners going and dishes piling up.  Today Paul attempted to brew beer but had to call it quits when we ran out of propane.  However this didn’t quell his spirit – he continued drinking and gave us a good laugh when he stepped out into the back yard holding a mug of his last success (a mugwort beer) wearing only a t-shirt and Ashley’s flower print apron.  Unfortunately I have no pictorial evidence of this.

All in all, another great week with beautiful weather and lots of great energy!

Planting baby lettuce!

"mom says you're changing"

 - -  The text I got from my sister, Cait, last Sunday, after telling her that I had just spent all day slaughtering chickens.  Well...half a day - I'd been coming down with a sore throat/cough/something for a few days that I'd been ignoring, but it finally caught up with me Sunday afternoon.  The rest of the conversation went like this:

Cait:  "you are sick in the head.  the family is dying laughing. did u choke it or cut its throat, mom wants to know?"

Me:  "slit throat.  we're eating one tonight"

Cait:  "well, maybe your throat is sore from karma"

Miss That Good Ole' Lamb Family Humor. 


Ashley's friends (Digit, Freedom, Andre, and Carly) invited us apprentices out to their homestead to learn and help them slaughter their chickens.  I jumped at the opportunity at first  (as I recently left the idealized world of vegetarianism to embrace a way of living and eating that is more holistic, in my opinion).   In my head I thought - 'this is exactly what I want to be able to do on my own someday, so, what a perfect opportunity!'  But, a few days before the slaughter, the reality of what I had committed to began to sink in.  I doubted my ability to actually kill a living being and a nervousness crept into the pit of my stomach.  I decided to push on through it.

I watched Digit kill the first chicken and learned how to most effectively slit it's throat.  Then, Ashley took me to get my own chicken, which I had to chase around the coop, corner, and then grab without getting pecked.  It was the first time I had ever held a chicken, and once I finally got him, he was surprisingly calm. Next, Ashley helped me hang the bird by his feet in this little noose.  I looked the bird in the eye and took a moment to connect to it and thank it for it's life energy.  Then I slit it's throat - making a cut that started behind the bird's ear and went straight across it's neck.  It was hard to cut through the feathers, and I had to cut a few more times in order to get at the main artery (which isn't ideal, but, it was my first time). I knew when I finally got it because the blood came pouring out and the bird died shortly thereafter.  Though, it continued to flap it's wings and thrash around which scared the shit out of me!  But, like all creatures, chickens continue to have neurological responses immediately following death.

After the bird drained for awhile, I took it down from the noose and chopped it's head off.  Next, I plunged it into 150 degree water, which loosens the muscles and skin for plucking.  Usually one would stand there and pluck out each individual feather... BUT this summer, Digit invented a bicycle powered chicken plucker!!  I peddled while Digit held my chicken and what would have been a time consuming step in the process took all of five minutes!!!  (However, it was a pretty intense workout!)

Next, I finger plucked some of the random feathers we missed and then cut open the bird at the underbelly, reaching into the cavity and gently pulling out all of the organs.  Then I cut off the feet and rinsed out the inside and put it into a cooler.  The whole process took around 45 minutes, but mostly because I was learning.  We did a total of 13 birds - though I only killed one. 

Paul and Lisa gutting the birds

At the end of the day (eating the best fried chicken of my life  - via Ashley - ), I realized how thankful I was to have participated.  The experience truly deepened my awareness of and connection to food and my place in the overall life/death cycle.

The rest of the week was a blur - I only got sicker and slept for most of the day on Monday and Tuesday.  I tried my best to work but barely made it through today - - my head is still pounding and I look forward to sleeping all weekend - - blahhhhhhhhh

swimming in garlic

It seems impossible to me that a week is 7 days long.  It’s already Thursday night and it feels like yesterday was Monday.  The days are going by so quickly – I’ve never been in a situation like this!  In my past life, Mondays were this depressing dose of reality that I had to trudge through, counting down the days and the hours until it was Friday again.  But, here, I have no fear of Mondays, and by Sunday night I’m actually anticipating getting back out to the field.  

I can’t believe it is already mid-July (and that I’m still wearing my winter hat in the mornings!). This week marked the last time we will sow or plant out new crops aside from lettuce!  Everything else is planted and waiting to be harvested over the next 3 months.  (Also not included is: spinach, salad greens, carrots, radishes, and beets, which are all planted by Bill on his tractor).  

Today we harvested garlic that the crew last year planted.  We carted it all into the barn and layed it out to dry on tables.  Because Oregon is so wet, it will take awhile for it to dry out completely.  This means that our living space will eternally smell like stir-fry.  I guess there are worse smells...like the usual smell of chicken shit wafting over from the giant heap, also located in the barn. 



A sea of garlic!  Directly behind me, the pile of chicken manure. Directly to the right, the door to my room.  I literally have to shuffle sideways in order to get in there now!



This week I spent a lot of time in the packout (washing and packaging things for market and wholesale), something that up to this point, I’d been trying to avoid like my own death.  Mostly, I’ve used the ‘last-one-in-from-the-field’ tactic – which guarantees the 3 blank circles next to ‘packout’ will already have names in them.  Then, for awhile, I had this weird fungus on my ring finger and was automatically exempt from washing - a true blessing in disguise. See, for me, being in the packout is similar to being at market.  It really all comes down to the bleak reality that I just don’t quite have what it takes.  But last week I figured I needed to stop whining about it and get in there and do my part just like everyone else.  The first few times completely overwhelmed me – it was probably similar to what I look like in a grocery store – just standing, mouth slightly agape, with a blank, almost confused look on my face, trying to visualize what I need and how it all is supposed to go.  It was rough.  However, after getting some practice this week I think I have a better handle on the ‘flow’ and have definitely made progress recalling the correct procedures.  But it’s still a freakin’ process…



the packout



For three nights in a row, David Byrne, the barn cat, has showed up at dinnertime to our picnic table, with a half-dead bird.  It’s kind of impressive actually – catching a bird like that - though disturbing because he usually doesn’t kill it all the way and we have to watch the thing squirm and gasp for air.  It doesn’t exactly rouse an appetite.   A few weeks ago David ran into the living room with a live one in his mouth.  The bird got away for a few seconds, but David lept into the air and snatched it in his mouth -blood spattering on the coffee table- and pinned it to the floor!!!!!!  It was wild.  I’ve gotten used to stepping over all of the dead moles, rats, birds and snakes that the cats leave for us in the walkways every week.  The snakes are the worst though – dead or alive.  In the past two weeks it seems like they’re all coming out of their holes just to cross paths with me.  I’m almost to the point of paranoia whenever I walk near black plastic or tall grass.  I’ve always had this fear of snakes – which isn’t really a fear, but an aversion.  Basically, seeing one or thinking about one makes me cringe and feel like I need to violently shake my entire body clean.  Everyone is now aware that when they hear a little girls’ shriek from across the fields, they don’t need to come running, it’s just me somewhere, recovering from a snake sighting.    

On a completely different note, last weekend was the Country Fair – THE big deal of the year out here that has it’s roots in the counter-culture movement, Ken Kesey, and The Grateful Dead.  It’s a 3 day festival/medieval carnival held in 300 acres of woods.  The people of Eugene don’t hold back, that’s for sure, lol.  Lot’s of naked, gender bending, barefoot, dreadlocked, costumed, happy, people!



naked people 'showering' together to dance music.



Spinach Queen!

The past few weeks I’ve really taken to cutting spinach, and so have been designated as ‘The Spinach Queen’, which means I get to harvest it every day J .  It’s really made me appreciate how important weeding and watering is.  The difference between a bed that was well weeded and watered and one that was not makes for two very different harvests.  I’ve been cutting around 15 boxes a day, which, in a well tended bed, usually takes me a good hour and a half.  If it’s weedy and brittle that tacks on an extra half hour or so, which is a lot of time especially when it’s a delivery day. 

On Thursday, Bobby does deliveries, but yesterday we had so many orders that I had to drive a second truck in!  It was quite the intense morning - not rushed, but definitely fast paced.  We had a huge harvest to do, and it all needed to be washed, packaged, and loaded into the truck by noon.  Now that we all have a better idea of what we are supposed to be doing, we’ve been able to move more efficiently throughout the day without constant instructions or reminders.  Our system is this: at 6:30 we start out harvesting the salad greens together.  Once you finish cutting your green into boxes you bring a cartload of the boxes into the packout and water them in (it’s like giving the produce a little drink of water to hold it over until we wash and package it).  Then you sign up on the white board (by putting your initials in the circles next to whatever vegetable is listed next) and get going.  This system gives us a chance to harvest all of the crops - something unique about working on this farm (most farms will train employees on one crop, and that is what you do all day long). The crops are listed in order of importance, as the first crops (usually greens) are more likely to wilt as the sun rises. 

Heading out for the morning

As the days go by, more and more crops are ready for picking!  We’ve started in on the basil, sweet peas, broccoli, beets, parsley, and zucchini – on top of the radishes, salad greens, lettuce, chard, kale, spinach, garlic whistles, cilantro, and green onions that we’ve been doing for some weeks now.  My garden has really taken off as well, though nothing is ready to harvest quite yet.  I made a better effort to weed and water it this week, and I think it really made a difference judging by the look of my plants.  It’s amazing how a plant can change, seemingly, overnight.  I feel like there is so much I haven’t learned about plants, gardening, farming, etc. and that time is running out! 

Grim Reaper style

The 4^th of July was just another work day around here, albeit a fairly relaxing one. Especially for me since I had deliveries to do, which got me into town and to my friend Daniel’s BBQ. 

We’ve been in planning mode for Horton’s infamous annual Hoe Down.  I wish you all lived closer and could come! (Erin, you have no excuse,  you better there.)  It’s an all day and night affair with a live band, farm games, kegs, tacos, a piñata, and camping.  Apparently around 100 people come out for this each year, so I can’t wait to witness what a shit show it’s going to be.  August 20^th people! Mark your calendars! 

In other news, I think it is safe to say now that the woodpecker IS GONE!!!!!!  It’s been exactly 6 days since anyone has heard from him and the silence is like a gift from God.  Though, I really think it helped us all adjust to the early mornings, especially since we just moved to a 6:30 start time.  I’ve been up at five, no problem and have felt really good for the past two weeks, without any weird spells of fatigue or unusual sleepiness.  I think we’ve finally found ourselves in summer’s upswing energy and I feel physically and mentally ready for it. 

Today we had another field trip, this time to Full Circle biodynamic farm, outside of Eugene.  It was drastically different from last week’s trip to Hey Bailes – primarily because Full Circle is biodynamic and operates primarily on bike power and hand tools.  In fact, their barn/workspace was built entirely out of found materials and put together using only hand tools.  They deliver in town by bike – primarily meat, eggs, cheese, butter, and a few kinds of veggies.  We helped Kevin and Katie harvest grass for their cows using scythes - and I thought harvesting with my little knife was fun!



Although, after about ten minutes I was exhausted, lol. Another interesting thing they do is a ‘winter CSA box’ – something I never thought of since most farms are done harvesting by mid-fall.  For $350.00 they offer CSA members boxes of tuber and root veggies (beets, sweet potatoes, squash, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, etc.), dried fruits and veggies, canned tomatoes, dried herbs, etc. that members help put together themselves on a big harvest day.  Katie said that most people LOVED coming out to harvest and pack up their own boxes.  I really liked that idea.  It was refreshing and extremely interesting to learn about a farm so committed and passionate about doing things the old fashioned way. 

who knew i'd ever be into doing it the hard way

This morning we got up at 4:30 and made donuts for Bill’s birthday! We fried them and then made all kinds of glazes from fresh berries, sugar, cocoa, nuts, etc. We all hid in the walk-in cooler and Stacey ran and got Bill, telling him there was a ‘time sensitive matter’. He opened the door and we yelled happy birthday at him – he looked stunned, laughed, and then shut the door on us. 

waiting in the walk-in, giddy with lack of oxygen

On Wednesday we went on a field trip to Hey Bailes Farm, located in Lorane – about an hour away from Horton. Hey Bailes is comparable to Horton in geography, size, and crops grown (they also make most of their income from salad mix), but at the other end of the spectrum in terms of philosophy and method. John, the owner, gave us a tour and was soon obvious that his farm’s aims are to: 1. make money, and 2. spend the least amount of time doing it. We were in complete shock when first of all we saw his apprentices harvesting radishes sitting plopped down in the row. Then he showed us his spinach, carrot, and salad beds, all of which were perfect, uniform rows without a single visible weed! John explained that he spent a few years tilling the beds before any weed went to seed and spread – which worked to basically ‘eliminate’ his weed problem! He said that his crew weeds for a few hours a week (compared to our few hours a day) to keep the little ones at bay, but as he put it “I don’t want to be breaking my fricken' back”. We asked him to pass that along to Bill… lol.

John with his salad harvester

 

The other major difference was in his harvesting methods. He uses a salad cutting machine to harvest the lettuces – something he said saves him a lot of time and money. He also uses a dozen or so greenhouses and other machines to plant, harvest and weed, which seems like not only a time saver, but a way to guarantee the productivity and consistency of a harvest. BUT… my thoughts were: By bringing so much machinery and ‘factory’ style practices into farming, you are necessarily missing out on a deeper connection to the earth and to your food. I have learned to appreciate the silence in the morning when the mist is so thick you can’t see the trees or mountains and it’s just you and your knife, each cut unique – I can’t imagine being in a situation following around machines like a machine myself that are doing the work I am perfectly capable of and enjoying doing. Not only that – but, what would happen if there was no fuel to operate the machines, or to fuel a factory that makes the machines? What is the value in creating more food (or anything for that matter) than one or a community can use or manage? It’s sad really because it made the whole process of farming seem just like everything else in this culture - honoring production and capitalism above all else – the very thing that propelled me into farming! It made me love Bill and Deborah even more - for having the awareness to run a farm as a business, without letting that be the reason for their work. It reminded me of my experience in acupuncture school at Tai Sophia where the motive was never ‘fixing’ a ‘patient’s’ ‘symptom’; healing was about creating a partnership that centered on growing in awareness together to create movement and change, using needles only to augment that. After a year at Tai Sophia I knew that I could never learn acupuncture anywhere else and I feel the same way being at Horton. Because this experience has been so in line with how I want to live my life I know the next chapter in my journey will have to be with a farm, garden, homestead, community, etc. that honors these same kinds of principles. My bar is getting’ high, yo.

sugar snap peas at dawn