back to it

alright, so many things have happened since I last updated, including going to a tractor and chainsaw safety workshop where I got to drive a tractor and a skidsteer and where they used jelly packets to demonstrate why you should wear hard hats, and I saw my first firefly, and went mini golfing, and now it's shavuot and there are about to be tons of retreatants all around, but the most important thing is that I started sprouting!

I got a 'sandwich mix' from the co-op in great barrington and lauren is skillsharing me and I'm really excited about the whole thing. that's a picture from last night, when I started them soaking, and here's a picture from just now, as they've been sitting and draining all morning.

not so exciting yet, but soon there will be sprouts. I'll do a little run down of the exact steps soon.

oh also I went to a biochar workshop last weekend after spending my project time intensively researching it on the internet (taking notes and everything!) and now I can't wait to build a nested retort cooker. more on that later too.

it's lunch time!

in which our intepid heroes kill 2.5 trees

SCENE:


beebe hill. AITAN and JULIA battle mightily to remove parasitic asian bittersweet vines from the cedar trees, using chain, tractor and chainsaw. LAUREN, SHAMU, ELLIE and EMI, taking a break from thinning the carrots, look on. JULIA wraps the chain around a large vine and cinches it; AITAN revs the tractor and pulls. All watch as the tree to which the vine is attached starts to lean and then topples, taking with it the tree next to it and the top of the third one over.

JULIA: Everyone just saw that happen.

AITAN: Were they pleased?



FIN

back on the farm

to start off with:  it's been windy, and dry (with the occasional t-storm) and I've been down in the sadeh a lot, so I've been getting some pretty gnarly boogers. I like to use the time I'm internetting to kinda clean out in there, especially off my nose stud. but I forget that this isn't, like, my personal office. this is a room with lots of windows that anyone could just walk by and see me. "oh look, there's the girl that makes those delicious pickled products. picking her nose." just kidding! I haven't made any pickled products yet.


so anyway, I've returned to the sticks from boston. I had quite an excellent time roaming the city on foot with clay, and I mean we did some serious roaming. I probably walked at least 10 miles over those three days, not that I minded, soaking up the culture and all. we did some really excellent drinking and I watched his rugby game (where they beat some old boston dudes 50-0) and bought settlers of catan and bananagrams and drank beer on his roof and I met some cool new people and it all culminated with sailing on the charles river with some mit phd frat boys, which is just somewhere I never thought I'd be in my life and was really hilarious and amazing. it had been really hot and muggy that day and I'd (well, clay'd) been hauling my duffle bag all over cambridge and getting on the water with that cool breeze was really quite splendid.

then lauren did an excellent job of navigating us back to the farm, despite me not being the best road-trip companion (I had to be picked up, I couldn't drive because I was drunk, and I was late because apparently when you're sailing you have to wait for the wind to carry you back to the dock!), and after her brother fed us toddler-size hamburgers.

oh yeah and there also was this crazy water emergency where we had to boil all the tap water and clay told me after I had already drank a whole glass of it so hopefully I don't have some weird parasite or anything. don't worry, I feel great! oh AND I forgot the most important news of all, which is that I ate an entire ice cream cone for the first time in probably 10 years and suffered no ill effects. so that was exciting, but no need to tempt fate or anything.


so! now I'm back on the farm and getting back into farm headspace. we've been putting hundreds and hundreds of onion, shallot, and leek starts into the ground at the sadeh, which was enlivened today by a controlled burn of stuff that had been cleared out of the woods

I helped set that on fire, which was fun, and despite some initial concern about possible woods-burning-down (mostly on my part), it all went as planned

and that's how you get rid of a big pile of brush and some wood.

emi and I also found a bunch more morels

in our secret spot, some of them quite large

and I think that's all to report for now. it was really warm the other night but now it looks like it's back to two blanket and sock weather for sleeping.

whew. blogging is exhausting.