Detour

So last week I decided to travel to Carlisle, Kentucky to visit a friend, Tim, on the organic farm on which he's interning. I left on Sunday and came back on Saturday, so I got a full 5 days of farming in. We lived in a trailer and walked to the farm in the mornings. First we did barn chores - milking the goats, feeding the chickens, collecting eggs. I learned that chickens are dirty, dirty animals!

On Monday, we spent all day weeding the strawberry patch. I think that was the hardest day. It was the hottest, and we weren't protected from the sun. Plus, I was getting used to the schedule and the working. We worked from 8-12 and 2-6 on most days. (I usually took a nap during lunch time.) One weed we saw a lot of was purslain, which is considered a delicacy at restaurants!

On Tuesday, we weeded the currant and gooseberry patches. This was pricklier than the strawberries, and we had to cut out big weeds including blackberry brambles (very prickly!). In the afternoon, I assisted with the "pear crisis." The farmers, David and Arwen, had gathered pears this year for the first time. They were hoping the pears would keep in their root cellar, but when they checked on the pears, they realized that they were mistaken. So Arwen and I made pear butter, pear & ginger jam, and pear chutney. She is a very good cook, and it smelled soooo good!

We went to bed early on Tuesday (8:30) in anticipation of Wednesday, harvest day. David and Arwen run a CSA - Community Supported Agriculture - which means that people commit to buying a full season of fresh produce, and the farmers commit to supplying it. So on Wednesday, we got up at 5 AM to begin harvesting at 6:30. This is the one day we used any kind of gas operated vehicular assistance - we drove the truck out into the veggie patches. We harvested swiss chard, red peppers, apple peppers, eggplant, spagetti squash, summer squash, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, italian heirloom tomatoes, parsley, fennel. It was beautiful to see it all together. We ate a quick lunch, then prepared the goods by washing and divvying out. By 2:30 it was time to drive to Lexington. We set up in a parking lot and greeted the shareholders as they picked up goods from 4:30-6:30. Afterwards, Tim and I went to the co-op where we got supper and supplies for the week. We finally got home at 8:30. That was a long day!

Thursday morning was our morning off for all the hard work of the day before. In the afternoon, we cultivated cole crops (mustards, kale, etc) until it started raining. We kept working until the soil was too clay-like. If you mess with the soil when it's raining, you end up packing it down and blocking air to the plants. I forget what we did the rest of the afternoon, but I made home-made pizza that night with chard and italian heirlooms and summer squash and goat cheese. Mmm.

Thursday night it rained, so there wasn't much to do in the fields on Friday. We spent the morning stringing onions. After onions have dried, you can wrap their tails around a piece of string, so that they're all hanging in a clump. We sat or stood in the shed, sorting and stringing onions, looking out the open door at the rain falling gently on the herb patch. In the afternoon we trekked up a hill to dig fence post holes. For this you use clam-shells, a long handled tool for picking up dirt, and an iron digger, a big iron stick with a sharp end for jamming in the dirt to loosen it. This was hard work. We dug 3 holes (2 feet deep), and we got started on 2 more. We were at about 18" on each of the last 2 when we hit rock that we couldn't break through. We'd already broken through much rock, but we were too tired at this point, so we called it a day. From up on the hill, we could see a lot of David and Arwen's land. They have either 100 or 1000 acres and they farm 1 acre. The rest is for the goats to graze or for returning to woodland. All of the land is hilly, with streams in the gullies. It reminded me of my service location in the DR, without the dust and dogs. It was gorgeous.

All in all, I learned a lot and I enjoyed some beautiful weather and AMAZING food. We ate fresh veggies, goat cheese, and eggs every day. I'm so glad I went!