I am a lass, a farming lass!

To start off with possibly the thing of most significance.... I am now the only intern. So the work is harder not just because it is only me doing it and so it takes longer, but more because of lack of company, lack of someone to talk to. It is also getting hotter here.

I have been harvesting Armenian and pickling cucumbers everyday this week. The white onions I harvested this week for market were huge. Each onion weighed a good pound all by it's self. I think some of the favorites that people are buying from market right now are... Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Honey (I think the honey is my favorite. mmmm so sweet and yummy.) , come to think of it everything on the market table is someone's favorite. And we haven't had that much produce left over at the end of market because a restaurant buys what ever is left so I can't actually think what sells the most, I know that the first three things I listed are big hits, but other than that I can't say.

Happily there have been very few chicken deaths compare to last week when there had been 7 I had to pick up. There is however this Rooster that is near driving me crazy. He somehow made it out of the pen two weeks ago and is still evading all of my attempts to catch him. I try every time I go and do chores to catch him and end up just giving up after I chase him all around the pen he is suppose to be in.

I think I'll take the time to kind of describe the spread of the farm. I would draw a diagram but don't know how here, so you will have to use your imagination and try to visualize what I am saying. I want you to imagine a horizontal rectangle divided into fourths vertically. The four columns that you just made are the plots, plot A, plot B, plot C, and you guessed it plot D. However looking straight at it D would be in the first column and A in the last.
Plots C and D are just vegetable rows, (the rows are horizontal) plots A and B are not entirely vegetable rows. The top half of B is the goat pen (this has all the female goats) and the largest chicken pen. Plot A has a movable chicken pen at the top, (movable so that we can put it on various done rows for them to eat the weeds, etc...) The middle part of plot A is vegetables, the bottom is the second movable chicken pen. (this is the pen that I have chased the frustrating loose rooster around everyday twice a day.) Then if you put a long skinny horizontal rectangle beneath the one I have just explained. That is where the Billy goats are. And if you put a square above plots A and B the barn is right above plot B it has the rabbits, chicks, and the baby goats as well as various tools. A little further up is the greenhouse. Above plot A is the currently empty pig pen and the turkey pen. I hope this gives you some kind of visual of my surroundings. I also hope it was understandable.

I got to cut up a LOT of peppers to put in the dehydrator. I got to cut up and sauce a LOT of tomatoes. I got to make a LOT of soil blocks (12 trays that each hold 55 blocks) (they have a soil block maker that makes 4 at a time. Laura also makes her own soil for the soil blocks out of various things including our compost, I don't know all the names of the things she uses yet. It seems to work though.) We think there might be a mouse eating the shoots of green that are coming up in the greenhouse, because we saw the shoots one day and the next we saw what looked to be bitten off shoots.

There are two big glass crocks of dill pickles being made. They have to ferment for three weeks, and then they will be ready to eat. They have now been on the kitchen counter for two weeks so only one more to go.

Someone asked me what was a sun spot on a tomato? If any of the rest of you who read this blog are wondering the same thing. The answer is simply a sun burn on a tomato that is white instead of red. ;)

To finish this post..... I just read my new absolute favorite book. Laddie a true blue story by Gene Stratton-Porter. If you have not read this book you NEED to. I loved it soooooooo much. It is part of the reason I named this post "I am a Lass, a farming lass!". This book has so many profound insights. There was one chapter where I was writing in my common place book practically every other paragraph. I love the story line of it! By the last couple of pages I had this huge grin on my face that one couldn't help noticing. I shan't tell a thing about the plot or anything, because you must read it yourself and have the delight of reading every bit of it without someone telling you what to expect. And I have the tendency to be trying to explain a book's plot and giving a blow by blow of everything that happens.