In Which Stuff Happens

It amazes me that in the mornings I still stand in front of my closet, arms akimbo, thinking “Hm, what should I wear today?” Like, “Hm, what arrangement of my two pairs of workpants, two work sweatshirts and infinite array of Goshen College-themed tshirts should I wear today?” It’s the I Don’t Have a Thing to Wear Kneeling in the Mud in the Field syndrome. So problematic.

In other news, this last week went really fast. We did a lot of weeding, potting up plants, and a little bit of transplanting—this time we prepared a tea of hot peppers and sprayed it all over the tender little plants. I am happy to report that they have survived the fearsome plague of deer for three nights now! The sprayer we use is carried like a backpack. It leaks. This makes the seat of the sprayer very unhappy. And rather tingly.

On Wednesday we went over to a neighboring dairy farm, where we will be working one afternoon a week. We will be getting unlimited(!) raw milk from this farmer, so he shall go unnamed. We took a tour of the farm and then helped him cut potatoes with this awesome machine from the fifties which I simply can’t describe but was really swell. And for the record, I can load the potato cutter faster than the unnamed farmer.

On Thursday we direct seeded peas, cilantro, dill and turnips. Dill seeds smell fantastic. Thursday is my lunch to cook, and I made a rice and celeriac pilaf with cranberries, carrots with roasted pecans and spices, and a rhubarb crisp (Kelly doesn’t like to eat dessert, so we can make gluten deserts. Pure gluten, nothing else!) I feel like I’m hitting my stride with the cooking situation, largely due to the help of a really great cookbook, Asparagus to Zucchini. In the evening we interns made ourselves presentable and went into town to a Wine, Organic snacks and Film event. I’ve been in the country a month and already I have this misguided impression of all events In Town as people strolling around some sort of art gallery in evening gowns. It was vaguely terrifying as I tried to find something decent to wear. Fortunately my jeans were quite dressy enough, the wine was tasty (I didn’t get carded. Again. Do I really suddenly look my age?) the snacks were tasty, and the film, Food Fight was good, even if it shared a strong family resemblance with all the other documentaries that are being made lately. I feel that while these documentaries are interesting and I’m glad they are making them, for me they are becoming somewhat self-congratulatory. They show images of overweight people blithely eating chicken nuggets and state frightening statistics about the grave we are digging for ourselves, allowing me to shake my head, tsk-tsking the state of humanity, congratulating myself on my escape to a more enlightened frame of mind. I don’t like this. So although Food Fight did educate me on the history of the Twinkie (“Parents! Kids need snacks throughout the day to keep them healthy. Like Twinkies!”) I don’t think I will be indulging in the future.

Friday we went to a talk by Mark Shepherd, permaculture farmer and firebrand extraordinaire. He is always really inspiring to hear, he knows so much about farming and permaculture, (did you know that apple trees were partly responsible for prohibition?) although he talks so much that it is hard to take it all in. Over at Riveredge, the nature preserve, Mark is working on designing a permaculture demonstration sight. Jeff, the Wellspring farm manager, is in charge of it, so we will be working with Mark quite a bit in the next few months.

Saturday was Wellspring’s Earth Day celebration, and quite fittingly it was the first day of rain we had in two weeks. We had a good turnout, despite the soggy state of affairs. After that I drove home to celebrate my mom’s birthday (happy birthday mom!). It also turned out that my best friend, who is leaving the country for the summer on Wednesday, was in town, so I got to hang out with her a bit and say goodbye, which was really nice. My dad took me to see the sheep he bought recently, and my first impression of them is that they are much brighter than then really dumb sheep we boarded last summer at my parents’ farm. These are Barbados Blackbelly hair sheep, descended from African lines. Sunday night I got to go to my own church, and was solaced by the beautiful four-part harmony. Seriously people, consider converting just for the music. It would be worth it.

And now I’m back at Wellspring, currently sitting in my recliner in my room drinking a cold glass of fresh, whole, raw milk and eating a raw stalk of asparagus. Life is good.

Reading:
I finished a book this week! A Plain Life has been fully read and appreciated. I am not so sure, though, that I agree with everything Scott Savage does, such as not applying for birth certificates for his children. I just kept wondering what would happen when his kids wanted to get a job, a passport, go to college, all of these things that require papers. If they stay in their plain community it would never be a problem, and I wonder if that is not the point. And then I question whether it is fair to close off options like that for your kids.
I got some books out of the library (see last post for multiple exclamation points on this topic) about natural dyeing of yarns, which is my intern project for the summer. I’ve been reading through one that was written 60 years ago, and is informative if intimidating.
Still slogging through all the other books listed previously.

Cooking:
Bread in the over right now.
My granola is fantastic, and I need to make more tomorrow.
I am trying to learn to cook sausage without creating a smoke cloud the size of Texas in the kitchen. The boys I live with just don’t appreciate a good smoke cloud.

Create:
Well…I have this problem where whenever I sit down and listen to someone talk I fall asleep. I was falling asleep during Mark Shepherd’s presentation (in my defense, he was using the exact slide show as the presentation I saw at the organic conference a few months ago) and so I pulled out my knitting that I had wisely packed along for just such an emergency. But I’m using such tiny needles that I’m still only a half inch along