Work begins

Work has begun! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here almost two weeks already! And I’ve already fallen behind on the blog.

The first work week here at Wellspring started out a little slow, with lots of talking and meetings and learning how everything works. After so much time sitting at home waiting to come here, I’ve been full of energy and really just want to get out there and do some hard physical labor, but I understand that there is a lot of teaching that needs to happen in these first few weeks, so I’ve been trying to reign myself in.

A lot of the teaching, however, is a bit ambiguous. More and more I am discovering that farming has no hard and fast rules, and a lot of it you simply have to get a feel for. Jeff (the farm manager) and Kelly (education coordinator) have been giving us so much information about the way they do things that it’s hard to take it all in—especially since so much of it is “water the seedlings in the greenhouse, but sometimes they look dry when they’re actually really damp, and if the day is going to warm up then you can water a lot so it doesn’t dry out but if it will be cloudy then only water a little, and sometimes we turn the fan on but sometimes we don’t. Eh, eventually you’ll figure it out.” It’s a bit confusing, but I’ve been in enough situations like this that I have confidence that I really will get it eventually.

We have also been getting a lot of work done. I’m just going to make a list because it’s easier…

Week One:

Seeded a ton of plants in the greenhouse: kohlrabi, scallions, broccoli, borage, fennel and lettuce, to name a few.

Seeded peas in north field

Seeded carrots, spinach and beets in the hoophouse.

I seeded my own hyssop and basil and planned the seeds I will order for the intern garden.

The Newburg Fire Department came one evening to practice a prairie burn. It was our evening entertainment. High excitement, that.

Week Two:

Spent all of Monday spreading compost on a 2-acre field, and only got a little over half done. Wheelbarrows and shovels, very low tech. I really got my wish of physical work. I also got mightily sunburned.

Aside from Monday, the weather has been wet and cold all week, resulting in two afternoons off! Today it was snowing, so in our unexpected free time Heath, Neil and I drove into town to explore. We walked the main street of West Bend. Highlights: a candy store! Muggles bar—I couldn’t go in though, since I’m obviously not a muggle. That’s…about it for West Bend highlights. It’s a pretty small town.

Overall I am still really happy to be here. The food situation has been something of an adjustment—in addition to the allergies listed in my last post we have egg and dairy allergies, so we are basically cooking gluten-and legume-free vegan food. It’s an adventure, certainly. It’s quite surprising how many different arrarrangements of rice and vegetables we can come up with. Heath and I, the only two without any allergies, were craving wheat and cheese so we have started having bread and cheese post-lunch snacks. I have been eating A LOT, and we’re not even working all that hard, so I don’t know why. Everything we eat for the group lunch, while limited, is really tasty.

It’s interesting—at home, cooking is optional. If I don’t feel like cooking I can crack open a box on Annie’s macaroni. I can bake bread if I feel like it, but there’s always store bought if I just don’t feel up to it. But here, we cook and bake simply to be able to eat. If I want to eat bread I have to make bread. It we want to eat dinner we have to cook. There are no shortcuts here. Preparing food is also something to do in a world devoid of distractions. In the free time I have in the evenings, reading, knitting, or cooking are pretty much my options, and nearly every day I have found that making food wins out. As I type this I have a pot of rice on the stove that will become my second attempt at making breakfast cereal similar to rice crispies that I discovered accidentally while trying to make crackers. They could be the answer to my crack-like addiction to breakfast cereal. :D

In Sharon Astyk’s blog The Chatelaine's Keys (which the internets are not letting me link to,) she has sections at the bottom of each post for things she has planted, harvested, cooked, etc. I really like this format, and have decided to do something similar.

Cooking:

Bread! Lots of whole wheat bread. We go through it pretty fast, but it also goes stale fast so I don’t want to just double the recipe. Any ideas for long-lasting whole wheat bread?

Mozzarella cheese from milk from my family’s cow

Pizza with above mentioned mozzarella cheese—leftovers are calling to me from the refrigerator…they will become tonight’s dinner.

Wild ramp and stinging nettle omelets—the best omelets I have ever had in my life.

Aforementioned cereal—I can’t believe that there are no cold cereal recipes online. I looked all over, but the closest I could find was the extremely unhelpful “pour ½ cup skim milk over 1 cup box cereal.” Not kidding, that was a recipe I found. But I can’t find any for making cereal other than granola.

Reading:

Wendell Berry’s “The Citizenship Papers” about homeland security, peace, and farming’s relation to those things. It’s actually kind of hard for me to read Berry’s writing because it just makes so much sense that I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t see it and change the world for the better—it would be so easy! I really liked his quote “this is no less necessary for being difficult.” This would make a great mantra.

Masanobu Fukuoka’s “The One-Straw Revolution.” Fukuoka is a Japanese farmer who is adamant about natural farming. He grows rice and citrus trees with no spraying, cultivation, or tillage. It’s really interesting, if inapplicable in our climate.

Gene Logsdon’s “All Flesh is Grass,” but since I’m on the fourth page, I can’t really give a summary.

Scott Savage’s “The Plain Life.” I was reading this when I was home for Easter but was unable to finish because it was a library book and I couldn’t bring it with me. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot and as soon as I get a proof of address (anyone want to send me a letter??) I can get a library card and finish it. It’s the story of a man who becomes a conservative Quaker and walks for a week to relinquish his driver’s license. It’s a really interesting look at the plain lifestyle.

Creating:

Finished cabled fingerless gloves for Stacie, my sister’s roommate and writing partner. I still haven’t seen them on her—Stacie, if you’re reading this, send me a photo!

Swatched for socks and finally cast onto my size 1 needles and started around. They will be grey with a braided cable down the side. I’m going to be growing dye plants for my intern project, so I hope soon to be knitting up my own yarn.

Spun some on my drop spindle—still not satisfied with the yarn I’m getting, but I’ll keep working on it.

Feng shuiified my room—moved the desk that was becoming a repository of All Things Useless to the closet and moved my bookcase so it’s the first thing I see when I walk in the door. Much better, yes? That counts as creating in my book.