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Time has been a bit bare in the past few evenings, what with coming home at 6:45 - 7pm, and then typically sitting down to dinner with the 'family' here. It's been 9pm by the time I've cleaned up and am ready to sit down to do some reading or typing (and... being in bed at 9pm is a grand thing, I say). I suspect I'll have to unhook myself from the rest of the house's routine if I have any hope of having some time to myself this summer.

So, anyhow, Yesterday was a learning day. The topic: health and safety on the farm. Jeff led us through a discussion on lifting, dressing properly for the sun, hydration, using the tools correctly, wearing safety equipment, interacting with the animals without getting a horn in the temple (our cows have their horns), and safely working with and around tractors. This day was good fun, and also oddly exhausting. Jarrod, Jeff, and I spent the afternoon working on the bus door and the harvest cart.

Today jjj spent most of our time working on the bus door and harvest cart (except for the early morning where Jarod and I rebuilt part of a fence). The bus door is done, and we just need a tire and some tubes for the wheels of the cart before it can be put into service. Leslie used the 'Einbach' (sp?) tool on the bit of the garden we'll be planting in soon. This is a tool that fits onto a tractor and has several little steel tines that drag across the ground (maybe penetrate an inch or two deep). The action is much like if you dragged a garden rake across soil. The intention is to break up the soil a bit and thereby kill any weeds growing. If it's used a couple of times over a few weeks it can essentially rid the top two inches of soil of weed seeds. In this case, since we're planting in it as soon as it's dry enough, it will just lessen the weed 'pressure'.

Ali and Leslie also spent several hours on the tractor cultivating a (the?) potato field with a tool called a 'spader'. It approximates 'double digging' -- a method of deep cultivation which doesn't invert the layers of soil. Material and microbial composition apparently changes dramatically in the upper 30-60cm of soil, and so keeping the soil layers in place is important maintaining soil health. (I'll have to write a post about farming axioms I'm learning, but one of them is "healthy soil means healthy plants").

Amanda did odd jobs most of the day, and in particular did a lot of work in the back half of the greenhouse getting it ready for the tomatoes.