Fun

A friend of mine wrote this to me the other day:

Do you guys ever get tired? you and the gang there seem to have endless energy? You must feel great at the end of each and every day.

Good questions, and I'm here to tell you that the answers are: yes, not even close, sometimes.

Personally I've found myself with so much more energy now that I've had a chance to adjust to the work and the routine and, most importantly I think, over the past three weeks I've been keeping a fairly strict schedule of waking up and going to bed. During the day I usually find myself with enough pep to start or carry on any task, but I regularly feel a bit sluggish after we take breaks. Maybe that's because we're usually cramming food in whenever we stop working so I'm sharing resources with my digestive system.

By the end of the day, and especially if it has been hot like it has been this past week and a bit, it feels really great to call it a day. I don't necessarily feel great but more often just satisfied with what we've been able to accomplish. My ride home is a lot slower than my ride in, and I end up getting caught up in thoughts about the traffic and the people I see rather than just motoring home. But anyhow, I'm usually not so totally drained that I don't have the energy to go for a short run or something. But this is now; for the first month and a bit I was pretty wiped out after a day and I could only really think of sleeping or reading.

Anyhow, what have we been up to? Well, today was a massive harvest day. We harvested: kohlrabi, radish, turnip, broccoli (!), cabbage, lettuce, lettuce mix, beet greens, pac choi, cilantro, dill, green onions, and snap peas. This took us the entire day. Half of it was spent harvesting the 110 pounds of snap peas. It's amazing what has come up though -- it seems like just last week that everything was still a little seedling.

Yesterday we transplanted thirteen beds of fall brassica and covered them with floating row cover (that took all morning). In the afternoon we harvested garlic scapes from most of the garlic patch. That's a bit of a grueling job. It involves bending over just slightly so that you can reach the scapes (which are about knee high) and picking as fast as you can. My back held up okay, but several other people found it extremely harsh and eventually picked on their knees.

(I figure we really need some sort of device that will bring our hands and face close to the ground without having to support ourselves with our backs and legs. I imagine some sort of rolling massage table with peddles that you would lay down on so that you could reach the crop easily while being supported, and then peddle to move forward. If I have a spare afternoon I'm going to try building it.)

A New Routine

So, starting yesterday we've settled on our final daily and weekly schedules. Here's what a day looks like for me:

• 4:30 - Wake up. Read or sit or stretch for ten or fifteen minutes.
  
• 4:45 - Eat breakfast.
• 5:00 - Ride to Jeff and Leslie's house.
• 5:20 - Drive with Jeff and Leslie to Ali's house, and then drive to the farm.
• 5:50 - Arrive at the farm. Spend 10 minutes weeding in the greenhouse while the farmers meet quickly to plan the day.
• 6:00 - 9:00 - harvest if it's Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday, otherwise do other tasks.
• 9:00 - Break and eat a snack (usually 70% almond butter).
• 9:15 - Finish harvesting and processing, or carry on with other farm work.
• 12:00 - Lunch
• 1:00 - Work. Typically at this point in the day it's hot enough that we're only doing field work or other farm work (i.e. not harvesting).
• 6:00 - Leave with Leslie and Ali for Guelph.
• 6:30 - Ride home from Jeff and Leslie's.
• 6:50 - Arrive home. Shower, eat, look at the turkeys or the garden or talk with people, read or write blog posts.
• 9:00 - Go to sleep.

I'm still getting into this routine. I've got plenty of energy during the day, but I find I'm tired by 8:00pm. As I mention above, harvest days are Tuesday and Thursday, because we have the store, Oakville, and Guelph CSA drop offs then, and Friday, because we have the Georgetown market on Saturday. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday are regular work days where we do whatever else needs to get done, like weeding, planting, building, seeding, etc.. Currently our harvests are pretty small so we can get them done in about the first half of the morning.

Anyhow, here's what we were up to today:

• Harvested 200 Pac Choi for the Buy Local! Buy Fresh! Map (sorry, couldn't find a real link) project which is delivering boxes of local veggies to people. Ali drove them to the drop off point in Guelph.
  
• Jarrod and I built a large box that can sit outside to house all of our garbage between trips to the dump.
  
• Jeff and Amanda weeded the tomatoes in the greenhouse.
  
• Weeded all the Allium (you remember what they are, right?), and the celery and celeriac.
• Ali and Leslie did the monthly accounting and called all the Guelph CSA members to remind them of the pickup tomorrow evening.
  

Yesterday we:

• Harvested for the farm and Oakville CSA drop offs. We harvested Pac Choi, garlic scapes, radishes, lettuce mix, spinach, and kohlrabi.
  
• In the afternoon we strung all the greenhouse tomatoes up, and weeded some of the seedlings in the greenhouse. Actually I spent most of the afternoon doing this with Jarrod and then on my own, as everyone else was involved in running the CSA drop offs.

I have to say I really love working alone. Maybe it's particularly nice because it's so much of a change from the typical days where we all work together. It's nice to have some time away from the busyness of other people, and of my own voice.

Prep.

Today's activities:

• Transplanted lettuce and fennel
• Seeded endive, and lettuce.
• Weeded the broccoli. We only pulled the big weeds that will be competition for the broccoli in the next short while as the broccoli is growing quite fast. Since we weren't as thorough it meant we did this standing up but bent over to grab weeds quickly, and thus, this was a rather grueling hour and a bit.
  
• Moved drip tap around.
• Met with the farmers to talk about harvest protocol.
  

Harvest

Yesterday was all about the cucurbits. We weeded every last bed, which was a bit involved since we needed to take off and replace the floating row cover. Luckily we have a pretty good team, so although it was sometimes a touch grueling overall it went smoothly.

I spent an hour or two in the afternoon looking around for a thermostat to control our air conditioner. It seems to freeze up when it stays at 8 C for too long, and the time it takes to reach 8C depends on the surrounding air temperature so using a timer to turn on and off the air conditioner, as we currently do, isn't enough. What I'd like is an outlet that is controlled by a thermostat. After calling around to many many places it turns out that this beast is rare. Alas, I found one that's only available in the USA, and so we're having it shipped up. I could have done it using a regular wall thermostat which we could wire into an outlet, but when I figured out the costs it comes out even or even slightly more expensive. Plus, I'd have to spend a bit of time hooking it all up, where as the one we've ordered should just plug in and go.

My plan is to connect the timer and thermostat outlet together so that the timer forces the air conditioner off after three hours of use or so, regardless of the temperature, so that it'll give it a chance to defrost in the event that it starts freezing up. I'm hoping we don't actually need to do, and instead rely on the thermostat to keep the temperature high enough that the air conditioner never freezes, but low enough (10 C or so) that the veggies are cool enough. But without the timer, if ever the air conditioner freezes somehow, then the temperature will rise and the thermostat will keep the power going, in which case the A/C will stay on and keep frozen, and that's no good for the machine or the veggies.

What I really want is two temperature sensors. One for the ambient air, and one for the grill of the air conditioner to sense when the air conditioner freezes. Then I could build a little switch to trigger a defrosting period.

Hrm.. if only I knew a bit more about electronics. I think I'll have to learn.

Anyhow, today we harvested for the Georgetown Market tomorrow. We harvested: lettuce mix, spinach, kohlrabi, pac choi, radishes and garlic scapes. The pac choi are looking great... super huge and tasty. The radishes were tasting pretty disgusting last week, but with some water this week they've grown and have a much better flavour. Actually, they're delicious.

After doing the harvest thing in the morning we did odd jobs in the afternoon. Actually, for me it was mostly hand weeding. Amanda and I, and then Jarrod and Jeff managed to hand weed three beds of lettuce mix and a bed of salad greens (beet greens, chard, and some mangy looking cress).

At the end of the day Jeff and I experimented with the sprinkler system by bypassing the pressure regulator to get the maximum pressure to the sprinklers. Works very well now. The spray is much more even and has doubled in range.

Mapleton's

Today was the second CRAFT day of the season. We went to Mapleton's Organic farm. The website has a decent introduction to the farm and it's history. We started the day by dividing into two groups and toured the joint. No wait, we started with an icebreaker in which we all got pieces of paper attached to our back and had to ask others yes or no questions in the attempt to figure out what was written on them. Most people had things like "tractor", or "holstein", or "mulch". I got "subsidies". :(

Anyhow, the first thing we toured was the CSA garden. This is a new addition to the farm started by an ex-CRAFT intern (and OT grad), Caitlin Hall. She has done an amazing job. Really, it's quite impressive. Since October or November last year she has bootstrapped the entire 20 member operation, on her own. She's working a two acre plot and greenhouse. All of her vegetables look pretty good, and her garden is super well organised (okay, well as soon as I see labeled stakes in the ground marking each row, I'm happy). She puts a lot of time into it though; she works 12-13 hour days six days a week, plus works half of Sunday. A machine.

I think I'll try to keep in touch with her to see how it goes over the season. We're now heading into the most intense time of the season, I'm told.

Anyhow, after the CSA gardens we saw the ice cream and yogurt making facility. Lots of stainless steel. We learned a bit about the milk quota system and ice cream regulations. Interesting stuff.

Then on to see the dairy cows and their milking shed. They're such beautiful animals. Cows. I think I'd like to own a few someday, but only just so that I could let them do their cow things, and collect the manure maybe. These cows were mostly Holsteins, with some Jersey crosses, I think. Enormous udders. Painfully enormous. It's the size of a full garbage bag hanging from between their legs. Apparently their top producer gives them 50 L of milk a day. Holy cow.

We learned all sorts of info on the differences between the conventional and these organically raised cows. After hearing all of this I find it a little hard to imagine farming conventionally. I mean, I can certainly understand it, but I just as certainly couldn't do it myself. As I say, and I know this sounds terribly flakey, but there's something about letting animals and vegetables be themselves that I find intensely wholesome and important. Performing the conventional horrors to an animal or vegetable to make it grow just because it appears easier, or more efficient, or even necessary somehow seems ultimately like short-sightedness.

Anyhow, then came lunch followed by a talk by Johann of our farm, and Steve of Fourfold Farm on livestock. Then we worked. Then we bought ice cream. Then we left. (Sorry, I'm tired).

10 GOTO 10

Well now, here we are after a week or so since my last post. I'll sum up our work for the last while: hoeing and hand weeding. We've all been on weed control almost full time, except for some of those rainy days. We've worked our way through all of the beds of carrots, beets, parsley, cilantro, parsnip, onions, spring onions, leeks, parsley, celeriac, celery, and the cut flowers. Last week the work was wonderful -- the overcast and cool days make this sort intensive work a joy. I mean, what could be better than hovering a few inches from the earth whilst decapitating helpless weeds and chatting with folks about your favourite t.v. shows as a kid? Actually, much of the time we're quiet, chatting intermittently about nonsense for a bit and then returning to our work.

On the rainy days we worked on the cool room, seeding, and getting the harvest area set up. The cool room is currently in the integration testing phase. We've got the room completely insulated, the air conditioner installed and venting. We left it running today to see how it works. Unfortunately it's hard to say if it did anything at all. The room was 14C in the morning, and then at the end of the day the out room was 23 C (because we left the door open purposely) and the cool room was up to 15C. Now, we're thinking that maybe the air conditioner isn't even cooling since we haven't done anything to recalibrate the thermostat, but we'll need to keep testing to be sure.

The harvest area has been cleaned up a bit and is looking close to being ready to go. Last week we tested the new system for rinsing lettuce mix. Here's how it works. We have three barrels (actually, halves of pickle barrels) filled with water. The lettuce mix to be washed goes in a big net which is pushed into the first barrel of water and sloshed around a bit (gently so that the stuff doesn't bruise). Then the net is lifted out of the first barrel and put in the second. Repeat for the third. Then the net of clean, but wet, lettuce mix is transferred to the old washing machine we hacked up. A few seconds in the spin cycle and voila! Dry, rinsed lettuce mix. Beauty!

Well that's the plan anyhow. We gave this a shot last week and it seemed to work very well. We'll know at the end of this week when we head to the Georgetown Farmers Market to sell our stuff. What are we likely to be selling? Well, hopefully salad mix. In any case, from now on I'll keep a list up on the side bar of my best guess as to what will be available at the market on Saturdays. It's not certain since what we bring depends on exactly what is ready and what we harvest, of course.

Overcast

Sometimes I try to pick post titles that reflect the essence of the day. Today's essence was the weather. It was hot, but the heat was tempered by the fact that it was overcast and occasionally rainy. It actually made the day entirely comfortable -- an easy rain does that, I think. When it did rain, the drops were sparse but big and cool. When I was out in BC recently I heard someone describe this sort of spitting rain as a "dry rain" because you don't really get wet.

Today was another full day. We:

• Planted all of the hot and sweet peppers (three beds), and the melons. (That took most of the morning.)
  
• Put floating row cover down on all of these beds. A rather annoy job due to the black plastic already buried there.
• Hand weeded and hoed the rest of the lettuce mix bed, spinach, and dill.

Here'r some photos of the farm recently:

Laying out the row cover.


Before planting the melons...


Me, cuddling one of the cows.


Amanda and Ali harvesting Lovage